HENRY HILLS—PIRATE

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XIV, 1 March 1960, Page 6

HENRY HILLS—PIRATE

W. J. CAMERON.

Henry Hills was a London bookseller who, in the year 1708, began to issue a series of badly-printed penny or twopenny pamphlets most of which were “pirated" from works strictly belonging to other booksellers. The Copyright Act effectively put a stop to these activities, but by the time its effect was felt in 1710, he had pirated over 100 poems, an even larger number of sermons, and a few other prose pieces (mainly "rogue" literature). Although the Copyright Act prevented Hills from openly pirating other men's property, it did not forbid the sale of the pamphlets already in print. So, when Hills died a year or two later, his stock was put up for sale (it was advertised in The Evening Post 12th November 1713) and passed into other hands. A man called T. Warner gained possession of the verse pamphlets and reissued them in two volumes (each containing about 30 different pamphlets) with a title-page reading A Collection of the Best English Poetry 1717.

There are only live copies of this collected edition known. The most important one is in Newberry Library, Chicago, and others are to be found in the British Museum, the Houghton Library (Harvard), and the New York Public Library. Only one volume of the copy at Yale University Library has survived. These live copies are very important for the story of Hills’s piratical activities, for they tell us which pamphlets were still in stock at his death. But if we require information about earlier editions of these pamphlets, and even of the pamphlets that were sold out before Warner bought the stock, we must search elsewhere. Fortunately, there are a number of booklists in the pamphlets in Warner's collection, but it would be a long and arduous task to search library catalogues for individual copies of each pamphlet listed. The literary historian would like to find collections of pamphlets made at determinable points in Hills's career which contain all, or at least most, of the pamphlets issued before that point of time. Although I have seen many collections of Hills's pamphlets in English and American libraries, none satisfactorily filled this need. It is therefore of great importance that one of two volumes of Hills’s pamphlets now in the Alexander Turnbull Library comes nearest the ideal collection made half-way through Hills's piratical career. A collection in the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, small though it is, helps to fill the gaps in the Turnbull volume. The Brotherton volume consists of ten pamphlets

bound in before a MS of Henray Hills’ poems. Its value lies in the fact that two extremely rare pamphlets included in the collection each contain a booklist, neither of which is available elsewhere. Even the smaller of the two Turnbull collections is of complementary value, for it contains an early pamphlet not included in the larger.

This smaller collection contains 14 pamphlets in a contemporary binding with a more modern spine. Onefifth of the way down the spine the word “POEMS" is lettered, and “HILLS 1709" appears at the foot. The pamphlets are as follows: 1. Sir John Denham Coopers-Hill 1709.. 2. Lord Roch(este)r The History of Insipids 1709 (also contains Rochester’s Farewell and John Ayloffe's Marvil’s Ghost). 3. Thomas (Sprat) Bishop of Rochester The Plague of Athens 1709. 4. Earl of Roscommon Horace: Of the Art of Poetry 1709. 5. Earl of Roscommon An Essay on Translated Verse 1709. 6. (Jonathan Swift) Baucis and Philemon 1710 (also contains Swift's Mrs Harris’s Earnest Petition and An Admirable Recipe, and Roscommon's—really Anthony Hammond’s — Ode upon Solitude). 7. Sir Robert Howard The Duel of the Stags 1709 (with Dryden's epistle to Howard, and an anonymous translation of an epigram by Manage). 8. The Earl of Mulgrave An Essay on Poetry 1709. 9. The Marquis of Normanby (i.e. Earl of Mulgrave) The Temple of Death 1709 (also the Duke of Devonshire’s Ode on Queen Mary's death). 10. (John Dryden) Absalom and Achitophel 1708. 11. (John Dryden) MacFlecknoe 1709 (also Oldham’s Spencer’s Ghost). 12. Joseph Addison A Letter from Italy 1709 (also Congreve’s Mourning Muse and Walsh's Despairing Lover). 13. (Joseph) Addison The Campaign 1710. 14. (John Philips) Cyder 1709 (also contains Philips’s Splendid Shilling and three shorter poems by other authors).

