'Such a general itching after book-learning': Popular Readers of 'the most eminent Wits'

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers a paradox that lies at the heart of mid-seventeenth-century printed miscellanies: that these very popular, cheap printed collections offered points of conduct advice for elite social contexts; that books like The Academy of Complements (1640) and Wits Interpreter (1655) purported to present social etiquettes and words of eloquence fit for application in the rarefied environment of court, but were directed to, and read by, a popular, decidedly non-elite audience. This article considers how we might make sense of this consumption of notionally elite texts by popular readers. Learning is a thing that hath been much cried up and coveted in all ages, especially in this last century of years, by people of all sorts though never so mean and mechanical. [...] The extravagant humour of our country is not to be altogether commended, that all men should aspire to book-learning. There is not a simpler animal and a more superfluous member of state than a mere scholar. (James Howell to Edward Sackville, Earl of Dorset, c. 1651) (1) So plain and easie [...] that the meanest capacity may in a short time attain to a perfection. (The Mysteries of Love E 'If you write in forme of a petition to the King', the prose must begin 'May it please your Majesty to understand, or to grant ...' (pp. 245-46). In later editions of this same book the theme is explored further, as the reader is initiated into the intricacies of offering 'A tender of service to ones Soveraigne', or 'An humble addresse to a great Lord', where the reader is encouraged to employ epistolary prose such as: 'I must entreate you to pardon my boldnesse, in that I, who am a stranger, have presumed to come to visit you, being invited thereunto by the fame and report of your noble vertues.' (3) The Academy of Complements is perhaps the best-known example of the mid-seventeenth-century printed miscellany. Printed miscellanies were small, octavo or duodecimo publications, the products of a bundling together of writing from diverse sources--manuscript commonplace books, plays, song books, other printed miscellanies. These texts are bursting with material: most commonly short poetry from numerous unascribed authors, but often also potted histories, court dialogues, model letters, notes of mythology, riddles and jokes. These books are verse miscellanies; models for etiquette; prompt-books for wits; exemplars of elite life. The most common subject for discussion is love, particularly the torturous sufferings of the snubbed male wooer, but poems praising or criticizing women, lauding Royalism, friendship, and drink, are also common. If these books could be said to have any unified voice, that voice must be pitched somewhere among the bawdy, the misogynous, the Royalist, the voyeuristic, and the educative. (4) The Academy of Complements was a hugely popular text, running through at least twelve editions between 1640 and 1685, each new edition larger than the last. Frequent references in contemporary plays suggest this collection's title was well established and resonant with connotations. (5) This very popularity presents us with the paradox I would like to consider in this article. …