Cotsen Children’s Library

This year Cotsen acquired three manuscript turn-ups of “The Beginning, Progress, and End of Man,” a rhymed bit of religious doggerel with metamorphic pictures which was virtually unknown until the research of Penn State Professor Jacqueline Reid-Walsh established that it was in circulation from the end of the English Civil War until late in the nineteenth century. It survives mostly in versions made by American, English, and Scottish children with their engaging illustrations, a subject of a previous post.This category of manuscripts is usually considered a kind of outside art by children, but this new group of related ones, prove that some were made by professional artists. Two of the three are signed and priced by Salathiel Court, a writing master.

Court signature in the Fisher manuscript turn up.

Signature of Salathiel Court on the Dixon family copy of a manuscript turn up.

Court’s signature with the price of 2 shillings.

The vertical format of his turn ups is somewhat unusual. The more usual horizontal orientation allows for folding the sheet into panels with flaps and opening one at a time until the entire sequence is revealed. All three of these new acquisitions are stitched into in stiff drab paper wrappers with leather backstrips; two have flaps with “buttonholes” for the fasteners opposite. They are similar enough to suggest that Court may have sold his handiwork bound.One was produced before 1753, when a William Fisher wrote his name in it.

Fisher’s dated signature

The brightly colored illustrations are spirited, the lion and eagle being two of the best.

The lion in the Fisher manuscript turn up

The eagle and baby in the Fisher manuscript turn up

The eagle and the baby in the Fisher manuscript turn up

The rich man in the Fisher manuscript turn up.

It is an understatement to say that second of the Court turn ups was almost loved to death. Most of the folds are over stitched to keep them from falling apart. Although not quite as detailed or vigorous as the figures in the William Fisher turn up, they are clearly by the same hand.

The lion in the Dixon manuscript turn up

The eagle and baby in the Dixon manuscript turn up

The rich man in the Dixon family manuscript turn up

The flap illustrated with the mermaid’s tail has the signatures of the children John and Hannah Dixon, probably members of a well-known Hexhamshire, Northumberland family. Signatures of an Edward and Robert Dixon are written elsewhere. The third example was made by Martin Bell in 1836; it was sold with the Dixon one. It rather looks as if Martin copied the Dixon family copy, but added his own touches.

The signature sheet of the Martin Bell manuscript turn up of The Beginning Progress and Eng of Man

Martin Bell’s signature sheet

Martin Bell’s drawing of the skeleton

The skeleton in the Dixon manuscript turn up.

Who was their creator, Salathiel Court? More than a little something is known about him because he was a “very singular and eccentric character” who rated a section in Bulmer’s History & Directory of Cumberland (1801). Perhaps if he had not had an extraordinary turn for wit and humour,” he would not have tumbled precipitously into vagabondry, running up debts and associating with “low company.” Being a thirsty man, he was “a living sign of dissipation,” sometimes creating signboards for inns and pubs—whether to pay outstanding bills or to get drinking money is unknown. A story about a job painting a lion signboard survives:

He requested to be allowed to represent it chained, but the man would not go to the expense of such a security. Salathiel, to punish the parsimony of the host, painted the sign in water colours, so that on the first shower of rain…the lion vanished. Being accused of unfair dealing, he replied that “the lion had indeed run away, but it was what might be expected in a wild beast – without a chain.”

During a stint as the town crier, he attracted crowds with this public announcement about a lost wallet:

A big, fat Frenchman lost his purse,
And he can’t find it, which is worse;

He that lost it, let him seek it,
He that found it, let him keep it.”

The Frenchman’s English wasn’t good enough to understand the joke and kept whispering to Court “Ce bien, dat well.” The man recovered his purse in spite of Court’s waggery. One wonders how long he kept that job.

What brought Court down was the performance of illegal marriages, such as unions between people related by marriage. One such couple came before the magistrate, who demanded a copy of the missing marriage certificate. When the husband asked Court for another one, he quoted a quip by Jonathan Swift about a clandestine marriage he performed:

Behind this hedge in stormy weather,
I joined this —– and rogue together,
Let none but He that rules the thunder,
Part this —– and rogue asunder.

