Welcome back to our tripartite analysis of largely-forgotten poet-provocateur George Wither’s Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne. To cap off the series, we have our own analysis of one of the more indicative emblems in the collection, Emblem 12: ‘As, to the World I naked came / So, naked-stript I leave the frame’

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To address the obvious, the image in this emblem is interesting, which is to say quickly approaching silly. There is a naked man, ascending away from scattered swords, orbs and crowns, as the sun looks on with a cocked head. Referring to this image as (on its own) as ‘curious’ is somehow both euphemistic and dysphemistic.

Technically speaking, Van de Passe’s etching is excellent, with very fine detailing, from the straight lines emanating away from the sun to the slight curvatures in the clouds. The lining of the image is, however, a weak point, with the lines appearing slightly irregular (especially those around the page number and the text of the emblem), as if very steadily hand-drawn. The lettering which circles the emblem also situates the figure just below an alpha and an omega, a still-resonant symbol of life and death. The sun and the moon correspond respectively to these in the image (the latter very faintly visible over the nude man’s should, reader’s right).

As with most of the volume, italics are generously applied for emphasis in both the emblematic phrase and the verse below. In the latter respect, the more seditious aspect of Wither’s contribution involves the characterization of the objects scattered before the ascending figure: a prince’s coronet, two iterations of a king’s crown, a papal mitre, an orb of state, a scepter and two longswords.

This imagery is resonant across Wither’s religious and political convictions, respectively Puritanical and Jacobian Spenserian, both of which he maintained to a degree at the time of printing. He would go on to serve the throne, but his eventual role in Cromwell’s government can be foreseen in some lines of his verse, such as lines 7-8: ‘Nay, what poore things are Miters, Scepters, Crownes / And all those glories which men most esteeme’. Furthermore, in 10-11, the wealth of royalty is characterized, which will ‘blinde / with some false luster [man’s] beguiled sight’. This Puritan disavowal of ritual casts the images of both kingship and Catholic ecclesiarchy in a pejorative, rather than simply superfluous light. It is not at outright seditious as Emblem 16, but certainly does not acclaim the office of kingship in the same manner as Emblem 32. The latter part of the poem is addressed to God, and takes the form of Wither’s personal praise to the Almighty, including credit for his survival of the plague. As Wither, like many of his contemporaries (i.e. John Milton) saw the plague of 1625 as a religious reckoning, it is unsurprising that it should be conjured as an example of, if not God’s goodwill, then man’s powerlessness in the face of its absence. Wither closes the poem on this sentiment, to ‘Forsake my Selfe for love of thee’, an adequate conclusion upon the emblem’s premise.

Wither is not a well-remembered poet and it is heavily debatable as to whether or not he was a good one (we may have given indications as to where we stand on this matter). The value of his writing, especially in the form of the Emblemes, is rooted in the presentation of his personal convictions as a microcosm of the unrest that would come to spark the English Civil War, including the shock of the plague, waning trust of monarchic ritual, persecuted temperament and connections to the Calvinistic Dutch. The nature of emblems is allegorical, and in that regard, this well-weathered copy is an apt preservation of the influences and anticipations which shaped much of the religious, political and literary thought in 17th Century England.

Wriggle on, friends

The Bookworms.

Welcome back everyone for the 2nd feature of our 3-part saga on the seminal work of English poet George Wither, his Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne. Last installment we went over Wither’s abrasive and shifting careers in poetry and politics, so this time around, we’ll take things to a more corporeal level and take a look at the book itself.

Before we start on the history of the edition made available to us by UBC’s Rare Books and Special Collections, it’s only right we should investigate other existing editions of Emblemes.  To this effect, the website of the Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association of America (ABAA) yields three exact matches.

The first is a much more recent edition, published in 1973 by the Scolar Press in London.  It is identified as a Facsimile reprint and is described as “a tall quarto in brown cloth with gold and black gilt in vinyl cover” (ABAA).  It is a reproduction of the 1635 original by Wither and is listed as selling for $80 by Second Story Books.

