t h i n g s w o r d s
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1. “MOST BEAUTIFUL HERBAL EVER”
¶ This hand-coloured and annotated first edition of Leanard Fuchs’ De historia stirpium tracks the evolving influence of what has been called “perhaps the most celebrated and most beautiful herbal ever published” 1. Its treatment over the subsequent two centuries, with annotations in the hands of several early modern owners, demonstrates its enduring relevance and usefulness as a practical and scientific resource.
FUCHS AND DEHISTORIASTIRPIUM
Leonhard Fuchs (1501-66), a botanist and professor of medicine at Tübingen in Germany, in 1542 published De historia stirpium, an exhaustive and profusely illustrated herbal which “transform[ed] botany, medicine, and natural history in general” 2 –an achievement recognised in several forms including the naming of the fuchsia after him. Among Fuchs’ innovations was his inclusion of a glossary of botanical terms and the first published images of several plants from America such as maize and pumpkins.
¶ FUCHS, Leonard [De historia stirpium commentarii insignes].
[Basel, 1542]. Folio (357 x 231 x 48 mm).
Pagination [8 (of 28)], 33, 35-60, [1], 61-884 (of 896). Lacks the following leaves: title and 13 prelims; 227-230 (inserted leaf, 2 woodcuts); 347 -350, (2 inserted leaves, 3 woodcuts); 373-4 (inserted leaf, 1 woodcut); 877-8, 885-896, [4]. Eight additional plates from the 1545, octavo edition of Fuchs’ De historia stirpium. window mounted and inserted to replace some missing leaves. Bound in 18th century half calf, rubbed, upper board becoming detached, tears and marks to text, some losses. [Horblit 33b; Hunt 48; Nissen BBI 658; PMM 69; Stafleu TL2 1909; VD16 F 3242; USTC 602520].
It is in the images that, in the words of PMM, “the air of modernity is clearest”: rather than being copied from previous renditions, the woodcuts were “based on a first-hand observation of the living plant and establishing a standard of plant illustration which has been followed until our own day” 3, and each image is in effect “a time-lapse composite, depicting all the stages of a plant’s blooming process, including flowers on one side, seeds on another”, to present “an image of a plant that you will never find in nature, but one very useful for botanical education” 4 .
The book’s material history clearly reflects this emphasis: its owners have made annotations, adaptations, and handcolouring that assist its usefulness, while any increase in its (already considerable) aesthetic appeal was probably incidental.
ANNOTATIONS AND OTHER INTERACTIONS
The earliest annotations, in Latin and sometimes several lines in length, are in a small, neat 16th-century hand, to over 130 pages (usually accompanying images) and indicate that this scribe put their newly acquired volume to use fairly soon after its publication.
Provenance: Samuel Ewer, soap-boiler of Bishopsgate Street, London; gifted by Ewer in 1787 to his son-in-law William Beeston Coyte (1740-1810): “W.B. C[oyt]e ex dono S. Ewer 1787” inscribed to preliminary blank, armorial bookplate (actually, a collage of two clippings of paper with his armorial and name) of William Beeston Coyte ( Coyte”); thence by family descent.
“Hec planta orbent habet frondes subtileter dentatas / ut auctor maiore vulider epinxit / et sumuletes flores in midia Intras / circum circa albis frondibus urtuti maior habet depinxit (This plant has delicately toothed leaves / as the author has depicted with greater vigor / and the flowers are gathered in the middle Enters / around the white leaves he has depicted a greater nettle)
Several shorter, more sporadic annotations, in a 16th- or early-17th-century English hand, strike a more parochial note. This scribe adds English names for a handful of specimens, sometimes giving folk names (e.g. “Jack by the hedg” for Garlic Mustard), but proves to be less than infallible, at one point mis-identifying an Iris as a “Daffadil” (p. 12). A hand from the same period strays into dangerous territory, annotating an illustration of “Aconitum” (wolf’s bane) (H2r) with the note: “Herba Paris or one berrye An excellent Alexiterium” – that is, a preservative against poisons and infectious diseases, which is ironic given that wolf’s bane is itself highly poisonous.
the 17th-century hands are perhaps more concerned with the medicinal applications of the plants. One reader notes, for instance, that the “Nymphaea Candida” (White Water Lily) (y3v) “remedieth lascivious dreames, beinge dronken. But the frequencie of it weakeneth the genitalles”. On the following page, next to the illustration of this plant (y4r), the same reader remarks that “the roote dronke with wine is excellente for those that are troubled with griping of the bellie & a desire to go to the stoole”, and that the plant “helpeth the paines of the stomache, and the bladder. It taketh of morphewe [i.e. a discoloured lesion] from the skinne”.
Other such annotations are more concise, as in the case of “Cynaus”, to which the note has been appended: “Blewbottle. This Herb is very good for inflammations of the eyes or any other parts” (n4v). This scribe, however, elsewhere indulges in longer disquisitions, such as the annotation to Rosemarinus”: “This Rosemary burnt in an House in time of Pestilence, will preserve it free from infection, for its burnt savour expell’s the deadly stench from the infected air. / It strengthens the Brain, the Heart & the memory. It Ks Evill ^Jaundice^. Recovers speech” (R5v). The sense of many hands with no agenda save to add what they deem useful – or simply what they happen to know – is evident everywhere, from the annotation for “Stratiotes” (“Millfoil / This herb is good for all Wounds made with Iron. / it swimons about ye Water having no fixt Root” (pp4r)) to that for “De Amni” which reads: “Herb so called haueing [l]eaves like the Wild marjora[m]. Of some it is called Pipcula” (F3v) (A woodcut on this page has manuscript Latin notes crossed out and the name “Bishops weed” added) – and onwards to the “Larix”, tree”, whose annotation strays into hyperbole: “This trees timber is apt for building and will not perish by rotting or eating of worms, not burn flame nor be brough to coles, but by long span consum’d” (t2v).
Some annotations point to ‘companion’ notes elsewhere in the volume. One of our 17th-century scribes, while paying particular attention to nettles, observes of “Ballote” (N5v): “[H]orehound. Or Archangell or Dead Nettle haveing red flower which answers to the Dead Nettle [w]h a while flower Page 469”. This corresponds to the note on p.469 (r1r) for “Lamium”: “Dead Nettle. vid 194 or rather,” (page shaved). Similarly, the woodcut for “Galeopsis” is annotated “Water-betony, Hungry, dead, oft blind Nettle. Archangel. vid 468”, which points to the text section for “Lamium” and a marginal note reading: “[ ?] Swellings Cankers, Wens. Impost[-] Boils. Gangreens”.
Adding to the overall diversity of interests and material is the frequent presence of more than one hand on a single page, sometimes from different eras. The illustration of “Adiantum” (Maidenhair fern) is annotated in two hands. A 17th-century scribe has written: “Polytrichum. Capil Veneris negro. Mayden-haire”, beneath which a second, 18th-century hand has added: “Instead of this herb Physicians use to put Rue of the wall in all their medicines / It is also called Sempervice”. (G5v).
