an eighteenth century dublin bibliophile

Irish Arts Review

An Eighteenth Century Dublin BibliophileAuthor(s): Muriel McCarthySource: Irish Arts Review (1984-1987), Vol. 3, No. 4 (Winter, 1986), pp. 29-35Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20491921 .

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW

AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DUBLIN BIBLIOPHILE

' ? lazy modish son of melancholy

xl*spleen' is the description once attributed to Dean Swift1 of Dr.Edward

Worth, the collector of one of the finest private libraries in Ireland. His

library, which is preserved in the board room of Dr. Steevens' Hospital, Dublin,

was bequeathed2 to the Hospital by Dr. Worth in 1733. It consists of approx

imately four and a half thousand

volumes, and since it has received almost no additions, it represents a

unique eighteenth century doctor's

library exactly as he collected it. It

could, in the very best sense, be de scribed as a fossil library, that is frozen in time, and collected at a period of intense intellectual excitement. Most of the important Renaissance writers are

represented as well as pre-Enlighten ment authors.

Edward Worth was born in Dublin in

1678, the son of John Worth, who became Dean of St. Patrick's in 1677. He was educated in Merton College, Oxford, and studied medicine in the

University of Leyden. He graduated as a doctor at Utrecht and returned to

Dublin, where he was admitted to the

degree of M.D. by Trinity College. In 1717 Madame Grizel Steevens appoint ed him a trustee of Dr. Steevens'

Hospital. There is very little information avail

able on Dr. Worth, but it is known that he lived in Werburgh Street and was

obviously well off. Dr. T.P.C. Kirkpatrick says that Worth had some distinguished private patients including Archbishop Lindsay and Sir Richard Levinge. Accord

ing to Dr. Kirkpatrick, Worth was also a member of the Swan Trype Club, a sort of political society which met in the Swan Tavern in Swan Alley. A poem formerly attributed to Swift, lampoons various members of the club, including Edward Worth. Not only was Worth 'a

lazy modish son', but also 'Sooterkin', and in the poem,

When travelVd son doth homebred boy surpass

Went out a fopling and returned as ass.

In early eighteenth century Dublin, anybody interested in books could

study one of the world's great libraries, in the Long Room of Trinity College. It

was also the golden age of book collect

ing. Worth may well have been

acquainted with such famous contem

Muriel McCarthy, Deputy Keeper of Dublin's famous Marsh's

Library, describes the unique collection of books, still conserved

in a Dublin hospital, of an

eighteenth century Irish physician.

Ulisse Aldrovandi. Ornithologia.

(Bonon, 1646). Vellum binding. Monograms on spine. Arms of

Louis-Henri de Lom?nie, Compte de Bnenne

on upper and lower covers.

porary book collectors as Dr. Claudius

Gilbert, Vice-Provost of Trinity, who left his large wide-ranging scholarly collection to the College, and with

Archbishop William Palliser of Cashel, a Fellow of Trinity and Professor of

Divinity, who had collected a library containing theological and religious controversy, which he also donated to

Trinity. Then there was the Dean of St.

Patrick's, Dr. John Stearne, later Bishop of Clogher, who had a fine scholarly collection most of which he gave to

Marsh's Library, and Sir Patrick Dun, President of the College of Physicians, who also collected a library which he left to that College.

Another trustee of Steevens' was

Archbishop William King, himself a

book collector and a governor of Marsh's Library. In fact the first meeting of the trustees of Steevens' was held in

Archbishop King's residence, the Palace of St. Sepulchre3 in Upper Kevin Street, which in the eighteenth century was

joined to Marsh's Library. Swift, of

course, lived in the Deanery beside the Palace. Dr. Worth must, therefore, have been acquainted not only with the

Trinity and Marsh collections but also with the private collections of King and Swift.

Almost all these libraries, with the

exception of Dr. Claudius Gilbert's, contained working scholars' books but not fine bindings. It appears that Worth decided to take a totally different

approach. Unlike many famous collect ors, he does not seem to have been interested in having the first edition of

every book. He was more interested in

collecting editions which were

masterpieces of typography and which were also superbly bound.

