Aphra Behn, Miscellany (1685)

By Mary Ann O’Donnell

The identifiable book collection of Katherine Blount is expanding. In March 2020, Sarah Lindenbaum wrote about Blount’s acquisition of Edward Reynolds’s Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man, a gift from Sir Thomas Pope-Blount on July 30, 1696.[1] Then in April 2022, Sophie Floate reported on Blount’s ownership signature in a book she purchased in 1706, a translation of Cyrano de Bergerac’s The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Moon and Sun (1687). And in mid-June of this year, William Poole was able to place another gift in Blount’s library, a 1699 copy of Samuel Garth’s Dispensary with a partial key in what appears to be Blount’s hand at the front of the book. The Dispensary was a gift from Henry Blount, a first cousin of Katherine’s husband, and Katherine Blount dated it May 27, 1699.

Now Blount’s signed collection can be expanded by one more book, a rather surprising addition to her collection, Aphra Behn’s Miscellany. This, too, was a gift from Sir Thomas Pope Blount. What makes this gift even more interesting is that it was received, or at least dated, on the same day that she also received from Sir Thomas, or dated her copy, of Edward Reynold’s Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man—July 30, 1696.

The recipient: Katherine Blount

Katherine Butler Blount was born on April 8, 1676. Her father, James Butler, served in the House of Commons, and in the words of one of his compeers was “pernicious … in his principles, … rebellious in his practices.”[2] Butler died on July 11, 1696, seven months after Katherine’s marriage in late fall 1695 to Sir Thomas Pope Blount, later 2^nd Bt.[3] At the time of his death, James Butler seemed to have been in some financial distress.[4] Katherine’s marriage likely brought her into a more compatible and financially stable family, one with a shared interest in books. Katherine and Sir Thomas had four sons and two daughters, two of whom died as infants.[5] The family resided primarily in Twickenham, but exactly where is not clear. Sir Thomas was related distantly to Alexander Pope, who also resided at Twickenham, and although Van Koughnet states that Katherine corresponded with the poet, there is no evidence of such to date.[6]

As Sarah Lindenbaum has already stressed, Van Koughnet’s description of Katherine Blount was glowing. Although Van Koughnet described Katherine Blount as “imperious,” she also used the terms “much respected,” and “a remarkable character amongst the ladies of this family.” In addition, Katherine was “a brilliant woman, full of cleverness and highly cultivated, fond of poetry, a lover of all that was refined and artistic, interesting herself in the passing world of her day, and gifted with a mind full of energy.”[7]

Katherine was also noted as a collector, but there is no other reference to her books except that she left this collection, among other things, to her son, Sir Harry Pope Blount when she died on March 2, 1753.[8] Sir Harry always seemed to need money,[9] so it is likely that much of his mother’s collection was sold off after her death.

The donor: Sir Thomas Pope Blount

Katherine signed two of her books, Behn’s Miscellany and Reynolds’s Treatise of the Passions as gifts of Sir Thomas Pope Blount. But which Thomas Pope Blount?

The Blount family traces its lineage to two brothers who arrived with William the Conqueror, and the name allegedly suggests that the Blount forefathers were fair-haired.[10] The insertion of the extra surname “Pope” derives from Sir Thomas Pope (c. 1507-1559), a courtier in the time of the Tudors who was especially renowned for his founding of Trinity College, Oxford.[11] The Pope family estate at Tyttenhanger devolved to the Blount family through the third wife of Sir Thomas Pope, and in his honor, the surname Pope was added by several Blounts in each generation, but it would appear especially by those in line for the estate.[12]

Sir Thomas Pope Blount, 1^st Bt., was the elder son of Sir Nicholas Blount.[13] Sir Thomas’s younger brother Charles Blount was perhaps better known than his brother since he was a controversial freethinker with strong Whiggish tendencies,[14] yet the elder Sir Thomas published several studies of poetry. His De Re Poetica provides an extensive review of all forms of poetry from opera to lampoon and farce, followed by brief analyses of over sixty selected poets, ancient and modern, from Aeschylus to Katherine Philips, relying on his wide reading to represent the approaches of prior critics.

