Part 2

The Italian issue, made by Giacomo Didini, in Bologna and Venice, is a literal translation of Cramoisy's publication, and bears the same date, at Amsterdam, July 19, 1668. The original probably came from Paris, though it is possible that some Dutch merchant in Amsterdam sent a circular letter on the discovered Isle to his correspondents in Paris and Venice. It is unsafe to conjecture in such matters, for an Amsterdam issue may yet be found which will give, word for word, the French and Italian versions. Our ignorance on the press of the continent of those times, and especially the want of files of "corantos," or news sheets, close a wide field of research to the American inquirer. The catalogue of the British Museum gives 1669 as the probable year of issue. I see no good reason for rejecting 1668 as the more probable year. If the tract could go from London to Cambridge, in New England, in three months, it could pass from Amsterdam to Italy, by land or by sea, in an equal time.

GERMAN EDITIONS

From Holland the relation also penetrated the German states, finding ready welcome and arousing eager curiosity. Hippe regards the tract issued by Wilhelm Serlin, at Frankfort on the Main, as the first of the German publications, and, being translated [17]from the Dutch, he shows that the translator used both the Amsterdam and the Rotterdam publications.{1} The Hamburg version claimed to be derived from the English original, but it followed closely the Serlin translation from the Dutch with modifications which might have been drawn from the London tract. An edition not mentioned by Hippe or identified by any bibliographer is in the John Carter Brown Library, and opens with the statement that it is translated from the English and not from the Dutch. It closely follows the text of the London first part. Very likely it is the edition found at Copenhagen, if the similarity of titles offers an indication of the contents. South Germany obtained its information from France, and while neither of the two issues avowedly translated from the French gives the place of publication, the fact that one is in Munich and the other in Strassburg offers some reason to conjecture that they came from the presses of those cities. The Munich issue is for the most part a summary of what was in the first London issue, and, if translated directly from a French version, must have been from one not now located, for it is different from those in the list in this volume. Of the Strassburg text, Hippe states that it follows the Rotterdam pamphlet Finally, at Breslau is what calls itself a complete publication of the combined parts from a copy obtained from London, but it is more probably based upon the Dutch translations printed in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with additions drawn from the English.{2}

1 Hippe, 11.

2 On these German issues Hippe is full, but I have given only what is needed to identify them.

[18]One of the strangest uses made of the narrative of Pine is to be found in Schoeben's translation into German of Jan Mocquet's "Voyages en Africque," etc., a work of some estimation which had already twice been published in France and once in a Dutch translation before Schoeben printed his edition in 1688. As pages inserted quite arbitrarily in Mocquets compilation, Schoeben gave Pine's story in full, with a paragraph of introduction which not a little abuses the truth while giving an additional color of truth. He asserted that while kept at Lisbon by the Dutch blockade, he was thrown much in the company of an Englishman, one of the Pine family, who were all regarded as notable seamen. From this man, then awaiting an opportunity to sail for the West Indies, our author heard a very strange story of the origin of the Pines, a story then quite notorious at Lisbon. Then follows, with some embroidery, a version of the Neville pamphlet, which is not like any German translation seen by me, but so full as to extend over ten pages of the volume. It ends with a reiteration of the wholly false manner in which this story had been obtained. So bold an appropriation of the narrative, with a provenience entirely new and as fictitious as the story itself, and its bodily inclusion by an editor in a work of recognized merit, where it is between two true recitals, cannot be defended.{1}

1 Mocquet's work originally appeared in Rouen in 1645, and a Dutch translation was published at Dordrecht in 1656. A second French issue, apparently unchanged in text, was put out at Rouen in 1665, and in 1618 Schoeben's edition, printed at Lûneberg by Johann Georg Lippers, preceded by eight years an English translation made by Nathaniel Pullen. The Pine tract appears, of course, only in Schoeben's volume.

The tract passed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, before or early in September, and it would indeed be interesting to know [19]how and through whose hands it passed before reaching Marmaduke Johnson--to his undoing. Hezekiah Usher was the only bookseller in Boston at the time, and possibly his son, John, may have been associated with him. They ordered what they desired from London booksellers and publishers, and may have received voluntary consignments of publications from London. That would be a somewhat precarious venture, for nothing could be more different than the reading markets in Boston and in London, especially in the lighter products of the press. Had it come through the Ushers, the title-page might state that it had been printed "by M. J. for Hezekiah Usher," but in that event Usher would have suffered for not obtaining the needed license. The probability is that Johnson was alone responsible and was tempted by the hope of gain.