I propose to give first a brief

description of Dr. Worth's Library and its extent, with a short account of where the books were acquired, and then go on to give some indication of the richness of the bindings. There are three manuscript catalogues of the

library; one is in the Worth library itself, the second is in Trinity College,

Dublin, and the third is in Marsh's. Most people consider Edward

Worth's to be a medical library, probably because it is situated within the hospital itself and probably also because so little has been published on it. But the library also contains books by

French, English and Italian authors on such subjects as philosophy, politics, history and belles lettres, as well as some fine editions of classical writers. Worth

may have hoped that his collection would stimulate doctors, as well as the

clergy, to collect books, and may well have intended his collection to be a model for others in early eighteenth century Ireland. Perhaps it was for this reason that he donated it to Dr. Steevens' Hospital.

Although the collection is a very varied one, it is appropriate to take first the medical books.

Apart from their bindings, these medical books present a dramatic contrast with the books in another doctor's library with which I am fam

iliar, that is Dr. Elias Bouh?reau's now in Marsh's. Dr. Bouh?reau's medical

books (and many of his other books) are extensively annotated. Important

authors' descriptions of various diseases are noted. The remedies suggested are commented on. The pharmaceutical

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW


books and prescriptions are particularly subject to annotation. In the case of Dr.

Worth's, however, although he left his

library to the hospital 'for the use, benefit and behoof of the physician of the time,' 1 do not believe that these

books were ever used extensively.

Worth appears to have been interest ed in all aspects of medicine and he collected a very comprehensive range of ancient and modern books. There are

twenty-one volumes printed before

1500, thirteen of which are from the

press of Aldus. There is a splendid edition of the Eytmologicum magnum graecum of Zacharias Callierges, printed in Venice in 1499, which is bound in a

red morocco with gold tooling, and could possibly be an Irish binding. I take up the question of the bindings later. The scholar printers Aldus,

Colinaeus, Stephanus, Turnebus and Elzevir are well represented with editions of important works. There are

fine editions of Claudius Galen's

writings printed in Italy and France in

the sixteenth century. Worth also had a

copy of Benedict of Nursia's De conservation sanitatis, the first medical book printed in Rome in 1475. And he also had the first important medical

periodical, Claude Brunet's Le Progr?s de la m?decine, printed in Paris in 1695. There are medical books by English and Continental doctors, such as William

Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood4, Francis Glisson who wrote on rickets and hepatitis, Richard Mead on the prevention of the plague and Thomas Willis, the first man to

distinguish the form of diabetes known as diabetes mellitus. Worth also had a

book by the eminent Swiss physician, Felix Platter. In his Praxeos medicae, Platter made the first modern attempt to classify psychoses. The writings of

Marcello Malpighi are also well rep resented. Malpighi made the most pro found discoveries relating to the skin,

kidneys, spleen and lungs; he was the first person to examine the circulation

of the blood with the microscope, thus

discovering the blood corpuscles. Worth also showed his interest in

obstetrics when he purchased many of the writings of Fran?ois Mauriceau who

was one of the leading obstetricians in France. An edition of Ambroise Par?'s

work, printed in 1685 in Lyon, is also in the library. Par? has been described as one of the greatest surgeons of the Ren aissance. Up to his time, gunshot

wounds, which were believed to be

poisonous, were treated by the applic ation of boiling oil; he demonstrated that they could best be healed by soothing applications. Worth was also interested in the writings of such well

known chemists as the Hon. Robert

Boyle, Conrad Gesner, J.B. Van

Helmont, Nicolas Lemery and J.R. Glauber.

This then is the medical side of the

library. But Dr. Worth, as we have seen, had much wider interests. His approach to collecting can be seen in his books on the classics. He had a fine edition of Aristotle in five volumes, printed in

3

Homeri Ilias. Gr. (Paris 1554) Red morocco.

* Jansenist* binding

of Baron de Longepierre, with emblem of Golden Fleece.

AUxandri Aphrod. Comment, in tr?pica Aristotelis. Gr.

(Venet, 1513) Olive morocco. 16th century.

Maoli style binding with gauffered edges.