The second match is much older and shows signs of wear.  It was published in 1635 by A.M. for a Robert Allot.  A quick Google search reveals that Allot was a London bookseller and publisher active from around 1625-1635.  More specific information on him is lacking as he is often confused with the earlier scholar Robert Allot who was a minor poet and fellow of St. John’s College in Cambridge (uncle to the former Robert Allot).  This edition is in hardcover and tightly bound but missing several pages, and of the 200 original emblems, only 164 remain.  The suede cover is rubbed and worn and the book itself has clearly sustained more damage and wear than our edition in the UBC RB&SC.  On some pages there is evidence of attempts to repair it including but not limited to the restoration of margins and tape along tears.  This edition, despite the damage, is selling for $3500.

The third match is much more recent as it is a 1973 facsimile reprint of the Scolar Press facsimile of the 1635 original edition.  It is a hardcover and the illustration on it is the same as the image in the latter pages of the 1635 edition, where a compass point is designated to each of the four books in Emblemes.

There are several clues as to the specific edition’s provenance in the book cards. One lists the attributes of the book, revealing that our edition was also printed by A.M. (similar to the second match on ABAA) but rather than Robert Allot, ours is for Henry Taunton, also in 1635.  The information on this note contradicts the information on the frontispiece, where the print is credited as being for a John Grismond.  However, both editions match in date of print: 1635.

Compared to the other editions listed on ABAA, UBC’s edition is in fairly good condition.  There are a few tears but mostly due to creases in the pages.  There are a few holes in some of the pages, raising questions of whether our edition has suffered bookworm experience (except, well, this one).  Like most other editions, ours is in Broadsheet printing.  There seems to be no deviations in the print materials although the book consists of several hundred pages.  The binding is slightly flaky but due to restoration efforts in 1988 where the spine was rebacked and the leather repaired with Japanese leather and paste, the book’s condition remains intact. The font is Roman, with frequent use of Italics, with the increased contrast and vertical stress being typical of 17^th Century fonts (Gaskell’s New Introduction to Bibliography). The binding is embossed goatskin (‘morocco’), with 4 large stitches bulging in the spine. Only emblem pages are numbered.

Pencilled into the front cover of the UBC edition is a mostly illegible handwritten note regarding this edition as a facsimile, alongside a price note of £125 . There were two documents in the front cover of the book, in addition to the aforementioned cards in the back. The first appears to be a clipping from a catalogue or auctioneer’s notice, listing the attributes of the book (Fine Copy. Folio. Straight grain morocco, gold lines on side, full gilt back, gilt edges. [line break] London, Printed by A.M. for Henry Taunton, 1635). The second is from one John to another John, dated 1945 and identifying the artist behind the engravings as “a Fleming, Jon Utrecht, a man of letters and patron of art”, who also apparently illustrated an equestrian manual for Louis XIII. This is follows by the qualification that “All (probably false) information [is] from Horace Walpole’s Catalogue of Engravers” – a noteworthy consideration, considering the well-known contributions of Crispin Van de Passe.

There is some (heavily-faded) marginalia on the title page, presumably a name, with the surname resembling ‘Eliot’. There are also several watermarks, on 2^nd and 3^rd pages of the dedication to Charles and Mary, the 1^st title page, the explanation of the dedication, and the index. The bottom corners of several pages near the back of the book show signs of water damage, and one of the pages in the index is torn.

The general condition of most of the pages is good, and Van de Passe’s artwork is in fine condition. The etchings display a good grasp of detail (which we’ll delve into with our single-page analysis) and the quality of the printing ensues that the accompanying text is legible. As mentioned before, a great deal of the artwork in the book was the work of Crispin Van de Passe, a Dutch engraver of some renown. Many of the emblems are memento mori and the majority bear religious overtones, with some, such as Emblem 16, alluding heavily to the growing mindset of Puritan insurrection, in which Wither would later take part. Others, however, directly celebrate the office of kingship, such as Emblem 32, indicative of the Jacobian-Spenserian idealism championed by Wither in his earlier days (link to higher-definition photos).

