THE LEGACY OF AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GENTLEMAN: ALEXANDER THISTLETHWAYTE’S BOOKS IN WINCHESTER COLLEGE FELLOWS’ LIBRARY by CARLY EMMA WATSON A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English School of English, Drama and American & Canadian Studies College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham November 2013 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the donation of books made by Alexander Thistlethwayte (?1718– 1771), a Hampshire grandee and bibliophile, to the Fellows’ Library of Winchester College, the oldest of the English public schools. The first two chapters demonstrate the largely untapped potential of two unique books in the Thistlethwayte benefaction to advance scholarly understanding of topics relating to the copying and transmission of early modern literary texts. The second part of the thesis examines the collecting habits which shaped the physical configuration of Thistlethwayte’s books and the contents of his library. Chapter Three rediscovers the role of the anthology in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century cultures of compilation, through a comparison of Sammelbände assembled by Thistlethwayte with those that he acquired from an Oxford graduate of the 1690s. Chapter Four traces the growth of Thistlethwayte’s library in the context of his life as a gentleman, taking in evidence from Thistlethwayte’s later donation of books to his alma mater, Wadham College, Oxford. The thesis concludes by reflecting on the conditions of access to the Fellows’ Library from which this doctoral project has benefited, and considers ways of extending the benefits of access and community engagement to scholars and the wider public. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which has funded this project through a Collaborative Doctoral Award. I owe special thanks to the Headmaster, Warden and Fellows of Winchester College for providing generous support beyond the terms of the CDA agreement. The College’s provision of accommodation during my visits has swept aside many of the logistical challenges of long-distance research, and made the experience of working in Winchester a thoroughly pleasant and rewarding one. I wish to thank wholeheartedly my supervisors in Birmingham, Professor Valerie Rumbold and Dr Kate Rumbold, for conceiving and co-ordinating a project which has been full of opportunity, and for their wisdom and encouragement throughout. In Winchester, I thank my third supervisor Dr Geoff Day, Fellows’ and Eccles Librarian, for his help and insight in intellectual and organisational matters, and Suzanne Foster, the College archivist, for her kind assistance. I wish lastly to thank Tim Kirtley, Sandra Bailey and Fran Heaney of Wadham College Library, who were unstintingly generous and welcoming during my visits. CONTENTS Introduction: Alexander Thistlethwayte’s Books in Winchester College 1 Fellows’ Library Chapter One: James VI and I’s Essayes of a Prentise (1584) and Jacobean 8 Literary Culture The Poetry of James VI and I in Manuscript and Print 11 The Scottish Sonnet in Context 23 Manuscript and Meaning 38 The Politics of Prophecy 49 The Story of Troy 57 Chapter Two: The Received Text in Lewis Theobald’s Editorial Theory 64 and Practice From Printing-House to Library 66 Work in Progress 75 The Received Text: Liability or Asset? 80 Ma(r)king the Text 87 ‘Laborious Collation’ 101 Matters of Fact 106 Chapter Three: Composite Books and the Culture of the Anthology 115 in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Tract Volumes or Anthologies? Rewriting the History of Composite 117 Books Richard Triplett: A Life in Books 126 History and Community in Richard Triplett’s Composite Books 133 Court and Culture in Richard Triplett’s Anthology of English Poetry, 139 1594-1637 Cultivating Variety in Alexander Thistlethwayte’s Compilations 157 Chapter Four: The Library of Alexander Thistlethwayte 171 From Collector to Benefactor: The Life of Alexander Thistlethwayte 173 Books and Society in the Early Lives of Alexander Thistlethwayte and 189 Francis Whithed Books for Taste and Use: The Composition of Alexander 208 Thistlethwayte’s Library The Mutels: A Huguenot Refugee Family and Their Books 226 Conclusion: From Private Collecting to Public Engagement: 241 Thistlethwayte’s Books and the Future of the Fellows’ Library The Legacy of a Gentleman 243 ‘Publick’ Library, Public Benefits? 