Recent news on Bernard Mandeville

 

This Bernard Mandeville website in Dutch was launched on April 2, 2005, the tercentenary of Bernard Mandeville’s The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turn’d Honest. Being a work in progress, it is often being amended, extended and hopefully improved.

It is part of a project to make the Collected Works (10 volumes) of the Dutchman Bernard Mandeville accessible to speakers and readers of Dutch. This website presents some recent items which may be interesting to foreign students of Bernard Mandeville as well.

 

A survey of these items:

· Volume 1: De wereld gaat aan deugd ten onder (2006), (The world is being ruined by virtue), published by Lemniscaat at Rotterdam. It is the first volume of the projected publication of Mandeville’s collected works, translated into Dutch. See also the page Verzameld werk.

· Volume 2: Mensen spreken niet om begrepen te worden (2007), (People do not speak to be understood), the second volume of Mandeville’s collected works, translated into Dutch, published by Lemniscaat at Rotterdam. See also the page Verzameld werk, and Introduction.

· Volume 3: De fabel van de bijen (2008), (The fable of the bees), the third volume of Mandeville’s collected works, translated into Dutch, published by Lemniscaat at Rotterdam. See also the page Verzameld werk.

· Volume 4: De oorsprong van de eer en het nut van christelijkheid bij oorlog (2010), (The origin of honour and the usefulness of christianity in war) the fourth volume of Mandeville’s collected works, translated into Dutch, published by Lemniscaat at Rotterdam. See also the page Verzameld werk.

· Volume 5: Vrije gedachten over godsdienst, kerk en volksgeluk (2011), Free thoughts on religion, the church and national happiness, 2nd edition, the fifth volume of Mandeville’s collected works, translated into Dutch, published by Lemniscaat at Rotterdam. See also the page Verzameld werk.

 

· Only recently, on July 12, 2007, we could announce Bernard Mandeville’s date and even time of birth: Bernard Mandeville was born on November 15, 1670, at about three o’clock in the morning. The page Familie shows a picture of a note by his father Michael de Mandeville, written in the Mandeville family bible (in private Dutch ownership), stating this day and hour of birth of his son Bernardus. Bernard was born at Rotterdam. However, on Thursday November 20, 1670, his baptismal name became Barent, after his grandfather Barent Verhaer, as shown by a photocopy of the register of baptisms of Rotterdam. While in England, Mandeville always kept his Dutch nationality.

· Bernard Mandeville’s mother Judith Verhaar (1642-1688) was born on December 22, 1642, at Schoonhoven, where she grew up. She died on March 29, 1688, at Rotterdam. She gave birth to five children, of whom three died as babies. Bernard was her third child. His sister Petronella Clementia (1684-1774), was further brought up by her aunt Elizabeth de Mandeville at Arnhem. Their aunt-and-niece relationship may have been the model for The Virgin Unmasked (1709). Petronella married in 1709 Jan van Laer from Zwolle.

· The name of Bernard Mandeville’s maternal grandmother and Barent Verhaar’s wife is Meinsje Jans Hamsarda. Hamsarda, as she wrote herself, means ‘from Hamsard’, thus being born in a village by the name “Hamseerden”, as the clerk put it, now Hamswehrum near Emden. Her father was Jan Atis, probably a captain or skipper from the seaport of Stavoren, in Friesland, where she lived when marrying Barent Verhaar in 1639. Meinsje (short for Clementia)  Hamsarda was born in 1620.

· Barent Verhaar, Mandeville’s maternal grandfather, was born at the Hanseatic and fortified town of Zaltbommel, and christened  Bernt there on April 4, 1609.

· Through Barent Verhaar, Bernard Mandeville was related to well-known Geneva-Italian families originating from Lucca, such as the Diodatis, Burlamacchis etc. and also to the Le Clercs. For more information, see Mensen spreken niet om begrepen te worden (2007), note 165.

· Mandeville’s wife was Elizabeth Lawrence (or Laurence) (1673/4-1732). Her name was not Ruth Elizabeth, as mentioned by F.B. Kaye, I, p. xx. The mistake has been caused by a misreading of Mandeville’s marriage licence allegation dated 28 January 1699.

