Aspects of Kentish Local History

an undergraduate. Dr. Tullie in reply praised Henry's outspokenness: "you have shewed your selfe to be a vates in both senses of the word; a Poet and a Prophet. You have compos'd an Heroick verse in a double notion; for to deliver your mind so plainly to the world at such a time was no les then Heroicall. You have pictur'd the Hypocrisie of the Age (which it selfe is but a pictue) to the life ........." As regards a re-issue, however, his letter continues, "In my slender judgment the re-publishing of your poem might be a little more seasonable when things are brought to some better compromise than at present they are .......... I am the more tempted to this presumption of Counsail by his Majestie's late proclamation, wherein he seems averse from the renuall of provocations; and I know you would not willinglie .............. swerve from a copy set us by so faire a hand."¹ It is uncertain whether or not the book was reprinted by Thomas Newcombe.

III

   Henry's second book, Jobus Triumphans, is exceedingly scarce; it seems doubtful whether any copy survives except the one, originally belonging to the author's great grandson Lee Warly, formerly in the possession of the late Dr. F. W. Cock, F.S.A., of Appledore, and sold with his library in June 1944.²

   Probably in the first instance not more than 100 copies were printed, and since, on the testimony of Thomas Oxinden in 1667, it was "read in schooles beyond the sea", this may help to account for its scarcity. No publisher's name is on the title page, but a fragmentary letter from Thomas Newcombe, dated June 21th [sic], 1660, states: "for Jobus Triumphans, I [have] none of them left, neither more or less [but I] intend to print both the one and the other; the [general] sense is that your book Religionis Funus it the Nobler Volume".³ This suggests that Newcombe, then of the King's Printing House, Savoy, originally printed the Jobus, and produced, at some time after 1660, a reprint of both works, if indeed, in the collapse of Henry's fortunes, it ever saw the light. Newcombe was probably introduced to him by Marchmont Nedham. In Dr. Cock's copy the printed date 1651 has been for some reason unknown corrected in ink by Lee Warly to 1656. The poem was certainly completed, if only handed about in manuscript for friendly criticism, as early as April 1649.^{4
  1} Undated, but about 1660. MS. 28,001, f. 59.
   ² The Catalogue of Sale gives the purchaser's name as Pickering.
   ³  MS. 28,004, f. 132.
   ⁴ cf. Letter XCV; also cf. MS. 28,001, f. 309, where Thomas Denne writes on December 26th, 1647, "I have heare inclosed your Jobian Muse", but this may refer to Religionis Funus.