Notes & Queries: Bird of Liberty

Hint: It's not him.

Repeat visitors to this blog will know that The Spectacled Avenger’s favourite book is Lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. I have a particular fascination with the engravings commissioned for the second edition (1714), executed by Simon Gribelin. These consisted of a large frontispiece plate for each of the three volumes of the work, with elaborate headpiece engravings designed for the individual treatises that comprise its entirety. Most (but not all) of these engravings have a tripartite structure, and all of them are intended as emblematic illustrations of key parts of the text.

I was lately pondering the significance of the storks in the bottom panel of the triptych to the plate for Volume I:

Why storks? They must have some significance. In interpreting the meaning of Shaftesbury’s emblems, there are, generally speaking, two loci classici. One is the so-called “Virtuoso-Coppy Book” or set of detailed instructions that Shaftesbury sent from Naples (where he was dying) to Gribelin in London. The second is a 1974 paper by Felix Paknadel, “Shaftesbury’s Illustrations of Characteristics”.

Turning to Paknadel, here is what he notes about this panel:

“Shaftesbury had thought of the picture of ‘a boy holding the cap of Liberty in a triumphing manner’, but then decided to keep the boys for the ‘treatise plates’, which were to be of a lighter character. The lower border represents social harmony [on one side ‘two right hands meeting and clasped’ above the three altars of different forms; on the other side, the emblems of music] and prosperity, mainly in the oval frame [night and day-the face of Apollo at the top, that of Diana at the bottom abundance reigns-cornucopias, a vine growing up a tree, the Rotundo and a ‘palace in good repair’, the caduceus with two wings, the two storks ‘which with their wings seem to support the work above’]. The motto ‘FEL.TEM.’ is the abbreviation of ‘Felicia Tempora’…. The social implication of the whole emblem is clear. Freedom, maintained by a wise ruler, breeds social harmony and fosters the development of civilization.” (p. 299)

No enlightenment here; just the laconic mention that the storks exist and that they support the larger panel above it (not reproduced here). As a gloss, this is no more informative than the “Virtuoso-Coppy-Book”, indeed, it simply reproduces the relevant passage from the Copy-Book. The latter also fails to explain the significance of the storks, though it does mention that they are significant (“essential”):

“Note that in the mere Grotesque-Work of this Under-Border there are four Pieces essential viz^t. The Two Storks which with their Wings seem to support the Work above, and between their allmost joyning Bills (just at the Top the Oval frame-Work) the Head or rather Face of an APOLLO…” (Virtuoso-Coppy-Book 184)

(Sadly, it is worth mentioning that the design for this Volume I frontispiece is the only one for which Shaftesbury lived to see Gribelin’s finished plate.)

Now, it often happens that one cannot “read” one of these plates in isolation from the others. In this case, for reasons I won’t elaborate on here, it bears a relationship to the bottom panel of the triptych to the plate for Volume III. Suffice to say that, whereas the former illustrates the fruits of political and religious liberty, this one is meant to illustrate the evils of a policy of tyranny, superstition, and religious bigotry. Here is that panel:

 

 

 

 The twin storks in the earlier panel have been replaced with

“two metamorphos’d Human Forms which seem of a female Kind and serve as Supporters, back to back, against the Frame-Work, [and] must appear blind-folded.” (Virtuoso-Coppy-Book 154)

Here is Paknadel’s gloss:

“The results of such a policy are shown in the oval frame. [The ancient monuments are tumbling down; day is turned into night, birds of bad omen are flying; the vine has become a bare tree. The faces of Apollo and Diana are replaced by those of Ignorance at the top and Stupidity at the bottom; the storks by two blinded females. The motto is now EN QUO, the abbreviation meaning ‘Behold, whither are we brought! To what state reduced!’]” (pp. 304-305)

I did recently chance upon a rather obscure connection between the above-mentioned “birds of bad omen” and storks. In his posthumous Select Discourses (1660), the Cambridge Platonist philosopher John Smith (1618-1652) makes the following remark: “as Aelian observes of the Stork, that if the Night-owle chanceth to sit upon her eggs, they become presently as it were υπηνεμια, and all incubation rendred impotent and ineffectual” (p. 7). (The reference is to Book I.37 of Aelian’s De natura animalium.)

Now, this is all very interesting, one supposes. But still my question persists: why storks? If he simply needed some creature as mere ornament to frame the head of Apollo, presumably any bird would do. Why not eagles? Or roosters? Shaftesbury doesn’t tell us, and Paknadel makes no attempt to decode the symbolism of the storks, if indeed there is any.

In my experience, when in need of information about the traditional lore of the natural world, it is often helpful to reach for Pliny, or, failing that, to pull Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) from the shelves. Lo and behold, in the latter’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646, last revision 1671), Bk. III, ch. 27, we find out that it was once a commonly held belief that “Storks are to be found, and will only live, in Republikes or free States”. Browne’s work does not appear in Shaftesbury’s library catalogue as it has come down to us, but no doubt he was familiar with the notion.

