University of Virginia Library

V

Crousaz's examination of the first epistle of the Essay on Man fills pages 1-112 (or B1 through L2) of Carter's translation of the Examination. All five of the cancel leaves are in this portion of the text. It is surely no coincidence that Forman's Commentary also happens to cover only the first epistle. Of

the eleven footnotes occurring in the rest of the books, covering the other three epistles (pp. 113-227), nine are verses from Pope without commentary.[53] Of the two remaining, one in the final gathering informs the reader "The Illinois are a People of North America" and the second is a quotation from Du Resnel's verse translation with which Johnson was familiar, even though it is unlikely he had reached this far in his translation of the Commentaire. The text says, "Prepared by the Effect of Poetic Prose, when he begins his third Epistle with calling me bounded man!*" to which a note has been added: "*Apprens, Homme borné, que le maitre du monde. Resnel's French Translation."[54] Of the thirteen footnotes to the first epistle, eleven are verses from Pope—seven with commentary, and four without.[55] Some of the comments are simple: "Mr Pope's Words are," "Mr Crousaz has this Distich in view," "See the subsequent verses," "See Mr Pope's Universal Prayer, the third Stanza," and "The whole Passage stands thus."[56] One footnote simply defines "Conscientia sui" as "Consciousness."[57]

Two of the footnotes that introduce passages of Pope's verse are more critical, much in the style Johnson uses in the Commentary: "I suppose the following Lines are alluded to; perhaps the Remarker strains them a little too much" (28, D2v), and "Had the ingenious Author of the Examination regarded the Whole of this Passage, which he so much objects to, and not only a Part of it, he would perhaps have given a more favourable Interpretation" (67-68, G4r-v).

The final two footnotes provide an even more detailed critical commentary on the text. On the passage from the first epistle of the Essay on Man beginning "Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find, / Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind!" (ll. 35-36), which Crousaz, of course, read in Silhouette's French prose translation,[58] Crousaz observes (here in Carter's translation):

To this passage is appended the following footnote:

Later Crousaz takes objection to this passage by Pope: After devoting a paragraph to pride and a discussion of the need for man to be thankful "that he is the Work of the eternal and perfect Being," Crousaz observes that man To this passage is appended the following footnote:

Not only is the technique for footnoting similar to that used by Johnson in his Commentary, but there are occasional verbal echoes as well. The Examination introduces a quotation from Pope with "Mr Pope's Words are" (7), repeated exactly in the Commentary (62), and with slight variations such as "Mr Pope only says" (28, 141) and "Mr Pope has only these Words" (89). The Examination introduces another quotation from Pope with "The whole Passage stands thus" (71). "Stands thus" appears in a footnote in Johnson's translation of Du Resnel's Preface, included at the end of the Commentary (308); it is repeated in another footnote as "his Argument against Mr Pope seems to stand thus" (32), with a variation on the use of "thus" later in the Commentary, "Mr. POPE thus concludes his first EPISTLE" (83). One of the footnotes on a cancel leaf in the Examination concludes, "Perfection is a relative Term, and varies its Signification according as it is differently apply'd" (14); "signification" appears in a similar sense in a footnote to the Commentary (63), as does "signifies" (32). The two longer footnotes, which provide critical commentary on the text, share a common phrase, "at all." The first footnote says, "Nor does he at all dissent from Solomon" and the second "For does . . . aspiring to the Perfection of Angels, at all imply." This phrase does not appear elsewhere in the Examination. Johnson sometimes uses it when translating "ne . . . point," as "not at all unhappy" for "n'est point malheureux" (137). Crousaz's "Il ne faut donc pas s'étonner" (5) is translated as "It is therefore not at all surprising" (iv) and Du Resnel's "S'il est permis de flater les Hommes" is translated as "If it be at all allowable to flatter Men" (315). Altogether "at all" appears fourteen times in the Commentary.[60]

The instance in which "Conscientia sui" is defined in a footnote would seem to be another manifestation of Johnson's hand. Although the Latin phrase "Conscientia sui" appears in Crousaz's Examen, the footnote with a definition as "Consciousness" does not. When Johnson turned to editing the texts of Browne, Ascham, and Shakespeare, he frequently annotated them by defining a word or words which he thought the reader would not understand.[61]

A more important sign of Johnson's hand in editing the Examination is the quotation in a footnote from Du Resnel's French verse translation, "Apprens,

Homme borné, que le maitre du monde" (3.2) to explain "bounded Man" (138). Du Resnel's translation is quoted in its entirety in Johnson's Commentary, with a literal line-for-line English translation. "Homme borné" appears in Crousaz's Examen, indicating that he also consulted Du Resnel's verse translation, which he was later to use in his Commentaire, for nothing resembling it appears in Silhouette's prose version.[62] The footnote, however, does not appear in Crousaz's Examen, but was added to the Examination by Johnson. In the Commentary Johnson translates Du Resnel's second line of epistle three as "Learn, bounded man, that the master of the world" (158). Perhaps Carter in the text of the Examen chose to translate "borné" as "bounded" instead of "limited," "confined," "restrained," or "restricted," but a more likely explanation would be that Johnson was at work here.

