My second attempt was based on textual changes among editions of the Story. In the second edition there are three small changes from the first; the third and fourth editions seem to be line-for-line reprints of the second. (The "sham, Imperfect Sort" introduces a large number of variants, mainly errors.) In the fifth edition, however, somebody has altered the typography: many past forms of verbs are altered. Thus at the bottom of p. 3 unbody'd becomes unbodyed, carry'd and deliver'd become carryed, delivered. The task of editing is not complete; particularly near the end of the fifth edition many verbs still carry the apostrophe of the earlier editions. The date of the attempt suggests that Swift's Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (first published 17 May 1712, a week after the fourth edition of the Story) could have provided the motivation, and also that Swift himself could not have been the person who made the changes. A study of a few contemporaries shows that Swift himself tried to eliminate the apostrophes from the Conduct of the Allies, first published 27 November 1711, and from other works published after that date, but not from works published before that date. Oldisworth, apparently under the instructions of Swift, tried to do the same during the first few months of the Examiner, vol. 2 (beginning 6 December 1711), but by the time he reached volume 3, Oldisworth had apparently given up the struggle against unwilling printers. Arbuthnot, Roper and Manley are not very interested in the matter, and neither are other pamphleteers published by Morphew during the months immediately following Swift's Proposal. The items included in the so-called Miscellaneous Works of Dr. Wagstaffe, on the other hand, fall into three groups chronologically: those which precede Swift's Proposal, and include many apostrophied verb forms; those which immediately follow Swift's Proposal, and include abnormally few apostrophied verb forms; the two "late" pieces (1715, 1719), which are back to the proportion of apostrophied verbs to be found in the early items. If Pseudo-Wagstaffe was indeed a single writer, then he followed the same pattern as Oldisworth, but began later and continued longer to use verbs with an -ed ending. Since the genuine signed prose works of Dr. Wagstaffe come "late" (1717, 1721) and have a fairly large (i.e., normal) number of apostrophied verbs, there is no evidence here as to whether or not Pseudo-Wagstaffe is Wagstaffe; at least there is no contradiction. In the light of these facts, we can see that neither Swift nor Arbuthnot is a probable author of the Story; Swift would presumably have altered verb typography in the first and all editions, and Arbuthnot would not have altered it at all.[7] In these two projects on authorship we find that authors other than Wagstaffe tend to be eliminated, but that Wagstaffe himself is not strongly confirmed. The authorship remains as problematic as before, and the Story may as well for this century continue with the Arbuthnotiana, as it did during the nineteenth with the Swiftiana.
The device of using a ghost story as vehicle for political satire was by 1712 a well-established one. Elias F. Mengel Jr. refers to "the 'ghost' convention, so popular in the Restoration,"[8] and an important poem of Queen Anne's reign shows some similarities with and perhaps provided a model for the Story. In Moderation Display'd (London, 1705) the recently deceased second Earl of Sunderland rises from Hell to confound his guilty Whig companions. Tonson (Bibliopolo) is the most terrified, and as in the Story Wharton (Clodio) is so wicked that he is not frightened at all. The Story, however, is both more subtle and more flexible than most other satiric "ghost" narratives. It compresses the actual apparition into the last quarter of the narrative, despite the perhaps deliberately misleading title. Nearly half of the Story deals with previous events; much of the rest is machinery, introduction of seemingly irrelevant details with a mischievous verisimilitude which actually advances the main satiric aims. The opening paragraph, for example, first denounces Roman Catholic superstition, a denunciation which almost every Englishman could join, and then turns the fire toward "Our Sectarists." The war on heterodoxy continues in the references to Dr. Garth, the Whig poet and physician noted for his scepticism in religion, to William Whiston who during the winter of 1711-1712 was transcribing documents and writing elaborate treatises to uphold his view that Christian churches and theologians had all been essentially heretical since the time of Athanasius, and to the Reverend and Honourable Lumley Lloyd, a low-church minister whose sermons attracted at least two Tory satires.[9] None of these men belongs in the narrative, and only Garth was even remotely connected with the Marlboroughs, but all of them were Whigs, and in various ways serve to "demonstrate" that Whigs must be false brethren to the Church of England.
