Quote or Proverb: My boys trust in the Lord, and keep your powder dry (antedating 1832 February 28)

Tue Jan 25 13:11:32 UTC 2011

ZIP Codes: 1963.

Could anybody forget the red-faced, horror mailman "Mr. ZIP"?

I can't.

JL

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 1:37 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Quote or Proverb: My boys trust in the Lord, and keep
> your
>              powder dry (antedating 1832 February 28)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I seem to have not received what Victor wrote, but I can add to the
> analysis of the two Google Books hits, William Emerson's Fourth of
> July Oration and The Eclectic Review.   With the aid of the (publicly
> accessible) Harvard on-line catalog.  In summary, the date of the Old
> Church leaflet instance is 1890s or later; the date of the Eclectic
> Review instance is 1836/37.
>
> 1)  Emerson's 1802 Fourth of July Oration is in one of the
> *collections* of "Old South leaflets", here issues 126-150, published
> by "Burt Franklin, 235 East 44th Street, New York, N.Y. 10017",
> apparently without an imprinted date  The text containing "keep your
> powder dry" is in a footnote (page 209 of 569), presumably written by
> the editor/collector; it is not in Emerson's oration..  When were ZIP
> codes introduced?  Text on page 565 of 569 contains in the first line
> (of a footnote) the date 1895.  (Some of the Old South collections
> were published as late as the 1950s; search the Harvard catalog for
> "Old South leaflets".)  Even if Emerson's oration was originally
> printed near 1802 as an individual "Old South leaflet", the target
> phrase is in the footnote, not his oration.
>
> 2)  For The Eclectic Review issue containing "keep your powder dry"
> -- Search GBooks for eclectic + "keep your powder dry", before
> 1899.  7 results.  Some are claimed to be 1837 (page 496), others
> 1861 (page 547), and the 1805/Volume 1 also appears (Snippet).
>
> 2a)  The 1805 is a false dating (see also (2b) below).  In the
> Harvard catalog, Search in Journal Titles / Journal title beginning
> with / for "Eclectic Review".  In Browse List: Titles All, select
> "The eclectic review" (2 records), then the second of the two records
> (with date 1805)..  The Full View of Record shows dates of
> publication, beginning it is true with 1805 but running through
> 1868.  Click on the Location "Networked Resource" that says
> Restrictions "Access to portions of this material may be
> restricted."  On the Holdings page click on the Internet Link.  On
> the Find it! @ Harvard page is a list of all the issues Harvard has
> supplied Google with.  Click Full Text for v. 1.  The Google holding
> is Full Text here (not Snippet), and searching for "keep your powder
> dry" yields "No results".
>
> 2b)  Downloading the 1836 issue via Google Books does find "Put your
> trust in God, but keep your powder dry" on page 496 (515 of 659),
> with running head "Osler's Church and Dissent".  Page 492 (511 of
> 659)  is headed "Art. VII. The Church and Dissent ... By Edward
> Osler. ... London: 1836.  12mo."  The title page of this volume of
> The Eclectic Review is dated "MDCCCXXXVII [1837], January--June", and
> it is "New Series. Vol. I".  This presumably explains GBooks' false
> 1805 instance -- someone took "Vol. I" to mean 1805, not realizing
> that The Eclectic Review was eclectic about its series -- the Harvard
> catalog shows *several* "new ser." at various dates.
>
> Joel
>
>
> At 1/24/2011 09:19 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
> >Victor wrote:
> > > With apologies to Garson and his incremental approach, it pains me to
> > > punch a hole in the theory of the quotes coalescing around an 1830s
> > > literary work.
> >
> >Thanks for your response Victor. I located the two citations from
> >Google Books that you mention during my initial search. After
> >examining them closely I decided that the dates were inaccurate.
> >
> >Assessing the dates of volumes that appear in the Google Books
> >database can be a difficult task. And I might be wrong. You mentioned
> >the problems with the second cite. Perhaps I should have discussed the
> >first cite and my reasons for excluding it in the original post.
> >
> >Thanks to DanG for his insightful comment about the text appended to
> >the leaflet.
> >Garson
> >
> > > http://goo.gl/RmK9Q
> > > Old South Leaflets. No. 134
> > > Fourth of July Oration. 1802. p. 16 [GB volume is a compilation, dated
> > > 1788, p. 200]
> > >> The first of Mr. Emerson's published discourses, given at Harvard,
> > >> Mass., July 4, 1794, is interesting in comparison with the Boston 4th
> > >> of July oration in 1802. It was given at the request of the military
> > >> officers of the town of Harvard, who, with the militia under their
> > >> command, assembled to hear it. It dwelt largely upon the importance of
> > >> morals and religion in the nation. Referring to dangers then
> > >> confronting, or likely to confront, the nation, the preacher said, "If
> > >> ever called to the field, we trust ye will remember fromwhom ye
> > >> descend." *The motto for the whole might very well have been that
> > >> often attributed to Cromwell's Puritans: "Trust in God, and keep your
> > >> powder dry."*
> > >
> > > There is an apparent 1805 hit--vol. 1 of The Eclectic Review--but it
> > > only comes in snippets in GB so I was unable to either verify it or get
> > > the full context (the preview does include the whole quote, but there
> is
> > > no guarantee that it's from the right volume, as the snippet shows
> > > nothing). The following is what's in the preview, complete with odd
> > > spelling:
> > >
> > > http://goo.gl/AcfjU
> > >> ...Fear not, but put toue Trust in God, and keep your Powder dry." '
> > >> Ho ! Marston, 'neath the moonlight thy thousands owned his power. Ho !
> > >> Naseby ! blood-bespangled in freedom's glorious hour. Ho ! Preston !
> > >> Dunbar ! Worcester !...
> > >
> > > But I suspect this to be an error. The clipping is from a Ramsey
> > > Churchyard 1848 poem The Farmer o St. Ives. (http://goo.gl/a0oSJ ) The
> > > fact that the snippet does not correspond to the preview suggests the
> > > possibility that they are taken from different texts. Still an
> > > interesting piece, but far too late to be of any use.
> > >
> > > I haven't checked EAN.
> > >
> > >     VS-)
> > >
> > >
> > >     VS-)
> > >
> > >
> > > On 1/24/2011 5:32 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
> > >> Thanks for your response DanG. The evidence that Cromwell said the
> > >> phrase is very weak because the date of the first known appearance is
> > >> so late as you note. In 1832 the words were attributed to Archdal
> > >> (also spelled Archdale) by the Earl of Radnor in the Hansard
> > >> transcripts. Archdale was based in Ireland I think, and he attributed
> > >> the words to Cromwell.
> > >>
> > >> It seems possible that a fictional treatment of Cromwell influenced
> > >> the attribution. A citation supporting that hypothesis would be
> > >> fascinating.
> > >>
> > >> The footnote in the Dublin University magazine in 1834 said: "There is
> > >> a well-authenticated anecdote of Cromwell" saying a version of the
> > >> phrase. But no evidence accompanied this claim. If there is evidence
> > >> it may not have been digitized yet, or it may be difficult to access.
> > >>
> > >> Reporting incremental progress was the intention for my post: pushing
> > >> the earliest date back a couple years, and identifying Archdale as a
> > >> locus of popularization.
>
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