249 The Thistlethwayte Collection and the History of the Book 254 Special Libraries and the Challenge of Widening Access 258 Appendix One: Transcriptions of Manuscript Poems in the Winchester 267 Copy of Essayes of a Prentise Appendix Two: Bibliographical Description of the Winchester Volumes 274 of Lewis Theobald’s Printer’s Copy Appendix Three: Collations of Pope’s and Theobald’s Texts of King Lear 277 Appendix Four: Sammelbände Compiled by Richard Triplett 329 Appendix Five: Selected Sammelbände Compiled by Alexander 336 Alexander Thistlethwayte Appendix Six: Family Trees 341 Appendix Seven: Books Bought by Francis Whithed from Joseph Pote, 343 Eton Bookseller, 1734-1735 Appendix Eight: Books Bought by Francis Whithed from Richard 346 Clements, Oxford Bookseller, 1737-1738 Appendix Nine: Books Acquired by Alexander Thistlethwayte while 349 Studying at Wadham College, Oxford, 1735-1736 Appendix Ten: The Student Library of Charles Mutel 353 Appendix Eleven: The Mutel Family Library 356 Bibliography 364 ILLUSTRATIONS All images, with the sole exception of Figure 11, are reproduced by permission of the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College. Figure 1. ‘On Women’, Essayes, sig. X1r. 15 Figure 2. ‘Ecclesiastes xij’, Essayes, sig. X4r. 17 Figure 3. Unsigned manuscript sonnet, Essayes, sig. A2r. 40 Figure 4. Thomas Hudson’s printed sonnet with emblematic headpiece, 46 Essayes, sig. *2r. Figure 5. Notes from the printing-house on the copy for Troilus and Cressida, 76 Theobald’s Pope’s Shakespear, II, fol. 177r. Figure 6. Theobald’s marked-up copy for King Lear, I. i, Theobald’s 98 Pope’s Shakespear, I, fol. 5v. Figure 7. Triplett’s inscription in his copy of Julius Caesar Scaliger, 127 Poemata Omnia (1621), bought at auction in Oxford. Figure 8. A characteristic Triplett binding; ‘Poemata’, Book No. 2144. 134 Figure 9. Triplett’s listing of contents on a front flyleaf of ‘Miscellaneous 140 Poems’, Book No. 2259. Figure 10. Thistlethwayte’s contents list on the front endpaper of ‘J. Jortin 166 and others’, Book No. 5561. Figure 11. Thomas Hudson, The Thistlethwayte Family, c.1758. Oil on canvas. 177 Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund. Figure 12. Illuminated initial and hand-painted arms of Jean Grolier in his 215 copy of Joannes Jovianus Pontanus, Opera (1513). Figures 13 and 14. Thistlethwayte’s large and small armorial bookplates. 245 TABLES Table 1. Books bought by Francis Whithed from Joseph Pote, Eton bookseller, 193 1734-1735. Table 2. Books bought by Francis Whithed from Richard Clements, Oxford 198 bookseller, 1737-1738. NOTE ON CITATIONS References to printed sources give the name(s) of the publisher or publishers, except where the original imprint explicitly names the printer(s) only, in which cases the reference states ‘printed by’ along with the name(s) and other publication details in parentheses. INTRODUCTION ALEXANDER THISTLETHWAYTE’S BOOKS IN WINCHESTER COLLEGE FELLOWS’ LIBRARY In 1767, Alexander Thistlethwayte (?1718–1771), a Hampshire grandee and bibliophile, donated a large collection of ancient and modern European poetry to the Fellows’ Library of Winchester College, the oldest of the English public schools.1 The books that make up Thistlethwayte’s benefaction – the largest that the library had hitherto received – are the focus of this thesis, providing both individual case-studies and a window on to Thistlethwayte’s collecting career. The first part of the thesis concentrates on two of the more remarkable artefacts in Thistlethwayte’s collection, demonstrating their largely untapped potential to advance scholarly understanding in their respective fields. The opening two chapters present case- studies that shed new light on topics relating to the copying and transmission of late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary texts. The first of these case-studies examines Thistlethwayte’s copy of James VI of Scotland’s first published work, Essayes of a Prentise, in the Divine Art of Poesie (1584). In this copy, the printed anthology is supplemented by a number of manuscript poems, making the book a unique witness to the transmission and reception of James’s poetry in Scottish elite circles. My study reveals how the owners of this book used scribal networks to reframe James’s identity as a published poet, as well as to participate in the innovative poetic culture of the Jacobean court in late sixteenth-century Scotland. The second case-study is based on the largest 1 Winchester College (founded in the 1380s by William of Wykeham) is the