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Midway between these sentiments, indicative of the simultaneously subversive and reactionary tendencies upheld by Wither, is the page to which we shall devote our grandest skills at analysis (what some naysayers may call nitpicking) for our third and final segment on Emblemes.

Wriggling into the new dawn,

The Bookworms

While it’s certainly a fun time sharing anecdotes about Ben Jonson, the Bookworms would like to bring you a more in-depth installment this time around, pertaining to contemporaneous but lesser-known poet George Wither. Courtesy of UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections, we have access to a lovely copy of Wither’s most famous work, A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne, featuring his poetry attached to 224 printed allegorical images. Our treatment will address the volume’s history, cover the book’s printing and current condition, and end with a full analysis of one of it’s emblem pages. With that in mind, let’s begin!

George Wither (1588-1667) was an Oxford-educated poet and satirist, born June 11th, 1588, in Hampshire. His first notable work was ‘Abuses Stript and Whipt’, a collection of satires, with several targeted at the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Egerton. George, in his very finite wisdom, opted to have this published while tendering his services at the Inns of Chancery, so it should not have come as a terrible shock when he was sentenced to a stretch in Marshalsea prison. His sentence was apparently shortened by his vocal loyalty to the crown, and he was released in 1615.

The next few years produced two things for Wither: a good deal of mediocre love poetry, and a burgeoning Puritan religious conviction. In the 1620s, his major projects were a hymnal, which was proposed and rejected as a fixture in the Church of England, and a set of poems, Britain’s Remembrancer, blaming the vice of the age for the plague of 1625. He also took a sideways shot at Ben Jonson’s ‘drunken conclave’, which he was obliged to print himself due to a disagreement with the Stationer’s Company.

In the early 1630s, he was hired by Henry Taunton to furnish verses for the prints of Crispin Van de Passe, resulting in the volume currently languishing in RB&SC. Emblemes is Wither’s best-known work, and is the strongly indicative of the political-religious paradox not only of his life, but of English culture at the time. Despite his Puritan sympathies, each of the folio copy’s four books, each with a series of dedications to various regal figures:

• 1^st book: King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria
• 2^nd book: Prince Charles then Prince of Wales and his brother James, Duke of York
• 3^rd book: Princess Frances, Dowager Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, as well as her nephew, James, Duke of Lennox, etc.
• 4^th book: Philip, Earl of Pembroke (‘Pembrooke’) and Montgomery, and Henry, Earl of Holland, etc.

Van de Passe deserves as much credit as Wither for the Emblemes, with his work being a fairly impressive example of etching (more on that in our forthcoming installment on the printing). The Dutch connection appears to have treated Wither well, so much so that he was able to publish a sequel to Britain’s Remembrancer in the Low Countries. As allpoetry.com (the wellspring of most of this information) describes it, “many of the poems rise to excellence” a summation which, having read several of his poems across the breadth of his work, I find rather suspect (‘Veil, lord, mine eyes till she be past’ and ‘I loved a lass’ are good for at least a couple of laughs apiece).

Wither’s poetic career (such as it was) seemed to dwindle after this, and he took on duties as a statesman and a military officer. While his political affiliation was described as Jacobean-Spenserian, fitting his earlier support for the crown, his religious ties to Puritanism began dividing his sympathies. While he served the Crown against the Scottish rebellions, he eventually allied himself with Cromwell. It appears that George couldn’t quite follow through, horribly mishandling the sale of the late Charles I’s personal effects in the first half of the 1650s and attempting to satirize Cromwell in the second. That this landed him in penury and not the gibbet is likely more of a testament to Cromwell’s character than his.

