The pagan prince, or, A comical history of the heroick atchievements of the Palatine of Eboracum / by the author of the Secret history of King Charles II. and K. James II.

Amsterdam : [s.n.], 1690.

1 volume ; 14 cm

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Netherlands -- Amsterdam, -- publication place.

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From dealer's description: "A CERVANTESQUE SATIRE ON JAMES II: “VERY RARE, PRIVATELY PRINTED AND SURREPTITIOUSLY DISTRIBUTED” (ALLARDYCE) LAST SEEN AT AUCTION IN 1931 [PHILLIPS, John?]. The Pagan Prince: Or a Comical History of the Heroick Atchievements of the Palatine of Eboracum. By the Author of the Secret History of King Charles II. and K. James II. Amsterdam [i.e. London?]: no printer, 1690. 12mo. [13.8 x 8.8 cm]. (12), 144 pp, including initial blank. Bound in late 18th century blind-tooled calf, ‘diced’ in a chain-link fashion, and with gilt title and date on spine. Binding and joints a little rubbed; internally excellent. Rare sole edition of this charming, illicitly-published satire on the exploits of England’s deposed king, James II, printed just a year after his flight to France. The author is suggested to have been John Phillips (1631-1706), hack-writer and mischievous nephew of John Milton (see more below). Composed in the same vein as contemporary favorites such as The Amours of Philantus and Bellamond, The Dutch Whore, and The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth (all also printed in 1690), Mabel Allardyce describes The Pagan Prince as “very rare, privately printed and surreptitiously distributed”. ESTC and OCLC together find five US copies (Harvard, Illinois, Newberry, UCLA, and Princeton); RareBookHub shows the last copy at auction in 1931 (lacking A1). Phillips (1631-1706) was the nephew and godson of John Milton. “From infancy he lived with his uncle, from whom he derived all of his education… He soon chafed against his uncle’s strict discipline and principles, and… [wrote] a smart attack upon the religion of Cromwell and his friends, almost worthy of the author of ‘Hudibras’…” (DNB). A further licentious work, Sportive Wit (1656) was ordered to be burned by Cromwell’s Council of State. Phillips produced a large number of similarly scurrilous works and satirical imitations, many of which probably remain uncredited. The Pagan Prince is strongly inflected by Cervantes’s mock-heroic Don Quixote, while his descriptions of James’ upbringing essentially regurgitate long passages from Gargantua and Pantagruel. The young ‘Palatine of York’ is introduced to the Knight of La Mancha on p. 3 by his tutor, and later references are made to in Chapters 7 and 9 to the Spaniard’s valor (cf Randall). Although a roman à clef, the author’s preface openly mocks James as a puppet of the French king, to whom the work is dedicated: “Vouchsafe then Great Sir, kindly to entertain him, returning to your Country laden with Renown and the Spoils of your Enemies; and if not in consideration of his Immortal Exploites, yet for the sake of his and your most beloved Messalina, bestow upon him one Corner of the Vast Pasty of your Conquests, for him to rest his Limbs grown Old and Enfeebl’d with the Toyls and Hardships of those many Combats which he has undertaken in your Quarrel.” (*3v) Recognizable figures include the ‘Soldan of Albion’ (Oliver Cromwell) and the ‘Mufti of Papimania’ (‘the Chief City of Pagan-land’) as the Pope; eventually, the text devolves into utter fantasy, with prolix descriptions of flying horses; meals of ‘Ostridge Stomachs’; mischievous invisible imps called ‘Miphostofolus’s’; and fantastic War-Seahorses, each with “ten pair of grey Canvas Wings; out of their sides gap’d a number of Mouths that spit Fire, and huge Gobbets of Iron instead of Flegm…” (p. 118). By Chapter 42 (p. 122), the compositor evidently realized that he would not have enough sheets to fit the text, and the font size shrinks considerably throughout the final 20 pages. * Hazlitt, p. 204; Lowndes V, 1185; ESTC R2982 (the Bodleian copy lacking pp. 131-4); and cf Randall, Cervantes in Seventeenth-Century England (2009), p. 487; and Allardyce, A catalogue of books, pamphlets, broadsides, portraits, etc., in the Stuart and Jacobite Collection gathered together by W.M. MacBean (1949), p. x." Ordered from Editio Altera Rare Books & Manuscripts, D9703, 2023-12-19, email quote.

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