A pannelled mottled calf and

plain calf binding.

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW


Venice between 1495 and 1498. He also had editions of Cicero, Claudian,

Demosthenes, Horace, Homer, Juvenal,

Lucian, Livy, Martial, Ovid, Persius, the elder Pliny, Seneca, Terence and Virgil.

The French authors include Guez de

Balzac, Beza, Bodin, Casaubon, Descartes, Marot, Montaigne, Malherbe,

Corneille and Voltaire. Similarly, the Italian writers are represented by Dante,

Varro, Boccaccio, Marino, Machiavelli, Tasso and Pico della Mir?ndola.

The English section has an imperfect copy of Chaucer's Works, edited by W.

Thynne and published in London in

1532, also such poets and dramatists as

Addison, Cowley, Donne, Butler,

Drayton, Dryden, Congreve, Milton, Beaumont and Fletcher, Otway> Suckling and Shakespeare. The

philosophers include Hume and Locke as well as the great Irish philosopher,

George Berkeley. There are ecclesiastical writers such

as Charles Lesley, Gilbert Burnet, William Chillingworth, Jeremy Collier,

Edward Stillingfleet and Bishop Tillotson. Worth also had some fine

Bibles, processionals and breviaries which I suspect he may have inherited from his father or from his uncle, Bishop Edward Worth, who had been

Bishop of Killaloe. The Bibles include an edition of the New Testament5, printed by Henri Estienne in Paris in 1550.

It is also possible to identify distinguished authors in the collection of books on other subjects such as

architecture, antiquities, astronomy,

mathematics, history, science and travel.

Worth also appears to have had an interest in Irish writers, or writers on

Ireland, and he collected such authors as John Colgan, Edmund Borlase, Edmund Campion, Geoffrey Keating,

William Molyneaux, Edmund Spencer and James Ussher.

An interesting feature of the collection is the manner in which Dr.

Worth acquired the books. From the sale catalogues which he kept, he appar

ently bought at many important auctions in England, Holland and

Ireland, and at one German auction. He

seems to have been well known to the London book auctioneers. In Charles Davies' catalogue of Tho. Rawlinson's

library, which was sold in London in

1726, the following had been written: 'Marked for Dr. Edward Worth in

Dublin.' While Worth does not appear to have bought any books at this

particular auction, this was not the case

on 28 April 1724, which was one of the most exciting of the many notable auctions of French books held in London in the eighteenth century. It was the sale of the library of Louis Henri de Lomenie, Comte de Brienne6. Dr. Worth's library contains forty-four volumes from this sale, including books whose bindings have been attributed to the famous Augustin Du Seuil, although some scholars are doubtful of their

authenticity7. Many of the books

originally belonged to some of the great French book collectors and the bindings

3

Geo. Pisidae. Opus sex dierum. (Lutetiae, 1584) Polished tan calf. Arms of Louis-Henri

de Lom?nie, Compte de Brienne.

Poetae Graeci Christiani.

(Lutetiae Parisior. 1609) Brown calf. Arms of the Jesuit College Nivernais.

Baptistae Mantuani. Omnia opera. (Bologna, 1502)

Tan morocco. Hand coloured endpapers. Presentation binding with arms of King Louis XIV.

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW


show the skilful decorative work prod uced by the French binderies which has never been surpassed.

The fact that so many of the books in

Dr. Worth's library have been cropped may indicate that he had many of them rebound to his own specifications in

order to match his existing collection. It is also interesting to note that, although some bindings represent bookbinding styles in various countries, there is a

distinct similarity in the workmanship and the gold decoration in the collection as a whole, many of Worth's books being bound either in the finest

polished plain, or sprinkled or mottled calf or in superb red morocco.

Moreover, although most of the spines and the upper and lower covers have

been tooled in gold, in some cases

where the covers have not been de

corated, the spines have been, and this

gives a uniform look to the whole

collection. The fact that Dr. Worth

required this uniformity of binding style appears to be borne out by an examin

ation of the sale catalogue of Abel

d'Alone, secretary to Mary II, whose

books were sold in London in 1725. Dr.

