On the lending and losing of books: "how many more of your books I daily make use of:"

I have written before about John Locke's long friendship with James Tyrrell from his time at Christ Church, Oxford, who lived at nearby Oakley.    I knew Tyrrell's maternal grandfather was James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh and revered as a biblical scholar, by both King James I and Oliver Cromwell.  He was best known for his Latin history, Annals of the Old and New Testaments, which dated the creation of the world from 4004 BC.  

James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, 1641    Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen

© Jesus College, Oxford

But  I gave Archbishop Ussher no further thought until I was reading about the Book of Kells in Christopher de Hamel's "Meetings with  Remarkable Manuscripts".  It was Ussher who first studied Ireland's world-renowned late 8th century Latin manuscript of the four Gospels as a key historic book, and not just as a monumental religious icon of Ireland.  (It is now on the Unesco Memory of the World Register.)

Illuminated page from the  Book of Kells  

© Trinity College Library, Dublin

His grandson James himself was a respected Whig historian (e.g. Bibliotheca Politica 1694). It is not surprising then that the Tyrrells were a family of serious readers, lending and borrowing books amongst themselves and friends.  

Locke entrusted Tyrrell with the storage of his furniture and books from Christ Church when he had to move abroad in 1683.  Back in England seven years later under William III,  by 1691 he  was moving from London lodgings to a more permanent home with Sir Francis and Lady Masham at Oates in Essex, and asked for his Oxford belongings to be returned to him.  This took a long time,  because of the problems of transporting safely furniture, household goods, and valuable items as well as numerous heavy books.  Much was sent by the newly restored river-barge route between Oxford and London:

 A Victorian photo of the new style pound lock at Culham
Originally built by the 17th century Oxford-Burcot Commission; the first commercial barge from London for centuries reached Oxford in 1635, after work to add gated poundlocks and improve the passage over the many weirs and sluices (i.e. flashlocks). 

Even this was not easy:  

"John could not get a Cart before last week to bring them hither [from Shotover to Oxford], nor was there ever a barge ready to carry them till today….I hope they will come safely to your hands for I have given the bargeman great charge of your chair."  Tyrrell to Locke, 15th October 1691

A week later Tyrrell writes, "Your boxes layn here this fortnight waiting for a passage, for the locks being at fault the barges could not passe till they were mended."

This consignment included six large boxes,  two smaller and a trunk, plus a large bundle of linens, and a cane chair.  Locke's goods from Christ Church included a very large number of books as well as items awkward to pack (two carpets were too big to go in the bundle). 

Christ Church College, Oxford   Frederick Nash 

The other problem was that over the years the Tyrrell family had dipped in to Locke's library and used his trunks and boxes, furniture and other items: "having taken the books; and other things out of it, I lent my wife the box to put some linen in:"  30 June 1691

Tyrrell's difficulties sound familiar to anyone who has moved house and had to store belongings with friends or relatives for a long time, or vice-versa.  He has constant problems finding overlooked items at the family homes at Shotover and Oakley and then packing them for transport.

"I would have sent you your telescope if the box had been long enough….I find since the writing of the Catalogue [of Locke's Oxford books] that I have omitted some books which I left at Oxford: and were among my books there, and so were forgot till now….I have bin forced to take the second part of the 'State of France' out of the box: because it would not hold it and the bottle."  

I have sent you all your bookes, except…such bookes (he lists over a dozen) as I have made bold to borrow of you for some longer time.…your Telescope is on top of the bookes in one of the boxes;" 
15 October 1691

"I have also sent you up the 2 first Tomes of your French Herodotus; and the last [Volume III] which I lent my daughter, is come as far as Oxford, but I cannot have it to send up this returne, but you shall have it the next week; when I send up some other things to James:" [Tyrrell's son]  November 1691 

His despatches continue into 1692 with an insight into family life at Oakley:  "as for books not medicinal, James had in his keeping unknown to me Oglebyes Japan, and my Father had borrowed Africa of the same Authours but they shall both be sent to you with the boxes". 

  John Ogilby's Africa 1670  (Photo Bauman Rare Books)

"..the little hair trunk  I lent to my daughter into Wales...Besides your Carpets, I have an old terrestrial Globe of yours, which would not go well into the trunk…...  2 pair of [your cases for books] were at Shotover, with some books of mine, and I could not prevail with the carter to go out of the way." [from Oakley to Oxford] 30th January 1692

And in August: he sends a book "which my Sister had borrowed;"  but not  "an old Terrestriall Globe which would not got into the box … . and my son desires the use of it a little longer;   I have allso your weather glasse at Shotover which was too long to goe into any of the boxes",  nor another book and a cushion which his son still had. 