· Most likely Bernard Mandeville lived with his family most of the time in the parish of Lambeth, probably and more precisely in Kennington, until very shortly before he died as a widower at Hackney.

· Mandeville’s wife Elizabeth died in 1732, and was buried at St Giles, Camberwell, on April 25, 1732. This fact was presented by mrs. Lyndesay Williams, who is in genealogical research on the English Mandevilles.

· Bernard Mandeville died at Hackney on January 21, 1733, but according to a burial entry of St Giles, Camberwell, he was buried in the churchyard of Camberwell on January 25, 1733. Source: mrs. Lyndesay Williams.

· Bernard Mandeville’s children. In 1733, Bernard Mandeville and his wife Elizabeth had two (surviving) children, Michael (1699-1769), and Penelope (ca. 1705-1748). See below.

· Bernard Mandeville's children: four more. Baptismal entries of St Giles, Cripplegate, and burial entries of St Giles, Camberwell, show that  Mandeville, while living in England, became the father of (at least) 4 more children, a fact so far unknown. These four children all died at a young age. Their names are John, Petronella Clementia, Clementia and Elizabeth.  More information about them:

1) A boy, called  John,  born May 4, 1700, whose mother’s name was not Elizabeth, but Joyce. This son was  buried on August 13, 1702.

2) A girl, Petronella Clementia, born July 16, 1701, whose mother was Elizabeth, and who was named after Bernard Mandeville’s sister Petronella Clementia (1684-1774). This daughter was buried on May 6, 1702.

3) A girl, Clementia, named after Mandeville’s maternal grandmother Meinsje (Clementia) Hamsarda. Her mother was Elizabeth. She was buried in the churchyard of St Giles, Camberwell on February 28, 1709.

4) A girl, Elizabeth, whose mother was Elizabeth as well. She was  buried on April 25, 1709, at St Giles’ Churchyard, Camberwell. Source: mrs. Lyndesay Williams.

· Penelope Mandeville married John Bradnox in London, on April 14, 1726; both licensed St. Mary’s parish, Lambeth.

· John Bradnox and Penelope Mandeville lived at Lambeth, and became the parents of 5 children: John (1727), named after his paternal grandfather; Bernard (1728), named after his maternal grandfather: Bernard Mandeville; Elizabeth (1734), named after her maternal grandmother Elizabeth (Lawrence) Mandeville; the twins Penelope and Judith (1739), of whom Penelope probably was named after her maternal greatgrandmother Penelope Lawrence and Judith after her maternal greatgrandmother Judith Verhaer (1739); and Ann (1741). Just before Ann‘s birth, John Bradnox died in 1741. Penelope passed away in 1748. As for Ann, see next.

· Penelope’s brother Michael Mandeville, living at Kennington (also indicated as Kennington Lane) in the parish of Lambeth, became in 1741 the guardian of her two then surviving children Elizabeth and Ann. These children are not mentioned in Michael Mandeville’s will (1766), except that Ann might be Ann Dunston, who, in this will, is called his ‘kinswoman’. Her husband was Edward Dunston, of Tring, Hertfordshire. Michael Mandeville himself died without issue.

· The name of Mandeville is etymologically of a Saxon origin, consists of the word “mande”, meaning common and “wiler”, meaning hamlet. Mande or Mante may also be understood as personal names. Anyhow, Mandeville or Manteville is a French corruption of the place-name “Man(t)(d)ewiler”.

· As for Bernard Mandeville’s descent, he is a (5th generation) descendant of an army officer called Jan de Mandeville, (in French) Jean de Manteville, a member of an ancient family of gentry, army officers and governors. This family originated from the Belgian / French region of  Lorraine (see the still existing Mandeville Family Castle), then a part of the Netherlands province (duchy) of Luxemburg. Jan / Jean, and also a brother of his, served in the Walloon army of the regent of the Netherlands, Margaretha of Parma, and then in the army of her successor, the Spanish Duke de Alba (1507-1582). So he was possibly the Walloon (i.e. Southern Dutch) captain of a Walloon company in the regiment of colonel Caspar de Robles, who came to the province of Groningen in 1569. In Groningen, this Mandeville was from 1569-1574 the commander of the important fortress of Delfzijl. In 1574 he was transferred with his company to Leeuwarden. In 1576 the Walloon regiment of De Robles - De Robles being discharged - came under the command of the Dutch States-General. Both of the De Mandevilles may have lived further in the provincial capital of Friesland, Leeuwarden, or have returned sooner or later to their region of origin.