Incidentally – this entire post has been incidental – we also learn from Browne (Bk. V, ch. 22) that the owl had historically been seen as a harbinger of misfortune, and by extension had in his time become emblematic of superstition.

 

Bibliography

BROWNE, Sir Thomas. The Works of Sir Thomas Browne (Vol. II: Pseudodoxia Epidemica). Geoffrey Keynes (ed.). London: Faber and Faber, 1964.

PAKNADEL, Felix. “Shaftesbury’s Illustrations of Characteristics,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 37 (1974), 290-312.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3^rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (3 vols.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001.

—— PRO 30/24/24/13. (“Virtuoso-Coppy-Book”, consisting of Shaftesbury’s instructions for the engravings in Characteristicks.) Reproduced in Standard Edition (Vol. I,3), Wolfram Benda (ed.). Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Fromman Verlag, 1992. 

—— PRO 30/24/23/12. (“Catalogus Librorum Anglicorum, Gallicorum, Italicorum etc…. Anno Ærae Christianæ 1709”, catalogue of works in vernacular languages in Shaftesbury’s libraries in Chelsea and St. Giles.)

SMITH, John. Select Discourses. London: J. Flesher for W. Morden, 1660.

The Spectacled Avenger's Reading List, 2021

Well, it’s that time again, when I post the list of books I’ve read over the previous year and try to find patterns in it all.

First off, I read about 20 more books in 2021 than I had in 2020. I attribute this to a somewhat more normal lifestyle, without strict COVID lockdowns. I personally felt a bit bewildered in 2020 and I had a difficult time concentrating. I read less, and when I did read, it seemed to go more slowly. Plus, under normal circumstances I would get much of my reading done on the subway commute to work; I didn’t have that commute for most of 2020. (The commute returned in late September 2021, which resulted in a late surge on the reading list below. But I am back in lockdown now, so we shall see how it all pans out…)

However, upon reflection, I think I have to admit that my reading was not as enjoyable in 2021 as it has been in previous years. As usual, I bold the books that I particularly enjoyed, and there is not nearly as much bolding on the list below.

As for patterns, let me see…. One that jumps out is the number of books from or about the Scottish Enlightenment (Beattie, Carlyle, Hume, Hutcheson, Kames, Raphael, Smith), to which one might add a sprinkling of French authors (Rousseau, Voltaire). I read three books about Richard III  or his age (Drewett and Redhead, Gross, Mancini). Also, there was the usual legal history theme (Boyer, Coke, Finch, Holdsworth, Horne, Kent, Plucknett).

Otherwise, rather than patterns in terms of subject matter, there is a heavy preponderance of works by certain authors: I read four volumes of Burnet’s History of His Own Time, all three books in Robertson Davies’ “Deptford Trilogy”, and three books by Adam Smith.

There are two additional things not reflected on the list below, but which might show up on next year’s list: I have been reading some literature by the Cambridge Platonists. Two works are on this list (Cudworth, Whichcote), but Cudworth’s True Intellectual System of the Universe – a long work – is in progress. Also in progress, and related to the Scottish Enlightenment theme, I am working my way through some historical literature on Scots law: Sir Thomas Hope’s Major Practicks (in two volumes), Lord Stair’s Institutions of the Law of Scotland, and Lord Bankton’s An Institute of the Laws of Scotland (in three volumes). These are long and dense works and will take considerable time to get through.

*          *          *          * 

AXELROD. Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation (revised edition). Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2006.

BEATTIE, James. An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth; in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and J. Bell, 1770.

BLOOM, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Touchstone Books, 1988.

BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, Viscount. The Works (Vol. IV). David Mallet (ed.). London, 1754 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968).

BOYER, Allen D. (ed.). Law, Liberty, and Parliament: Selected Essays on the Writings of Sir Edward Coke. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2004.

BREADY, J. Wesley. Lord Shaftesbury and Social-Industrial Progress. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1928.

BROWN, John. Essays on the Characteristics of the Earl of Shaftesbury. London: C. Davis, 1751.

BURNET, Gilbert. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time (Vol. II). Martin Joseph Routh (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833.

BURNET, Gilbert. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time (Vol. III). Martin Joseph Routh (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833.

BURNET, Gilbert. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time (Vol. IV). Martin Joseph Routh (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833.

BURNET, Gilbert. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time (Vol. V). Martin Joseph Routh (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833.

BYNKERSHOEK, Cornelius van. De Dominio Maris Dissertatio. James Brown Scott (trans.). New York: Oceana Publications, 1964.

CARLYLE, Alexander. Anecdotes and Characters of the Times. James Kinsley (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1973.

COKE, Sir Edward. The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, Knt. in Thirteen Parts (Vol. II: Parts III-IV). London: Joseph Butterworth and Son, 1826.

CUDWORTH, Ralph. A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons at Westminster, March 31, 1647. Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1647 (facsimile, New York: Facsimile Text Society, 1930).

DAVIES, Robertson. Fifth Business. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2005.

DAVIES, Robertson. The Manticore. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2005.

