University of Virginia Library

I acknowledge with gratitude my University Department's grant of the Cécile Parrish Scholarship for 1989, which contributed towards my travelling expenses in Europe and the United States of America.

P. Virgilii Maronis opera, edited by Chr. Gottl. Heyne, 3rd ed., 4 vols. in 8. (London: 1793). At the same time Rickaby printed other issues of the work in octavo in 1793, but these do not have the engravings. For reasons that will become obvious with the reading of this paper, it is not possible to give an accurate formulaic description for the Virgil. Basically the collation is:

• 1i: i 4 a-ii4 A-Z4 Aa4 (-Aa4).
• 1ii: 2 11 Aa4 Bb-Zz4 3A-4B4 (-4B4).
• 2i: i1 a-m4 A-Z4 Aa-Qq4 Rr4 (-Rr2-4).
• 2ii: 2 i1 Rr4 (-Rr1) Ss-Zz4 3A-5K4.
• 3i: i1 A-Z4 Aa-Zz4 3A4; 2M and 2N are signed 'M' and 'N'.
• 3ii: 2 i1 3B-4Y4 4Z2 4Z2 is blank.
• 4i: i1 a-z4 aa-ii4 2r2 A-Z4 Aa4 (-Aa3,4); 2e Signed 'e'.
• 4ii: 2 i1 Aa4 (-Aa1,2) Bb-Zz4 3A-4S4 2Yy4.

There are other lacunae and mistakes in the signatures such as 3B2 being unsigned, and 3R2 being signed '2R2' in vol. 3 of BL (1), but these are of little significance in this article. The reader should also be cautioned that occasionally leaves are found much misplaced from where they might be expected. To give just one example, the final leaf of vol. 1i, Aa4, is sometimes found in vol. 1ii following leaf Cc3.

The cost of the work in printer's boards was £21. This figure is mentioned at the time in reviews such as the Critical Review 10 (1794): 301. It is also confirmed by a contemporary pencilled note on the front flyleaf of vol. 1 in the copy at Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin, which reads:

• Published 21. 0. 0
• Binding 12.12.
• ---
• 33.12. 0

At the close of the eighteenth century this sum would have been equivalent to six months' wages for a journeyman.

If gathering 2B, in a particular section of the edition, is the last gathering on watermark 2 paper, and 2C is the beginning of a run of watermark 1 paper, this is so in all eleven copies seen of the Virgil. This certainty is also true of the Hudibras v. infra. It may well be that each type of paper comprises a pair of watermarks, though any differences between moulds were not demonstrable.

Uncut copy in the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, VU:RBR:25D, Poynton Collection.

Three type 1 watermarks were found in signature M in vol. 1 of the Baillieu Library copy, VU:RBR:25D: Poynton Collection. A cancellans is by definition a post-impression correction. If it is a feature produced after printing then it might be printed on type 1 or 2 paper, or if those had run out, on a quite different paper. For an example we need only consider the first book to ultilise wove paper, the Virgil of 1757, printed by John Baskerville. Although he was a printer most concerned with appearance, the cancellantia in this edition are on a quite different paper. They stand out in the sequence of unmarked wove leaves because they are on unmarked laid paper, though stubs are generally not noticeable. The point is that it is unlikely that a printer would go to the trouble of printing cancellantia on exactly the same paper previously used for a particular gathering. There would be no reason to do so. It might even be questioned whether Rickaby was aware of any difference in the papers, for both were wove, of the same quality, and with the same watermark. If, on the other hand, sheets all printed at one time from one stock were used to cancel one another, all the watermarks would indeed match.

P. Virgilii Maroni opera, edited by Chr. Gottl. Heyne, 'editio altera', 4 vols. (Leipzig: 1788-89). Here I wish to acknowledge the great help given to me in preliminary investigations by Marie-Luise Spieckermann of the English Department, the University of Münster, Federal Republic of Germany.

There is an engraving which actually intrudes on the text of the title page in vol. 3 of the copy at Monash University.

