University of Virginia Library

I
"That Part Which You May Call Piracy"

The mischief began in 1779 after the proprietors, on March 31, published their fifty-six volumes of poetry with the first installment of Johnson's Prefaces. For a compiler seeking biographical details and critical opinion, the new source was irresistible. By August 26, the first purloined material had been printed in Edinburgh, in Bell's "Life of Sir John Denham," to accompany The Poetical Works of Denham when offered for sale in London on 18 December 1779.

The biographical half of the preface is a jigsaw compilation of passages from Johnson and Biographia Britannica. Phrases, sentences and paragraphs are spliced together without their provenance being effaced. The technique may be seen at its most intricate in the following passage. For comparison I have provided the ur-source, Athenæ Oxonienses (AO), and presented Bell's text (JB) phrase by phrase to show the alternate use of Johnson (SJ) and Biographia Britannica (BB).[5]

AO: Shortly after he was prick's High Sheriff for Surrey, and made Governour of Farnham-Castle for the King: But he being an inexpert Soldier, soon after left that Office, and retired to his Maj. at Oxon, where he printed his Poem called Cooper's-hill:

BB: Soon after he was pricked for High-Sheriff of the county of Surrey, and made Governor of Farnham-Castle for the King. But, not being well skilled in military affairs, he soon quitted that post, and retired to his Majesty at Oxford, where he published his poem called Cooper's Hill.

SJ: He was after that pricked for sheriff of Surrey, and made governor of Farnham Castle for the king; but he soon resigned that charge, and retreated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published "Cooper's Hill."

JB:

• He was soon after [SJ syntax preferred]
• pricked for High Sheriff of the county of Surrey, [BB]
• having an estate at Egham in that county, [BB note (d)]
• and appointed Governor of Farnham Castle; [either source]
• but his skill in military fairs not being extensive, [BB]
• he resigned that charge, [SJ]

---

196




• and went to King Charles I. then at Oxford, [BB]
• where, in 1643, he published Cooper's Hill. [SJ]

Many passages are similarly structured, with some paraphrase but mostly fractured and reassembled quotation. Elements of Johnson pervade this section of the life; they provide the framework, while materials from BB are either interpolated or relegated to footnotes. Most of SJ 11-20 is quoted wholesale.

Where the critical section of the life begins, Bell's text becomes wholly Johnson's. With the exception of five altered phrases, one sentence deletion, the omission of a few verses in the poetical examples, and the switching of paragraphs 25 and 26, Johnson's critical discussion of Denham (SJ 21-42) is reprinted in full.

How word of the theft reached the proprietors is unclear. Months passed before any of the interested parties noticed, but by the end of March they had sought legal counsel to establish whether the offense was actionable. This advice in hand, several printers and booksellers met at Anderson's Coffeehouse on 27 March 1780. Calling themselves "the Committee of the Poets," they resolved as follows:

Thirteen parties witnessed the resolution: Thomas Longman, George Nicol, Thomas Cadell, Thomas Evans, Lockyer Davis, Thomas Davies, John Rivington's Sons, Nathaniel Conant, John Nichols, George Robinson, Bedwell Law, Benjamin White and Robert Baldwin.[6]

Their legal help was impressive. Lloyd Kenyon was poised to receive a silk gown (on June 30), the first in a train of elevations which led to his succeeding Lord Mansfield as Chief Justice in 1788. As an equity judge his merits were "rapidity and accuracy"; perfectly versed in this branch of law, he decided cases "without any hesitation or delay."[7] Despite some failings, such as a defective manner of speech, an unprepossessing education, and a reluctance to articulate his legal principles, his judicial skill was superlative. A century later it could be said of him that "no judge who presided so long in

the king's bench has been as seldom overruled," and that "the decisions and rulings of no judge stand in higher estimation than those of Lord Kenyon."[8]

Isaac Reed, too, was a natural choice. He was an intimate of the London literary scene, whose passion was to amplify and correct the biographical and bibliographical record of the nation. By 1780 his assistance, usually anonymous, had been vital to the notes in Nichols' Select Collection of Poems (4 vols., 1780), the revisions of Biographia Britannica, and the republication of Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays (6 vols., 1780), including the preface, annotations, and accounts of the playwrights.[9] More pertinent was his link to Johnson's Prefaces, as recalled in Boswell's summary of the help Johnson received: "But he was principally indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-Inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary History I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful."[10] If anyone knew the exigencies of compiling lives and had faced repeatedly the practical divide between legitimate borrowing and piracy, it was Isaac Reed.

