Printed in London by R. Brugis for John Brightland, 1712
Identification
This book was written by John Brightland (unknown-1717), and published in London, England, as a second edition. The MSU Library call number is PE1103 .B8 1712
Physical Description
On both covers, they are made of mottled and speckled leather. The front cover contains remnants of handwriting, scratches, and creases over time, as well as a darker vertical band on the lefthand side, near the binding. The back cover shows deep scuffs through the leather, with rounded and worn corners. The spine has a much newer appearance, as it has been rebound with a lighter leather than the covers, and bears false bands, gilded designs, and a spine label with a simplified title of the text.
General Overview
This book contains a large section of grammar rules, as well as three subsections; The Art of Poetry, Rhetoric, and Logic. The second edition contains several charts of grammar, including letters and other grammar rules and applications, with the grammar portion containing eleven chapters, the poetry section containing four chapters, named Of Accents and Qualities, The Art of Poetry, Of Satire and Comedy, and Of Tragedy, the rhetoric section being made of a single chapter, and ending with logic and reasoning, which makes up three parts, twelve chapters total.
Provenance
The book plate on the inside front board of the book contains the crest of the Dovaston family, particularly of their estate in West Felton, named The Nursery.
The Dovaston Family
From research, the Dovaston family can be traced to a family in Shropshire, England, that matches with the following names and years. John Dovaston Sr. (1712-1753) and Margaret Rogers (1714-unknown) married, and John used his proceeds from his sugar plantations in Jamaica to build the West Felton estate, dubbed “The Nursery”. They had the following children who were each in possession of this text. The pair had an assumed 10 children together, where the first two (William and Milward) both died before reaching the age of five. The other male children mark their ownership in this text as follows:
Around the title, the name William Dovaston can be deciphered, along with the year 1764, and “Number 1”. The fourth son of John and Margaret, also named William, was born after the death of the first son William, either in 1742 or 1743, and lived until 1765, a year after this inscription. The question of “Number 1” comes into play, whether this was a brotherly inscription as a way of asserting dominance, or himself being the first of the Dovastons to own and read this text.
Another inscription from William Dovaston, signed in 1764, a year before his death.
This inscription can be made out as “pro ofs. John Dovaston’s 1766” which can be assumed as the Latin possessive “proprius”, and belonging to John Dovaston in the year 1766. John Dovaston (1740-1808) is the third child of the Dovastons, in the namesake of his father. John went on to be the father of John Freeman Milward Dovaston, a British poet and naturalist. This son assisted Thomas Bewick edit his work, The History of British Birds. A copy of this text, in its three volumes, is owned by MSU, by donation of W.D. Chase.
The image above is of John Dovaston’s son, John Freeman Milward Dovaston, drawn by James William Giles, who attended Christ Church, Oxford alongside Dovaston, where Dovaston had the nickname “Crazy Jack of Christ Church”
This inscription was made on the inside of the front cover, over the leather binding. While hard to make out, the name “Milward” is decipherable, along with the year 1799. This could have been a Milward Dovaston (1747-1837), who was the sixth child of John and Margaret, or a descendant of John Milward Jr., who continued the Milward name through his son, John Freeman Milward Dovaston.
William George’s Sons
William George’s Sons, Top Corner, Park Street, Bristol. Libraries & Books Bought
This book plate belongs to the bookseller, William George, and his shop, “William George’s Sons”. Park Street, Bristol, is a renowned street full of bookstores and other shops, dating back to 1742. As for William George, he began his store in 1847, when he was seventeen years old. This began the long branches of Georges stores, until eventually, William George’s Sons was sold to Blackwell’s in 1929. The location was sold again and turned into a Jamie’s Italian Restaurant, the Jamie Oliver restaurant chain, which closed as well, leaving the building, and former home of this book, now vacant.
This book can be traced to this store after the year 1799, as that was the last dated inscription from the Dovaston family, as well as after 1847, since the store would not have included the name addition “Sons”, as William was merely 17 when he started his business, as well as gaining enough recognition to have created book plates. This book was also in the Bristol store before 1929, when the bookstore was sold to Blackwells. In conclusion for this store, there is an 82 year window for the store’s possession of this book, and a 48 year gap of known possession between the ownership by the Dovastons in West Felton, Shropshire, and the possession by the shop in Bristol.
Michigan State University
The stamp above reads “Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science”. This was Michigan State University’s name between 1925 and 1955, narrowing down the date that MSU came in possession of this book.
The book also contained this bookmark, which bears the acronym for Michigan State University, which has been named as such from 1964 to the present. It also contains the Special Collections name, where the book was held within MSU Libraries, along with the shortened title of the book, along with its call number.
Wiering Books
This sheet of paper was tucked in the back cover of the book, a reciept of sorts, of Wiering Books, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is from 2014, signifying that Michigan State sent the book for repair to this establishment. The paper recalls the repairs made, which due to “extensive tape and library damage”, and was resolved through the residue being removed, new endsheets added, and new leather added to the book, presumably the spine from its current appearance, as well as its sturdy structure and tight binding of the second half of the folios. As the book contains marks of MSU possession before and after the year 2014, it can be concluded it was only in Wiering Books’s possession in terms of repair, and was returned to MSU Special Collections.
Unknown Inscriptions
These inscriptions are in black ink, unlike the others which are brown or in pencil. They contain “corrections” to the text, replacing “faulty” with “faultless”, and adding “their” with no other markings or slashed out words. They are in a more precise, modern and legible cursive, but do not contain any other similar marks of possession.
The above images contain inscriptions made in brown ink, similar to that of the Dovaston family, which could be the possible writers of which they were made. The second image, “proet.m 2”, could possibly a mark of ownership, being “praetum”, or possibly a price marking “praetiosa”, and costing 2 shillings or pounds. The handwriting is similar to that of John Dovaston, but if truly stating a price, his hand would be the unlikely writer, as the text continued to pass down to his family after his ownership.
These pencil descriptions are of varying matter, one consisting of numbers, with one appearing to have the date of 7-2-52, which could either be July 2nd, 1952, or February 7th, 1952, depending on where the inscription was made. As this year is more likely than not when MSU was in possession of this book, it is likely the date in July, followed by a possible previous call number or other numbered data. The second image is that of a highlighted segment, marked by a line with 2 Xs, establishing a form of bracket. Neither of these inscriptions are signed, and apart from the date, difficult to trace.
Sources
- https://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.com/2013/03/i-had-trip-down-memory-lane-last-week.html
- https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~leebrick/genealogy/gp3060.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Freeman_Milward_Dovaston
- https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.522.D75-ead.xml
By Emma Bender in HST 475 of Fall 2023 by Professor Brockey at MSU
