[In the following essay, Hammond reconstructs the process by which Dryden and Tonson's Miscellany Poems and Sylvae reached their final form.]

The first two in the series of verse miscellanies published by Tonson with some editorial supervision by Dryden are important volumes in the publishing and cultural history of the Restoration. Miscellany Poems (1684) and Sylvae (1685)¹ were particularly influential in fostering a taste for verse translation from the classics. But a bibliographical examination of these two volumes suggests that the scope of the miscellanies was not determined until a surprisingly late stage in their compilation. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the process by which these two miscellanies reached their final form.

Miscellany Poems is an octavo, collating as [A]⁴ B-X⁸ Y⁴ A-C⁸ D⁸ (D4 + ‘D5’ + 2) E⁸ F⁴ χi. The contents page draws the reader's attention to several distinct groups of poems. It begins with Dryden's three satires, Mac Flecknoe, Absalom and Achitophel, and The Medall (though he is not named as their author); then come translations from the three books of Ovid's Elegies; next, a group of translations from Horace's Odes; a collection of prologues and epilogues by Dryden; and a section of Virgil's Eclogues. But this apparent clarity of organisation is to some extent illusory, and several anomalies betray the uncertainties which attended the assembling of this collection. The pages which include the three satires by Dryden have regular pagination and signatures (pp. 1-104, fols. B^r-H4^v); their running titles are the titles for each poem; the catchword ‘ABSA-’ on page 11 at the end of Mac Flecknoe indicates that the sequence of the three pieces had been planned; and the allocation of separate title-pages to Absalom and Achitophel and The Medall (both dated 1683) shows that these were intended as authorised reprints of what were by now famous poems (they are described as “The Sixth Edition” and “The Second Edition” respectively). The fact that Mac Flecknoe has no such title-page may indicate a delicate reticence on the part of both Dryden and Tonson in publishing the poem officially for the first time (it had previously been circulating in manuscript until its pirated publication by D. Green in 1682). These three poems form a coherent sequence, both from the literary and the bibliographical point of view, but the fact that there is no catchword at the end of The Medall on H4^v suggests that Tonson was not quite sure what was coming next.

What did come next, on H5^r to M4^v (pp. 105-68), is the section of “Ovid's Elegies.” These are printed in the order of the originals, except that the translations of Elegies II.i and II.xv by Mr. Adams are printed together at the end of the sequence, and assigned to their correct position on the contents page. Evidently Adams delivered his copy too late in the printing of that part of the book. There is a similar anomaly in the grouping of the Horatian translations, for while most of them appear together on pages 197-214, a group of laggards is printed on pages 314-26, and again associated with the others on the contents page. Evidently Tonson wished to offer his purchasers a substantial body of Ovidian and Horatian translations, no doubt following up the success of his Ovid's Epistles (1680), but it seems that his planning was not tight enough to result in a coherently printed collection.

Another anomaly in the volume is the position of the “Epilogue for Calisto, when acted at Court.” This appears right at the end of the main sequence of Miscellany Poems, on fol. Y4 (pp. 327-28), but on the title-page it is listed at the end of the substantial batch of prologues and epilogues by Dryden. This not only suggests that it, too, was a late entrant, but also indicates that Tonson intended that it should be understood by readers to be one of Dryden's contributions. In view of the doubts which have been expressed as to the authorship of this epilogue,² this evidence provides an important confirmation of its authenticity as part of the Dryden canon.

After Y4 comes a new gathering, the beginning of Virgil's Eclogues. This is given a separate title page (dated 1684), separate pagination (pp. 1-92), and occupies a new set of signatures from A to F. Evidently this component of the volume had an independent origin, although in its present form it could not have been intended to be published separately, since the title page has no printer's or bookseller's name. Several features suggest that Tonson was uncertain as to exactly how Virgil's Eclogues should appear, and exactly what form Miscellany Poems should take. Unlike the Ovidian and Horatian translations in Miscellany Poems, the translations presented in Virgil's Eclogues form a complete set (indeed, the collection provides more than one version of some poems). This would seem, then, to have been commissioned more systematically than either the Ovidian or Horatian translations. But the fact that its signatures run from A to F, rather than Z to Ee, or even Aa to Ff, shows that it was not originally planned to be part of Miscellany Poems. It has no running titles, as if Tonson were keeping his options open while he waited to see how much material would come in, and how far he could offer his readers a coherent anthology of translations. Curiously, Miscellany Poems has no running titles either (after the three Dryden satires), as if Tonson were uncertain what to call the volume: eventually he settled on the most anodyne title available. Both Virgil's Eclogues and Miscellany Poems (after the Dryden satires) have the page numbers centred at the top of the page inside brackets, and this common style suggests that Tonson was aiming for the maximum consistency with maximum flexibility.