 

· See: Arne C. Jansen, BERNARD MANDEVILLE: SOME RECENT GENEALOGICAL DISCOVERIES in Notes & Queries Advance Access 2009 http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/ on May 7 2009.

 

· The page Poorter describes the typical mainstream Dutch context of Bernard Mandeville’s background, being a “poorter”, an exponent of the “portspeople”, inhabitants of an amazingly large and dense number of port towns and their immediate surroundings in The Netherlands, a decentralised civilization, free from of any feudalistic powers (church, nobility). Therefore the portspeople are self-conscious, neither courtly nor slavish. They are no “burghers”, such as people in neighbouring countries chiefly are, who tend to value themselves and others in relation to positions of authority. Much credit is given to the eminent exponent of this Dutch mainstream culture - including its typical political and religious (‘Remonstrant’) notions - Dirk Volckertszoon Coornhert (1522-1590), who preceded Bernard Mandeville. About Coornhert, see Gerrit Voogt, Constraint on Trial: Dirck Volkertsz Coornhert and religious freedom (2000). But it must be noted, that Mandeville, guided by the Hippocratic oath as his main principle, differs consequently from Coornhert, who was a notary public and secretary of the town of Haarlem.

· Bernard Mandeville was quite aware of national and cultural differences. In The Virgin  Unmasked, pp 162 ff. (“In Holland there is no difference between the sovereign and the beggar.”) he described the Dutch as being saucy. His own sauciness corresponds with the mainstream of Dutch culture, which may be called exceptional compared to the mentalities of surrounding nations. The saucy (direct or “boorish”) behaviour of portspeople has always been criticized by “burghers”. On the other hand, this very exceptionality of Dutch culture, having originated from pre-medieval times, has always been attractive to foreigners and will be future-proof in a world of closely connected modern cities.

· The page Poezie indicates some specific Dutch influences (Rabus, Van Focquenbroch) as to Bernard Mandeville’s poetry.

· Early Dutch reception of Mandeville’s Grumbling Hive or Knaves turn’d Honest. The poem (1709) Slechten Tyd (‘Bad Times’) by the Amsterdam merchant and poet Jan de Regt (?-1715), was most likely inspired by Bernard Mandeville’s Grumbling Hive or Knaves turn’d Honest (1705).

· The page Bibliografie mentions two poems by Mandeville, written in Dutch, the items nr 16 and 17, called Versoek-schrift and Dankzegginge. These poems were discovered on November 9, 2004. See also below, where they are referred to as ‘Thijs’-poems.

· The page Thijs-gedichten I presents two poems by Bernard Mandeville, written in Dutch. Includes English translations. The next page, Thijs-gedichten II is meant to be a tentative explanation of the “Thijs poems”.

· Edward Ward. For Versoek-schrift, the first  of these “Thijs poems”, Mandeville made use of Edward Ward’s (1667-1731), The Author's Lamentation in Time of Adversity,  included in The Poet’s Ramble after Riches.

· Cornelius Pieter Schrevelius. Talking about A sermon preached at Colchester, by the Reverend C. Schrevelius (1708), Edward Hundert  (The Enlightenment’s Fable, 1994, p. 23, note 10) writes: “Schrevelius was a classicist who published no other sermons. This work is likely a satiric performance by Mandeville himself.”  However, the Colchester minister was a different Schrevelius, namely Cornelius Pieter Schrevelius (1682-1716). He was a Dutch clergyman, raised in a Remonstrant family by the name Geselle. More information about Schrevelius on the page Preek in Colchester.

· Dutch publicity on 2 April 2005: see Mandeville. Wie? Mandeville.

· Galileo Galilei. In his Preface to The Fable of the Bees, Part II, Mandeville made a mistake. He mentions Gassendus, but he refers to Galileo Galilei, viz. Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632). More on this subject, see Mensen spreken niet om begrepen te worden (2007), note 46.