Worth has marked opposite No. 559,

Maittaire's Annales typographic^ 3 vols.

(The Hague, 1719) 'I have ye first vol. 2nd and 3rd vol. wished.' Yet all five volumes in his collection are bound in an identical sprinkled brown calf; the

spines are tooled in gold and the well known pecking-bird ornament has been used for decoration. There is a very strong probability that Dr. Worth had a

great number of his books bound or

rebound in Dublin, as it would have been quite possible for him to do. Sir Edward Sullivan8, in his book on

Decorative Bookbinding in Ireland, said: 'With the volume containing the

Journal of the House of Commons for

1707 begins a more luxuriant form of

ornamentation, which in the years that

followed blossomed into an astounding magnificence.' The years that followed would have been exactly the period when Worth was collecting this library. Much research work needs to be done on the books. I am convinced that it will show that Worth was one of the most important of the Irish book collectors.

Most of the Brienne books are bound in an exquisite polished tan calf and

bear his well-known heraldic stamp of a

woman issuing from a tub, combing her

hair, in her right hand a mirror and in her left a comb9. Among them are thirteen volumes of Aldrovandi's Opera onynia (Bologna 1632-42) exquisitely bound in cream vellum which Dr.

Worth bought at the Brienne auction in

1728 for ?9.4.0. Louis-Henri de Lom?nie, Comte de

Brienne, was not the only French states

man whose books are in the library. There is a book bound in a 'Jansenist' style which originally belonged to Baron de Longepierre and which bears his em

blem of the golden fleece. Its binding has been attributed to Du Seuil. Another fine armorial binding bears the arms and monogram of Jacques Auguste de Thou and his second wife, Gasparde de la Chastre. De Thou was a fastidious

collector; all his books were well bound and in perfect condition. There are nine books which belonged to Jean Baptiste Colbert, the Controller General of France under Louis XIV. Colbert was a

great book collector. The choicest Levantine morocco had been secured for him by a treaty with the Sultan.

There is also a book which originally belonged to the Duc d'Orl?ans10,

3

Samuel Bochan. Geographia sacra. (Cadomi, 1646)

Green morocco. Centre stamp with surrounding acorn border. Etymologicum magnum graecum. (Venice, 1499) Red morocco.

Spine and upper and lower covers tooled in gold.

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW


brother of Louis XIII, and a book owned by Jean de Bouchet11, the

historiographer and Counsellor to the

king. The copy of Imitations tir?es du latin de I. Bonnefons, avec autres mes

langes po?tiques (Paris, 1588) may have

belonged to Marie de'Medici. There are sixteen books which were

owned by Jean Paul Bignon, librarian to the King of France. These are bound in a light tan calf. In the centre is a rec

tangular stamp bearing the inscription 4BIBLIOTHEC BIGNON' within a

decorative border, each side of which terminates at the top in an eagle's head

and between is a human head within a

circle of rays. On the spine are repeated two Bs affront?s, below the bottom

band, 'BIBLIOT BIGNON', and the date of printing of the book12.

There are also three royal bindings and one owned by one of the most

famous of French collectors, Jean Grolier. Grolier acquired splendid copies of the best works available and had them magnificently bound. The

example in the Worth library was

apparently bound by Grolier's last binder. Also in the collection is a

binding with the arms of the Coll?ge Grassin and a prize binding from the

Jesuit College Nivernais. These are of course the French

bindings, but there are some interesting

English bindings, including a Tudor

example, bound for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. It has a large oval stamp13 of a bear climbing a tree trunk, in

heraldry, 'a ragged staff, flanked by the

separately tooled initials 4RD.' (The initials 'S.F.' also appear on this

binding.) The book is a copy of the

Magna Carta (London, 1556). The binding on a copy of T. Mead's

Work on the plague (London, 1722) has

all the characteristics of the London

binder, Thomas Elliot. Elliot bound

books for Robert Harley, Earl of

Oxford, who demanded a very high standard and this binding is a superb piece of craftsmanship and in beautiful

condition. There is also what is known as a 'Greek binding', a style derived from Oriental, Islamic and Byzantine

designs and was usually reserved for

books printed in the Greek language. I would like to end this account by

listing some books which represent many of the characteristics of the collection.

