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The Manuscript Versions of Harrington's Oceana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Andrew Sharp
Andrew Sharp
Affiliation:
University of Auckland.
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Extract

In 1964, Mr Peter Laslett drew attention to a discovery of some importance to Harrington scholars. Professor Gilbert Gilchrist, according to Laslett's report, had found ‘a manuscript version of an early part of Oceana… which may have been written well before the book appeared in 1656; indeed before the Commonwealth began’. The manuscript lay in the British Museum. Since Gilchrist's original discovery – really rediscovery, for the staff of the museum had indexed the manuscript under ‘Harrington’ – two more manuscript versions of Oceana have been unearthed, one of them in the British Museum, the other in the Bodleian. All three manuscripts are very much the same, and all seem candidates for Laslett's description as manuscript versions of Oceana written well before the publication of Harrington's printed book in 1656. Unfortunately Mr Laslett's understandable optimism is almost certainly misplaced, for the manuscripts seem much more likely to have been subsequent extracts from Oceana, taken probably in the 1690s. So much for our hopes of observing Harrington's mind working at early drafts of Oceana. But something, too, is gained. The striking differences which gave Laslett his grounds for thinking Gilchrist's manuscript to be an early version of Oceana turn out, in fact, to represent a fascinating exercise in late seventeenth-century domestication of Harrington by his interpreters. The manuscripts show how Harrington, a supporter of revolution, was made a conservative.

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The Historical Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1973, pp. 227 - 239
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 HJ, VII, 1 (1964), 152, n. 2.Google Scholar

2 Mr Patrick Kelly of Cambridge University and Professor J. G. A. Pocock of Washington University have been prominent in the discoveries. The versions are: (1) Bodleian MS, Eng.Misc., c. 144, fos. 110–23; (2) B.M., Sloane MS 3828, fos. 75–806; (3) Harleian MS 5036, fos. I7b-10b [sic].

3 Since his revision of our ideas of the provenance of Locke's Two Treatises oj Government, in his recent editions of the work (Cambridge, i960, 1964 and 1967).

4 See ed. Liljegren, S. B., James Harrington's Oceana (Heidelberg, 1924).Google Scholar

(1) p. 14, 1. 40, from ‘Empire is founded’, to p. 16, 1. 18, ‘… in the cases mentioned’.

(2) From p. 42, 1. 27 to p. 43, I. 2. The manuscripts begin ‘But further’, and then go on, with Oceana, ‘to open the groundwork’. The piece ends at ‘first erected’.

(3) A section derived from p. 43, 1. 11 to p. 43, 1. 13. It reads: ‘The Constitution of this Monarchy is to be considered in Relation to the Severall Nations that have conquerd itt’.

(4) A section derived from p. 43, 1. 45 to p. 45, 1. 6. It follows (3) above directly, thus: ‘but cheifly to the Saxons, who going to work upon ‘, and ends at’ … a more publick juris-diction’.

(5) The longest extract, running from p. 45, 1. 51 to p. 49, 1. 38. ‘The Monarchy of the Saxons [sic in MSS] had stood in this posture’, to ‘… since hath been soe high’.

5 See p. 235 below for the last 107 words, from ‘final peroration’.

6 Cf. Oceana, pp. 43, 48, and Eng.Misc., c. 144, fos. 113, 120.

7 My italics.

8 Toland, John, The Oceana and Other Worlds of James Harrington (London, 1747), p. xxxiv.Google Scholar

9 Liljegren, p. XI.

10 Ibid. p. 12.

11 Ibid. p. 5.

12 Dick, O. L., Aubrey's Brief Lives (1962), p. 208.Google Scholar

13 Herbert, Thomas, Memoirs of the Last Two Years of the Reign of King Charles I (1813), pp. 128–30.Google Scholar

14 Liljegren, , pp. 17, 18.Google Scholar

15 Stubbe, Henry, The Commonwealth of Oceana Put in the Ballance (1660),Google Scholar ‘To tine Reader', and p. 3; Wren, Matthew, Monarchy Asserted (1660), p. 18.Google Scholar

16 Thomason's copy, E881(3), was received on 6 June 1656, and alongside the signature of the Letter, p. 21, Thomason wrote, ‘a feigned date’. The Letter makes a further claim, pp. 21–3, that the author had written the Letter long before the claimed date of writing.