Contemporary MS notes appear in No. 10; one contemporary MS correction (possibly in another hand) is added to the text of No. 11; and an ink blot mars the last page of Nos. 3 and 9 and the first page of No. 3. These

small clues suggest that the pamphlets were bought at different times and assembled later. Binding could not have been long after the purchase of the latest of the pamphlets, however. If the collection is compared with Warner’s collection, one gains the impression that the collector intended a judicious choice (on literary merit) of best poems pirated by Hills. It might therefore serve a student of literary taste as evidence for what one contemporary thought of the value of Hills’s piracies. More important and less tendentious is the fact that although 12 pamphlets (Nos. 1-2, 5-14) appeared in extant copies of Warner's collection, 7of them (Nos. 1-2, 7,9, and 12-14) are different editions from those that Warner used. The volume therefore provides evidence of the existence of an earlier edition, and thus of the popularity of certain pamphlets. The relative popularity of pamphlets 3-4 may be inferred from the fact that neither survived for Warner to use in his Collection.

The larger and more interesting of the two Turnbull Library collections once belonged to "Amb. Holbech", for a MS. note on the inside front cover reveals that he paid 4s. 6d. for it. The binding is contemporary and has the words "30 POEMS COLLECT." lettered on the spine. The lettering must have been done before an eighteenth century owner (possibly Holbech) provided a MS. table of contents on the first flyleaf, for there the pamphlets are correctly numbered 1-31. The pamphlets are as follows:

1. The Marquis of Normanby The Temple of Death 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 2. Earl of Mulgrave An Essay on Poetry 1709 (different edition from that in other volume). 3. Earl of Roscommon Horace: Of the Art of Poetry 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 4. Earl of Roscommon An Essay on Translated Verse 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 5. Thomas (Sprat) Bishop of Rochester The Plague of Athens 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 6. Sir John Denham Coopers-Hill 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 7. Sir Robert Howard The Duel of the Stags 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 8. Joseph Addison A Letter from Italy 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 9. Lord Roch(este)r The History of Insipids 1709 (same edition as in other volume). 10. (Jonathan Swift) Baucis and Philemon 1709 (differ-

ent edition from that in other volume—one poem omitted). 11. (Lady Winchelsea) The Spleen 1709 (also contains Pomfret’s A Prospect of Death). 12. (Abel Evans) The Apparition 1710. 13. (John Philips) Cyder 1708 (different edition from that in other volume). 14. C. G. Threnodia Virginea 1708. 15. (John Gay) Wine 1708. 16. (Sir Richard Blackmore) The Kit-Cats 1708 (also contains two poems by Mulgrave). 17. Windsor-Castle 1708 (also contains Estcourt’s Britain’s Jubilee). 18. (Robert Gould) Love Given Over 1709 (also contains Richard Ames's Sylvia’s Revenge). 19. (Dr Joseph Browne or William Oldisworth) St. James’s Park 1708. 20. (Dr Joseph Browne or William Oldisworth) The Circus 1709. 21. The Flight of the Pretender 1708. 22. J. Gaynam Marlborough Still Conquers 1708. 23. (Sir Richard Blackmore) Instructions to Vander Bank 1709. 24. Philip Horneck An Ode .... to .... . the Earl of Wharton 1709. 25. (Edward Ward?) The Long Vacation 1708. 26. Canary-Birds Naturaliz’d in Utopia n.d. 27. The Beasts in Power 1709. 28. (Edward Ward) The Forgiving Husband n.d. 29. (Edward Ward) The Pleasures of a Single Life n.d. (also contains Pamfret’s The Choice). 30. (Edward Ward) Honesty in Distress 1708. 31. T. Hill Nundinae Sturbrigienses 1709.

What is most striking about this list are the dates of the pamphlets. Only one (No. 12) is dated 1710. Three are undated, but seventeen have 1709 in the imprint, and ten have 1708. The first 10 pamphlets and No. 13 are also to be found in the smaller of the Turnbull collections, but three of them (Nos. 2, 10, 13) are of an earlier edition. Two of them (Nos. 3 and 5) never appeared in an extant copy of Warner’s collection; five of those that did (Nos. 1, and 6-9) are of an earlier edition in both Turnbull volumes, and like the one that survives in an identical edition in all three collections (No. 4), probably never existed in an earlier Hills edition. The implication is clear —the pamphlets in “30 Poems Collect." were bought earlier in Hills’s career than those in “Poems".