Around the end of the 17th century, another form of interaction with the book seems to have taken place. A number of illustrations on leaves that were presumably missing or badly damaged have been replaced by windowmounted plates taken from the 1545, octavo edition of Fuchs’ book. These plates were mounted on watermarked paper which closely matches Haewood 1786 (which he dates circa 1680). The mounting is rather crude but perfectly serviceable, adding to the sense of a practical resource being repaired rather than an aesthetic object receiving restoration work. The replacement plates have not been coloured, whereas the original folio plates have, suggesting that the colouring of the illustrations was carried out in the 16 (more likely) the 17
Fuchs’ volume moves into its second century of active use with the addition of at least two 18 make some tentative identification of their owners, despite their contributions to the book being far less numerous than those of their predecessors.
One of these annotators uses a hand that closely resembles the ownership inscription of William Beeston Coyte (1740 Cambridge alumnus, and subsequently a fellow of the Linnaean Society who, after inheriting the Ipswich Botanic Gardens, diligently catalogued its specimens for publication in Hortus botanicus Gippoviciensis certainly indicate an erudite reader proficient in Classical Greek. Beside the text on Chamomile, for example, is the note “so called from Kαμας & Μηλον interest the therapeutic application of plants, observing of Southernwood that it is accounted good to destroy worms in Children. vide Miller”. The citation here refers to Miller’s Gardener's Dictionary, a popular 18th-century treatise on plants grown in England.
Beeston Coyte could well have used this copy of Fuchs to aid identification of plants for his physic garden, or even in his research at the Ipswich gardens that yielded his botanicus Gippoviciensis: some of the illustrations are captioned with the plants’ binomial nomenclature, indicating a scholarly as well as a practical bent.
THE GIFT OF FLOWERS
As to how he obtained his copy, an inscription on the preliminary blank page reads: “W.B. C[oyt]e ex dono S. Ewer 1787”, matching the name of Coyte’s father-in-law Samuel Ewer, a soap-boiler of Bishopsgate Street, London (Coyte married Hester Ewer on 4 January 1779 at Saint Ethelburga in Bishopsgate).
We can assume that the book was lacking pages when Ewer first acquired it because he has inscribed the front free endpaper “Leonharti Fuchsii M.D. } Historia StirpiumBasilea 1542. Regno Henrici viii” with his ownership inscription, “S. Ewer” to the upper right corner, so it was obviously lacking its title page at that point (and presumably others too). Ewer clearly interacted with the book himself before making a gift of it, to judge by his addition of a few English plant names (“Lambs-Tongue”, “St Peters Wort”, “Wolfs bane”) – but these laconic notes scattered throughout the text are the only traces of his interactions. Coyte’s own interaction with Ewer’s earlier ownership inscription – grafting his initials and other details onto it to produce “W B C ex dono S. Ewer 1787” – nicely conveys the volume’s development with this change of owner.
This aspect of the book’s provenance also adds a further point of interest: the well-to-do Coyte having married his daughter, Ewer – though lower down the social scale – presented his son-in-law with this impressive first edition of Fuchs, perhaps in an attempt to impress him, to demonstrate a shared interest, or for some other reason.
This illustration of social mobility is only one of a host of attractions to be found in our volume, which shows several hands at work on the cultivation and dissemination of knowledge. It is both a striking copy of a classic 16thcentury herbal and an eloquent document recording its own use over two centuries.
1. Carter, John and Muir, Henry. Printing and the Mind of Man (69).
2. https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/leonhart-fuchs/
3. Carter, John and Muir, Henry. Printing and the Mind of Man (69).
4. https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/leonhart-fuchs/
£15,000 Ref: 8263
2. FANCY DRESSES & PLAIN RECIPES
¶ It’s a common fate of rank-and-file individuals – especially women – from centuries past to disappear from view, having lacked the socio-economic weight to make an impression on the historical record. One of the handful of ways in which the ‘middling sort’ can become exceptions to this tendency is through the connections they make, whether through marriage, friendship, employment, business, or some legal matter that enters the public domain. Indeed, the principal owner of this manuscript becomes partially visible to us through such indirect sources.
¶ [BURZIO, Madam]. English 18th-Century Culinary Manuscript.
[London, Charles Street, Grosvenor Square. Circa 1780-1830]. Quarto (195 x 166 x 20 m).
Approximately 240 text pages on 122 leaves. 18thcentury stationer’s vellum binding, oval bookplate to paste-down of “Richard Cust / Stationer / Parliament Street / Westminster”, text waterstained.
Provenance: ownership inscriptions to front endpaper: “Madme Barzio / Charles St / Grosvenor Sqr” and “John Simpson Cookery Book” . Watermark: Britannia; countermark: Crown GR.
The front endpaper of this book of recipes is inscribed “Madme Burzio” – and a woman with even such an unusual surname has barely a trace in the records. Fortunately, one Marie Jeanne Sophie Burzio, a “Fancy Dress ma[ke]r”, is recorded in January 1808 as Master to an apprentice named Rebecca Giles, and her address tallies with the rest of the inscription: “Charles St / Grosvenor Sqr” . 1
Marie Burzio is also outlined by another connection: Ferdinand Burzio, a jeweller recorded at the same address –her husband, we assume – who was called to testify in the trial in 1810 of Joseph Sellis, accused of attempting to assassinate the Duke of Cumberland (one of Burzio’s customers). Burzio provided a character witness statement concerning Sellis, who supposedly committed suicide after the failed attempt. Suspicions surrounded the case, especially after the husband of one of Cumberland’s lovers died in a similar manner to Sellis, adding grist to the rumour mill. 2
The pastedown has a stationer’s label: “Richard Cust / Stationer / Parliament Street / Westminster”. Cust had premises at several addresses in Parliament Street between 1779 and 1802, 3 so we can reasonably assume that Marie bought the book from his shop in the late 18th century.
Marie’s hand predominates for approximately the first 60 pages of the manuscript, and the context above helps us to conclude that these entries date from the late 18th century. Another hand, also 18th-century, takes over for some 30-40 pages, followed by a mixture of hands for the remainder, which takes us into the 19th century. It remains unclear whether the arrival of the second hand signals a change of ownership; no dates are given in the text until the mixed-hand section some 118 pages in, when “To make Apoplectic Jelly” is annotated at the end: “The above Receipt was written by Joseph Jekyll, Esq. M:. P. 1805”. Since we know that Marie lived until at least 1808 (the date of the apprenticeship), we might hazard that some of the subsequent hands belonged to other members of her household (one of whom may have been responsible for the endpaper’s second inscription: “John Simpson Cookery Book”), but this remains speculation.
ATTRIBUTIONS
Marie refrains from making any attributions, but the second hand records several: “To make Pease Soup. Lady Wright” begins a run of 17 recipes (the rest marked “ditto”) evidently copied out from Lady Wright’s manuscript at a single sitting. Likewise, “To make puff Paste. Mrs Spooner” is followed by three recipes again marked “ditto”. Meanwhile, “Mrs G Smith” is credited with the recipes “To make Gooseberry Biscuits”, “To make White Soup”, “Browning”, “Spanish Puffs”, and “To dress Hams”. One-off contributions include the likes of “Mrs Sourbys Spunge Cake”, “To make Buns. Mrs Lee”, and “To make Italian Cheese. Mrs Arrowsmith”; and two recipes – “To make Goffer” and “Potatoe Pudding” – acknowledge “Mr Sloane”.