· Annotation of The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turn’d Honest.  An elaborate annotation in Dutch, relating Mandevilles poem to its main sources (see next), can be found in De fabel van de bijen (2008); a part of which to be read on this website.

· Sources of The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turn’d Honest. 1) White Kennetts sermon Christian Honesty Recommended (1704); 2) François (de Salignac de La Mothe) Fénelon’s (1651-1715), Les Avantures de Télémaque (The adventures of Telemachus); 3) the fable Les Abeilles (The Bees) by François Fénelon, in French and English on this website.

· ‘The Spaniard’s own Confession’, mentioned by Mandeville in The Fable of the Bees, Remark Q, ed. Kaye, p. 195, and in Free Thoughts? Not solved by Kaye, see his note p. 195-6. Who or what is meant? Mandeville is referring to the famous work by Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566), Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552), which was translated as The Tears of the Indians: Being an historical and true account of the cruel massacres and slaughters of above twenty millions of innocent people; committed by the Spaniards (1656). More on this subject: see De fabel van de bijen (2008), note 223. Information about Bartolomé de las Casas is available on the internet.

· Mandeville and Darwin. Stephen G. Alter, Mandeville’s Ship: Theistic Design and Philosophical History in Charles Darwin’s Vision of Natural Selection Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 69, Number 3, July 2008, pp. 441-465, proves Mandeville’s direct influence on Darwin. This reference has been added as a footnote to Hayek’s lecture Dr Mandeville, een meesterbrein.

· F.B. Kaye. A page dedicated to F. B. Kaye (pseudonym of Frederick Benjamin Kugelman, 1892-1930) is meant as a tribute to this invaluable - but not infallible - student of Mandeville and his works.

· Horatio’s identity: Henry St John, viscount Bolingbroke. The person Cleomenes (Mandeville’s alter ego) is speaking to in the dialogues of both The Fable of the Bees, Part II, and The Origin of Honour etc, and whose name is Horatio, is most likely Henry St John, viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751).

· ‘Physician of the soul’. Mandeville’s designation of Christ as ‘physician of the soul’ in The Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War (1732), p. 205, seems to have been influenced by Coornhert’s Zedekunst, dat is wellevenskunst, ‘Ethics, or the Art of Living Well’ (1586). In Bk. V, ch. 8, about ‘onlijdzaamheid’, i.e. the inability to resignation and a section that might quite well be appropriate to Bolingbroke’s character, Coornhert uses, section 27, the term ‘Medecynmeester onzer zielen’, i.e. ‘Physician of our souls’. (Compare Matt. 9:12, Marc. 2:17 and Luc. 5:31.)

· Alfred Owen Aldridge’s mistake. Aldridge tells in Franklin’s “Shaftesburian” dialogues not Franklin’s (in American Literature, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1949), pp. 151-159), p. 151, that the Horatio in these dialogues is “a hedonist, egoist, and relativist, and loosely a spokesman for the philosophy of Bernard Mandeville”. However, this is a mistake: Cleomenes is the spokesman of Mandeville’s opinions in The Fable of the Bees, Part II (published early in 1729), and not Horatio. The two dialogues between Philocles and Horatio concerning Virtue and Pleasure - formerly wrongly ascribed to Benjamin Franklin -, appeared in Robert Walpole’s London Journal no. 504, March 29, 1729 and no. 529, September 20, 1729, and were written by “Publicola” (i.e. James Pitt, whose earliest attributable essay appeared on 18 February 1728 (source: Simon Targett, Oxford DNB). In Pitt’s dialogues, obviously inspired by Mandeville’s dialogues between Cleomenes and Horatio, the character of Philocles is “Shaftesburian”, and Horatio is Bolingbroke, of course, since Pitt was one of Robert Walpole’s leading political writers in The London Journal against Bolingbroke and The Craftsman.

· Portrait. Because of the sitter’s resemblance to the two images of Mandeville on this website (see pages ‘Familie’ and ‘Bibliografie’), his age, and our impression of the sitter’s character, we have submitted our idea to the NPG, that the unknown person on a portrait at NPG might be Bernard Mandeville.

