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The Barrett Version of Robert Southwell's Short Rule of Good Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Richard Loomis
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Extract

Several books of Catholic origin enjoyed wide circulation among Protestant readers in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Such works were commonly subjected to editorial revision to suit Protestant sensibilities; a famous instance is Edmund Bunny's adaptation of Robert Persons’ The First Booke of the Christian Exercise, apperfeyning to resolution (1582). An instance less known but no less interesting is the Protestantized version of Robert Southwell's Short Rule of Good Life issued in 1620 by the London publisher William Barrett.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 7 , Issue 5 , April 1964 , pp. 239 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1964

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References

Notes

1. For a discussion of this work, see Helen, C. White, English Devotional Literature (Prose) 1600-1640 (Madison, Wis., 1931), pp. 143–149.Google Scholar

2. Allison, A. F. and Rogers, D. M., A Catalogue of Catholic Books in English Printed Abroad or Secretly in England 1558-1640 (Bognor Regis, 1956).Google Scholar

3. I have discussed the authority of AR 787 and its relationship to the other editions in an unpublished dissertation, Robert Southwell's Short Rule of Good Life: an Edition (Cornell University, 1959), pp. 28–59.Google Scholar

4. Printed under the title, “Short Rules of Good life, by R.S.” It is the fifth part of a collection which included Saint Peters Complaint, Maeoniae, Marie Magdalens Funerall Teares, and The Triumphs over Death. The STC number is 22965; the title page of the collection is as follows: ST. PETERS COMPLAINTE/Mary Magdal./teares Wth other workesf of the autftor/R:S:/LONDON/Printed for W: Barrett/1620.

This collected edition was reprinted in 1630 and 1636 by John Haviland; the publisher of the 1630 edition was apparently John Parker, who in 1620, according to H. R. Plomer, took over the copyrights Barrett had received from William Leake; see Plomer, H. R., A Dictionary of Book sellers and Printers… in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641-1667 (London, 1907), p. 144.Google Scholar Haviland and John Wright obtained the rights to the collected edition in 1638 (Stationers’ Register, IV, 432).

5. McDonald, James H., The Poems and Prose Writings of Robert Southwell, S.J., A Bibliographical Study (Oxford, 1937), p. 98.Google Scholar

6. This awkwardly constructed stanza may be paraphrased as follows: Hypocritical non-conformists, who might disapprove of this work because of the author, should judge the work on its own merits; but those who reject consoling religious instruction (“what most the soule delights”) if the preacher offering it is not a Puritan, will certainly not be willing to read any work of Southwell's.

7. McKerrow, R. B., Dictionary of Printers and. Booksellers… 1557-1640 (London, 1910), p. 222.Google Scholar

8. For instance Louis, B. Wright, Middle-class Culture in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill, 1935), p. 263,Google Scholar quotes Michael Sparke's acknowledgement in his popular collection of prayers and meditations, The Crums of Comfort, (edition of 1628) that the actual labour of compilation was performed by “some godly Ministers of mine acquaintance.”

9. The editor of the forthcoming edition of Southwell's collected poems, Mrs. Nancy Brown, confirms the absence of any other authority for attributing these poems to Southwell.

10. The identification of “M.D.S. Gentleman” is an interesting puzzle. Probably the best identification is “Master Dick Sackville,” suggested to me by Mrs. Brown. As indicated above, Barrett's collected edition is dedicated to Sackville, under his title of Earl of Dorset. Southwell could have addressed a manuscript copy of the Short Rule to Richard, the oldest of the Sackville children, who might subsequently have transmitted the manuscript to Barrett for the 1620 edition. If, on the other hand, the Preface is not authentic, Barrett could have supplied Sackville's initials as a false clue to his readers.

11. The original letter is in Italian. The translation I have given is my own; the Italian text is as follows (from General archives S.J., Anglia 31, Copia di una lettera del P. Henrico Garnette … scrìtta … a 7 di Marzo 1595, f. 3; quoted in Janelle, op.cit., p. 70, n. 40 and p. 142, n. 3): “Vi si uedono in oltre, molti numeri, segnati parimente con spilla, et m'imagino douesser’ esser’ caratteri pertinenti all’ essame della conscienza ò Generale, 5 Particolare, perche a questo soleva essortare tutti i suoi penitenti, hauendolo anche lasciato scritto in certe sue Regole spirituali molto stimate dalli buoni, e diuoti Cattolici, doue gl'auisa, che non essendoui chi celebri loro la messa ogni di e senta le loro confessioni piglino certi tempe assignati per ambe due queste cose con stare ogni di diuotamente in genocchioni, e presentarsi al signore a qualche messa, eh’ in alcuna parte se dicesse in quell’ istess’ hora nel mondo, e preparandosi per la confessione confarla formatamente a Dio, come s'hauessero presente la persona del Sacerdote.”

12. Janelle, op. cit., p. 142, n. 3.