References:
1. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/ view/342643:1851?tid=&pid=&queryId=157ba243-ae044017-8fb1-
4c228f1c8666&_phsrc=wUb187&_phstart=successSource.
2. A Minute Detail of the Attempt to Assassinate His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland. 1810.
3. http://bbti.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/details/?traderid=18054
A couple of the attributions are easy to identify, since their rank positions them comfortably above the ‘middling sort’. The aforementioned “To make Apoplectic Jelly” is attributed to “Joseph Jekyll, Esq. M:. P.” – that is, Joseph Jekyll (1754-1837), MP for Calne, Wiltshire and author of an anonymous “Memoir” of the life of the enslaved man Ignatius Sancho; and the recipes for “Breakfast Cakes” and “To Make a Baked Apple of Goosebury Pudding” are the work of “Mrs Bosanquet” of “Forest House”, referring to Eleanor Bosanquet (née Hunter) (1737-1820), wife of Samuel Bosanquet (1744-1806), merchant and governor of the Bank of England, whose main residence was Forest House, Leyton.
£1,250 Ref: 8262
THE RECIPES
There is no overarching order to the volume. “Madme Burzio” began her compilation with predominantly culinary recipes (“To Pickle Walnuts”, “Italian Cheese”, “To Pott Shrimps”, “Almond Cheescakes”, “Orange Pudding”) with a sprinkling of remedies to treat common conditions such as “Ague” and a recipe “To make Saffron Cakes” which are “good against infection”. The food is varied and nourishing, but not elaborate – qualities perhaps to be expected from someone whose “Fancy” dresses were made for others to wear. When the second hand takes over, they continue this focus on wholesome, basic food for another 40 pages or so; and the appearance of the mixed hands around the turn of the century signals the manuscript’s evolution into a more general household book, with recipes and remedies contributed in ad hoc fashion by various contributors.
CONCLUSION
Although the grandly named Marie Jeanne Sophie Burzio makes only a brief appearance in the historical records, the survival of her manuscript augments this fleeting presence with insights into her domestic life. The stationer’s label allows us to conjure a picture of Marie travelling the short distance to Richard Cust’s bookshop in Parliament Street to buy her new, vellum-bound, blank book to fill with recipes, the contents of which trace a household’s connections and interactions with people of various ranks – and help to give a flavour of the lives of working people in Georgian London.
3. EARLIEST BLACK HARLEQUIN?
¶ A rare and vivid embroidered depiction of Georgian pantomime favourites, Harlequin and Colombina, juxtaposed with the reverent verse and imagery of the earliest lovers in biblical literature.
PARADISE LOST
The first stitches in the sampler immediately herald our young needleworker’s moral and religious teachings, with two lines from John Milton’s Paradise Lost: “Adam and Eve whilst innocent in Paradiſe were placd / But soon the serpent By his wiles the happy Pair disgracd”. Such extracts from Milton’s epic were frequently incorporated into 18th- and 19th-century domestic arts by educated readers. Next to this we find the name and date of its maker, likely aged between 9 and 12 years of age, “Mary Saunde/rs 1763”; and below the quotation is a typical embroidering of the English alphabet – but with one accidentally missed letter somewhat comically restored at its conclusion, “& J”
¶ [SAUNDERS, Mary] An early George III needlework sampler by Mary Saunders, dated 1763. [Circa 1763]. (420 x 310 mm). Finely worked in coloured silks, faded, especially to text. Neatly mounted on board.
Below this solemn opening, there spills out a magnificent sweep of decorative motifs, pictorial designs and colourfully elaborate details. The Tree of Life stands prominently, flanked by fig-leaf-covered Adam and Eve, as the ‘wily serpent’ coils around the tree trunk, holding out the fated apple to the First Woman. Surrounding them are majestically horned deer, squirrels, tropical birds, owls, swans, butterflies and other creatures. Their garden blossoms with fruit trees, tropical plants and winding blooms. Two cherubs fly at the very centre, a heart emblazoned between them. And there, amidst all this fantastical biblical imagery, we see two more figures: Harlequin and Colombina, the two lovers of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte. Harlequin, is bedecked in his distinctively colourful chequered costume topped by a yellow hat, and holds a wooden batte (or ‘slapstick’) in his left hand – an instrument used to change the scenery of the play – these elements collectively evoking the multifaceted character of the Medieval Masque tradition.
HARLEQUIN IN THE THEATRE
But why did the young embroiderer incorporate these two theatrical characters into her, otherwise overtly religious, sampler? The British pantomime tradition first took root in the Georgian period, thanks to English theatre manager and actor John Rich, who founded Covent Garden Theatre in 1732. It was there that Rich staged the earliest slapstick pantomimes – a blend of classical fable and Italian grotesque, featuring Harlequin and his beloved Columbine. But the black mask worn by the Harlequin of the period had undeniable racial connotations against the backdrop of 18th-century Britain, with its colonies built on enslaved labour. There is no doubt that Georgian
theatregoers would have associated the black-masked Harlequin with an African identity: some pantomimes, such as Harlequin Negro (1807), made that connection explicitly, and the figure laid the foundations for the racist tradition of blackface minstrels that later developed in Britain and North America.
Our embroiderer may well have witnessed a pantomime with Harlequin in a black mask, but she has depicted Harlequin as a Black person, whose face, hands, and feet are woven in black silk. Samplers depicting Black people are incredibly rare, and a sampler showing a Black harlequin figure is rarer still. The extensive collection of samplers at Colonial Williamsburg contains one example featuring a Black harlequin figure, dated 1803 (object number: 1995-208, A); the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Centre at Vassar College, holds just one more from 1800 (object number: 1960.9.32). Our sampler, which dates from 1763, is an early piece of pantomime theatre history and perhaps the earliest extant example of a sampler depicting Harlequin not in a mask or blackface, but as a Black person.
£3,500 Ref: 8247
4. SCOTTISH RESTORATION LAW
¶ [SCOTTISH LAW; RESTORATION]. Manuscript entitled ‘The Acts of Sederunt of The Lords of Session/ Beginning the 5th of June 1661[-1694]’.
[Circa 1661-1694]. Quarto (182 x 142 x 15 mm). Watermark: earlier leaves are Fleur-de-lis; later leaves are Arms of Amsterdam. Pagination 171 (numbered pages), [18, index], [1, blank]. Contemporary plain calf, rubbed but sound.
¶ A Restoration Scottish manuscript legal compilation, containing “Acts of Sederunt of the Lords of Session”. The Scottish Courts define an Act of Sederunt as “the legal name given to the procedural rules regulating various civil legal procedures in Scotland”.