John Patrick's Weatherglass: Directions   (see SIS Bulletin 80)

Tyrell entrusts a friend to send this 'last' consignment  to Locke:  Mr: Thomas … haveing first sent all your things together with his owne to Mr: Rushes barge, which I suppose sets out on Thursday "  9th August 1692

Eventually, in slow succession, Locke's precious boxes of books and other belongings arrived in London and were then transported by carrier  (i.e. horse and cart) via Bishop's Stortford to the Masham's home at Oates, High Laver in Essex.

Several items were still missing or remained 'borrowed' by the Tyrrell family.  In the summer of 1701, Locke makes a last attempt to trace the missing volume III from his French edition of Herodotus, which may have gone with James's daughter Mary to Wales and was said to have been returned in November 1691 - it was she who had irretrievably lost the key to one of Locke's small trunks, which caused everyone a deal of trouble in her absence.  Tyrrell replies, "my daughter assures me she never saw more than those 2 volumes of it….which way the third came to be lost I know not….my son may perhaps have borrowed it unbeknownst to me.." August 1701

Pierre du Ryer's French translation of Herodotus' "Histories"  (Photo Sequitur Books) 

Locke's Herodotus Volume III was never found, so is it perhaps buried in some old Welsh library archive, or given the difficulties of transport then, lost forever in a Thames mill pond?

 The Mill at Mapledurham,  part 15th century, the oldest surviving mill on the Thames

Quotations from The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E.S. De Beer, Clarendon Press Oxford

Esmond De Beer, a 20th century gentleman scholar

La Debacle sur la Seine,   Claude Monet 1880  © Dunedin Art Gallery NZ.

This atmospheric painting of the ice thawing on the Seine is now one of the stars in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in New Zealand.  It was bought by Dr Esmond de Beer and his sisters in London, and was planned as a future legacy to their original home town of Dunedin in the South Island, New Zealand.  Its icy chill was so evocative, that at first they could not sit in the room where it hung, until the winter weather was past.  It is a large painting, some 63 by 50 cms and this reproduction does not really show the cold grey tones of the thawing river. 

This Monet was one of the paintings in the room where I worked as a very minor assistant to Dr de Beer, while he was preparing the final proofs of his major work on the philosopher John Locke, for the Clarendon Press, Oxford.    

Esmond de Beer in his study at Brompton Square, January 1976

© University of Otago NZ.

He had already produced the definitive modern edition of the Diary of John Evelyn, in six volumes, in 1955, and then began the even greater task of editing all the correspondence of John Locke, spanning  over fifty years, with meticulous scholarly notes and background, in eight volumes.  

John Locke, aged 40      John Greenhill, 1672

© National Portrait Gallery, London 

 It is difficult to realise the decades of dedicated work involved in transcribing from the original manuscripts the 3,648 surviving letters of Locke's postbag, many in Latin, French and Dutch.  Dr De Beer's research on often barely identifiable writers, publications, postal routes, addresses, philosophical and political topics discussed, and domestic and historical context, make his detailed accompanying notes a marvellous guide to the letters and the lives of their seventeenth century writers.    

Each volume completed ready for the Clarendon Press was a small celebration for everyone.  He and his sisters Mary and Dora were invariably kind to me:  bringing me back a cake from the Brompton Oratory bazaar, or sharing with me their pleasure when their tree peony bloomed,  and giving Christmas book tokens for my children.  Dr de Beer served on many committees, such as the Society of Antiquaries, the Hakluyt Society, the Historical Association and was a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, and would show me rare volumes he was using from the London Library.  Occasionally he borrowed some of my medieval English texts, as he was always keen to add to his knowledge of English classics - although Gawain and the Green Knight was not to his taste.

Together, the family were discerning art collectors, acquiring an outstanding Claude Lorrain for Dunedin Art Gallery, and numerous old master engravings and other works;  fine original Japanese woodcuts, an Edward Lear watercolour and William Nicholson prints for example, were hung on the stairs.  