In the British Critic 2 (1793): 416 the reviewer writes, 'Splendid publications, like the present, have seldom been carried on in other countries of Europe, but under the immediate patronage of sovereign princes, or eminent and affluent men, who, from their own bounty and munificence, have undertaken to indemnify the individual from that peril which might eventually attend his want of success with the public. It is not therefore a little honourable to this country, and the state of the arts among us, that the booksellers of the metropolis, relying with confidence on the public taste, have, without calling for any collateral aids, prosecuted to its accomplishment a work of extraordinary splendor, and consequently of serious expence'. Referring to the Rickaby Virgil there is a footnote in the Critical Review 10 (1794): 302 which states that 'On this undertaking, if we are not misinformed, the proprietors have expended 4000l.'

William Thomas Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual, revised and enlarged edition by Henry G. Bohn, 6 vols. (London: 1890).

Samuel Butler, Hudibras, with notes by Treadway Russell Nash (London: 1793). This edition of Hudibras is (always?) found bound in three vols. Volumes '1' and '2', the poem itself, are described on the title pages as the first and second parts of vol. 1, and the register is continuous. The third volume contains Dr Nash's very extensive commentary and notes, and this again is one continuous register broken into two parts by an inserted second-part title page. These two parts of the commentary are, in my experience, never divided, most probably because they form a volume of more or less the same thickness as the first two volumes.

By very kind permission of James and Sarah Hervey-Bathurst of Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire, I was allowed access to what may have been Nash's own copy of Hudibras. Further, Mr and Mrs Hervey-Bathurst extended to me the invaluable services of their archivist Lis Hissink, who guided me through the Nash papers held in the Castle's muniments room. Though Dr Nash frequently mentions contacts with Rickaby, he nowhere refers to how many copies of Hudibras were printed. Nash even mentions problems with the engravings for the work, but little more. Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual, indicates: '200 copies printed, some with the plates in red, others in black'. However many were printed, most were in black ink and only a few in red. This latter form is now what may charitably be described as sepia in tone, rather than red. The distinction between sepia and red may be merely a point of late twentieth-century taste, or it may be that the red pigment has oxidised over the centuries. The ESTC states that 100 copies were printed, and does not give a source for this assertion. It may be presumed to originate in a possibly early nineteenth-century comment written by Grenville, or his librarian, or bookseller, and now bound with the flyleaves into vol. 1i of the Grenville copy at the British Library, BL(2). The note states that there were '100 copies printed of this rare and valuable edition'.

Nash was a very testy fellow by all accounts, and his treatment of the Hudibras is somewhat idiosyncratic. The title page reading 'Notes, on Hudibras' implies a stand-alone character belied by the volume number. Similarly Nash's name does not occur within the book as the writer of these notes. His engraved portrait is a frontispiece to vol. 2, but, though Nash's arms are shown on the plate, there is no legend as to whom we are seeing. The original of this portrait is at Eastnor Castle. This frontispiece parallels that of Samuel Butler (who is identified) in vol. 1. In that volume the engraved title pages have a vignette of 'Butler's tenement at Strensham, Worcestershire' showing a half-timbered cottage viewed from the opposite bank of the Avon. On the letterpress title pages in vol. 2—for there are no engraved ones in this volume—are large vignettes showing a pastoral scene with a Georgian house. Across the top of the plate is inscribed 'Bevereye'. In fact, this is a view of Bevere (pron. Beverē) Manor, Nash's house, three miles north-west of Worcester. Nowhere is there any explanation of Nash's portrait, or his house.

It would be nice to know if Nash presented Worcester with one of the special copies printed with red-inked engravings. But unfortunately the archives of the College for the period in question are incomplete, and no Nash connection can be identified. For this advice I am indebted to Lesley Le Claire, the College Librarian.

The Somers family, at least throughout the nineteenth century, kept its libraries intact. But the family did move books between their country homes, Reigate Priory and Eastnor Castle, and their London home. Reigate Priory was sold and some books went in an associated sale of chattels. Unfortunately, from the insufficient catalogue details of the sale, it is not possible to state whether a copy of Hudibras associated with Nash was sold at that time.

Correctly the plate should, of course, be parallel with the volume number. In most copies this is so, and the foot of the plate mark is about 6mm above the volume number.