The notebook covers the period from the Restoration up until shortly before the death of Queen Mary. The first comprehensive printing of these acts was not to appear until Illay Campbell's edition of 1811, although Lord Stair had included a set, running from 5 June 1661 to 22 February 1681, with his Decisions of the Lords of Council & Session of 1683. But even where our volume overlaps with Stair’s it differs from the version given by him and is clearly not derivative. For example, the first entry in our volume, “Act for Continuing Summonds & Wryteing in Latine as formerly”, is dated 5 June 1661, whereas Stair opens on this date with an “Act uniformity of Habit by the ordinary Lords” – which in our manuscript appears on 6 June. Likewise, Stair’s text for the latter act opens: “The Lords taking to their serious consideration, of how dangerous consequence the alteration of Formes and Customes is...”, in contrast with ours, which begins: “Which day the Lords taking to their serious Consideration of how dangerous consequence the alteration of forms & customs is...”.
Other acts in this volume include “Discharging Letters to be Signed to wryters who have not taken the oath of allegiance” [30 July 1661]; “Reference Anent Impositions at the Ports” [6 November 1686]; and “Anent the Death bed” [29 February 1692].
The manuscript is written in a very neat and legible contemporary scribal hand throughout. This hand is fairly consistent, but there are variations, especially in ink, and the index at the end is in a much looser hand. All of this leads us to conclude that it was compiled over time, and most likely written as the acts were issued.
£1,250 Ref: 8258
5. UNRELIABLE NARRATOR
¶ Poised somewhere between memoir and fiction, this lively digressive manuscript seems to be the work of an unreliable narrator. The title page suggests a sober discussion of national debt, but the text presents a story of calamity, intrigue, insurrection and misadventure, mostly in Portugal and then in England, before concluding with some thoughts on English politics and foreign policy between the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the 1784 India Bill. In that sense, it partly answers the description of the title’s final clause, being indeed “some account of the author by
“editor” (“Mr Benjamin Farmer”) are clearly both one and the same, Benjamin Farmer, and the pseudonymous “Timothy Quidnunc” is an allusion to the satirical “Thomas Quidnunc” character invented by Joseph Addison in the Tatler – and the source of a certain mystery as to Farmer’s intention.
FARMER, Benjamin]. Manuscript entitled ‘An enquiry into the rise, progress, and consequences of the National Debt, with the means by which it may be liquidated. By Timothy Quidnunc. With some account of the author by the editor.’
[Circa1785?]. Slim quarto (195 x 232 x 6 mm). Paper wrappers, 28 leaves, and six inserted leaves. Approximately 64 text pages: Title to inner front wrapper, text numbered to 51, and 12 unnumbered pages.
Stab-stitched paper wrappers, stained and with loss to lower of rear wrapper. Written in a neat legible hand throughout, and ascribed to the front wrapper “By Mr. Benjamin Farmer” in the same hand.
Benjamin Farmer, son of Thomas, came from a Quaker family who intermarried several times with the Galtons, who became gun manufacturers in the Birmingham area in the 18th century. Samuel Galton (1720-99), having married into the Farmer family, formed a business partnership with the Farmers; Farmer & Galton supplied the government with guns, exploited the growing market in India and equipped slave traders in Africa. In the summer of 1755, Benjamin Farmer arrived in Lisbon with a letter of introduction to Abraham Castres, the English Envoy Extraordinary, from Secretary of State Sir Thomas Robinson.
Even before the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which almost ruined the Farmers, things had not been plain sailing for the family. Benjamin had been trying to recover a schooner confiscated by the Portuguese in the Cape Verde islands; and his gunmaker cousin James Farmer was fighting off insolvency after a partner in Lisbon had left him with huge losses. 1
WHAT NOW?
The manuscript takes up the (perhaps lightly fictionalised) Lisbon story eight pages in; first, by way of introduction, there is a kind of apologia for the “Quidnuncs”: writing in the third person, Farmer begins: “Timothy values himself much on the Antiquity of his Family, and insists upon it, it is as old as the Origin of Common-Wealths, of which the Quidnunc’s have been the principal Founders”. He goes on to admit that “there has always been a sort of Extravagancy in their Character which has subjected ^them to the Ridicule and Contempt of the moderate and prudent part of the Community”, and that their overriding focus on “the Common-Good” has led them to act “so differently from the common practice of mankind as to be accounted a little mad”.
The “Quidnunc” epithet, coined by Richard Steele, was a reaction to the rise of political coverage in newspapers. The Latin construction, which translates as something like “What news?” or “What now?” described a certain breed of newspaper-reader: “the news addict hooked on the latest dispatches” to use Stuart Sherman’s phrase 2 –or, in Joseph Addison’s words, “wrong-headed politicians who live more in the coffeehouse than in their own shops, and whose thoughts are so taken up with the affairs of the continent that they forget their customers.” It can be interpreted now as an attempt to exclude the ‘tradesman’ and the ‘middling sort’ from serious political discourse, at a time when such debates were opening up to the literate masses.
References
1. Pearson, Karl. The Life and Letters of Francis Galton. 1914-1930.
2. Sherman, Stuart: “The General Entertainment of My Life”: The Tatler, the Spectator, and the Quidnunc’s Cure, in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, (UTP, Toronto), Volume 27 Issue 3–4, 2015, pp. 343-371.
Is Farmer’s apologia in earnest, or is he, à la Tatler, attempting a satire? Or is it a form of gentle self-deprecation, a modest throat-clearing? Farmer is, after all, a kind of ‘tradesman’, a manufacturer from the Midlands whose family came close to bankruptcy. Interestingly, Steele commented in the Tatler that “the News-Papers of this Island are as pernicious to weak Heads in England as ever Books of Chivalry to Spain” – an idea that seems to be echoed in Farmer’s “a little mad” remark. Timothy Quidnunc is certainly depicted as an innocent, gulled by the “crafty Designs of his more cunning Acquaintance” (p.6); perhaps his “Quidnunc” conceit is intended to frame the narrative that follows as a Quixotic tale (it unfolds, after all, in a Hispanic-adjacent context)?
3. Maslen and Lancaster. Bowyer ledgers, 4441. ‘A view of the internal policy of Great Britain’. In two parts. For A. Millar. 1764. LEDGER: P1185, 1202, 1208. Perhaps written by Farmer, but ESTC queries ‘by Robert Wallace’.
Paice, Edward. Wrath of God: The Great Lisbon Earthquakes of 1755. 2008.
After the apologia’s romp through Quidnunc’s background and early life, the main narrative drops our knight-errant in Lisbon. After being “rob^bed and treated with great cruelty” by the Portuguese (p.8) and being drawn into a quarrel with “one Gentleman, of a name now famous in the Annals of France” that escalates into a duel (p.9), Farmer/Quidnunc relates his experiences in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and the subsequent “conspiracy of the Nobillity to destroy the King” (p.17). He gives a long account of the unrest and the reprisals against the nobility that followed, including the execution of Duke D’Averso (p.27), before claiming that “Timothy, unwilling to be shocked at such a Scene, spent the Day at Home”.