As happens in many families, the 1^st Baronet named his first son after himself. This second Thomas Pope Blount, born on April 19, 1670, succeeded his father as the 2^nd Baronet in 1697 although he did not follow his father into the House of Commons. He left little evidence of any activities. As Van Koughnet sums up his life, “there is nothing of his left that points to any talent or taste in particular.”[15] Perhaps one piece of evidence of good taste is his choice of a wife.

Now that the two Sir Thomas Pope-Blounts are examined, the question is which one is the likely donor of the two books with their names attached. The stiffness and formality Katherine used when naming the gift-giver suggests that it might not be her husband. My guess then is that the donor is not Katherine’s husband, but rather her father-in-law, who was heavily involved in literary studies. But this is only a guess.

The date of the gift

Katherine Blount dated the two books she received from Sir Thomas Pope Blount July 30, 1696. Is this any kind of special day? It is not her birthday or wedding anniversary or even name day. It is just over two weeks after her father’s death, so would that indicate some kind of consoling gift? Or is it just a day that Sir Thomas decided to give Katherine two (or more?) books?

The book itself

In addition to Katherine Blount’s signature, the volume carries evidence of later ownership, a bookplate of James Rimington. This is likely the James Rimington (1786-1839) of Yorkshire who received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Trinity College, Cambridge.[16]

Bookplate of James Rimington, inside of front cover

Behn’s Miscellany is indeed a strange choice. Granted, the senior Sir Thomas does not mention Behn at all in his De Re Poetica, even as he talks about Edmund Waller, Abraham Cowley, John Dryden, and Katherine Philips in his survey of the moderns. Yet his attention to contemporary literature might have brought Behn to his attention.

The physical book itself, the artifact that once was in the possession of Katherine Blount, is in exceptionally good condition. It appears to be in its original calf binding, with a small red label on the spine with “Poetical Miscellany” in gold, perhaps added later. It is a standard octavo. There is a light vertical tear on Y8 in the outside margin with no loss to the text of François de la Rochefoucauld’s maxims. Rather than a tear made after the binding, the loss appears to be the result of a damaged sheet of paper, pre-print.

Miscellany is Behn’s second collection of poems. Her first, Poems upon Several Occasions (1684) comprised her own work. In Miscellany, she mixes a dozen of her own poems with sixty-five by others in the first 299 pages, followed by her translations of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld as Seneca Unmasqued, Or, Moral Reflections for the French, filling pages 301-382. Whether the giver intended Katherine to read the collection of poems or the maxims in Behn’s translation—or both— is not certain.

There is one correction by hand, on p. 159 in the poem on the death of Hobbs where the printer’s eye skip repeating the end of a line word “invade” is revised to a more likely reading “persuade.” The ink and the hand are similar to changes made in other volumes of Behn’s works, but the sample is too small to presume that Katherine Blount made the change. The change could have been made in the print shop since we have seen print-shop revisions to errors in several of Behn’s printed works. However, there was another witness of this poem—a broadside published in 1679, An Elegie Upon Mr. Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Lately Deceased with the correct “invade/perswade” reading, and this could have been the source of the change, although it is impossible to know if this broadside was the source and if Katherine made the change.

No one now needs much discussion of the nature of Behn’s poems—pastoral, amorous, libertine, and witty. Behn seemed to be unabashedly of the court party with no Whiggish leanings, yet this is a gift to a newly married twenty-year-old whose new family were decidedly of the Whig party and named members of the Green-Ribbon Club.[17] The other book given on the same day is Reynolds’s philosophical study of human emotions and passions, what today we would term psychology. The two volumes make an interesting pairing as Behn examines aspects of love, hate, desire, and conscience through poetry and Reynolds examines aspects of human psychology, including love, hate, desire, and conscience within a decidedly religious context.

