[Whyte’s School Dublin] / [Whyte, Samuel] / [Sheridan, Thomas].

Modern Education; or, An Attempt to Explain the Chief Causes and Effects of our Errours and Deficiencies in that Particular. With Practical Proposals for a Reformation. In the Course of which The Female Right to Literature is asserted ; The Supercilious Airs of Vain Pedants Exposed ; Their Wise Objections Exploded ; And the Trite Witticisms, Usual on the Question, Fairly Stated and Confuted : Clearly Demonstrating, That the Weakness and Depravity imputed to the Fair Sex, is wholly owing to our utter Neglect of their Minds ; and that the proper Cultivation of them is the First and Grand Principle of all Human Excellence, as well as of all our social and domestic Felicity. [Bound with: “Lectures On The Art of Reading ; First Part: Containing The Art of Reading Prose. By Thomas Sheridan, A.M., Author of Lectures on Elocution, British Education, &c.”].

First Edition. Dublin, Printed by R.Marchbank, Cole’s Alley, Castle-Street, 1775. Small-Octavo (11.2 cm wide x 17.2 cm high). Pagination: Whyte’s “Modern Education…” is bound to the rear of the Volume: 77 pages plus “Corrigenda” (complete” / Sheridan’s “Lecture on the Art of Reading – Part I” is bound at the start of the Volume: vii, (1), 213 pages plus 1 page “Advertisement” [of Whyte’s “English Grammar-School” in Dublin, Grafton-Street, No.75”]. Hardcover / Original, full 18th century leather with gilt ornament and new spine-label in the style of the 18th century. In protective Mylar. Very good condition with only minor signs of wear. Extremely scarce title !

Samuel Whyte (1733-1811)

Born on shipboard between Ireland and Liverpool; cousin of Francis [Chamberlaine] Sheridan, raised by the Sheridan family in Dublin; opened his famous school at 75 Grafton St. in 1758; ‘Whyte’s School’ became alma mater to R. B. Sheridan, the Duke of Wellington, and Thomas Moore – who eulogised him early with the lines ‘hail heaven-taught votary of the Muses nine …’; Donovan, the Latin ussher at his school, was an ardent patriot (acc. Stephen Gwynn, Thomas Moore, 1905);

ed., Shamrock or Hibernian Cresses (1772) containing poems of his protegés and later a selection of same as Poems on Various Occasions (1792; rev. 1795), heavily subscribed and twice reprinted, containing verses by his pupils and others, incl. Hall Hartson, Thomas Moore and Thomas Dermody; provided guide to pronunciation for 1798 edition of Dr. Johnson’s English Dictionary; also Miscellanea Nova (Dublin 1800). ODNB DIW FDA OCIL

Works:

The Shamrock, or Hibernian Cresses, edited by Samuel Whyte (Dublin 1772); Do. [another edn.] (London: printed for S. Bladon, No. 28, Pater-Noster Row, MDCCLXXIII [1773]), viii, 272pp., 8°; Do. [pirated 2nd edn.] (London: R. Snagg No. 29, Pater-Noster Row, MDCCLXXIV [1774]), [2], v-viii, 272pp.; and Do., reissued as A Collection of Poems, the production of the kingdom of Ireland; selected from a collection pub. in that kingdom intituled, The Shamrock; or, Hibernian Cresses (Dublin 1792-94), with add. material.
ed. Poems on Various Subjects including The theatre, a didactic essay; in the course of which are pointed out, the rocks and shoals to which deluded adventurers are inevitably exposed. Ornamented with cuts, and illustrated with notes, original letters and curious incidental anecdotes (1792) [printed with 705 subscriptions]; Do., The second edition, carefully revised and conducted through the press, by Edward Athenry Whyte (Dublin: printed by Robert Marchbank, and sold by Exshaw, Archer, Jones, Moore, Rice, Grueber, Draper, Mercier, &c. and by the editor, 1794]), [2], vii, [1], vii, [2], iv-x, [1], x-lvi, [2], 257, [7], 257-343, [1]pp., ill. [pls.: port.], 8° [bearing add. t.p. engraved ‘Dublin, printed for the editor, Edward Athenry Whyte, F.C.T.C.D. 1793’; incls. list of subscribers, the addenda to which are dated April 16th, 1794; text continuous despite some mispagination; and Do. [3rd edn.] [1796]) [see details]; also electronic edition [Eighteenth Century, Reel 5001, No. 3].