· A separate defence of The Fable of the Bees. As he refers to in The Preface of The Fable ii, pp. 4-6, Mandeville delayed a defence of The Fable of the Bees. It seems plausible that Mandeville’s Preface of The Origin of Honour and The Usefulness of Christianity in War was, partly or entirely, based on that non-published defence. The reasons for this assumption is that the character of this preface is quite unlike what might be expected, in view of this book’s contents. The preface does not deal with criticisms by Bolingbroke (‘Horatio’), but with criticisms on The Fable of the Bees made by others, such as William Law and Francis Hutcheson. So the preface might be considered as a (or the) separate defence of The Fable of the Bees. 

· Epitaphium Mariae II. A Latin epitaph by Bernard Mandeville, written in 1695, has recently been discovered by Mikko S. Tolonen. It is added to Mandeville’s Bibliography. Tolonen mentions this find in his dissertation 'Self-love and self-liking in the moral and political philosophy of Bernard Mandeville and David Hume' (Helsinki, 5 January, 2010). The epitaph consists of four lines at the end, page 24, of An oration of Peter Francius, upon the funeral of the most august princess Mary II. Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland (1695). Petrus Francius’s original funeral oration was in Latin. See Epitaphium Mariae II.

· Mandeville’s Arminianism. Understanding Mandeville demands not only a constant awareness of his being a physician, who is entirely devoted to preventing and curing psychosomatic disorders and diseases. A sound grasp of his Remonstrantism or Arminianism, as preceded by Coornhert and developed by Episcopius, Hugo Grotius, Philipp van Limborch and Jean Le Clerc, is necessary as well. Mandeville is an outstanding exponent of this spiritual tradition of christianity, which embraces the notion of an ‘invisible church’ and is critical of the notion of the ‘visible church’, or, more enlarged, christendom. Therefore it is understandable that Mandeville is referring with approval to leading ‘Anglican Arminians’, such as bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) with his Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying (1646) and archbishop John Tillotson (1630-1694) with his Rule of Faith, and also that Mandeville thinks himself as being looked upon [by supporters of the visible church] as a ‘Latitudinarian, if not worse’ (Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church and National Happiness (ed. 1729), p. 82). See also the lemma ‘Arminianism’ by Ernestine van der Wall.

· Church of England. In Free Thoughts Mandeville often refers to the Church of England as “our church” and claims to be one of its members. This position of Mandeville’s has often been questioned. But rightly? Apart from the Arminian movement within this church, it should be considered what the Arminian professor Jean Le Clerc (1657-1736) states ‘concerning the question, what Christian church we ought to join our selves to’. Le Clerc states in Hugo Grotius’ The truth of the Christian religion (1711), p. 292: ‘It is therefore the part of a prudent Man not to enter himself into any Congregation (...), unless it be such in which he perceives That Doctrine Established, which he truly thinks to be the Christian Doctrine; so as that he is under no necessity of saying or doing any thing contrary to what he thinks delivered and commanded by Christ.’ So there are several Arminianisms (Dutch, Anglican), and personally Mandeville, who preferred episcopal church government to presbyterian church government, did not lack elbowroom in the Church of England. 

· The New Testament only. Jean Le Clerc adds (in Hugo Grotius’ The truth of the Christian religion (1711), p. 305) that ‘Nothing else ought to be imposed upon Christians, but which they can gather from the New Testament’. ‘If any thing further be required of them as necessary, it is without any Authority’. Mandeville’s view is identical; see e.g. An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War (1732), The Preface, first sentence, and the very last paragraph of these dialogues, p. 240.

· Note also Mandeville’s passage in Free Thoughts (1729, p. 161): ‘What sect or persuasion of christians has [italics by ACJ] a better gospel to preach, or a more disinterested, and well meaning principle to walk by, than what the church of Rome had her origin from?’

· No Illustrious School. Mandeville went from the Erasmian School straight to the Leiden University. He did not attend the so-called ‘Illustrious School’ at Rotterdam. This school was a vague, short-lived, Calvinistic undertaking, which attracted extremely few pupils, and was avoided by the Arminians or Remonstrants.