These were all contemporary issues, coming from the press within six months of the first appearance of the tract in London. So startling a popularity, so widely shown, was a tribute to the opportunity rather than to the contents of the piece. And the European interest continued for a full century. In Germany it was included in a number of collections of voyages, in Denmark it was printed in 1710 and 1789, and in France Abbé Prévost took it for his compilation of 1767 on discoveries. The English republication of 1778 has peculiar interest, for it was due to no other than Thomas Hollis, the benefactor of the library of Harvard College, who saw more in the tract than can now be recognized, and induced Cadell to reprint it.

[20]

THE S.G. NOT A CAMBRIDGE IMPRINT

In the absence of any positive objection, the conclusion of the auction expert--that the S. G. imprint was one of Samuel Green of Cambridge, Massachusetts--remained unquestioned. But a study of editions and of the chronological sequence of the English issues offers a decided negative to such a conclusion. The first part was licensed June 27, 1668. Van Sloetten dated the second part July 22, 1668, and the issue of the combined parts was licensed five days later, July 27. In the space of just four weeks all three trads were licensed, and the actual publication must have occurred within the same period of time. Such had been the start obtained by the first part that on the continent it was used for reprint and translation, almost to the neglect of the second part, and, as we have seen, most of these translations appeared before the end of 1668. Now the tract was not known in Massachusetts until discovered by the inquest on printers in September, and a S. G. or Samuel Green edition could hardly have come from the press before October, even if not delayed by the proceedings against Johnson. Yet on die title-page of the Dutch translation issued at Rotterdam in 1668, the printer states at length that it is from a copy from London, by S. G. for Allen Banks and Charles Harper, in the Lily near Cripplegate Church, and in his note "To the Reader" he expressly repeats that he obtained a copy of the work from London, in order to correct a faulty issue by another Dutch printer.

If S. G. was Samuel Green, we must suppose that one of his Cambridge issues was shipped to Rotterdam in time to [21]be translated and reprinted before the end of the year. In point of time the thing could be done, but in point of probability it was impossible. Apart from his own statement, there were a thousand to one chances in favor of the Dutch printer obtaining the pamphlet from London; there were ten thousand chances to one against his getting it from Massachusetts. I reject the supposition that this was a Cambridge imprint for that reason alone.

Additional evidence hostile to the claim may be adduced. The copy of the first tract in the British Museum is the S. G. for Banks and Harper.{1}

1 It is erroneously described as "an abridgment."

No other London imprint is to be found there or in the larger libraries of England. Of the three other copies located, that sold at audion (the White Kennett copy) and that in the Massachusetts Historical Society came direct from England, and the actual provenance of the copy in the New York Historical Society is not known. It belonged to Rufus King, long United States minister near the court of St James's, and is bound with other tracts under a general title of "Topographical Collection, Vol. I." The binding, Mr. Kelby tells me, is American. There is no mark to show when or where King obtained the pamphlet, and the Society did not receive it until 1906. That Rufus King belongs as much to Massachusetts as to New York is too slight a foundation on which to erect a claim that this particular tract was of Massachusetts origin.

In no case, therefore, can an American setting to any one of the four known copies of the S. G. "Isle of Pines" be [22]established.{1} The probabilities are all against Samuel Green. The incident is a good example of the danger of giving play to the imagination on an appearance of a combination of fads cemented by interest.

Thus disappears from our memory the certain identification of the S. G. pamphlet as an early issue of the press in Cambridge, and with it goes my identification of the Johnson pamphlet with the S. G. title-page--a veritable pipe dream. It might be urged that as White Kennett was collecting on America, it would be more than probable that he would have had an American issue; but his own catalogue of 1713 describes the nine-page tract, and that is our London edition. I might claim still that my Johnson was a Johnson, with a London title-page; but the typographical adornment on the first page of its text is just the same as the adornment on the first page of the London issue--three rows of fleur-de-lys, thirty-seven in each row, and the same kind of type characters.{2}

1 Lowndes indexes it under George Pine, and describes a nine-page trait--probably the one now in the British Museum. He quotes a sale of a copy in it 60 (Puttkk) for £4.10s. He indexes the combined parts under Sloetten, and notes a copy, with the plate, sold in the White Knights sale for 1s..

2 To attempt to reason from types or rule of thumb measurements, however suggestive, leads to indefinite conclusions. For example, the width of the type page of the S. G. issue of the first part is exactly that of the English issue of the second part, but the former has 33 tines to the page and the latter a a. The width of the page in the variant S. G. issue is narrower and there are 38 and 39 lines to the page. But in the London second part the width of page varies by a quarter of an inch. We have Marmaduke Johnson's issue of Paine's Daily Meditations y issued in 1670 in connection with S. G. The ornamental border of fleur-de-lys is entirely different from those in the S. G. Isle of Pines. A copy of Johnson's issue of Scottow's translation of Bretz on the Anabaptists, printed in 1668, the very year of the Isle of Pines, shows a different foot of italics from that used in the Isle of Pines variant, yet the roman characters in the two pieces seem identical, and the width of page is exactly the same.