They are Bernard de Montfaucon's

Hand coloured illustration

from Bochart's Geographia sacra.

VAntiquit? expliqu?e (Paris, 1719) in ten volumes, M.S. Merian'sMetamorphos

is insectorum Surinamensium, (Amster

dam 1719) and LF. Marsiglis' Danubius

Pannonico-My sicus (Hag. Com. and

Amst. 1726) in six volumes. The latter are sumptuously bound in red morocco

with gold tooling, marbled end-papers and all edges gilt. The last work

mentioned was limited to one hundred and eighty one subscribers; Dr. Worth's is Number 115. There are the Respub licae apud Elzevir, the 'Little Republics'

which the Elzevirs printed in Leyden between 1606 and 1664. These are

fifty-nine tiny books, housed as a

'travelling library' in a magnificent wooden case shaped like a folio book,

measuring 56.3cm by 38.9cm and 8.9cm

deep. The box is lacquered in black and is elaborately gilt on the sides and back; all the edges are gilt. It is closed with fine brass clasps. Inside, the box is

painted red, and has four shelves which contain the fifty-nine books. Twenty five of these are bound in an identical brown mottled calf with gold tooling; four are bound in a brown marbled calf, two in a tan calf and seven in a cream

vellum which is also gold tooled. Since one can see variations in the tools used

and in the type of decoration, I suspect that they were bound at different times.

Scholars will be much indebted to

the Governors of Dr. Steevens' Hospital for the manner in which they have

preserved this magnificent collection. A

tribute should be made to Mr. Brendan

Prendiville, Mr. Stanley Hope and Mr.

Arthur Moyse. I am particulary grateful to the staff of the hospital who have been exceptionally helpful to me while I was working there.

Muriel McCarthy

NOTES

1. Modern Scholars now agree that this poem is

not by Swift. See Harold Williams (Ed.), The

poems of Jonathan Swift, 2nd ed. Oxford., Clarendon Press, 1958, pp. 1077-8.

2. T.P.C. Kirkpatrick, The History of Doctor

Steevens' Hospital Dublin 1720-1920, Dublin

1924, p. 61.

3. Ibid.,p. 25.

4. A. Castiglioni, A history of medicine, translated

from the Italian and edited by EB.

Krumbhaar, 2nd ed. London, 1947. 5. The text for this Neu; Testament was based on

those of the Complutensian Polyglot and the

editions of Erasmus with a few readings introduced from manuscripts, and it became

known as the 'textus receptus.' The artist

engraver, Claude Garamond who cut the

punches for the type, used a cursive based on

the handwriting of Angelos Vergetios, a

Greek copyist in the employment of Francis I.

This type was called grec du Roi and the

punches were cut in three sizes. A medium

text type was first completed and used in

1544 for an edition of Eusebius, the smaller

version was then finished and in 1550 the

large text type was used for the first time in

this New Testament, in which all three sizes

appear. 6. R. Birley, 'The library of Louis Henri De

Lom?nie, Comte De Brienne and the bindings of the Abb? Du Seuil', The Bibliographical

Society, 5th series, Vol. XVII, No. 2, 1962.

7. J.B. Oldham, Shrewsbury School Library

Bindings, O.U.P., 1943, p. 117.

8. Sir Edward Sullivan, 'Decorative Bookbinding in Ireland', Irish Georgian Society, Vol. XVII,

Nos. 3 & 4, July-Dec. 1974. 9. E Olivier, G. Hermal and R. de Roton,

Manuel de l'amateur reliures armori?es

fran?aises, Paris, 1924-38, Plates 1075-9.

10. E Olivier op. cit., PL 2560.

11. E Olivier, op. cit., PI. 1706. 12. One of Bignon's books bears a printed label

on the spine reading 'C Planche and No.'.

13. Paul Needham, Twelve centuries of

bookbindings 400-1600, O.U.P., 1979, p. 263.

COLOUR ILLUSTRATIONS OVERLEAF

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an eighteenth century dublin bibliophile

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