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SUPPLEMENT TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PETTY'S WORKS. - Sir William Petty, The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, vol. 2 [1681]Edition used:The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, together with The Observations upon Bills of Mortality, more probably by Captain John Graunt, ed. Charles Henry Hull (Cambridge University Press, 1899), 2 vols.
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SUPPLEMENT TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PETTY'S WORKS.The “Collection of Sir William Petty's Works since the year 1636, found at Wycombe, in his own handwriting,” is here reprinted from Fitzmaurice's “Life of Petty” as a supplement to the bibliography of his printed works. To the items which are now known to exist in print, their numbers in the Bibliography have been added.
This list does not mention all the works which Petty wrote before 1682, and on the other hand it mentions some (e.g. in 1655, 1667) which were not written works at all. Two entries appear of what might be economic pamphlets. Of one, the “Discourse about Registry,” 1661, I have found no trace. The other, the “Discourse against transplanting into Connaught,” is described by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice as a pamphlet entitled “A Discourse against the Transplantation into Connaught,” of which two editions are said to have been published at London, both anonymously, one in January and one in March, 1665.–Life of Petty, 32. A more exact title seems to be: The great | case | of transplantation | in | Ireland | discussed: | or, | Certain Considerations, wherein the | many great inconveniencies in the transplanting ‖ the Natives of Ireland generally out of the three | Provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, into | the Province of Connaught, are shewn. | Humbly tendered to every individual Member | of Parliament, by a Well-wisher to the good of the Common-wealth of England. | [Ornament.] London, Printed for John Cook, and are to be sold at | his shop at the sign of the Ship in St. Paul's | Churchyard. 1665. Title, 1 l., pp. 1–32, 4°. There is also another edition having a title-page like the above in wording and disposition, but from different type, and this imprint: London, Printed for I. C., 1655. In criticism of this pamphlet was published: The interest of England in the Irish Transplantation, stated: Wherein is held forth to all concerned in Ireland's good settlement the benefits the Irish Transplantation will bring to each of them in particular, and to the Commonwealth in general, being chiefly intended as an Answer to a scandalous, seditious Pamphlet, entitled [The great Case of Transplantation in Ireland discussed]. Composed and published at the request of several persons in eminent place in Ireland, to the end all who desire it, might have a true Account of the Proceedings that have been there in the business of Transplantation, both as to the rise, progress, and end thereof. By a faithfull Servant of the Common-wealth, Richard Laurence. London, Printed by Henry Hills, and to be sold at the Sign of Sir John Oldcastle near Py-Corner, MCDLV [1655]. Title, 1 l., pp. 1–29, 4°. A reply soon appeared under the title: The | author | and | Case of Transplanting | the | Irish into Connaught | vindicated, | from the unjust Aspersions of Col. Richard Laurence. | By Vincent Gookin Esquire. | [Ornament.] London, Printed by A. M. for Simon Miller at the Signe of | the Starre in St. Pauls Church-yard. [May 12.] 1655. Title, 1 l., epistle dedicatory, 1 l., pp. 1–59, 4°. — All three pamphlets are in the Halliday Collection in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, in the Library of King's Inns, Dublin, and in the British Museum. An account of The Great Case may be found in Prendergast's Ciomwellian Settlement, pp. 54–64. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice's reason for regarding Petty as one of the authors of the first pamphlet is that “the published book bears the marks of joint authorship, the opening sentences–an elaborate medical comparison between the State and the human body–being altogether in Petty's style as well as the later portions, where the arguments are of exactly the same character as those in the Political Anatomy of Ireland, ch. IV.” These similarities do indeed strengthen the presumption of Petty's collaboration in “The Great Case” which may well arise from his mention of “A Discourse against the Transplanting into Ireland.” But they do not seem to me conclusive, and there are direct arguments against Petty's authorship. So far as the probabilities are concerned it may be noted that Gookin and Petty were personal friends and political allies1 , and as such would naturally take similar views of the Rebellion of 1641. This seems to me to account sufficiently for the parallelism between some passages of “The Great Case” and of the “Political Anatomy.” Nor does the use, of indefinite anatomical metaphors in a discussion of political facts, of necessity imply that the author of the “Case,” had had a medical education. The two most famous among modern biological sociologists were educated, one as a civil engineer, the other as a clergyman, but both make use of such figures of speech as Gookin employed, and the putative author of the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians was by trade a tent maker. On the other hand Gookin, upon the first page of his vindication, distinctly claims the sole authorship of “The Great Case.” He says: “Whilst anything of Reputation might have been the effect of writing the Case of Transplantation, I was content to take the labour to myself and leave the good to others: This was the reason of silencing my name at first. But now what I intended for good is come to be thought so ill, I must leave that resolution and assert my own act.… But though I did not think then fit to put my name in Print, yet did not that Trifle steal out in so clandestine a way as that the Parent was hid from all, but being laid at my door, I owned it.” Accordingly I regard Gookin as the author of “The Great Case of Transplantation,” and have not included it among Petty's Economic Works. [1]Fitzmaurice, 31, 51, 77–81. |

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