Miscellaneous Works:

1. ed., [James Burgh,] The Art of Speaking: Containing I. An essay; in which are given rules for expressing properly the principal passions and humours, […] and II. Lessons taken from the antients and moderns […] (London : printed for T. Longman, J. Buckland, and W. Fenner, in Pater-noster-Row; J. Waugh, in Lombard-street; E. Dilly, in the Poultry; and T. Field, in Cheapside, M.DCC.LXI. [1761]), [4],373,[19]pp.; Do. [2nd edn.] (London 1768); Do. [4th edn.] London: T. Longman & J. Buckland, etc., 1775), 373pp., 8°; Do. [5th edn.] (London 1781), 8°; [6th edn.] (Dublin 1784), 12°; Do. [7th Edn.] (London: printed for T. Longman and J. Buckland, in Pater-noster-Row; T. Field, in Leadenhall-street; and C. Dilly, in the Poultry, 1787, 1792), 373pp. [see details]; and Do. [another edn.; so-called 7th Edn] (London 1792) [copy held in Oxford UL].

2. English grammar-school, Grafton Street, Dublin ([Dublin] c.1765]), 8pp.; 22 cm./8° [‘Next to the preservation of life, the education of our children is indisputably of the highest importance …’; longer version of the text given in Samuel Whyte, Shamrock (1772) as ‘Thoughts on the prevailing system of school education’.

3. [Anonymously] “Modern education; or, An attempt to explain the chief causes and effects of our errours and deficiencies in that particular : with practical proposals for a reformation. In the course of which the female right to literature is asserted … and the trite witticisms, usual on the question, fairly stated and confuted …” (Dublin: printed by R. Marchbank, Cole’s-Alley, Castle-Street, M,DCC,LXXV. [1775]), [2], 78pp., 12°/18 cm.

4. The Beauties of History … A new edition, enlarged and carefully corrected. To which is prefixed, an introductory tract on education … By Samuel Whyte (Dublin: printed by R. Marchbank, 1775), 2 vol. 12° [the author named on the titlepage of Vol. 2].

5. The theatre, a didactic essay, in the course of which are pointed out the rocks and shoals to which deluded adventurers are inevitably exposed[,] by Samuel Whyte (London: Printed for the editor, Edward Athenry Whyte, MDCCXCIII [1793]), viii, viii, iii-x, ix-xl, 260, [4], 257-77, [2], 277-79, [3], 280-365, [1], xli-lxxx, [2], 341-42, ill. [6pp. of pls.; port., 8°. Do., as The Theatre, a didactic essay: including an idea of the character of Jane Shore, as performed by a young lady in a private play, &c. (Dublin: printed by Zachariah Jackson, for John Jones, 1790), xiv, [2], 30, [8]pp. [The last three leaves contain the prologue to “The Sailor metamorphosed” and “Address, &c. to Miss Whyte” followed by a final advertisement leaf; ESTC T92974; also electronic copy, Gale / Eighteenth Century, Reel 17349, No.03.]

6. An Introductory Essay on the Art of Reading, and Speaking in Public, Part First and Second; in which an Investigation of the Principles of Written Language is Attempted. By Samuel Whyte, Principal of the English Grammar and Classic-School (Dublin: printed by Robert Marchbank, for the editor, Edward-Athenry Whyte; where it may be had, and of the booksellers, 1800), vii, [1], 288pp., 8°. [mentions Miscellanea Nova, Dublin 1800, on t.p.]

7. [with Edward Athenry Whyte,] Miscellanea Nova; containing, Amidst a Variety of Other Matters Curious and Interesting, Remarks on Boswell’s Johnson … a critique on Bürger’s Leonora … and an introductory essay on the art of reading and speaking in public, In two parts. A new edition. By S. Whyte, and his son, E. – A. Whyte (Dublin 1800, 1801), [iii-]ix, 280pp., 8°/20cm.; see note].