This charge, although a cliché of Tory satires, is here made indirect and witty, as are the staple charges against the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Whereas, however, the wickedness of nonconformity had been attacked for decades, the Duke of Marlborough had been associated with the Whigs for a relatively short time. As late as 1706 Wagstaffe could generously declare that "Woodstock's too little" a reward (Ramelies, a Poem), but since Swift's "Bill of British Ingratitude" in the Examiner (17 November 1710) the Tory press had begun to say that the rewards were too many and too great. The Story repeats the charge that Avaro and Haggite "grew Richer than their Mistress" (p. 11), together with the ridiculous insinuations of cowardice and incompetence found constantly reiterated in the second volume of Examiners. The Duchess of Marlborough attracted massive satire earlier than her husband, in such books as The Secret History of Queen Zarah (London, 1705),[10] and her habit of saying "Lawrd" with an affected drawl is mentioned in The Secret History of Arlus and Odolphus (n.p., 1710), pp. 21, 22, 23.
Although not so frequent as attacks on the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, attacks on Mrs. Jennings the mother of the Duchess had already been made, and indeed the Story relies for part of its effect on the fact that Mrs. Jennings is already associated with witchcraft. In Memoirs of Europe (London, 1710)[10] for example, she inherits a familiar spirit from Sir Kenelm Digby, there reported the real father of the Duchess (II, 44-46). In Oliver's Pocket Looking-Glass (n.p., 1711) Mrs. Jennings appears as "the famous Mother Shipton, who by the Power and Influence of her Magick Art, had plac'd a Daughter in the same Station at Court [i.e., Maid of Honour] with Meretricia [Arabella Churchill] ..." (p. 21). Because the author of the Story assumes that previous Tory allegations are well-known, he is free to perform elegant variations or to allude indirectly. Assuming the fact of witchcraft allows him to heap up an ambiguous burlesque of popular superstition which is in part entertainment and in part rebuttal of recent Whig sneers at Tory credulity during the Jane Wenham witch trial.[11] Here as throughout the pamphlet, the author demonstrates the virtuosity which even Swift commends. Since Swift praises few pamphlets except those written by himself and Arbuthnot (or occasionally Mrs. Manley), the Story enters a fairly select company. It is the only Pseudo-Wagstaffe piece mentioned by name in the Journal to Stella, the only one found worthy to stand beside the productions of Swift and Arbuthnot.[12]
The second document reproduced claims to be A Catalogue of the Capital and Well-Known Library of Books, of the Late Celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot. To the extent that the claim is true, the Catalogue will be important for studies of the Scriblerian Club generally, since Arbuthnot is the member with the greatest reputation for learning. Although the contents of a man's library do not correspond exactly with the contents of his mind, scholars can discover a good deal about the intellectual methods of Dr. Arbuthnot by examining the books which he owned. Until now this has not been possible; the Catalogue is a recent acquisition of the British Museum, not so much as mentioned in books thus far published about Arbuthnot. For several reasons, however, the document must be used with caution. First of all, the compilers list a total of 2525 volumes, but they itemize only 1639,[13] and even then often give inadequate information. Furthermore, a xerox copy of the Sale Book records of the auction, very kindly sent to me by the present Messrs. Christie, Manson and Woods, shows that almost a quarter of the lots (items 53-65, 243-245, 276-372, 426), or 999 volumes, belonged not to the Arbuthnot estate but to other owners. Finally, Dr. Arbuthnot died in 1735, whereas the auction was not held until December 1779, about three and a half months after the death of his bachelor son George. Of the books belonging to the Arbuthnot estate, almost 20% were printed after 1735, and belonged not to the father but to the son, or perhaps in some cases to the daughter Anne, who lived with her brother.[14] The legal books are likely all to have been George Arbuthnot's, and presumably some of the other books printed before 1735 also. Despite these obscurities, the Catalogue throws a good deal of new light upon the most learned Scriblerian—and upon his family.