£2,500 Ref: 7988
Sundry other incidents are recounted, including an awkward meeting with the King; then, on a batch of six inserted leaves, he relates “a very singular Adventure” which “shews the Simplicity & unguardedness of his Character”. The anecdote involves Timothy being accused of stealing a mule outside a village and undergoing a makeshift trial, only to be acquitted and escorted, for a fee, to safety.
The manuscript’s final section recounts the return of Timothy to England and his attempts at a new enterprise distilling turpentine (apparently curtailed by a fire). There are further anecdotes and reflections – on the politics of the American Settlements, taxation of the colonies and other events in America, where Farmer’s own business lost trade through the War of Independence – before Timothy concludes with his thoughts on the balance of power in England between Crown and Parliament, political corruption, the death of Rockingham, the rise of Fox and North and the advent of the Pitt ministry, and the 1784 India Bill.
AUTHOR, ALIAS, AND CONFUSION
Among the misadventures and tribulations is a passage that unexpectedly appears to resolve an issue of authorship: “He found at last to his great surprise,” writes Farmer, “that he had written a Book, and believing his Observations might be usefull, # published it. Dedicating it to his brother Quidnunc’s, and recommending Men of Letters to pursue the Idea, which the Author of the Wealth of Nations has done, much to his Honour, and Timothy hopes, his Profitt.” (p.35) His footnote gives the title as “# Internal Policy of Great Britain, in two parts Millar, Strand 1764” – a book which has for some time been tentatively ascribed to Rev. Robert Wallace (1697-1771), author of Characteristics of the Present Political State of Great Britain (1758), but with no confirmation in the limited biographical accounts of Wallace. Farmer’s stray remark supports the tentative attribution in the Bowyer Ledgers. 3
An ostensibly more reliable attribution may be found in the first eye-witness report of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake: Two very circumstantial accounts of the late dreadful earthquake at Lisbon, Exeter 1755 (reprinted Boston, 1756). The title goes on to claim that the first account was “drawn up by Mr. Farmer, a merchant, of undoubted veracity”. The name, profession, and date all correlate with our author, and we leave open the question of his veracity.
A manuscript held at the Folger Library (Call No.: N.a.14) bears strong resemblance to ours. It too purports to be a work on economics: Considerations on the national debt written by “Timothy Quidnunc” (ca. 1800). According to the catalogue entry, a “bookseller’s note in front cover and the binder's title attribute the work to one Farmer, i.e., Benjamin Farmer, merchant in Portugal”. The hand is a very close match for our manuscript, and the subject and authorship (pseudonymous and ascribed) support the attribution to Benjamin Farmer. But why did the manuscript end up at the Folger? The explanation seems to be that in the 1950s a bookseller muddled Benjamin Farmer with the Shakespearean scholar Rev. Richard Farmer and the manuscript has remained at the library ever since.
CONCLUSION
This strange, fascinating manuscript provides a firsthand account of an English businessman’s personal experience of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and fire, and adds substantially to mercantile history and Anglo-Portuguese trading relations. It also offers evidence that Farmer, not Robert Wallace, was the likely author of A View of the Internal Policy of Great Britain and links to another, similar manuscript whose playful approach to title, authorship, and narrative have led to it taking an unusual journey into the archives.
This manuscript’s mixture of vivid autobiography and anecdotes, political commentary and mischievously ambiguous approach to presentation deserves closer attention, in order to ascertain how reliable our narrator really is and what his purpose may have been.
6. TUDOR SCHOOLBOOK
PROVENANCE
¶ TERENCE, Publius Terentius Afer (c.195/185c.159? BCE) Comedie: cum famatissimorum oratorum commentis [With commentaries of Donatus and Guido Juvenalis, edited by Jodocus Badius Ascensius].
[Lyon], [Impresse Lugduni, per Joannem de La Place M. CCCCC. XX]. [Jean de La Place & Martin Boillon], [8 April, 1520].
Quarto in eights. Collation: a-v8 x4 y8, title printed in red and black and woodcut vignette of Badius presenting book to dedicatee within composite woodcut border of portraits of religious figures, woodcut decorative initials, woodcut printer's device to final verso, woodcut illustrations to the first act of each play. [Adams T315].
¶ The early annotators of this rare edition of Terence offer remarkable evidence of the kind of learning that a Tudor pupil would have received at school, and of how schoolboys of the period studied Terence (and the classics more generally). Subsequent inscriptions trace the book’s evolution from wellused classroom resource to object of antiquarian contemplation. Terence’s ‘Comedies’, besides strongly influencing Chaucer, Dante, and later Shakespeare, were deployed as classroom material in English schools from the 16th century onwards. A great many young scholars thus learned the structure and style of Latin through getting to grips with the works of Terence; and this profusely annotated copy of his Comoediae provides us with a striking illustration of this scholarly engagement.
Contemporary English blind-stamped panelled calf, spine in compartments and with modern red morocco label and gilt date), covers with arabesque centrepieces, joints splitting, but holding firm, backstrip with original piece crudely reattached at head and lifting, corners worn, rubbed.
There are several inscriptions to the title page, giving the researcher a range of threads to follow. Though no specific dates are given, the hands enable us to establish an approximate timeline: starting in the 16th century, we have “Thom[as] Pyke of Kingsley”, “ferdinando Calestone”, and “Edward Witt of Bradford”; late-16th to early-17th-century hands have inscribed the names “Thomas Sutton Gent” (and an annotation to b3v reads: “Thom Sutton is a good fellowe and a knave so beyt”), “Edward Euleston” (as well as a cipher to b1: “EE”, an inscription to x6: “Edward Euleston Clarke of ffrodsham Church” and his name to y1.
Inscriptions adorn the title page at different angles, suggesting the kind of unceremonious practices common to many a classroom, which we think the likely setting for this volume’s early life. Indeed, the rest of the class (or a succession of classes) seem to have pitched in at the other end: the colophon leaf fairly bristles with further names, marks and pen trials, also 16thcentury. Here, the printer’s device is hemmed in by dozens of inscriptions including those of “Sampsone Daviden”, “Robert Haryson”, and “Rychard Denteth” (who for a while “ownes this Booke”). This was clearly a communal resource, and any distinction between the inscribers of the title page and those filling up the colophon becomes hard to make.
Small piece from blank upper corner of title, d1 short tear within text without loss at upper inner corner, i5 small hole within text with loss, a little marginal worming at start, water-stained, some spotting and staining (including ink), lightly browned.
Provenance: various inscriptions to title page, colophon and within to text margins; armorial bookplate of Johnstone of Lathrisk, county Fife.
Similarly, the point at which the book graduated from the classroom to the outside world – perhaps via “Thomas Sutton Gent” “Edward Euleston Clarke of ffrodsham Church” –is difficult to determine.
Frodsham and Kingsley are only a few miles from one another in Cheshire, so the volume
at least seems to have stayed in one area for a period of time). Another inscription to the title page, almost certainly 17th-century, reads “Thomas Davenport”, and an annotation in the outer margin of s8v (late 16th- or early 17thcentury) bears the signature “Hugh Haxley” – thus muddying the picture further.