17 The best full attempt to describe the provenance of Oceana is in Pocock, ‘James Harrington and the Good Old Cause: a Study of the Ideological Context of His Writings’, Journal of British Studies, x, 1 (11 1970), 30–48.Google Scholar

18 On Southwell, see DNB.

19 Fos. 1–107.

20 Fo. 337.

21 See DNB.

22 Mr D. G. Bates of Johns Hopkins University noted the similarity between the volumes when he was working on Sydenham's Theologia Rationalis. The contents of Sloane's volume are listed in Catalogue of the Sloane, Birch, and Additional Manuscripts in the British Museum (1782), pt. II, p. 194. Eng.Misc., c. 144 is the same, with the following differences:Google Scholar

(a) Included in Sloane but not Eng.Misc.

1. ‘Several Speeches made at Council Board’ (1599), fos. 47–64.

2. ‘Trial of Lord Maguire for Treason’ (1642), fos. 64–74.

3. ‘Discourse on the First Four Chapters of the Digest… Civil Law’, by Sir George Mackenzie.

(b) Included in Eng.Misc., but not Sloane:

1. English translations of two letters complaining about Sir William Molesworth's State of Denmark, from the Danish Ambassador, Scheel, to the king, fos. 320–5.

2. ‘Lettre ecrite d'Answer par M. P[etty] … a Mr I … en Hollands ‘, fos. 358–69.

3. ‘A Declaration of James Duke of Monmouth [v] Duke of York’, fos. 372–83.

4. ‘An essay on Publick Virtue’ by Charles Davenant.

(c) There are 20 similar items.

23 Southwell to Sloane, 21 Dec. 1694. B.M., Sloane MS 4036, fo. 199.

24 Southwell to Sloane, 27 Sept. 1697; Same to Same, 20 Nov. 1697; Same to Same, 29 Nov. 1698; Same to Same, 2 Dec. 1698; Same to Same, 9 Mar. 1698–9; Same to Same, 20 July 1699. See Sloane MS 4036, fos. 354, 373; Sloane MS 4037, fos. 158, 160, 226, 304, 339.

25 Weld, C. R., A History of the Royal Society (2 vols., 1848), 1, 323. Cf. Southwell to Sloane, 21 Dec. 1694, Sloane MS 4036, fo. 199.Google Scholar

26 Cf. Eng.Misc., c. 144. At fo. 110, 1. 6, ‘and’ is rendered ‘or’ by the Sloane copyist. At fo. 112, 1. 6, ‘lands’ is put as ‘land’. At fo. 114, 1. 12, ‘unto’ is copied as ‘into’. And at fo. 122, 1. 27, ‘make’ is copied as ‘makes’.

27 Cf. ibid. fo. 118, 1. 18. Sloane copyist, instead of having ‘the one side’ has ‘the other one side’. The word ‘other’ is then crossed out.

28 Cf. Discourse I, Discourse III, and Oceana, at Eng.Misc., c. 144, fo. 117; Harl. 5063, fo. 13; and Liljegren, pp. 46–7.

29 Cf. Harl. with Eng.Misc. versions:

(i) ‘the Ballance is there fix'd, and yt Empire firm’, with ‘the Ballance is there fixed by Law and that Empire firm’.* (Fos. 16 and III respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 15.)

(ii) ‘of these there are three kinds’ with ‘of these there were three kinds’. (Fos. 16b and 113 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 42.)

(iii) ‘King's Tenant by Sergeantry’ with ‘King's Tenant by Grand Sergeantry’.* (Fos. 15 and 114 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 45.)

(iv) ‘High Court of Parliament a more’ with ‘High Court of Parliament of the Kingdome a more’. (Fos. 14 and 115 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 45.)

(v) Discourse I has of King John (Fo. 118) ‘seeing the effects of such dominion, he began’. Discourse III (Fo. 12) omits the first clause, cf. Liljegren, p. 47.

(vi) ‘ways undiscern'd by them’ with ‘ways undiscovered by them’. (Fos. 12b and 120 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 48.)

(vii) ‘King they do not like’ with ‘King that they do not like’. (Fos. 11 and 120 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 48.)

(viii) ‘that against Retainers’ with ‘those against Retainers’. (Fos. 11 and 121 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 48.)

(ix) ‘and that proportion of Lands’ with ‘and the Proportion of Land’. (Fos. 11 and 121 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 48.)

(x) ‘vast a fire*’ with ‘vast a prey’. (Fos. 10 and 122 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 49.)

I have given the benefit of the doubt in some cases not recorded here. (See Fos. 16b and in passim; 15b and 114 passim; 13b and 118, 119; n and 121.) Asterisked differences are very great.

30 There are a few cases where Discourse III is closer to the text, but in ways which do not affect the argument. Cf. Harl. with Eng.Misc. versions:

(i) ‘When ye Kingdom was first divided’ with ‘When the Kingdome was divided at first’. (Fos. 15 and 113 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 43.)