So I bid farewell to my theory, [23]and can only congratulate myself on having cleared one point--the London issue--and on having introduced a new confusion by the discovery of a second London issue with an identical title-page, a problem for the future to solve. I much doubt if a true Johnson issue will ever be found, for I believe the action of the authorities prevented its birth.

In the library of Mr. Henry E. Huntington is a London issue of which I do not find another example. It contains sixteen pages, and the title-page gives neither printer's name nor place of publication. It may be the first issue, or it may be a later re-issue of the tract, for the type, especially the italic, is better than that in the S. G. issue. The punctuation also is more carefully looked after, and the whole appearance suggests an eighteenth century print. As the original was duly licensed, there was no reason to suppress the names of printer or booksellers. Nor could the contents of the piece call out controversy or hostility from any political faction or religious following. It was proper for the author to omit his name from the publication, if he desired to remain unknown; but the publisher, having the support of the licenser, had every reason to advertise his connexion with the tract, although he could not have anticipated so ready an acceptance by the public. While I place the Huntington pamphlet first in the bibliography, I am more inclined to regard it as a publication made at a later time.

[24]

THE COMBINED PARTS

The English edition of thirty-one pages in the John Carter Brown Library, with an engraved frontispiece,{1} offers still further proof that the S. G. issue was made in London. In place of being entirely different from the S. G. tract, it is precisely the same so far as text is concerned. For it is nothing more than the two parts combined, but combined in a peculiar manner. The second part was opened at page 6 and the first part inserted, entire and without change of text{2} This insertion runs into page 16, where a sentence is inserted to carry on the relation: "After the reading and delivering unto us a Coppy of this Relation, then proceeded he on in his discourse." The rest of the text of the second part follows, and pages 27-31 of the combined parts seem to be the very type pages of pages 20-24 of the second part{3} In this sandwich form one must read six pages before coming to the text of the first part, and a careless reader, comparing only the respective first pages, would conclude that a pamphlet of thirty-one pages could have no likeness [25]to one of nine.

1 The plate in the copy in the John Carter Brown Library does not belong to that issue, but is inserted in so clumsy a manner as to prevent reproduction. The same plate is found in a copy of the ten-page S.G. issue in the library of Mr. Henry E. Huntington, and to all appearances belongs to that issue.

2 The last sentence on page 6 of the second part read: "Then proceeded he on in his discourse saying," and there are no pages numbered 7 and 8, although there is no break in the text, the catch-word on page 6 being the first word on page 9. In the combined parts, the last words on page 6 constitute a phrase: "which Copy hereafter followeth."

3 The only change made is in the heading of the Post-script, which was wrongly printed in the second part as "Post- script." On page 26 of the combined parts the words "except burning" were inserted, not appearing in the second part.

On typographical evidence it is safe to assume that the three pieces came from the same press, and to assert that the second part and the combined parts certainly did. The initials S. G. are found only on the first part.

THE PUBLISHERS

The imprints of the three parts agree that the booksellers or publishers handling the editions were Allen Banks and Charles Harper. The first part gives their shop as the "Flower-De-luice near Cripplegate Church," the second part as the "Flower-de-luce" as before, and the combined parts as "next door to the three Squerrills in Fleet-street, over against St. Dunstans Church." The church is still there, with more than two centuries of dirt and soot marking its walls since Neville wrote, and Chancery and Fettar Lanes enable one to place quite accurately the location of the booksellers' shop. Only three times do the names of Banks and Harper appear as partners on the Stationers' Registers,{1} and they separated about 1671, Banks going to the "St Peter at the West End of St Pauls." If any judgment may be drawn from their publications after ceasing to be partners, Banks leaned to light literature and may have been responsible for taking up the "Isle of Pines." Yet Harper was Neville's publisher in 1674 and in 1681, a fact which may indicate a personal relation.{2}

1 Eyre and Rivington, ii. 386, 388, and 410.

2 Sec page 34, infra.

[26]

NOT AN AMERICAN ITEM

By some curious chance this little pamphlet has come to be classed as Americana. Bishop Kenneth's Catalogue may have been the source of this error, leading collectors to believe that the item was a true relation of an actual voyage, and possibly touching upon some phase of American history or geography. The rarity of the pamphlet would not permit such a belief to be readily corrected. The existence also of two Isles of Pines in American waters may have aided the belief.