DRAMA IN TUDOR ENGLAND
The works of the African Roman playwright Publius Terentius Afer, or Terence, had an enormous and many-faceted influence on early modern English drama: long before Shakespeare and many others adopted his use of the five-act structure, Terence’s drama was, says Martine van Elk, “fairly frequently put on in grammar schools, at universities, and at Inns of Court” 1; indeed, she cites the earliest surviving record of an ancient drama being staged in England (in King’s Hall, Cambridge around 1510), which features a play by Terence.
But van Elk argues that he also influenced writing in general: Terence’s work was pressed into “pervasive use in the school curriculum, making his work important not only as a model of playwriting but also as a way of looking at the world that had been inculcated into grammar school boys from a relatively early age” 2 .
This was despite the fact that most of Terence’s plays remained unpublished in English translation until the late 16th century, leaving readers in England to “rely on imported books in order to gain access to many important classical works” 3. Our copy of Comoediae is a case in point, and the woodcut images (in two variations) to the first act of each play depicting a tutor handing a book to a pupil also neatly conveys not only the principle of transmission between teacher and student but, for our copy in particular, the continuation of these exchanges between subsequent owners.
THE ANNOTATIONS
“When thou art in prosperitie, think on adversitie, and in Adversitie, hope for prosperity,” runs Hugh Haxley’s inscription (s8v); “for it is but a small thing wth god, soddenly – To make a poore man rich. In all thy glory, memento mori”. This is a rare occurrence of annotation with a signature, and it ranks among one of the more legible: some 200 pages of the volume are annotated in ink, ranging from underlining, single word notes, and manicules, through to interlinear translations in a minuscule hand and marginalia in a larger hand. Almost all of the work appears to date from the 16th century.
The annotations, in many different hands, show the book’s young users getting to grips with Terence’s language. Marginal notes on c5r present the translated phrases “I do not resent me of yt. I die” and “That yt was acceptable so you I prefer you hautye thanke”. On the same page, interlinear notes include a rendering of the printed “dictum puta nempe curentur recte hec” as “I knowe what you will say”. Fleeting phrases occur in the same manner throughout, whether as marginal notes (“his owne mynde to do his owne pleasure” (d1r); “shall youe fynd many spewde and knavish wordes” (e4v); (“3 who seme I to you or what mann[er] of man do I seem to you to bee?” (one of several on e5r)) or interlinear translations (“is this a thinge credible to be spoken” (e4r); “the matter came not wel to passe this waye but soe says and offer ways [...] yt chance not weltorwarde” (e5r); “yt is the selfe same thynge” (d5v)).
CONCLUSION
It is perhaps appropriate that most of the annotations cannot be confidently ascribed to any particular hands that have left their inscription; as a survival from a Tudor classroom, it bears the marks of the pupils’ engagement en masse, before it became a distinctive historical artefact for later owners such as Johnstone of Lathrisk. As a material illustration of several aspects of early modern schooling including the key role played by Terence, the apparent deployment of shared or exchanged resources, and the suggestions of scattershot youthful energy in the sometimes-chaotic inscriptions – this copy of Comoediae speaks volumes.
£13,500 Ref: 8235
References
1. Elk, Martine van ‘“Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him”: Terence in early modern England’ in A Companion to Terence. Edited by Antony Augoustakis and Ariana Traill. (2013). p.416
2. ibid. p.410.
3. https://shakespeare.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibit
7. CURSES, POEMS, RECIPES &c
¶ Happenstance seems to have played as great a role as design in this rare survival from early modern England and Ireland. The volume was clearly designed to be carried around: its slim dimensions and wallet-style binding meant it could be slipped into the pocket, and brought out as occasion required. It functions as a register of chance moments of life: an address, a song or poem recited, a remedy required, all juxtaposed with the ever-present need to record financial transactions, among whose seemingly dry contents little nuggets of personality reveal themselves.
While we do not know who compiled this book, we gain a good picture of him through his interactions, the journeys he took, the kind of clothes he wore, the songs he sang, and the ailments he suffered. There are some clues to his profession, which seems to have involved knowing where certain personages were at certain times.
CURSES
“Heare followeth all the dismal and perilous dayes in the yeare”, begins the section entitled “Curse Dayes” in the opening two pages at one end of the volume. This was probably the beginning of the book as it would have provided a strict guide to when –and when not – to carry out certain activities: there are, for example, certain days “In wch if any man, or woman be lett blood of wound or vein they shall dye 20 dayes following”,
¶ [ANGLO-IRISH NOTEBOOK].
English and Irish 17th-Century Miscellany of household expenses, songs, and remedies.
[County Cork, and London. Circa 1688-91 (dated in text)]. Tall quarto (181 x 75 x 9 mm). Text to both ends. 88 text pages on 44 leaves, some leaves excised and one torn vertically with loss (not included in page count). Text in two 17th-century hands, both neat and legible.
Journey”, and while they do not specify the duration, they do state that they “Shall be in danger to dye ere he come whome again”. Neither should a wedding be held on “Curse Dayes”, for “who soe weddeth a wife […] they shall soone be parted or else they shall liue together wth much sorrow” nor should “great worke” be undertaken, because “it shall neuer come to good”. In all there are 29 such days listed on which you should curtail your actions, but “there are allsoe 3 – Ill moon dayes” to worry about.
Contemporary wallet-style calf binding, lacks tie. The text is arranged tête-bêche. This is a term borrowed from philately. And although some prefer to use dos-a-dos, such a volume is usually understood to have a central board so we have opted for the former as it more accurately describes the composition, furthermore it indicates that it was probably bought as a stationer’s blank book rather than bound after writing.
MUSIC, SONGS AND POEMS
At the opposite end of the volume to “Curse Dayes”, after a dozen pages of accounts and memoranda, our scribe records three poems or songs. The first is a rendering of a poem by Thomas D’Urfey which appeared under several titles including ‘The crafty mistress’s resolution’, ‘Excuse me’ and, as here, simply ‘Song’. Although the poem was published in two contemporaneous collections (A compleat collection of Mr. D'Urfey's songs and odes, 1687, and The theatre of complements, 1689), our version is arranged into seven stanzas, and begins “All ye town soe lieud is grown”. There are differences to the wording of the printed version in several places, which strongly suggests that our scribe’s rendering came via the oral tradition or from another manuscript. Curiously, for such a popular author the First Line Index records only one other manuscript version, namely Bod: Rawl. poet. 196.
On the opposite page, he has rendered “Ise oftne for ^my Jenny Strove”, which appeared in several printed versions, but none of which seem to match ours. As with the previous poem it is recorded in only one other manuscript volume the very same manuscript: ‘Bod: Rawl. poet. 196’ (‘I've often for my Jenny strove’) whose last line “Joined to none but only thee” closely matches ours: “Joyn’d wth none but onely thee”.