It is likely that Virgil's Eclogues and the main part of Miscellany Poems were being composed and printed at approximately the same time but that Tonson did not determine the final disposition of his available material until the last minute. The tardy Mr. Adams whose Ovidian translations arrived late also supplied a Virgilian translation at the last minute: his version of Eclogue vii arrived too late to be included in its proper place in sig. D, and was printed as part of sig. F, which was later cut up and inserted into the middle of D.³ It is quite possible that all Adams' contributions arrived at the same moment, in which case the composition of M in Miscellany Poems was roughly contemporaneous with the composition of F in Virgil's Eclogues. This is supported by the date 1684 on the title-page of Virgil's Eclogues, compared with 1683 on the title-pages of Absalom and Achitophel and The Medall. It would seem that work began with the setting up of the three Dryden satires, and if this took place in (say) the summer of 1683, publication could reasonably have been expected before the end of the year. Perhaps at that stage Tonson was thinking of an octavo collection of Dryden's satires, and only determined to include them instead in a miscellany by various hands after they had been set up in type. In any case, by the time the rest of the volume was ready, it was clear that publication would have to be deferred to 1684: the book was advertised in The Observator on 2 February 1684 and entered in the Stationers' Register two days later. The decision to join Miscellany Poems to Virgil's Eclogues was only taken after the last gathering of the former had begun to go through the press: while most copies have the catchword “Virgils” on Y4^v, an earlier state has “FINIS” instead.⁴ Indeed, Virgil's Eclogues is sometimes found inserted before the rest of Miscellany Poems.⁵

Dryden and Tonson must have found the reception accorded to Miscellany Poems encouraging, for by August 1684 they were discussing its sequel,⁶ and Dryden had already composed some of the translations which were to feature in it. Sylvae: or, the Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies appeared almost exactly a year after its predecessor, being advertised on 1 January 1685, and entered in the Stationers' Register on 10 January. Like its predecessor, it has bibliographical oddities which demand explanation, and cast some light on the process by which it came into being.

Sylvae is an octavo, collating as A⁸ a⁸ b⁴ B-L⁸ M⁴ Aa-Ii⁸ χ1. The title-page. Dryden's preface, and the contents page occupy signatures A, a, and b, and the main text begins with signature B. The pagination is eccentric. After a normal run from pages 1 to 128 in gatherings B to I, the pagination of gathering K (which should be 129-44) is as follows: 141-126-127-144-145-130-131-148-149-134-135-152-155-138-139-159. This looks bizarre, but it can readily be explained by considering the sequence in which the pages would have been set up. An octavo set up in two formes would be organised thus (brackets indicate inverted pages):

It is evident that the compositors of the two formes proceeded quite normally but were acting on incorrect and contradictory assumptions about where the pagination started. The compositor of X assumed that the gathering would run from pp. 141 to 156, while the compositor of Y thought that it ran from 125 to 140. The reason for this error is not clear. In addition, the compositor of X created further confusion by actually setting “155” instead of “153,” and “159” instead of “156.”

