Welcome to installment 238 of Bidwell Lore! This week we conclude our 3-part series written by Bidwell summer intern Nadia Makuc, who recently graduated from Princeton with a degree in Classics. In these posts we have been exploring Adonijah Bidwell’s library and learning a little more about reading and book collecting in the 19th century.
We began this series discussing Reverend Bidwell’s education, which you can read HERE and then followed with a post about Bidwell’s beliefs which you can read HERE. We end the series with a look at a specific book in the Reverend’s collection.
The one book in the collection of the Bidwell House Museum which is identifiably Rev. Adonijah Bidwell’s is Dr. Watt’s Lyric Poems. First published in 1706, this 1748 edition includes letters and commentary from fans printed inside, before the actual text of the book.
According to historian David Powers who has studied Bidwell’s sermons, the author of this book, Isaac Watts, was one of the theologians whom Bidwell borrowed the most from, and he was one of the most recent to have lived (among Henry Scougal, an English theologian, Matthew Poole, a seventeenth century English theologian, and William Burkitt, another seventeenth century English theologian). Watts, who was a minister, was also a logician and hymnwriter – among other tunes still used to this day is “Joy to the World.” Watts exemplifies how theologians of the time and leaders in spiritual and religious matters were among the most well-educated across the board.
Since Watts was a popular author, it is not surprising that Bidwell owned such a book. On the front cover page in his own script is written “Adonijah Bidwell His Book Anno Domini 1753.” His son took no time after his death to mark his inherited ownership, “Adonijah Bidwell’s Book 1784.” Since there are a number of other books identified as Adonijah Jr.’s, it seems safe to assume that even books printed earlier than his ownership were not his father’s, since both father and son clearly stated ownership even on this book of seemingly little importance.
This book of poetry is split into three parts, the first “to devotion and piety,” the second “to virtue, honour and friendship,” and the third “to the memory of the dead.” The front cover page states its place of publication as “BOSTON: Printed and Sold by Rogers and Fowle in Queen-Street and J. Blanchard at the Bible and Crown in Dock-Square. MDCCXLVIII.” Although this book was printed six years before Bidwell’s ownership, with no material evidence or written record, it is difficult to tell whether he would have acquired the book from Boston on a rare and laborious trip, if someone like a seller brought it out to him, or if it was somewhere in between.
The first page of this book contains the title and two epigraphs which give tremendous insight into the meaning of the book. The Greek epigraph is a transliteration of the Pythagorean Aures Carmines (“Golden Verses” previously thought to be written by Pythagoras, but now understood to rather be part of the wider philosophical tradition). The transliteration varies slightly from what is now considered the authoritative Greek text, with some minor differences in diction. The most significant change, however, is one of plurality: the Watts book reads “first, honor and revere the immortal god, who is established by law,” as opposed to the Greek version in which the plural is used, “honor and revere the immortal gods. [1] This speaks to a common phenomenon in the Christian tradition of interpreting Greco-Roman literature and philosophy as monotheistic in order to align with the Christian worldview. As much as this represents an insistence on Christian belief, to the point of changing quoted text, there is not a rejection of the pagan tradition completely.
The Latin epigraph of the book invokes the mythological muses: si non Uranie lyram/ Caelestam cohibet, nec Polyhymnia/ Humanum refugit tendere Barbiton (“if Urania does not hold back the heavenly lyre and Polyhymnia does not deny to tune the human barbiton [i.e. musical instrument]”). As Watts’s book identifies, this is from an imitation of Horace’s Odes. The differences from the original are subtle, but extremely important. The imitation replaces Lesboum barbiton with humanum barbiton (“Lesbian” vs. “human”). [2] While the Renaissance imitation does not deny the existence of the muses nor the desire for their help, it reorients the poems as those written distinctively by humans and disassociates it from the part of the tradition which does not align with Christian morality, as it was considered by the author. This is reflective of the content of the book itself which aims to elevate Christian poetry to height previously reserved for humanist poetry. Even just in the epigraphs of this book we are able to see a distinct expression of the view of culture and societal values which Bidwell was surrounded by.
Among the other books in the Bidwell House Museum’s reconstructed library, the most striking difference from a modern library – more so than merely the religious tilt – is the prevalence of poetry, and deficiency of novels. Among editions of classical poetry, such as Vergil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is a Psalter with both short form and long form poetic translations and How to Read Prose and Verse. Bidwell lived at a unique cultural moment in which the great thinkers and authors of his time were attempting to reconcile strong Christian convictions with secular tradition and art. Watts himself writes in the introduction regarding poetry:
But some of the latter Poets of the Pagan World have debased this Divine Gift; and many of the Writers of the first Rank, in this our Age of National Christians, have, to their eternal Shame, surpassed the vilest of the Gentiles. They have not only disrobed Religion of all the Ornaments of Verse, but have employed their Pens in impious Mischief, to deform her native Beauty, and defile her Honours.
What Watts expresses in his preface is the tension between “Christian” and “pagan” poetry, and the disrespect for poetry on a whole which he perceives has seeped into the cultural milieu. His book was an attempt to show the compatibility of poetry and Christian belief, and that there was not a need to abandon neither the Christian religion nor practices from the broader tradition. If only we knew what Bidwell thought!
We hope you have enjoyed the look at Bidwell’s books. In two weeks we will journey to England and take a look at a “Bidwell” house in the southwestern part of the country.
1. Johan C. Thom, The Pythagorean Golden Verses.
2. Richard Tarrant, Q. Horati Flacci Opera.