Rather than to face this formidable legal challenge and expose himself in the courts to possible penalties, Bell cut his losses. He withdrew the edition of Denham from sale, thereby avoiding an injunction or worse.[11] Changes to the book in the ensuing months tell of Bell's efforts to regroup and to salvage from the setback something of a commercial opportunity.

To retrace this bibliographical trail one needs to know a few facts about The Poets of Great Britain. The series was printed in Edinburgh by Gilbert Martin and sons. Its format is 18mo in sixes; the first three leaves in a gathering are signed with letters and roman numerals (for instance D, Dij, Diij). Besides an engraved series title-page and in some a frontispiece portrait, each volume contains two letterpress title-pages. Since the series consisted of reprints, and the extent of any volume was known from the outset, the compositor had no need to resort to a separate sequence of signings for the preliminaries.

The single sequence begins with the title-pages ([A] and [Aij]), resulting in the first page of the prefatory life (p. [v]) being signed Aiij. On the final page of each volume was printed a colophon that reads "From the APOLLO PRESS, by the MARTINS," followed by a date. According to the colophon, the press work for The Poetical Works of Sir John Denham was completed on 26 August 1779.

In this volume "The Life of Sir John Denham" appeared on pp. [v]-xviii, followed by Denham's dedication "To the King" (pp. [xix]-xxii) and the poems (pp. [23]-178). With a two-page table of contents, the book came to 180 pages, or precisely five sheets of paper printed in 18mo, for a collation of A-P6. The paper Martin used for Denham had a crowned horn watermark with a pendant "GR," and a "J Taylor" countermark.[12] These are the earmarks of the book containing the pirated Johnsonian preface. The final four sheets (pp. 37-180) were never altered. What happened to the first sheet is what defines the second and third states of this edition and its subsequent re-issue.[13]

To avoid further legal action Bell withdrew the piracy from sale and laid plans for re-issuing the volume once he had obtained a revised life of Denham. As an interim measure he sold copies of the book from which the life had been cancelled. Cut out were pp. [v]-xviii, or seven leaves (A3 through

B3) from the first two gatherings.[14] Such copies constitute a second state, typographically identical to the first except for the missing life. That copies in this state were deemed saleable, their mutilation notwithstanding, is a sign of Bell's impatience before the full remedy could be implemented.

To end this predicament Bell was willing to improvise, anxious lest his regular printing arrangement with Edinburgh cause undue delay. The moment his revised text was ready, he had it printed closer to home (presumably in London) and then, inserting the fresh "Life of Sir John Denham" into the gap left by the cancels, resumed at least a limited sale of the volume.[15] Bibliographical evidence tells the story of this third state. The life is not the presswork of Gilbert Martin. Departures from the style of the Apollo Press include: a double rule above the title of the life on p. [v], a feature shared with no other preface in the Poets; block quotations of poetry which are flush left, not indented as in the rest of Bell's series; and Arabic instead of Roman numerals in the signings. In addition, the type is larger—a bourgeois letter with a small brevier or large minion for the block quotations, in place of the Apollo Press brevier with block quotations in pearl. The paper, too, featuring a "W" countermark, differs from any other in Bell's edition.[16] The format employed was a version of 18mo called "sixteen pages to a half sheet of eighteens," resulting in eight leaves, signed A through A4, and numbered [v]-xx.[17] As the sixteen-page life did not fit the fourteen-page gap left by the cancels ("To the King" starts on p. xix), the volume would have been spared its redundant pp. xix and xx if the new life arbitrarily had been numbered [iii]-xviii, instead of [v]-xx.[18]

