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An Early-Seventeenth Century Translator: Thomas Everard, S.J.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

Extract

Thomas Everard, born at Linstead, Suffolk, in 1560, was the son of a Catholic father and was probably brought up as a Catholic in England. As a comparatively young man he met Fr. John Gerard S.J. and under Fr. Gerard’s influence he went abroad to train for the priesthood. He was ordained priest in 1592 and joined the Society of Jesus in the following year. His subsequent career was similar to that of many another English Jesuit of the period. He was Minister for some years at St. Omers College and also at the nearby Jesuit house at Watten, and he later held the post of Socius to the Master of Novices in the Novitiate at Louvain. For a short period in 1605/06 he was in England on the mission, and again in 1617 he came over to his native country, only to be betrayed a year later into the hands of the priest-hunters and imprisoned. He was released from prison in 1620 and sent into exile, but once again he returned to England and continued to work on the mission in spite of further imprisonment and great hardship. He died in London in 1633 (1).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1954

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References

Notes

1. An account of Everard's life is given in Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, ii. 399–408 and vii.234–235.

2. e.g. Gillow, Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, ii.190–192, (1886); Thompson Cooper, article in D.N.B. xviii.86, (1889); Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jesus, iii.487–488, (1892); Hamy, Bibliographie audomaroise de la Compagnie de Jesus, 26–28, (1900); Antheunis, Engelsche drukkers in de Nederlanden; John Heigham … en John Lyons (in Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis. 1937. pp.195–208).

3. The date is derived from the notice of John Sweet who “died February 26 of the present year 1632” and from the notice of Thomas Fitzherbert who “now … governs the English College, for the fourteenth year of his Rectorship.” (Fitzherbert was appointed Rector in 1618. See Foley, ii.207.)

4. Scritture, xxx.2. This manuscript has never been published in the original Latin. A transcript of it, made by Fr. Joseph Stevenson S.J., is among the Roman Transcripts in the Public Record Office (Trans.9.(13)). Foley published an English version (which contains a number of inaccuracies) from Stevenson's transcript. (Foley, vi.521–532).

5. It was printed at Antwerp, but Alegambe had prepared his material for the press in Rome. See Southwell's notice of Alegambe in the 1676 edition of the Bibliotheca. p.707.

6. The collection was offered for sale in 1923 by the Edinburgh bookseller, George Johnston. The British Museum bought thirty-three of the sixty-eight books in the collection; the rest went to Sir Leicester Harrasworth. Since Harmsworth’s death in 1937 most of his English books, including these, have been acquired by the Folger Shakespeare Library.

So far I have been unable to discover how the books came into Mr. Johnston's possession, for when he died, about twenty years ago, his business closed down. The probability is that he acquired them from some private library in Scotland whose owner (or former owner) purchased them in Italy. They may well have been brought to Scotland a century or more ago. A remarkable feature of the collection is its fine state of preservation; the vellum bindings show practically no sign of the wear and tear of three centuries.

7. Though, for obvious reasons, the printer's name is seldom given at this period in books printed abroad for the English Catholics, It is possible in most cases to identify a press by the types and ornaments used, since most of the presses were regularly engaged in printing foreign books where no secrecy was necessary.

8. These MS. attributions are in the same hand throughout.

9. Forty-four of the sixty-eight books in the collection are represented both in the 1632 catalogue and in Alegambe (1643). Another four, printed too late for inclusion in the 1632 catalogue, are in Alegambe. Thirteen printed before 1632, and seven printed in 1632 or later, are neither in the 1632 catalogue nor in Alegambe. Only three of the twenty books not represented either in the 1632 catalogue or in Alegambe reveal in print the names of the English Jesuits who wrote or translated them; thus, for seventeen books, the manuscript attributions of authorship in the Domus Professa Romana collection are our primary authority. Among the forty-eight books for the authorship of which there is independent evidence, either in the 1632 catalogue or Alegambe or both, there is no instance in which the sources of information contradict one another.

10. I am deeply indebted to Mr. J.G. McManaway of the Polger Shakespeare Library for kindly transcribing inscriptions in the Polger copies.

11. Gillow, ii.192.

12. Foley, vi.530.

13. Gillow, ii.192.

14. This is a different translation from S.T.C. 19937 and not merely another edition.

15. The list is enclosed in a letter from Popham to Salisbury dated 3 April 1606. (H.M.C. Hatfield Calendar. xviii. 95.)

16. Though the 1632 catalogue gives the imprint “Audomeri” for the 1606 edition as well as for the other two, this is clearly a mistake. The College press at St.Omers was not set up until 1607/08. The only printer in St.Omers at this time was Francois Bellet.

17. e.g. the copies, bound in old vellum, at Syon, Lanherne, Teignraouth.

18. This edition is not recorded in Sommervogel, and I have not succeeded in finding a copy, but the approbation in the Cologne edition of 1625 is dated from Arras, 3 February 1615. (Sommervogel, i. 560.)

19. It does not seem to bear any relationship to Granada's Memorial de la vida cristiana.

20. The approbation for The Flowers of Devotion is dated 4 Jan, 1618.

21. Uriarte: Catálogo razonado de obras anónymas y seudónimas de autores de la Compañia de Jesús pertenecientes a la antigua asistencia española, i.73 (no.194), i.209 (no.640), iv.521 (no.6282).

22. The words “Clavis paradisi”, or their equivalent, do not occur in the titles of the early Spanish and French versions.

23. I have not seen the 1618 edition, of which the only copy known to me is at Teignraouth. Dr. D.M. Rogers has seen the Teignmouth copy and he tells me that, on typographical evidence, it can probably be ascribed to the press of Pierre Auroi of Douai. If this is so, it lends further support to the argument that Heigham saw the work through the press. Before he settled at St.Omers in 1613 Heigham lived at Douai and employed Auroi to print for him, and when he left Douai he continued to farm out some work to his old printer About a dozen books printed between 1613 and 1618, with the imprint: John Heigham, Douai, can be shown from typographical evidence to have been printed by Auroi.

24. S.T.C. 20485 and 20486.

25. See “The Writings of Fr. Henry Garnet S.J.” in Biographical Studies, vol.1, no.1.

26. Lepreux, G.: Gallia typographical ou répertoire biographique et chronologique de tous les imprimeurs de France , Paris, 1909, etc. Série départmentale. vol.1. p.40.Google Scholar