Thereafter the pagination is correct and regular from L to M4 (pp. 145-68), but Aa begins at page 353. Why did Tonson's printers start a new sequence of signatures, and a new sequence of pagination from 353? This section begins with a group of translations from Theocritus, evidently a coherent body of material, and probably a collection which Tonson or Dryden had solicited. Was it left over from Miscellany Poems, which had included one translation from Theocritus by Dryden?⁷ The evidence of the pagination and signatures suggests that this may actually have been the point at which work on the successor to Miscellany Poems began. That volume had ended at Y4^v on page 327. If gathering Y had been completed, and a gathering Z added, that would have brought the volume to page 352: the next gathering would have to be Aa, beginning on page 353. The running titles support this theory. Throughout Sylvae the running titles are “The SECOND PART of MISCELLANY POEMS,” not “Sylvae.” Perhaps that part of the title was a last-minute inspiration, and the working title for the volume was simply “The Second Part of Miscellany Poems.” In that case, if the book was envisaged as a second part rather than a completely distinct work, continuous pagination would be an advantage.⁸ This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that page 353 has no running title; page 168 (M4^v), which precedes it, and is on the left-hand side of the opening, has “The SECOND PART,” the compositor of page 168 evidently expecting that the first page of the next gathering would complete the running title with “of MISCELLANY POEMS.” If the compositor of the new gathering Aa was starting work on a completely new book, however, he would naturally leave the first page without a running title. Moreover, since page 168 lacks a catchword, its compositor evidently did not know what was coming next. As it happened, nothing came next: gathering M was not completed, and the setting of Sylvae stopped at that point. In short, the evidence suggests that work on Sylvae started not with gathering B, as one might expect, but with Aa. It is not clear how far work on the section Aa to Ii had proceeded before work started on A to M. There is an incorrect catchword on Hh5^v, “Aeneas” instead of “On”;⁹ on Hh8^v there is no catchword, and the page ends with “FINIS.” This points to Hh having been printed at a fairly late stage, when there was no time for correction, and to Ii being an even later afterthought (it contains just one poem, “The Episode of the Death of Camilla,” translated by Mr. Stafford from Aeneid xi).

The translations contributed by Dryden all occupy gatherings B to K. Since the erroneous pagination of K was not corrected, and there is no catchword on K8^v, this part of the book was evidently set separately and printed late. If Tonson knew how much material to expect from Dryden, he could estimate the point at which the contributions from other hands would begin, once he had decided to open the miscellany with the prestigious translations by Dryden. Dryden's Preface seems to have been written in some haste at a late stage in the production of Sylvae. He admits that “I have written this too hastily and too loosly,” and says that he has not seen all the contributions to the volume (fol. a8^v). All this suggests that the setting of Sylvae was done in several sections: first, Aa to Hh, beginning with material collected for Miscellany Poems; L to M, using newly acquired material from writers other than Dryden; B to K, Dryden's translations; Ii, the late submission by Stafford; and finally the title-page and Dryden's Preface (A1-A8, a1-a8), and the contents page (b1-b4).

There are some typographical inconsistencies in Sylvae which support the thesis that it was set as several distinct jobs. In the section Aa-Hh the titles of poems are generally preceded by a double rule, and when the title occurs at the top of a page the running title is omitted. This compositorial style does not occur in the section B to M4, or in Ii.¹⁰ Moreover, the braces used to mark triplets, though they vary in design, include a distinctive ornamented bracket (e.g. on p. 13) which is found only in the section B to M4 and in Ii, and not in Aa to Hh. It is not used in Miscellany Poems.

The errata also confirm the outlines of this reconstruction. Dryden's Preface asks the reader to make corrections which it was evidently too late to make in the printed sheets: the corrections apply to D7^v and G1^r.¹¹ The errata added at the end of the book relate chiefly to the contents page, the Preface, and the pages up to 150; after that point there are errata only on pages 408 and 460. It would seem that there had been sufficient time to correct mistakes in the portions printed earlier.

There is one other possible element in Tonson's indecision over Sylvae. The Oxford scholar Thomas Creech had made a name for himself in 1682 with his complete translation of Lucretius, which was published in Oxford by Anthony Stephens, and reprinted three times in 1683. Tonson, with his eye for good translators, took an interest in Creech and enlisted him as a contributor to the sections of Ovid's Elegies and Virgil's Eclogues in Miscellany Poems. A friendly relationship developed between Creech and Dryden.¹² But the publication of Creech's complete Theocritus by Anthony Stephens in the summer of 1684 (the dedication is dated 12 July) may have thwarted any plans which Tonson had for making a collected Theocritus out of the translations which he had already assembled. Tonson would presumably have learned of Creech's intentions late in 1683 or early in 1684, after Dryden had already tried his hand at Theocritus, and after contributions had been sought from other writers. This probably accounts for the decision to begin work on Sylvae with what looks like the remains of an abandoned project for a collected Theocritus.