Esmond de Beer with his older sisters, Mary and Dora de Beer (rt.)

 at Brompton Square,   © Otago University Library, NZ

All three siblings were keen climbers, and would holiday each summer on Raasay, (like Boswell and Dr. Johnson) but Miss Dora was the real mountaineer as well as something of an anthropologist.    In 1938 she joined a climbing expedition to the peaks of Yulung Shan in S.W. China with five friends, setting out from Rangoon in August.  She describes their experiences in her Account of a Journey in S.W. China - Yunnan 1938,  published in 1971:

    

"We dropped steeply down from the pass.  In China nearly all the ranges we crossed were very steep and we were constantly either panting uphill or jarring our knees downhill.  It was warm and there was a big walnut tree.  It was pleasant to rest in the shade, crack nuts, and forget about everything but the present happy moments.  That often happened to me -- China was an enchanted land.  I wandered through it as if I were unrolling a Chinese scroll with trees and hills, and rivers and birds.  That was when it was going well, sometimes I was too weary and uncomfortable to do more than feel that the beauty was there, if only I could forget my tiresome body enough to look around with seeing eyes.  

We continued on down a valley with more rice fields, an occasional granite boulder protruding above the green of the rice  arousing geological interest.  Then a group of men with two mules overtook us, both men and mules carrying wooden casks, and the Chinese scroll turned into a Hokusai woodcut, as it quite often did." 

The back of Mt. Fuji from Minobu river   Katsukisha Hokusai

Dr de Beer made many substantial gifts in his lifetime to support research and scholarship, including the Bodleian Library (where his name is inscribed), and other libraries, museums, art galleries and learned societies in the UK and in New Zealand.  After his sisters died in 1981 and 1982,  the magnificent collection of 172 notable works of art that they had built up together, especially for their home town, was sent out to the Public Art Gallery in Dunedin.

"For a while after the crates were unpacked, 'J' gallery [sealed from the public] resembled a treasure trove.  There were paintings standing on pads around the walls and precious Chinese porcelain and other rarities were arrayed on trestles.  …an atmosphere of excited hush prevailed…every possible excuse was found to linger in the glittering room."  P. Entwisle, Treasures of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Dr Esmond de Beer, CBE  (1895-1990)

©  Otago University Library

I feel very privileged to have met this remarkable New Zealand historian and his generous lively-minded sisters.

University of Otago,  Dunedin, New Zealand   (N. H. Hamilton,  flickr.com)

"Witches' " boots from Lapland

Witches were long thought to be able to stir up storms and sink ships --as in Macbeth--

"Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;"

and there was a special interest in the seventeenth century in the shamanism practised in Lapland, (possibly sparked by a series of witchcraft trials in Sweden).  The Sami culture, rituals and way of life were chronicled by Johannes Schefferus in 1673, aiming to prove that Swedish military success was not dependent on Sami magic.  But in the contemporary western European translations, chapters drawing on preconceived ideas of the Sami's  sorcery, drums, and pagan practices were inserted, without factual evidence, a case of publishers giving their readers the sensational accounts they wanted to hear, rather than a true picture.

© University Library of Tromso  (The Northern Lights Route)

 A young English diplomat in Stockholm, William Allestree, in 1673 sent home drawings of native Lapplanders to friends in England,  and later gifts of Lapp elkskin boots.  The ship carrying the boots, however,  was sunk,  which no doubt some superstitious readers of the adapted Lapponia translations would blame on the shamans' powers.  As Allestree  jests in his letter :

"Sir, yours of April the 14th, came to me on 17th Sept: by which you will judge, that either the Laps had no power to hasten it, or that they are no friends of mine, nor I at all in their book'es, who would deprive me so long of so great a kindness.  I could have wish'd, that as this, though late, came at length, the Laps-boots had had the same conveyance to you, and if they were lost in the sea, you may see, that though their makers are accounted witches because they cannot sinck, yet the boots who did so, were honest.   If the ship which carri'd them had not let in water, I am confident they would have held it out, and had the vessel bene in them*, it had been safer, then they were, being in it."
[*the elkskin boots, fur side out,  were waterproof]

Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E. S. De Beer,  Oxford University Press

"Accidentally, on purpose"

This useful and expressive phrase goes back several centuries, and is particularly pertinent when faced with entrenched bureaucracy.  Thus, Sylvester Brounower writes to John Locke with news from London in 1697.

John Locke , plumbago drawing by Sylvester Brounower (Locke's amanuensis) c. 1685

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Whitehall April the 24th: 1697   

"Mrs Smithsby…presents her service to you and would be glad to see you [Locke] in Town again, as some in our Office [the Dept of Trade and Plantations] do, she has been served just as we are, for her Petition and the King's reference upon it; and Our Establishment with the King's reference upon it, are both, accidentally, on purpose, lost in the Treasury."

(Mrs Smithsby had petitioned for 12 years' arrears of a pension originally granted to her father and her petition was referred to the Surveyor-General of Crown Lands in July 1696.  See Correspondence footnote.)

The Correspondence of John Locke  ed. E. S. de Beer   © Oxford University Press