One of these islands is off the southwestern end of Cuba. On his second voyage, Columbus had sailed along the south coast of Cuba, and June 13,1494, reached an island, which he named Evangelista. Here he encountered such difficulties among the shoals that he determined to retrace his course to the eastward. But for that experience, he might have reached the mainland of America on that voyage. The conquest of the island of Cuba by Diego Velasquez in 1511 led to its exploration; but geographers could only slowly appreciate what the islands really meant, for they were as much misled by the reports of navigators as Columbus had been by his prejudice in favor of Cathay.

Toscanelli's map of the Atlantic Ocean (1474) gives many islands between Cape Verde and the "coast of spices," of which "Cippangu" is the largest and most important.{1}

1 This map, as reconstructed from Martin Behaim's globe, is in Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1893.

On Juan de laCosa's sea chart, 1500, Cuba is fairly drawn, with the sea to the south dotted with islands without names. In a few years the mist surrounding [27]the new world had so far been dispelled as to disclose a quite accurate detail of the larger West Indian islands{1} and to offer a continent to the west, one that placed Cipangu still far too much to the east of the coast of Asia.{2} An island of some size off the southwest of Cuba seems to have been intended at first for Jamaica, but certainly as early as 1536 that island had passed to its true position on the maps, and the island to the west is without a name. Nor can it be confused with Yucatan, which for forty years was often drawn as an island. On the so-called Wolfenbuttel-Spanish map of 1525-30 occurs the name "J. de Pinos," probably the first occurrence of the name upon any map in the sixteenth century. Two other maps of that time--Colon's and Ribero's, dated respectively 1527 and 1529--call it "Y de Pinos," and on the globe of Ulpius, to which the year 1542 is assigned, "de Pinos" is clearly marked. Bellero's map, 1550, has an island "de pinolas." Naturally, map-makers were slow to adopt new names, and in the numerous editions of Ptolemy the label St Iago was retained almost to the end of the century.{3} On the Agnese map there are two islands, one named "S. Tiago," the other "pinos," which introduced a new confusion, though he was not followed by most geographers until Wytfliet, 1597, gave both names to the same island--"S. Iago siue Y de Pinas"--in which he is followed by Hondius, 1633.{4} Ortelius, 1579, [28]adopts "I Pinnorum," while Linschoten, 1598, has "Pinas," and Herrera, 1601, "Pinos."

1 The Agnese Atlas of 1529 may be cited as an example.

2 See, for example, the so-called Stobnicza [Joannes, Stobnicensis] map of 151a, and the Ptolemy of 1513 (Strassburg).

3 Muenster, 1540. Cabot, 1544, and Desceller, 1546, give "Y de Pinos."

4 Mr. P. Lee Phillips, to whom I am indebted for references to atlases of the time, also supplies the following: Lafreri, 1575 (?) "S. Tiagoj" Percacchi, 1576, "S. Tiago;" Santa Cruz, 1541, "Ya de Pinosj" and Dudley, 1647, "I de Pinos." Hakloyt (iii. 617) prints a "Ruttier" for the West Indies, without date, but probably of the end of the sixteenth century, which contains the following; "The markes of Isla de Pinos. The Island of Pinos stretcheth it selfe East and West, and is full of homocks, and if you chance to see it at full sea, it will shew like 3 Islands, as though there were divers soundes betweene them, and that in the midst is the greatest; and in rowing with them, it will make all a firme lande: and upon the East side of these three homocks it will shewe all ragged; and on the West side of them will appeare unto you a lowe point even with the sea, and oftentimes you shall see the trees before you shall discerne the point."

When the name given by Columbus was dropped and by whom the island was named "de Pinos" cannot be determined.

Our colleague, Mr. Francis R. Hart, has called my attention to a second Isle of Pines in American waters, being near Golden Island, which was situated in the harbor or bay on which the Scot Darien expedition made its settlement of New Edinburgh. The bay is still known as Caledonia Bay, and the harbor as Porto Escoces, but the Isla de Pinas as well as a river of the same name do not appear on maps of the region. The curious may find references to the island in the printed accounts of the unfortunate Darien colony.

The Isle of Pines could thus be found on the map as an actual island in the West Indies; but the "Isle of Pines" of our tract existed only in the imagination of the writer. The mere fact of its having been printed--but not published--in Cambridge, Massachusetts, does not entitle it to be classed even indirectly as Americana, any more than Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress or [29]Thomas à Kempis could be so marked on the strength of their having a Massachusetts imprint Curiosities of the American press they may be, but they serve only as crude measures of the existing taste for literature since become recognized as classic.

The dignified Calendar of State Papers in the Public Record Office, London, gravely indexes a casual reference to the tract under West Indies, and the impression that the author wrote of the Cuban island probably accounts for the different editions in the John Carter Brown Library, as well as for the price obtained for the White Kennett copy. No possible reason can be found, however, for regarding the "Isle of Pines" in any of its forms as Americana.

THE AUTHOR