General Preface & Life of Dr. John North: Peter Millard

Robert Seiler was Assistant Professor of General Studies at the University of Calgary.

One of the more engaging minor personalities in English literature, Roger North (1651-1734) was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and at the Middle Temple, London, where he built up a lucrative legal practice. His extraordinary literary gift went undetected until the Great Fire of 1678. North was in his chambers at the Middle Temple when the fire broke out, and he was so moved by what he saw that he recorded a graphic account of the destruction of the old buildings. North, a Protestant and a staunch non-juror, abandoned his hopes of advancement in his profession with the accession of William and Mary in 1688. He refused to take the oath of allegiance. He consequently withdrew from public life and lived the life of a country gentleman. Two interests engaged his attention for the rest of his life: improving his estate of Rougham at Norfolk and writing. He wrote an astonishing array of works during the last forty years of his life, including essays, treatises, and histories. His greatest achievements, however, were his biographies of his remarkable brothers. Surprisingly, none of his major works was published during his lifetime. Although there have been several editions of Lives of the Norths, not one gives the text as North intended it, and the General Preface has never been published before. Apparently his original plan was to publish the preface with the three lives, which were to be arranged in the following order: Dr. John North, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; Sir Dudley North, the great Turkish merchant; and Francis North, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England. In accordance with the last part of North’s intention, Peter Millard reprints the General Preface, together with the Life of Dr. John North, based on his final wishes.

The Genera/Preface — written between 1718 and 1722 — is an important document in the history of biographical theory. In it North makes a plea for a new kind of biography, one that would entertain readers as well as teach them valuable lessons. It must be remembered that at this time writing the life of a living person for its own sake was a concept practically unheard of. The object of most biographers was to provide a moral example or to illustrate history; their choice of subject was obviously limited to those men who were holy or who were great. North, however, claimed that biographers should concern themselves with ordinary men and that they should make their records more realistic. His argument was that if the lives of ordinary men were to serve as examples to average readers, the more realistic they were the more convincing they would be. As Millard observes, North anticipated almost every point that Dr. Samuel Johnson raised in his essays on the subject in the Rambler and the Idler and he suggested a formula similar to that employed by James Boswell at the end of the century.

The Life of Dr. John North — written between 1712 and 1728 — is the shortest and the most focused of the three lives. It presents a fascinating portrait of a solitary, stubborn, hypochondriac scholar who lived for his Greek studies, kept spiders in glass jars, looked like a madame en travestie, and quarrelled continually with his students and his Fellows. North tells the story of the subject’s life chronologically from birth to death, but he breaks the sequence to introduce information around certain themes, such as the doctor’s love of books and his distaste for the company of his colleagues. His procedure as usual is to make a general point about the doctor’s personality and then to illustrate it with an anecdote. As Millard points out, there emerges from the life a vision of the subject that is true to the facts but yet transcends them, gives them unity, and infuses them with poignancy. The rough prose style, “that of familiar conversation,” to use North’s own words, suits the intimate biography he is writing.

North is usually badly treated by the editors of his biographies, but the reverse is the case here. Millard reproduces North’s prose as accurately as possible, while preserving its distinctive form, flavour, and rhythm and saving readers the distraction of too much antiquated usage. The text has been modernized, but conservatively. The introduction is informative, and the annotations at the bottom of the page help elucidate the text, while those at the back of the book offer information for a fuller understanding of North’s meaning. Students interested in the development of biography and in life during North’s time will find this book fascinating indeed.