Further confirmation of the theory that our scribe was collecting material from either oral or manuscript sources comes from the third song in this group: “As he lay on the plaine wth his arms undr his head”, which circulated only in manuscript (until 1713, when it was published in The Guardian). The First Line Index records only two copies of this poem: ‘Bod: Montagu e. 13’ and ‘U. Chicago: MS f553’.
In one section, across nine pages, our scribe has grouped together the musical notation to 12 “Irish Crye”, “Capt. Pursels delight”, “The Antick dance”, “Shack boots”, “The Duke of Munmoths Jigg”, “Prithy dearest doe not “A Tune from These are immediately followed by another clutch of three poems, the first of which is “Ah Chloris! that I now could sit” by Sir Charles Sedley, which appeared as a song in his 1668 The mulberry-garden and was included in collections such as The academy of complements (1639, and later editions) and (1672). We have
located three manuscript copies: ‘Folger: V.a.308’, ‘Yale Osborn A0721’, and ‘BL Harley 3991’. The next two entries are variations of ‘I've often for my Jenny strove’, the first of which has been struck through.
One exception to these verse groupings, nestled alone between notes of financial payments, is “Out upon this fooeling for shame” – a rendering of a “manuscript-circulated piece about a woman’s having covert sex on a fashionable social occasion”.1 CELM records a 29-line version ascribed to Sir Philip Sidney, beginning ‘Naye, phewe nay pishe? nay faythe, and will ye, flye’. A shorter version, beginning ‘Nay pish, nay pew, nay faith, and will you, fie’, was first published, as ‘A Maids Denyall’, in Richard Chamberlain’s The Harmony of the Muses (London, 1654). We have also found a yet shorter version, entitled ‘Love’s Folly’, in drollery, or a collection of jovial poems the first part rendition begins: “Nay, out upon this fooling for shame”.
Our manuscript, which shortens it to 16 lines, often takes a more assertive or accusatory turn, so that “Nay pish, nay fie, in faith you are to blame” becomes you’r to blame” faith I dare not do’t” is rendered upon't, I faith I’ll not doe it” couplet in the 1654 Sidney version reads:
Your buttons scratch (O God) what a coil is here You make me sweat, infaith here’s goodly geere
Whereas the 1668-73 renders this:
Your Buttons scratch me, you ruffle my band, You hurt my thighs, pray take away your hand; And our manuscript has the equally earthy variation: You tumble my head, you Ruffle my band, You Squeeze my breast Pray take ^away^ yor hand
The 1654 and 1668-73 versions show significant variations: the final line of the former reads “After at Cards we better will agree”, while in the latter it becomes “Since it’s no more pray tickle me”, and in ours “Then Pray good Sr come tickle me”. Although closest in length and content to the 1668-73 version, our poem displays different characteristics to the heroine – and like the other poems in this volume, it has come from either the oral or manuscript tradition.
Aside from this single instance, our scribe has grouped the poems into two batches, one of which is juxtaposed with musical notation (albeit not directly related) and suggests that either he was copying from another manuscript or he heard them one evening and jotted them down in his (apparently ever-present) pocketbook.
EXPENSES
A large proportion of the financial accounts recording in-and-out monies from rents and loans are rarely as workaday and colourless as they might at first appear: locations and connections are inadvertently revealed (see below), we learn his gender through monies paid to his wife, and we also glean some sense of his priorities. Clothes, of course, must be bought, including such items as “1 shirt 4 sleeues 4 stockins 2 Caruats 1 Cap & 1 handkerchiue”, but our scribe also requires “trimming for ye Rideing coate, coate – Britches & Beste Brits 00=13=09=1”. When it comes to shoes, he seems to have some obligation to his sister, but apparently only after he has the best and the second-best pairs:
It – for a payre of Shoose for my selfe 00=04=00=0 It – for a payre for same 00=03=06=0 It – for a payre for my sister Jane 00=02=10=0
REMEDIES
Scattered throughout the volume again, seemingly on the hoof are short remedies (usually half a page) such as one “For the Jaundice”, which requires a little “Cyrup” and “Conserve” of “Barbaryes” together with spices such as “Saffron” and “Turmarick”; one then mingles “all ye Victualls” into a drink “& then put the same behind ye fyer back for 3 dayes”. There are two other half-page remedies: “For a Cough”, and “for a Sore Eye”; and a two-page recipe “for usquebah”. This word derives from the Gaelic for ‘water of life’ and is usually a recipe for whiskey (whisky if Scotch), but ours bears a closer resemblance to a kind of medicinal punch, calling as it does for “4 Gallons of spirrits or Good Brandy (being ye best)” and various spices including “Annis seed”, “Carraway”, “Colliander
Seeds”, “Nuttmeggs”, “Green Liquorice”. We are instructed to “Lett them Infuse 12 houers, or more ye better – then Distill them”. Following the addition of “Raysons solis” and more “Nuttmeggs” the mixture is infused for a further “six Dayes or till yor Liquor is high enough Collour’d pouer it of very fine & cleane & keep it for your use”.
MEMORANDA
Adding to the pocketbook’s sense of miscellaneity are seven pages of theological notes on the Epistles and “The 3 Lamentations”, an 11-line Latin poem (“Song. Amarila Ama me - Super modum amo te”) with a translation into English of the first stanza (“Amarila tould his swain …”), various memoranda and an inventory of household goods; this appears not to be an executors’ inventory as it omits finances, so it was perhaps a list of goods destined for removal. Either way, it makes for interesting reading and includes items such as “3 Beds &c” (valued at “45:00:00”), the usual chairs, tables, kitchen utensils and so on, but also unusual items like a “Settle bed”, “Spice Box”, and “3 Lookinglasses” (valued at “01:10:00”, “00:06:06”, and
“05:00:00” respectively) which, in an age of spartan possessions, indicate that he was fairly affluent.
COUNTY CORK AND LONDON
The bulk of the manuscript entries relate to Ireland, but our scribe also spends some time in London, where, for example, he should “Inquire for Mr H. Strong att Margretts Coffy House”, and if this person is not to be found there, “att his House next Doare to ye Mercers Chappell or at Mr Goodwin ye Stationers neere ye Royall Exchange”. Beneath this he adds: “at ye Cloysters faceing Smith feild-at ye Indian Queene” .
Since all of these are crossed out, and a final note suggests he try “in St John Streete by ye Sessions House”, it may be that he finally found “Mr H. Strong” here, in an early example of a purpose-built sessions house for justices of the peace: Hicks Hall, or Hickes’ Hall, was a courthouse at the southern end of St John Street, Clerkenwell, London.
A “mdm” mentions one “Mrs Mary Orsby att Sr Edwd Wards att Generall In Essex Street, London”. While we have not traced Mary Orsby, we can be certain that she was at the house of Sir Edward Ward (1638-1714), who was a lawyer, judge, and chief baron of the exchequer, and is best known as the judge in the state trial for piracy of Captain Kidd. He died at his house in Essex Street, The Strand in 1714. Other London references include “Doctor Pack at ye Signe of ye Pack in Moone” and “Mr ffermin liueth att the Signe of ye 3 Courts” coupled with notes such as “The Ld Cidney hath a grant for ye office of ye Clkes of ye markets of England & that Commr: will be appointed to Inspec & Receue all mony that hath been leuid upon Diseuers”.