When the Restoration came about, Wither was jailed for three years for his short-lived role as an ermine-and-gilt auctioneer. He died ignominiously about a month shy of his 79th birthday, on May 2nd, 1667. (https://allpoetry.com/George-Wither)

Wither was not a critical darling in his day. Of surviving testaments to his work, George Gilfilan’s is the closest to praise, remarking that Wither was “a man of real genius, but seems to have been partially insane.”  Possibly the most entertaining anecdote concerns Sir John Denham, a poet and aristocrat, who went so far as to save Wither’s life from Royalist soldiers, as “so long as Wither lived he himself could not be counted the worst poet in England.”(https://mypoeticside.com/poets/george-wither-poems#block-bio)

All in all, Wither was not a terribly accomplished poet and seemed a rather thorny personage, and most of his work was returned to the state of woodpulp (or ash) as a result. The place of Emblemes is a valuable period work, in consideration of the conflicting religious and political sentiments therein, and for the accomplished artwork. Next time around, we’ll take a closer look at some of this artwork, as well as the condition and provenance of our own copy.

Keep on wriggling in the free world,

The Bookworms

There was once an actor named Gabriel Spenser. He lived a robust twenty years, from 1578-98, with one end of this span beginning in his mother’s womb and the other ending upon the point of Ben Jonson’s sword.

Gabe was an actor linked to both Jonson and Shakespeare. In addition to his time onstage, he seems to have had something of a business acumen – in 1598, he was listed as a shareholder in Philip Henslowe’s company, the Admiral’s Men. Gabe and Ben seemed to know each other fairly well, insofar as they were both cellmates for eight weeks, due to their work in The Isle of the Dogs. It’s rather indicative of the judicial system that Jonson spent more time in jail for writing urbane comedies than the incident where he perforated a man. But I get ahead of myself.

It is worth noting that Gabe wasn’t necessarily a spotless character himself. He killed a goldsmith’s son, James Feake, in an argument, by stabbing him through the eyeball with his sheathed sword (yes, sheathed). He never served jail time due to Feake hurling a candelabra at his head and so giving grounds for self-defense – that said, giving a guy the Moe Green special sounds a little north of reasonable force to me. That said, it came around a couple of years later, so…net zero?

The cause of the fight with Chief Ben is unknown, although the general consensus is that Gabe started the ruckus; according to Jonson, he also had the advantage of a much longer sword. Jonson’s victory came in spite of a wounded arm, although the details are lost – maybe it was his miltiary service, or leftover animus from embodying the vengeful Hieronimo, or just the fact that he seemed to have been a fairly burly guy with a temper sitting around the ‘Irish stepdad’ level. At any rate, he shivved Gabe well enough to get him on personal terms with his maker, and was duly arrested.

And now, it gets zany.

For a distressingly long time, English civil law allowed ‘benefit of clergy’ in criminal convictions. Effectively, this was a get-out-of-jail-free card for those who could read. Specifically, a single Bible verse, usually Psalm 50. Which, for clarity, is one line of Latin:

Miserere mei, Deus, secundum misericordiam tuam (“O God, have mercy upon me, according to thine heartfelt mercifulness”)

The primary reason that this plea didn’t make murder a viable solution to everything from domestic quarrels to bar tabs across a sizeable breadth of English history was the crushingly widespread illiteracy of the populace. That said, it’s not particularly hard to memorize, so veteran crooks would learn the ‘neck verse’ by rote as a last-ditch way to dodge the gallows. This in mind, let’s recap: Ben Jonson, a man who worked and lived in the theatre, who had by this point played at least one main part in a play that involved memorizing some rather elaborate dialogue on the nature of violence, was able to completely dodge punishment for a capital offense by reciting a single well-known line from the most popular book in the world. Ben honored this apparent instance of divine favor by finding the Almighty and converting to Catholicism in the jailhouse, before going on to the most successful years of his life. It makes sense that the work he produced was comedic, because I cannot see any incentive to take things seriously after he went from death sentence to freedom via semi-effective literacy test.

For the record, this freestanding argument for separation of church and state abolished in England and Ireland in 1823. The Americans were slightly more ahead of the curve, getting rid of it in 1790…except for a few states, like South Carolina which held onto it until 1855. Actually, come to think of it, that makes perfect sense.

I suppose the lesson here is, if anything, hit the books as hard as you can, because you never can tell where a random bit of information can come in handy. It’s a bit of a reach, but the other option is “don’t take murder too seriously” and we really don’t want to get flagged.

Wriggling on in 2018,

The Bookworms. Peace.