This third state was a stopgap. A limited supply would have sufficed until the revision had made its way to Edinburgh and back, where Martin could

print the new text in the usual style of Bell's Poets. At this point it was simplest to reprint the entire first sheet, which effectively made a cancel of the first three gatherings. This new sheet from the Apollo Press defines Bell's re-issue of the Denham edition. As before, the paper bears the watermark of a crowned horn with pendant GR, but the countermark now reads "IV."[19] The text of the sixteen-page life has been followed verbatim, with changes in accidentals, but has been recast in brevier type to restore the original pagination ([v]-xviii).[20] Since the first sheet encompassed pp. [i]-36, the other features also needing to be reset were the title-pages, dedication, all of "Cooper's Hill," and the first eighteen verses of "On the Earl of Strafford's Trial and Death." The imprint was updated to 1780, to suit Bell's purpose in re-advertising the edition. These sheets were shipped to London and sewn onto the second through fifth sheets of the original 1779 stock, readying the volume for re-issue.

How many copies of Bell's Denham were affected by these changes? A survey of ESTC, OCLC, RLIN, and NUC (along with chance discoveries) yields a list of thirty copies with the 1779 imprint, and twenty-one with the 1780 imprint. Other things being equal (not always a safe assumption), this ratio would suggest that before re-issuing the edition, Bell had sold more than half of his print run. As for the relative numbers of the 1779 issue extant in its various states, my own research (in effect a random selection) may serve as a rough guide. Of the seventeen copies I have seen or questioned others about, eleven conform to the original state (with the pirated life), five to the second state (without a life), and only one to the third state (with the sixteen-page life). If representative, this sample implies a considerable sale of the original state (nearly 40% of the full print run), a far from negligible number sold in the imperfect second state (between 15% and 20% of the edition), and a fairly minimal exposure to sale of the third state.[21]

The re-issue was heralded in the Morning Post of 19 July 1780.[22] With his usual promotional flare Bell advertised the "New Edition" of Denham's works in the course of an open rebuke "To the Forty Booksellers, who have so long, and impotently attempted by their combined wealth and influence, as well as by every plausible imposition on the public, which art could suggest,

or malevolence devise, to suppress and to rival Bell's Edition of the Poets, or to annihilate the publisher." He trumpeted the "NEW LIFE of the Author, intended as a PARAPHRASE of that, which is supposed to have been written, by Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON." By refusing to concede that his first life had been a piracy, and casting doubt on the allegation itself, Bell implied that his opponents had not dealt with him in good faith. Addressing his rivals "with contempt," he palliated his offense and improved upon hints of their fraud: While the piracy of Johnson could not have been inadvertent, Bell's denial of involvement is plausible. Apart from his implicit policy of reprinting authoritative lives, where available, and otherwise the fullest warrantable compilation, there is no reason to think that he supervised this work closely, especially if it was done in Edinburgh.

As to the proprietors' "daily practice" belying their legal rules, there is a grain of truth to the charge. Publishers commonly tested their borrowing limits, though it was disingenuous to suggest that theft as extensive as the Denham piracy, and with materials so recent, was the norm. More incriminating is Bell's view of their marginal ethics in promotional matters. The whole collection had in fact "been forced upon the world . . . as the production of Dr. Johnson." To say these were "Johnson's Poets" was a lie, one that Johnson himself protested in characterizing the unauthorized use of his name as misleading and indecent.[23] No one could have been more keenly attuned to such marketing licence than Bell.

In closing, Bell softened his grievance, portraying himself as a responsible bookseller whose initiative had been swift and voluntary:

The challenge to compare the two versions, an otherwise obligatory promotional topos, is all the more defiant because the revised life was not an overhaul. It was based on the contested text itself, the source of Bell's legal headache, and declared to be "intended as a paraphrase."