There are three footnotes in the Examination that are extensive enough to argue they are in Johnson's style and more nearly resemble those he was writing for the Commentary. One of the three occurs on a cancel leaf and all are marked with an "(a)" instead of the usual asterisks and obelisks used not only in the text elsewhere to mark footnotes, but also, by Cave, in the Gentleman's Magazine and in Johnson's Commentary. Of all the footnotes on cancel leaves, only two passages from Pope appear with asterisks, but these markers may be holdovers from the text on the original leaves, since the remainder have "(a)". A. D. Barker has demonstrated that Cave shared his printing during this period with Thomas Gardner.[63] The Examination, which went through Cave's press, uses asterisks and obelisks, with the exceptions noted, and Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy Explain'd for the Use of the Ladies, which went through Gardner's press, uses superscript lowercase roman letters for notes, although not enclosed in parentheses. In Cave's haste to complete the printing of the Examination, perhaps some of the work was put out to Gardner. Gardner's compositor, familiar with a different system for footnoting, might then have introduced the letter designations himself, although it is possible that he was copying what he saw in the manuscript.[64]

Leaf G4, which has a footnote with a relatively lengthy introduction to a quotation from Pope, and leaf H3, which has a substantial footnote by Johnson, are both marked "(a)" and are not on cancel leaves. Johnson may have added the passage from Pope just before printing of gathering G began. After G was printed, Johnson had second thoughts and had leaves G3 and G6 cancelled to add three passages from Pope, passages included by Forman in his Commentary. The two passages on leaf G6 are also singled out for comment by Johnson in his Commentary.[65] If the book was being printed seriatim, perhaps printing was complete only through gathering F when Curll announced his edition of the Commentary on 21 November, with printing on gathering G about to proceed. Type may have been set for gathering H and, perhaps, the remainder of the volume, at least through gathering T.

Unfortunately, the watermarks are of no assistance in ordering the printing of the sheets as all the gatherings but one contain the crown and a "WB," including at least one of the cancel leaves.[66] Only gathering U has a different watermark, a fleur-de-lys and a "IV." Gathering U was probably printed near the end of the press run and has the full-page announcement for Johnson's Commentary as "In the Press" on the verso of leaf U6.

It may well have been with gathering H that Cave and Johnson decided to push "forward with the utmost expedition," for the relatively large number of errors indicates that it was printed in haste and not proofread carefully.[67] There are also signs that gathering T was rushed through the press. On the verso of leaf T1 the footnote has no obelisk in the text. Then on the recto of leaf T4 a one-line footnote, indicated with an obelisk, was added, apparently at the last minute, to the bottom of the page: "His greatest Virtue—his greatest Bliss, V.340,". To make room for the footnote the last line on the recto was moved to the top of the verso, with the penultimate line, now the last line, containing an error: "inthose." The compositor, however, failed to

change the catchword so that it now catches the second line on the verso. The extra line added to the top of the verso of leaf T4 forced the compositor to move the last line to the top of leaf T5 recto, again forgetting to change the catchword which now catches the second line, and again failing to catch an error in the penultimate line, now the last line: "so ar" [so far].[68]

In summary, Elizabeth Carter finished her prose translation of Crousaz's Examen at least by 26 September 1738 and, perhaps, by 9 September when Cave made the preliminary announcement of its publication, as it was about this time she traveled to Deal with her father, returning later in the month. Johnson had seen all or part of the manuscript before 26 September, when Nicholas Carter refers to Johnson's commendation of the translation.[69] Sometime, probably early November, Johnson, who served as Cave's editor on a number of projects, revised Carter's manuscript, inserted Pope's verses into the text and footnotes, and rewrote the text to accommodate the verses; printing then began. Production may have moved slowly because Cave was printing the November issue of the Gentleman's Magazine and a portion of volume two of the Description of China at the same time.[70] When Curll announced the publication of Forman's translation of the first epistle of the Commentaire on 21 November, the printing of the Examination probably had not proceeded past gathering F. Realizing that the rival publication of the Commentary did, in fact, have "Remarks," Cave and Johnson made hurried adjustments to make the Examination more competitive. Footnotes were added to gatherings H, T, and perhaps others, and on the five cancel leaves. Printing proceeded on gathering G and the remainder of the volume, finally reaching gathering U with the announcement of Johnson's Commentary on the verso of the last leaf, the preliminary gathering A, which included the title page and perhaps one of the cancel leaves printed as A2, and the partial sheet containing the four cancel leaves. Cave and Johnson, after showing early signs of "Dilatoriness," completed the Examination between Curll's announcement on Tuesday, 21 November and its publication on Monday, 27 November 1738.