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THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY


ELKANAH SETTLE
THE NOTORIOUS IMPOSTOR
(1692)

DIEGO REDIVIVUS
(1692)


Introduction by
Spiro Peterson


Publication Number 68


Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California




GENERAL EDITORS

  RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
  RALPH COHEN, _University of California, Los Angeles_
  VINTON A. DEARING, _University of California, Los Angeles_
  LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL, _Clark Memorial Library_


ASSISTANT EDITOR

  W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_


ADVISORY EDITORS

  EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
  BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
  LOUIS BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
  JOHN BUTT, KING'S COLLEGE, _University of Durham_
  JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
  ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
  LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_
  SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
  ERNEST C. MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
  JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_
  H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_


CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

  EDNA C. DAVIS, _Clark Memorial Library_




INTRODUCTION


The great English novel of the eighteenth century was developed out of
the long established traditions in the essay, letter, religious
treatise, biography and personal memoir. Although this influence has
been generally acknowledged, the critical investigation of its exact
nature has often been hampered by the lack of readily available texts.
Especially is this true of the criminal biographies written in the late
seventeenth century. The reprinting of Elkanah Settle's _The Notorious
Impostor_ (Part One) and the anonymous _Diego Redivivus_ is thus
justified as providing the means for the further study of the early
fiction-writer's techniques. Published In 1692, the two pamphlets
belong to a group of five closely-related narratives dealing with a
real criminal named William Morrell. In the probable order of their
publication, these were _Diego Redivivus_, _The Notorious Impostor_
(Part One), _The Second Part of the Notorious Impostor_, "_William
Morrell's_ Epitaph" in _The Gentleman's Journal_, and _The Compleat
Memoirs of the Life of that Notorious Impostor Will. Morrell_. The
different accounts forcefully demonstrate how criminal fiction allied
itself with both biography and the picaresque. In addition, _The
Notorious Impostor_ serves as a representative work by Elkanah Settle
whose criminal biographies have never received the attention they
deserve.[1]

The combination of fact and fiction in the William Morrell narratives
had been tried earlier in Settle's first known criminal biography, _The
Life and Death of Major Clancie, the Grandest Cheat of this Age_
(1680). Like Bunyan's _Mr. Badman_, advertised in the same issue of
_The Term Catalogues_ (I, 382), _Major Clancie_ purports to narrate
"Real matter of Fact." Thus, in the background, significant historical
events, from the Irish Rebellion to the Great Fire, are being enacted.
Important English worthies--Lord Ormonde, Bishop Compton, Charles
II--become entangled in the villainies of the Major, an actual Irish
criminal. None of this historical backdrop is to be found, however, in
_The Notorious Impostor_; and the characters here, although Sir William
Walters and Humphrey Wickham were well-known local personages, are not
historically eminent. The picaresque in _Major Clancie_, too, is more
readily identifiable than in _The Notorious Impostor_. For, contrary to
its stated aim, the biography of Clancie is more fiction than fact.
Anthony Wood, noting the fictional elaborations, remarked: "Several
stories in this book which belong to other persons are fathered on the
said major; who, as I remember, was in Oxon in the plague year 1665
when the king and the queen kept their respective courts there."[2]
Wood then contributes a few of his own pungent stories about the Major,
which have no counterparts in Settle's narrative. Where the two writers
provide parallel accounts, the "fiction" appears to be based on a
substratum of truth surviving in anecdotes. Settle's verisimilitude had
an effect upon Theophilus Lucas's _Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and
Comical Adventures of the Most Famous Gamesters and Celebrated
Sharpers_ (1714), which begins with a condensed version of _The Life
and Death of Major Clancie_.[3] Lucas presents his account as if it
were a true memoir.


_The Notorious Impostor_ was to experience a similar acceptance as a
memoir. All modern biographical accounts of its villain-hero, William
Morrell,[4] are based on the two separate parts of _The Notorious
Impostor_ or _The Compleat Memoirs_. On January 3, 1692, he had died, a
criminal at large; and the strange circumstances of his death became
the talk of London. While the event was still a sensation, the
bookseller Abel Roper rushed his "last will and testament" lives into
print. The first to appear was _Diego Redivivus_, reprinted here from
the rare copy at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Evidence
for the publication of _Diego Redivivus_ before _The Notorious
Impostor_ is fairly conclusive. _The Registers of the Worshipful
Company of Stationers_ (III, 397) enters _Diego Redivivus_, on behalf
of Abel Roper, for January 12, 1692, and _The Term Catalogues_ (II,
392) advertises _The Notorious Impostor_ in the quarterly issue
published in February, but Anthony Wood (III, 384) states that he
bought his copy of the latter "in the beginning of March." A comparison
of the two texts, moreover, supports this order of the publication.

Events in _Diego Redivivus_, as in a news story, have greater
immediacy. Morrell's death, the title asserts, took place the third
of "this instant January." The specific detail of _Diego_ (p. 2:
"about a fortnight before _Christmas_") is paralleled by the general
statement of _The Notorious Impostor_ (p. 30: "Some few days before
_Christmas_"). Although its title-page promises a "Full Relation" of
Morrell's cheats, _Diego Redivivus_ presents only the final "will"
episode, whereas _The Notorious Impostor_ ranges over the whole
criminal career. Both narratives have in common the long will and
codicil, except that _The Notorious Impostor_ (p. 34) drastically
shortens the Latin passage which, in _Diego Redivivus_ (p. 10),
states that the will had been probated. Even more conclusive evidence
may be found in comparing the dates of the final events in the two
accounts. _Diego Redivivus_, licensed on January 12, stops short with
the humble burial of Morrell on January 13. Considerably later,
certainly, must be the occurrence described in the Postscript of _The
Notorious Impostor_: the nurse's and assistants' recollection that
Morrell was laughing to himself in his last grim cheating of the
world.

Part One of _The Notorious Impostor_, as the sequel informs us, met
with a "general Reception." Advertised in the February issue of _The
Term Catalogues_, also, was a separate continuation. Interest in the
impostor did not diminish during February. "The Death of _William
Morrell_," complained _The Gentleman's Journal_ of this month, "hath
made too much Noise not to have reach'd you before this.... Had not his
Will and Life been printed, I would have given you a large Account of
both." The anonymous writer refers here, perhaps, to _Diego Redivivus_
("Will") and _The Notorious Impostor_ ("Life") in the order of their
publication. He then ironically lauds, in the verses of "_William
Morrell's_ Epitaph," the great skill of the impostor ("Columbus-like I
a new World descry'd, / Of Roguery before untry'd").

Elkanah Settle's two parts of _The Notorious Impostor_ were