DAVIES, Robertson. World of Wonders. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2005.

DREWETT, Richard and Mark REDHEAD. The Trial of Richard III. Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton,1987.

FINCH, Sir Henry. Law, or, a Discourse thereof. Danby Pickering (trans.). London: Henry Lintot, 1759 (facsimile, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969).

FITZGERALD, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Classics, 1992.

GRANT, George. Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (40^th anniversary edition). Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.

GROSS, Anthony. The Dissolution of the Lancastrian Kingship: Sir John Fortescue and the Crisis of the Monarchy in Fifteenth-Century England. Stamford, UK: Paul Watkins, 1996.

HAMILTON, Alexander and James MADISON. The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 1793-1794. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007.

HAYEK, Friedrich. Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.

HEINECCIUS, Johann Gottlieb. A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations. George Turnbull (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2008.

HOLDSWORTH, William S. Charles Dickens as a Legal Historian. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1929.

HORNE, Andrew. The Mirrour of Justices. Washington, DC: John Byrne and Company, 1903.

HUME, David. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Tom L. Beauchamp (ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001.

HUTCHESON, Francis. Thoughts on Laughter and Observations on the Fable of the Bees. Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1758 (facsimile, Bristol, UK: Thoemmes, 1989).

HUTCHINSON, Lucy. Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson. James Sutherland (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1973.

JAMES, William. Pragmatism. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.

KAMES, Henry Home, Lord. Sketches of the History of Man (Vol. I). James A. Harris (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. I). New York: O. Halsted, 1826.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. II). New York: O. Halsted, 1827.

KLEIN, Lawrence E. Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

KLEMPERER, Victor. The Language of the Third Reich – LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii. Martin Brady (trans.). London: The Athlone Press, 2000.

KYD, Thomas. The Spanish Tragedy. J. R. Mulryne (ed.). New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

LUCIAN. Works (Vol. II). A. M. Harmon (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.

MANCINI, Dominic. The Usurpation of Richard III. C. A. J. Armstrong (trans.). Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton, 1989.

McINERNY, Ralph. Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982.

McKENZIE, Richard B. and Gordon TULLOCK. The New World of Economics (6^th edition). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2012.

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil / The Genealogy of Morality (Complete Works, Vol. 8). Adrian Del Caro (trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014.

NOZICK. Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.

PEPYS, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Vol. VII: 1666). Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

PLATIAS, Athanassios G. and Constantinos KOLIOPOULOS. Thucydides on Strategy: Grand Strategies in the Peloponnesian War and their Relevance Today. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

PLUCKNETT, Theodore F. T. A Concise History of the Common Law (5^th edition). Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1956.

PLUTARCH. Lives (Vol. I). John Dryden (trans.). London: Folio Society, 2010.

PULTENEY. William and Henry St. John, Viscount BOLINGBROKE. The Craftsman (Vol. IV). London: R. Francklin.

PULTENEY. William and Henry St. John, Viscount BOLINGBROKE. The Craftsman (Vol. V). London: R. Francklin.

RAPHAEL, D. D. The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. Clarissa (Vol. II). London: Dent, 1968.

ROSS, Sir David. Kant’s Ethical Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954.

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Emilius; or, An Essay on Education (Vol. I). Thomas Nugent (trans.). London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1763 (facsimile, Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press, 1995).

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Emilius; or, An Essay on Education (Vol. II). Thomas Nugent (trans.). London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1763 (facsimile, Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press, 1995).

SALISBURY, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3^rd Marquess of. Lord Salisbury on Politics: A selection from his articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860-1883. Paul Smith (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

SHAKESPEARE, William. Antony and Cleopatra. John Munro (ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958.

SHAKESPEARE, William. Coriolanus. John Munro (ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958.

SHAW, William and Hester Lynch PIOZZI. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Arthur Sherbo (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1974.

SMITH, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

SMITH, Adam. Lectures on Jurisprudence. R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael, and P. G. Stein (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

SMITH, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Vol. I). R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

SMITH, Patti. Just Kids. New York: Ecco, 2010.

STEPHEN, James Fitzjames. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. R. J. White (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

STORY, Joseph. A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States. New York: American Book Company, 1840 (facsimile, New York: Legal Classics Library, 1992).

SWIFT, Jonathan. The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift (Vol. I: 1690-1713). Harold Williams (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.

TAYLOR, Charles. Radical Tories: The Conservative Tradition in Canada. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2006. 

TULLOCK, Gordon. The Rent-Seeking Society (Selected Works of Gordon Tullock, Vol. 5). Charles K. Rowley (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005.

VOLTAIRE. Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. I). Peter Gay (trans.). New York: Basic Books, 1962.

VOLTAIRE. Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. II). Peter Gay (trans.). New York: Basic Books, 1962. 

WHICHCOTE, Benjamin. The Works of the Learned Benjamin Whichcote (Vol. III). Aberdeen: Alexander Thomson, 1751 (facsimile, New York: Garland, 1977).

WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. On Certainty. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (eds.). Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

WODEHOUSE, P. G. Right Ho, Jeeves. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1975.