Not only does the volume contain the earliest editions of nine of the eleven pamphlets listed in Hills's first booklist, but it also contains the booklist itself—on the last page of Cyder 1708 (No. 13). The missing pamphlets are Nahum Tate’s A Congratulatory Poem 1708 (which could not have been popular, for it survived to be included in Warner's collection), and The Battle of Audenard 1708 (which may be seen in the Bodleian Library G. Pamph. 1278 (4) or British Museum 11631 b. 31). The nine other pamphlets listed are Nos. 14-17, 19, 21-22, 25, and 30. Some of them are very rare and only one survived to be included in Warner's collection—No. 17.

For Hills’s second booklist we must turn to the Brotherton Library volume. The list was included in the extremely rare first edition of Hills’s pamphlet entitled Muscipula 1709. The omission from the list of The Battle of Audenard and of Nos. 14, 19, and 25 indicates that Hills's original editions of the four pamphlets had sold out, so the Turnbull copies of three of them have singular value. Eighteen new pamphlets had been added to the original list, and thirteen are included in the Turnbull volume (viz. Nos. 1-2, 4-7, 9, 13, 18, 23, 28-29, and 31). Only three (Nos. 4, 23, 28) of these thirteen survived to be included in Warner's collection, and although a later edition of eight others also appeared there, it serves to emphasize the value of the earlier editions in the Turnbull volume. Two pamphlets—Nos. 5 and 31—never appeared in Warner’s collection in any edition whatsoever.

We need not entirely regret the omission from the Turnbull volume of five of the pamphlets in the second booklist, for two of them — Milton s Sublimity Asserted 1709 and Absalom and Achitophel 1708 —are in the Turnbull Library, the first volume separately bound, the second in the collection labelled “Poems” already mentioned. Both were also included in Warner’s collection. Of the other three omissions, a copy of the earlier edition of William Shippen's Faction Display’d 1709 is, I am led to believe, in the University of Texas Library, and I have myself seen a copy of Tunbridgalia 1709 in Yale University Library (lb 55 to 709). The earlier edition of Muscipula 1709 is of course in the Brotherton collection.

Hills’s third booklist appears in one of the Turnbull pamphlets (No. 20— The Circus 1709). It lists three additional pamphlets of verSe (I ignore the prose pieces), and all three are included in the Turnbull volume (Nos. 3, 10, and 26). Only two of these four pamphlets (Nos. 20

and 26) survived to be included in Warner’s collection, although Warner made use of two later editions of No. 10.

For Hills’s fourth booklist we must once more turn to a very rare pamphlet in the Brotherton volume — Hoglandiae Descriptio 1709. Only one pamphlet has been added to the third booklist and that is the pamphlet that carried that list— The Circus. This list was soon superseded by a fifth list which appeared in a number of different pamphlets. As An Ode on the Incarnation 1709 is the most readily available (e.g. it is in Warner's collection) it will serve as reference. A new edition of St. James Park is implied by the reinstatement of the item (it is probably the edition in Warner's collection) and no doubt some of the earlier editions of other pamphlets in the Turnbull volume had been superseded by reprints by this time. Only three new pamphlets were added to this list (Nos. 8 and 11 and Hoglandiae Descriptio). Thus, "30 Poems Collect.” contains 28 of the first 36 pamphlets advertised by Hills. It also contains two pamphlets (Nos. 24 and 27) which never appeared in any booklist or in Warner’s collection. As both are dated 1709, it seeems most likely that they were issued after Cyder 1708 and were sold out before the list in Muscipula was compiled.

Thirty of the poems in the collection belong among the first thirty-eight issued by Hills; the only anomaly is The Apparition 1710 (No. 12). It appeared in the first booklist of 1710 among 25 new pamphlets, 14 of which can be identified in 1709 editions. Despite this anomaly, we must conclude that the collection was made over a period beginning before copies of Threnodia Virginea 1708 sold out and ending roughly about the time that Mulgrave's Essay on Poetry 1709 and Lady Winchelsea’s The Spleen 1709 were issued. The volume could not have been bound until after The Apparation 1710 was issued, as this stray pamphlet from a later period was included. The value of the Turnbull Library volumes (together with the Brotherton Library volume) is therefore obvious, for they serve as an important basis for an investigation into the first half of Henry Hills’s career as a piratical printer of verse.