However, having missed out on Creech's Lucretius and Theocritus, Tonson made sure of a stake in Creech's complete translation of Horace, which was published in the early summer of 1684 (the dedication to Dryden is dated 25 May). This book has two title-pages, one saying “Printed for Jacob Tonson at the Judges Head in Chancery-Lane near Fleetstreet, and Anthony Stephens Bookseller near the Theatre in Oxford 1684,” and the other “Printed for Jacob Tonson, and Sold by Tim. Goodwin at the Maiden-head against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet, 1684.” This was primarily Tonson's project rather than Stephens'; typographically the book belongs with Miscellany Poems rather than Creech's Theocritus, and it is printed on the same paper used for Miscellany Poems and Sylvae. But the way the book is made up is peculiar. The collation is A-M⁸, N⁴ (pp. 1-184); Aa-Nn⁸ (pp. 369-570 plus a catalogue of books printed for Tonson in 1684). The second run of signatures covers the Satires and Epistles of Horace. The only reason why these should occupy a distinct set of signatures is if they were designed to stand apart from the odes. But why begin the pagination of this section with page 369? The parallel with the pagination of Sylvae is striking. Miscellany Poems had ended on Y4^r at page 328; if Y had been completed and Z added, the pagination would reach page 352; Sylvae began with page 353. But if one more gathering were added after Z, the pagination would reach page 368, and the next gathering would start at page 369, which is where Creech's Satires of Horace begin. This is unlikely to be a coincidence. Was Tonson thinking of adding a section of Horace's Satires and Epistles translated by Creech to Miscellany Poems?

Some of the suggestions put forward here will have to remain speculations, but it is at least clear that in fostering the new vogue for classical translation in 1683-85, Tonson was having to rethink his plans several times. Miscellany Poems and Sylvae are the result of a combination of careful planning and improvisation.

Notes

1. For bibliographical details of these volumes, see Hugh Macdonald, John Dryden: A Bibliography of Early Editions and of Drydeniana (Oxford, 1939), pp. 68-72.

2. See The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1958), pp. 1952-53.

3. This is noted by Macdonald, p. 68.

4. For example, the British Library copy 1299. eee. 21 has “FINIS”; British Library copies 995. b. 23 and Ashley 3167 have “Virgils.”

5. For example, in one of the copies in the Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds.

6. The Letters of John Dryden, ed. Charles E. Ward (Durham, N.C., 1942), p. 23.

7. See Stuart Gillespie, “The Early Years of the Dryden-Tonson Partnership: The Background to their Composite Translations and Miscellanies of the 1680s,” Restoration, 12 (1988), 15.

8. Tonson printed a title-page for the two volumes together as Miscellany Poems, In Two Parts, and in this form the collection was advertised on 16 May 1685 (Macdonald, pp. 71-72).

9. “AEneas” is the correct catchword on D^r, but it is not clear whether this is relevant: it might suggest that these two gatherings were being composed simultaneously, and that the compositors responsible for them misunderstood instructions.

10. The double rule is also used before the title of many of the Ovidian elegies in Miscellany Poems, but not elsewhere in that volume.

11. Sig. G is a cancel in all the copies of Sylvae which I have seen (with the possible exception of British Library Ashley 3168, though the leaf seems to be in an identical setting to that leaf in other copies). In the copy in the Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds, the entire gathering G is a cancel, as is sig. H; after H8 there are six stubs, the last of which carries fragments of print which show that it was I6. I have been unable to establish the reason for these anomalies.

12. Creech dedicated one of his translations from Theocritus “To his very good Friend John Dryden Esquire,” and prefaced his collection of translations from Horace with a respectful dedication to Dryden; Dryden wrote admiringly of Creech's Lucretius in the Preface to Sylvae.