Finally, the inscription, as can be seen, is positioned just above the middle of the free front end-paper. Katherine gives names and dates, following on Natalie Zemon Davis’s observation that books serve as “carriers of relationships.”[18] Georgianna Ziegler reviews the way women collectors locate and annotate their names, add the names of donors, give dates and often other historical information. These women were demonstrating pride of ownership. Katherine Blount was doing exactly that.

Source: Book in private ownership. All photos by M. A. O’Donnell, reproduced with permission.

Works Cited

Aubrey, John. Brief Lives. Edited by Andrew Clark. 2 vols. Clarendon P, 1898. Project Gutenberg. Vol. 1. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47787.

“Blount History, Family Crest & Coat of Arms.” House of Names. houseofnames.com/blount-family-crest.

Blount, Thomas Pope. De Re Poetica. London, 1694. EEBO.

Crook, B. M., and Basil Duke Henning. “Butler, James (c. 1651-96), of Amberley and Patcham, Suss.” The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1660-1690, edited by B. D. Hemming, Boydell and Brewer, 1983. historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/butler-james-1651-96.

Edwards, E. R., and Geoffrey Jaggar. “Blount, Thomas Pope (1649-97) of Tittenhangar, Ridge, Herts.” The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1660-1690, edited by B. D. Hemming. Boydell and Brewer, 1983. historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/blount-thomas-pope-1649-97.

An Elegie Upon Mr. Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Lately Deceased. N.p.,1679. EEBO.

English Short-Title Catalogue. British Library. estc.bl.uk.

Harris. Tim. “Green Ribbon Club.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/92786.

Hopkins, Clare. “Pope, Sir Thomas (c. 1507-1559)) Founder of Trinity College, Oxford.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/ 22533.

Pearson, David. Book Owners Online. bookowners.online.

Pearson, David. Book Ownership in Stuart England. The Lyell Lectures, 2018. Oxford UP, 2021.

The Peerage. Edited by Darryl Lundy, 2019. thepeerage.com/index.htm.

Pfanner, Dario. “Charles Blount (1654-1693), freethinker and author. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/2684.

Pope, Alexander. The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, edited by George Sherburn. 5 vols. Oxford UP, 1956. Oxford Scholarly Editions Online, 2017. DOI:10.1093/actrade/ 9780198783626.

Pritchard, Jonathan. “Blount, Sir Thomas Pope, first baronet (1649–1697), Politician and Writer.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org /10.1093/ref:odnb/2698.

Reynoldes, Edward. Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man. London, 1640, 1647, 1650, 1651, 1656, 1658.

“Rimington, James.” ACAD: A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?sur=rimington&suro=w&fir=James&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50.

Van Koughnet, Jane. A History of Tyttenhanger. Marcus Ward, [1895]. https://archive.org/details/historyoftyttenh00vank.

Ziegler, Georgianna. “Patterns in Women’s Book Ownership, 1500-1799.” Women’s Labour and the History of the Book in Early Modern England. Edited by Valerie Wayne. The Arden Shakespeare, 2020. Pp. 208-223.

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[1] Reynolds’s book appears to have been quite popular. The ESTC lists eight issues between 1640 and 1668.

[2] Crook and Henning.

[3] The Peerage, using The Complete Baronetage as source, gives the date as December 8, 1695; Van Koughnet gives the date as November 8, 1695 (65).

[4] Crook and Henning.

[5] Van Koughnet, p. 75.

[6] Van Koughnet, p. 65. See Pope, Correspondence.

[7] Van Koughnet, p. 65.

[8] Van Koughnet, p. 91.

[9] Many of the letters reprinted by Van Koughnet show Sir Harry looking for loans.

[10] “Blount History.”

[11] Hopkins.

[12] See Van Koughnet for a thorough history of Tyttenhanger and its transfer to the Blounts

[13] See especially Pritchard’s ODNB article.

[14] Pfanner.

[15] Van Koughnet, p. 65.

[16] “Rimington.”

[17] See Harris. “Green Ribbon Club.”

[18] Qtd. in Ziegler (217).