Eventually the officials caught up with Court and in the summer of 1760 he was sentenced to be deported to America for fourteen years. After that Court’s trail in Ancestry Library goes cold.

Portrait of Charles Lamb 1798 by Robert Hancock

Charles Lamb in 1798. Portrait in chalk and ink by Robert Hancock. National Portrait Gallery, 449.

The history of Joseph from the Old Testament has often been retold for children, while the tragic story of Saul, the first king of Israel, and David seems to have been avoided. The tragic chronicle has everything—war, sex, violence, betrayal, and black magic. In the story’s most terrifying episode, Saul panics when his prayers go unanswered about the outcome of the looming battle with the Philistines. In contravention of his own law against consultations with practitioners of the dark arts, Saul goes in disguise to the woman of Endor and demands that she raise the prophet Samuel from the dead. She does his bidding and the angry specter’s prediction that Saul will lose the battle and his life the next day comes to pass.

Between the ages of four and eight, the young Charles Lamb became “extremely inquisitive about witches and witch-stories” after he went into his father’s “book-closet” and wrestled the two folio volumes of Thomas Stackhouse’s New History of the Bible down from the upper shelf. The physical exertion was repaid by the pleasure of studying the splendid engravings, except for the one which provided the container of his night terrors, which he regretted having ever seen. The plate of the witch of Endor was a trigger: the actual source of the terrors were “archetypes” deep within the mind which “afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadow-land of pre-existence.” Samuel was depicted in Stackhouse as a terrible old man wrapped in a mantle, and every night this spectre sent a hag that perched on Charles’ pillow. He was so frightened that he avoided going into his room even in broad daylight.

Lamb’s memories offer evidence that children did indeed examine large books like Stackhouse which were not specifically intended for children, but neither excluded them because of the wealth of illustrations on subjects they would have learned about elsewhere. But they are also the earliest of which I am aware which describe accurately and vividly a book illustration that made an indelible impression on a child reader accompanied by a penetrating analysis of its meaning. Lamb mentions other pictures remembered from childhood in the Elia essays and those references could be pulled together in the study of the evolving consciousness of book illustrations in autobiographical writings.

Saul and the Witch of Endor engraved by J. Mynde for Thomas Stackhouse, New History of the Bible

Plate of the Witch of Endor raising the prophet Samuel from Thomas Stackhouse’s New History of the Bible (1733)

It occurred to me that it was possible that Charles might have looked at a copy of Stackhouse in the extensive library of his father’s employer Samuel Salt. The Lamb family lived one floor below Salt in the Inner Temple for some years and both Mary and Charles were given permission to read books there. Could Elia have refashioned Charles’ memories for some purpose? He did caution his readers at the end of “The Old Benchers:” ”Let no one receive the narratives of Elia for true records! They are, in truth, but shadows of facts—verisimilitudes, not verities.” Salt did own a set of the two huge tomes: a copy of the 1755 edition was sold at the 1793 Leigh & Sotheby sale of his library.

This edition, the last issued during Stackhouse’s lifetime, had 104 plates, significantly more than the first two editions. However, Charles could only have looked at a copy of the original edition of 1733 or the second of 1742-44: the 1755 edition replaced the plate of the Witch of Endor with another of Saul falling on his sword after his defeat on the fild of battle. I can think of all kinds of fanciful solutions to this little mystery…. Salt had owned a copy of the 1733 edition, which he loaned to Lamb. When Charles poked his fingers through the plate of Noah’s ark, he was forbidden to look at the book he had spoiled. Eventually Salt replaced it with the 1755 edition. Or the auctioneers miscataloged Salt’s copy. That does nothing to address the very interesting question, could Charles’ father John found the 3 guineas to purchase the large and expensive book Had he been a subscriber and paid over time six pence per number? For now, Charles’ assertion that he had access to his father’s copy must stand. Stranger things have happened than the miraculous discovery of the John Lamb Stackhouse in some private or institutional collection.

2 volumes of Stackhouse New History of the Bible

Stackhouse’s New History in two folio volumes.

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Made by a Rascally Writing Master: Manuscripts of “The Beginning, Progress, and End of Man”

Charles Lamb and the “Detestable Picture” of the Witch of Endor: Strange Dreams Are Made of This