The Correspondence of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society 1710–1761 ed. by Diana Honeybone and Michael Honeybone (review)

The Spalding Gentlemen’s Society was founded in 1710 by Maurice Johnson (1688–1755) and maintained by him for the next forty years in his hometown of Spalding, Lincolnshire. As stated in its first Minute Book, the Society was intended to foster benevolence and learning among its membership, as well as to raise and maintain a public lending library. This last goal was largely accomplished by having each new member donate a book or manuscript upon the occasion of his election to the Society. As indicated by the extensive membership it acquired, the Society became well known throughout the country, and it survived in one form or another until the present day.

Modeled after the Royal Society, Johnson’s club scheduled regular meetings to hear or to discuss some new thesis, invention, or scientific discovery presented by a member or an invited guest, or submitted by a correspondent. The Society’s growth is reflected in the increasing number of Johnson’s exchanges with correspondents throughout England. (It should be noted, however, that many of the letters in the edition, although collected by Johnson for the Society’s archives, had not been written to or by Johnson himself.) In time, the Society’s rolls included such notables as Newton, Pope, William Bowyer (the printer), Martin Folkes, President of the Royal Society, the renowned collector Robert Harley, the noted antiquarian William Stukely, and Sir John Hill, well-known botanist and editor of The Inspector.

As it grew, the Society’s agenda addressed a wider range of subjects in science and the humanities. Johnson himself was intensely interested in ancient coins, medals, seals, and inscriptions, artifacts that frequently became the sole subject of letters he exchanged with members of the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, or other societies like his own. Through these associations, both he and his Spalding Society earned a national reputation. It is significant that his letter regarding the floods at Yarm appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (No. 48, 1754) and another Society paper on the Deeping Fen waterspout was published in 1753 (No. 47).

A treasury of information, the Honeybones’ edition presents the concerns and accomplishments of careers that history has relegated to the second and third rank. These valuable data have been relegated to local publications or have survived as unpublished theses, including one by Mr. Honeybone, editor of the present collection.

Only 58 of the total 581 letters are complete and exact transcriptions of the originals; the other 90 percent are abstracts of the holograph letters. Such thrifty presentation deprives the reader of evidence that all of a letter’s subjects have been abstracted; of the author’s intentions; of the subject’s importance to the writer or to his correspondent; and of the correspondent’s literary style.

Interesting details are omitted. We are told that Johnson’s letter (No. 110) to the Academia Etrusca in Cortona, Italy, lists the significant members of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, but their names are hidden from us. In the abstract of Richard Norcliffe’s letter (No. 164), the abstract indicates that the original letter contains a description of the indigenous inhabitants of Greenland and an account of their religion, but this is another treat we are not to enjoy. Calamy Ives’s 8½-page account of cities and people he encountered on his trip to and through Ireland is merely mentioned (No. 503). Similarly, readers are left frustrated with abstracts that merely refer to descriptions of the new steel mill in Newcastle (No. 270), the structure and earthworks of Berkhamsted Castle (No. 377), the remains of Melrose Abbey in Scotland (No. 396), and other potentially engaging accounts.

On the other hand, the editors’ selection of letters for which they do provide full texts is laudable. Johnson’s brother’s accounts of Addison’s Cato (1713) on the...