Note: Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of English […; 8th edn.(Dublin: printed by R. Marchbank, No. 18, Chancery-Lane., 1798) – being first edition to incorporate a guide to pronunciation supplied by Samuel Whyte acc. to a note on [a]2v [in TCD copy, observed by Robin Alston]. An earlier issue of this edition has Vol. 1 dated 1797 and gives Marchbank’s address as Temple-Lane; texts are from same setting of type except that titlepage to Vol. 1 has been reset in this later issue. Subscribers’ list present, [a]2; note at end states that as not enough subscriptions were received Marchbank had to relinquish a half share in the edition to William Gilbert and Jeremiah Sullivan. Issued in parts (see nos. in signature lines: 26 in Vol.1 and 27 in Vol. 2); text in 3 columns; press figures present in Vol. 1; substantial amount of Anglo-Saxon type used in prelims. [TCD Lib., cat. no. OLS L-5-186-187].

Commentary:

John O’Keeffe, Recollections (London: Colburn 1826), Vol. I, 304: ‘[…] the children of Mr. Samuel Whyte’s school in Grafton Street, getting up Cato, at Crow Street theatre … succeeded to the delight of every feeling mind’ (Quoted in P. Kavanagh, Irish Theatre, 1946, p.54.) Note that O’Keeffe goes on to describe how ‘the master of a most eminent classical school in Dublin permitted and encouraged his boys to act the First Part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV. The schoolroom was fitted up as a theatre in very good style [… &c.]’ (Quoted La Tourette Stockwell, Dublin Theatres and Theatre Customs 1637-1820, NY: Benjamin Blom, 1968, p.353).

Thomas Moore: Moore wrote that Whyte stood ‘at the head of his profession’ and that he owed ‘to that exalted person all the instruction in English literature I have ever received’ (Memoirs of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, I, p.3.) Moore also speaks of Whyte’s theatricals, Memoirs, Journals, and Correspondence ([8 vols.] 1853), Vol. I, p.8. Further: ‘In the direction of those private theatricals which were at that time so fashionable among the higher circles in Ireland, he had always a leading share. Besides teaching and training young actors, he took frequently a part in the dramatis personae himself, and either the prologue or the epilogue were generally furnished by his Pen.’ (Moore, idem.)

Robert E. Ward, Encycopedia of Irish Schools 1500-1800 (Mellen Press 1995), remarks on Whyte as ideal teacher for Thomas Moore and author of elocution textbook The Art of Reading and Speaking in Public (1768), [&c.], who encouraged his students to write and recite poetry; Moore’s early verses were written in emulation of Whyte’s. Ward further quotes from Moore’s preface to the Poetical Works referring to the period when he was Whyte’s ‘show scholar’ in this line (Moore p.16), contributing an item called ‘An Epilogue, A Squeeze to St. Paul’s’ to a performance of 1790 in Lady Borrowe’s private theatre. (Ward., op. cit., p.154.) Bibl., Hoover. H. Jordan, Bolt Upright: The Life of Thomas Moore, 2 vols. (Salzburg: Salzburg Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur 1975).

Rolf Loeber & Magda Loeber, A Guide to Irish Fiction, 1650-1900, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2006 [Intro.]: ‘Prose fiction in the English language started to replace ppoetry in the first part of the nineteenth century. Samuel Whyte anticipated this change in a poem published in Dublin in 1795: “If though must write, and would’st they work disperse, / Write novels, sermons, and any thing but verse.” He was right about novels, which became a popular genre of writing […].’ (p.liv.)

Quotations:

Poetry or fiction? ‘If thou must write, and would’st thy works disperse, Write novels, sermons, and any thing but verse.’ (Poems on Various Subjects, Dublin 1795, p.161; quoted in Rolf Loeber & Magda Loeber, A Guide to Irish Fiction, 1650-1900, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2006, p.lii.)

[Source: ricorso.net]

• Keywords: Catalogue Irish History Seven – Irish Literature – Poetry – Music – Theatre · Catalogue Irish History Two – Origins of Irish Identity · Catalogue No.10 – International Literature · Catalogue No.30 – Poetry · Catalogue Three – Literature by Women · Education – Rare · Education History · Education of Women in Ireland · Feminism – Rare · Irish History of Literature · Irish Literature – 18th Century · Irish Literature – Rare · Irish Poetry · Irish Poetry – Rare · Irish Printing History (Dublin) · Pedagogy · Whyte’s School in Dublin
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 32351AB

EUR 1.480,--