In the biographical half of the revised preface, the erstwhile quotations

of Johnson have been targeted for change. Witness the following revision, compared with the original sources:[24]

• BB: In 1652, or thereabout, he returned into England; and, his paternal estate being greatly reduced by gaming and the Civil Wars, he was kindly entertained by the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, and continued with that Nobleman about a year. (3:1647)
• SJ: About this time, what estate the war and the gamesters had left him was sold, by order of the parliament; and when, in 1652, he returned to England, he was entertained by the earl of Pembroke. (16; my emphasis)
• 1779: Mr. Denham returned into England about the year 1652, and what estate the Civil war and the gamesters had left him being sold by order of the Parliament, he was kindly entertained by the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, with whom he continued near twelve months. (x; my emphasis)
• 1780: About the year 1652 he returned to England; and his paternal estate being greatly reduced by gaming and the Civil wars, he was kindly entertained by the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, with whom he resided near twelve months. (x)

The tactic is clear: Johnson's phrase (in italics) is relinquished, and the rereviser retreats to BB. Obviously this kind of revision, combing through the pirated text phrase by phrase to detect and remedy the plagiarism, was possible only with Johnson and BB both open before the reviser.

While Johnson's preface served as a map for revision, it was also used in one instance for further, though more circumspect, borrowing. Bell's 1779 text called upon BB and SJ to recount Denham's appointment as Surveyor of the King's Buildings and his receiving the Order of the Bath. Johnson's paragraph consists of three sentences, the second of which, with two surgical transplants from BB, formed Bell's paragraph. The reviser duly cut away the plagiarised words, again falling back on BB, but could not leave the operation without grafting on Johnson's first and third sentences:

• SJ: Of the next years of his life there is no account. . . . He seems now to have learned some attention to money; for Wood says, that he got by his place seven thousand pounds. (17)
• 1780: From this period to the Restoration, in 1660, there appears to be a chasm in the history of Denham's life. . . . He likewise now appears to have acquired a greater degree of economical prudence than he had been usually blessed with, as Wood informs us that he realized by his appointment upwards of 7000l. (x)

The mode of disguise here is wordiness, one of the principal means of paraphrase employed in the revision.

Verbosity could also be used to mask the retention of Johnson's verbal formulae:

• 1779: He seems to have divided his studies between law and poetry; for in 1636 he translated the second book of the Æneid. (vi; SJ 7)
• 1780: During the period he had abstained from his favourite amusement, in consequence of his father's admonitions, he appears to have divided his time between the study of the law and the cultivation of his poetical talents; for in the year 1636 he translated the second book of the Æneid, which was published twenty years after, under the title of The Destruction of Troy; or, An Essay upon the second book of Virgil's Æneids [sic]. (vi-vii)

The core borrowing is embellished with a dependent clause in front (the needless reiteration of a previous point) and a relative clause at the end (merely the addition of a title and publication date).

If the compiler could fall back on BB or even Wood where the biographical outline was concerned, the critical section presented no such opportunity. There were stark alternatives to retaining Johnson's opinions: either to form an independent literary appraisal, or to abandon the section altogether. Remarkably, even under the legal scrutiny to which the revision would have been subjected, Johnson's ideas were considered fair game so long as some of the words were changed. The critical section itself was reorganized; Johnson's order of presentation was altered.[25] But the striking fact remains that Johnson's ideas survive the paraphrase.

As a measure of this retention, compare the following passage with its revision:

• 1779: He appears to have had, in common with all mankind, the ambition of being, upon proper occasions, a merry fellow; and, in common with most of them, to have been by nature, or by early habits, debarred from it. Nothing is less exhilerating [sic] than the ludicrousness of Denham. He does not fail for want of efforts: he is familiar, he is gross; but he is never merry, unless the Speech against Peace in the Close Committee be excepted. For grave burlesque, however, his imitation of Davenant shews him to have been well qualified. (xi-xii; SJ 22)
• 1780: . . . in the ludicrous he generally fails of answering the end proposed. There is nothing in this species of his poetry that excites our risibility, or that tends to exhilarate. He affects to be thought a humorous writer, but Nature seems to have debarred him from being so. When he attempts to be witty he is familiar, gross, and disgusting to a chaste imagination. In every effort he miscarries, unless we except The Speech against peace in the Close Committee, which is written with some humour. His imitation of D'Avenant, indeed, shows that he was not ill qualified for grave burlesque. (xiv)

The reviser shuffles a few sentences, alters syntax, changes a verb from active to passive voice, substitutes words and phrases, and elaborates a conceit or two. Still, the ideas and examples are unmistakably Johnson's, even many of the key terms. Little substance is lost in translation. The thoughts which do not survive the paraphrase—the comment about a shared human desire to be thought funny, and the glance at habit as a developmental factor—are missed for the distinctive turn of mind that they convey.