Dr. Arbuthnot seems to have bought relatively few antiquarian books; about 20% of the itemized volumes belonging to his estate come before 1691, the year when he first went to London. In selecting these older works Arbuthnot has shown a catholic taste and linguistic ability: he bought grammars and dictionaries, besides works on medicine and science, literature, history and religion, written in English, French, Italian, Latin and Greek, plus a solitary Hebrew Bible (item 234); his copy of Udall's Key to the Holy Tongue is dated 1693 (item 183). Less than a quarter of these earlier books are in English. The sole "cradle" date of the catalogue, 1495 for Rosa Anglica (item 417), may be a misprint: editions of 1492 and 1595, among others, have been previously recorded, but none for 1495.[15]
When compared with the antiquarian books, the list of titles from the Arbuthnot estate either dated or first published after the death of Dr. Arbuthnot reveals a number of differences. English is the predominant language of the late group, with French a poor second. There is another Hebrew Bible (253), a Spanish Cervantes (25), an Italian Machiavelli (96), but no Greek book at all, and astonishingly only two Latin: a dictionary (89) and a Horace (147); Cicero appears in a French translation (26). In part, of course, the shift in languages accompanies the general decline of humanistic learning in the eighteenth century, but it also strengthens our knowledge of Dr. Arbuthnot's erudition. Although apparently not interested in science, George Arbuthnot read widely, however, in other areas (see for example 10, 15, 49, 158, 160, 168, 170, 254, 271). Similarly, the books from outside the Arbuthnot estate are less learned than those of Arbuthnot. They do include two Greek testaments (290, 310) and some recent scientific works (e.g. 314, *349), but lack the great Greek writers whom Arbuthnot collected, such as Plato (125), Aristotle (126), Herodotus (385) or Aristophanes (387). Whereas Arbuthnot read Newton's treatises (81, 85, 197, 217), one of the other owners read Algarotti's simplification (*312).
The subjects of the books in the Arbuthnot estate can be variously divided. By sheer number of titles, literature is the most important subject, closely followed by science (including medicine as the biggest sub-group), and then by history. In number of volumes, however, the historical section is considerably larger than the literary, and science comes third. Books on geography and travel, philosophical treatises, grammars and dictionaries, even a work on astrology (109), attest to the breadth of Arbuthnot's interests. A few works in the fine arts are listed, somewhat surprisingly only two of them on music (32, 373). The military item (391) may come from the Doctor's brother George, who was in the army, or it may represent another aspect of the general interest in all human affairs. There is a fairly large number of religious works, including books by Eusebius and Sozomen (127), Spotswood (380), Huet (383), Charles Leslie (251), Leibniz (141), Tillotson (395) and Jeremy Taylor (3,394). The elaborately bound Greek Septuagint (272) and Greek New Testament (273) must be the ones which Arbuthnot specified in his will (the only books there mentioned), calling them "the Gift of my late Royal Mistress Queen Anne."[16] As the Catalogue does not describe any other fine bindings, the other books seem to have been bought for use rather than for show.
A study of the duplications among the books in the Arbuthnot estate reinforces the opinion that the books were bought for use. The only items appearing three times are the works of Pope (76, 180) and Pope's Iliad (11, 77, 242). Since two of the former were published after the death of Arbuthnot, and must have belonged to the Arbuthnot children, perhaps the extra Iliads were equally the property of Arbuthnot's heirs. The duplicates of Molière (21, 135), Prideaux (50, 379), and Veneroni (90, *229) could also have belonged to the children. However, the bulk of the duplications seem to involve obtaining a later edition or a necessary text, and thus to have a scholarly rationale. For example, the two editions of Eustachius are dated 1714, 1728 (115, 259), those of Livy are dated 1578, 1708 (7, 386), while both sets of Sennertus seem to be broken (406, 407).
Not surprisingly, Arbuthnot owned a number of satirical works. In addition to Pope and Molière, already mentioned, he owned Petronius (9), Juvenal and Persius (230), Terence (231), Plautus (232), Boileau (98), Gay (79) and Swift's Tale of a Tub (178). He presumably bought or was given other works by Swift, but no others are itemized; perhaps some were in the "Large parcel of pamphlets" (1). George Arbuthnot added a copy of The Four Last Years of Queen Anne (173), not published until 1758.