(ii) ‘within his Earldom’ and ‘under his Earldome’. (Fos. 15b and 115 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 44.)

(iii) ‘rights and Priviledges’ with ‘Rights and Libertyes’. (Fos. 13b and 118 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 47.)

(iv) ‘as were otherwise no Barons’ with ‘as otherwise were noe Barons’. (Fos. 12 and 119 respectively, and see Liljegren, p. 47.)

These are the only cases where Discourse III is closer to Oceana than Discourse I: Discourse II corresponds to Discourse I in all these.

31 A B.M. note on the frontpaper of Harl. 5036 says that the Discourse there is ‘from James Harrington's Oceana, 1656. Source text in Sloane 3828. f. 75’. But the existence of Discourse I must now be taken into account.

32 Churchill, , Watermarks, p. 21. Villedary had factories at Angoumois, Vraichamp, Beauvais, and La Couronne.Google Scholar

33 I do not know whether this is the 1st or 3rd baron.

34 See DNB.

35 Cf. the additions at Eng.Misc., c. 144, fos. no, 152, 164, 234, 286, 385; Sloane 3828, fos. 75, 92, 104, 117, 181, 217, 230 and verso. (The last reference is to the index of Sloane's volume, which was also adjusted.)

36 Sloane MS 2895, fo. 59.

37 Cf. Eng.Misc., c. 144, fo. 113.

38 Hill's text must have the additions in square brackets added to fit (a) Oceana and (b) Discourse I.

(a) Liljegren, p. 42, 1. 28ff.

‘Feudum [saith Calvine the Lawyer] … significations [for] it is taken [either] for war [or] … such [of his] captains … in [his] wars … him [to be] their … these [there] were … nobility [distinguished by Tides of] Dukes … confiscations [and the like. Feuds of the second order were] such as with [the] consent… Lords in Arms [The lowest order of Feuds were] such as being … first erected [; for which if I had time …]’

(b) Discourse I, fo. 112, 1. 24ff.

‘significations [but usually taken for] a possession … such [of his] … as [have] merited in [his] warres … him [to be] their … themselves [to be] his Subjects … these [there] were three kinds [of] orders [the first of Nobility distinguished by the Titles of] Dukes … Marquesses [and] Earls … confiscations [and the like. Feuds of the second order were] such … with [the] consent … Arms. [The Lowest Order of Feuds were] such … and this [was] the Gothick Ballance … all the [Kingdomes in Christendome].’

39 Liljegren, p. 49, Eng.Misc, c. 144, fos. 120–2.

40 Eng.Misc., c. 144, fos. 122–3.

41 Liljegren, pp. 49–50. Liljegren, p. 281, confuses our understanding of the puzzling classical reference by worrying about the prcverbial meaning of ‘Isthmus’. Pocock, who is working on a much-needed new edition of Harrington's Works, suggests the reference is to Lucan. And so it seems, for Lucan discussing the dissolution of the alliance between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus (Civil War, Bk. 1, 1. 99ft., Loeb, ed.) says: ‘… for Crassus, who stood between, was the only check on immanent war. So the Isthmus of Corinth divides the main and parts two seas with its slender line, forbidding them to mingle their waters; but if its soil were withdrawn, it would dash the Ionian sea against the Aegean. Thus Crassus kept apart the eager combatants …’, until he died.

42 Liljegren, pp. 53, 1. 11; 50,1. 3; 53, 1. 2, then 8, then II.

43 Liljegren, , p. 53.Google Scholar

44 See Pocock, , ‘Machiavelli, Harrington, and English Political Ideologies’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XXII, 4 (1965), 550–83.Google Scholar

45 i.e. M. Van Beuringen.

46 For Holies and Monsieur Van B … de M …, see State Tracts, either 1689 or 1693 editions. Temple's remarks are in The Works of Sir William Temple (4 vols., 1770), III, 62–4.Google Scholar Even so ‘republican’ a theorist as Henry Neville argues this way, see my review of Robbins, Caroline, Two Republican Tracts, in Political Science, XXI, 2 (Wellington, N.Z., 1969), 56–7.Google Scholar

47 Behrens, Betty, ‘Restoration Political Theory’, CHJ, VII, 1 (1941), 42–71.Google Scholar

48 See, e.g. the debate between Addison and Steele on the Peerage Bill of 1719.

49 phrase, Pocock's, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge, 1957).Google Scholar

50 Pocock, W and MQ, op. cit.