As if to offset the loss of Johnson's voice, the reviser often affects a Johnsonian style, however crudely understood. Compare these sentences from the two versions:

• 1779: Nothing is less exhilerating [sic] than the ludicrousness of Denham. (xi; SJ 22)
• 1780: There is nothing in this species of his poetry that excites our risibility, or that tends to exhilarate. (xiv)

Intent on parallelism, the reviser mimics Johnson's diction by adding a second polysyllabic, Latinate word ("risibility" to complement "exhilarate"). Too much strain goes into this stylistic elevation, as is evident in the appraisal of Denham's rhymes:

• 1779: . . . as exact at least as those of other poets, though now and then the reader is shifted off with what he can get. (xvii; SJ 39)
• 1780: . . . as well coupled as those of other poets; yet we may discern in many of them a manifest inattention. . . . (xiii)

The original prose is relaxed and colloquial, the revision self-conscious and ceremonious. Blind or indifferent to the energy and relative informality of Johnson's mature style, the reviser echoes the allegedly "stiff, laboured, and pedantic" style of the Rambler and Dictionary years.[26] This anachronism is audible in substitutions like these.[27]            

1779	1780
got by his place (SJ 17)	realized by his appointment (x)
ends of his verses (xvii; SJ 41)	terminations of his lines (xiii)
the morality too frequent (xiii; SJ 29)	the morality superabundant (xv)
learned some attention to money (SJ 17)	acquired a greater degree of economical prudence (x)
law and poetry (vi; SJ 7)	the study of the law and the cultivation of his poetical talents (vi-vii)

While never amounting to a sustained imitation of "Johnsonian" prose, the stylistic preening to which the paraphrase is given comes across frequently as a bid to out-Johnson Johnson.

It is tempting to regard this mimicry also as a touch of recalcitrance. What better irreverence than to tease the lawyers who, paragraph by paragraph, would vet the revision in search of any lingering evidence of piracy? In this light even a polite commonplace takes on a sly edge:

• 1779: The strength of Denham . . . is to be found in many lines and couplets, which convey much meaning in few words, and exhibit the sentiment with more weight than bulk. (xv; SJ 34)
• 1780: His forte appears to have been a mode of conveying a great deal of meaning in few words, or of compressing (if we may be allowed the phrase) a large quantity of sentiment into a little space. (xvii)

Under the circumstances of legal duress, the reviser's begging leave to use a phrase might be seen as an exaggerated show of deference to the lawyers.

Bell did not forget this lesson nor the sting to his pride. When someone published an unauthorized abridgement of a property of his, An Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy (5 vols., 1785), he got the courts to grant an injunction against "a publication piratically taken from another." Their offense? Publishing "facts, and even the terms in which they were related . . . frequently verbatim from the original work."[28] Bell had to bide his time before he could finally thumb his nose at the proprietors of Johnson's Prefaces. In 1793 he published a second edition of The Poetical Works of Sir John Denham, attaching to it the 1779 piracy instead of the revised life of 1780. Fourteen years had elapsed since 1779, and because Johnson had died in that time, the copyright on his "Life of Denham" could not be renewed for another fourteen years. So Bell had the last word. He had moved on to other concerns, however, when in 1807 Samuel Bagster and others reprinted Bell's collection in expanded form as The Poets of Great Britain in Sixty-One Double Volumes. Several of Johnson's lives now were reprinted openly, among them the "Life of Denham"—the full text this time, with Johnson's name on the title-page and on the first page of the life.[29]