References:
Marotti, Arthur F. The Circulation of Poetry in Manuscript in Early Modern England. (2021). Vine, Angus. Miscellaneous Order. (2019). https://celm.folger.edu/repositories/bodleianrawlinson-50.html#bodleian-rawlinson-50_id497129 https://firstlines.folger.edu/
Our pocketbook owner does not give his exact location in Ireland (there are general references to the likes of “Sr Joseph Fredeman concern’d in cheife of ye Irish Committee”), he mentions a number of locations in County Cork (Castelyons, Youghal, Connagh Castle), and records the costs incurred for places further afield (Limerick, Kerry, Dublin, Munster), so it seems reasonable to assume that he lived in County Cork, probably the city itself. For instance, he travelled “to Castlelyons in ordr to receiue the monney”, but does not mention travel expenses, whereas “wn I went to Lymerick” the costs came to “00=11=06=0”; the exact same amount was incurred “wn I went to Kerry 00=11=06=0”, although when “Harry […] went to Dublin” it cost only “00=02=06=0”, which suggests that either Harry lived close to that city or travel to it was cheaper. A note recording travel by boat: “Saturday the 6th of Apr 1689 about 5 of the Clock in the after noone I saild from yeoughall & arriu’d att Mytehead on Munday the 8th following”, situates him in or near Youghal, which lies east of Cork and was an important harbour town in the early modern period. In the year our scribe took his trip, King James II issued an order that colonisers with a “zealous attachment to the Protestant religion” were to be rounded up and detained in castles in Youghal where they were held for 12 months before being released to flee back to England.
WHO WROTE IT?
Among the financial accounts our scribe mentions an “Ante Rayners” who lived in Limerick, but more compelling are the numerous members of the Jerman family who appear in different contexts including in Ireland and in London, so it is plausible that he shared this name. One entry recounts “Edwd Jerman Senr of Connagh Castle in ye County of Corke & Prouinces of Munster in Ireland wth 5 sonns & 1 Daughter & not able to helpe himself being Sick ^& yet in Ireland but his edler sonne now in England being forc’d to make his escape to prserve his life”. This pitiable tale culminates in a valuation of “His Losses in Ireland” which include “90 Cows & Bullocks vallue 120 – Corn in Hayyard 12 – Corne in Ground” - totalling the eye-watering sum of “£4365”. One page later he writes “Enquire for Mr James Jerman att the Signe of the Bell in Wood Street”.
Other references are scattered throughout the book: on one page he lists the names and addresses of members of the family with different surname spellings and differing social ranks ranging from “Mr Wm Jarman a Distiller of Strongwaters” who lives “Neere Newmarket in London” to “The Lord Thomas Jermyn Barron of Berry & Gouernour of ye Isle of Jersy” and “John Jerman of Shelton in Norfolk” who is simply “A Person”.
A few pages later, after the recipe “for usquebah”, he adds the note: “March ye 5th 1695 betwixt ye Houers of Nine & tenn of ye Clock att Night our Daughter was born ye wind North: North East” (again displaying a concern for auguries). If our extrapolation that his interest in members of the Jerman family is genealogical, then possible candidates for a girl born that date bearing the name Jerman (or a variation) include the following: Susanna Jerman, the daughter of Edward and Mariae, was baptised 8 March 1695 (her exact date of birth is not given) at Glemsford, Suffolk, England; Catherine Jarman, the daughter of Samuel Jarman, was baptised on 5 March 1695 at St. Mary's, Ely, Cambridge (again the date of birth is not stated, but given our scribe’s references to County Cork and London, neither Glemsford or Ely, while not impossible, seem unlikely). More promising, but requiring a wider variation in spelling, is Margaret Germain, the daughter of Edward and Margaret Germain, born 5 March 1695 and baptised on 18 March 1695 at Saint Martin in the Fields, Westminster, London. The dates and location make her the most likely candidate, which would make our scribe Edward Germain. However, this conclusion requires several leaps, so we leave it there inconclusively for future researchers.
CONCLUSION
The diversity of 17th-century life and culture is neatly encapsulated in this manuscript notebook, with its miscellaneous contents: recipes, a household inventory, songs, musical notation, and memoranda jostle among financial accounts. Our scribe’s wallet-style pocketbook has the characteristics of a volume carried around to record things ad hoc, and in its transcriptions of popular songs and poems it conveys the protean qualities of oral and manuscript culture. Above all we get a sense, among the transactional notes, of what caught the attention of this eclectic compiler who captures early modern life in all its variety as he travels between England and Ireland.
£6,500 Ref: 8264
8. ELIZABETHAN ARMS
¶ This volume captures a transitional stage in the physical and textual development of the notebook format. Its tall oblong orientation is descended from the accountant’s daybook, whose columnal arrangement helped shape the compositional conventions of the commonplace book and the miscellany – two similar-but-different formats that organised information in such a way as to allow sometimes disparate elements to co-exist in a unified space.
THE SCRIBE
The manuscript appears to have been compiled by Alexander Evesham, who has inscribed f.21 “p[er] Alexander Evesham Anno Elizabethe
Regina 19 Anno[que] domini 1577”. Alexander was the son (one of 14) of William Evesham (1518/19–1584) and his wife, Jane (d. 1570), daughter of Alexander Howarth (or Howorth) of Burghill.
There are three recorded manuscripts associated with Alexander Evesham:
1. Harley MS. 615 “A Book in fol. fairly written”. “Genealogyes of Gentlemen of Hereford, Wooster, Gloster, & Shropshere At the Chardge of me Alexander Evesham”.
2. Harley MS. 214. “A Book in long 8vo”. “Proterologos, or the Nobilitie described... are plainlie set down by me Alexander Evesham”.
3. College of Arms MS. A.9. Arms of Nobility. 1585. (322 x 210 mm).
¶ [EVESHAM, Alexander (d. 1592)] English
16th Century Manuscript Alphabet of Arms and Armorials.
[Circa 1577]. Tall oblong octavo (380 x 125 x 15 mm). Manuscript text and illustrations to approximately 100 pages on 54 leaves. The manuscript is lacking some leaves, exactly how many is difficult to say but almost certainly a substantial portion, as the text commences with section M-W of an alphabet of arms. Some leaves repaired to edges, lined with tissue and few lined to verso on paper. Bound in old (but later) limp vellum covers.
Provenance: inscription of Alexander Evesham dated 1577. W. A. Foyle, Beeleigh Abbey.
Our volume now adds a fourth to the list of extant manuscripts by Alexander Evesham. It appears to be the predecessor of MS. A.9., which is described as “a heraldic and historical commonplace book containing painted arms ... begun in 1583 an finished in 1585 in London”. Both are probably more accurately described as miscellanies rather than commonplace books, since neither of them group information under subject headings but instead collect a mixture of related material in no particular order.
Alexander’s brother Epiphanius (fl. 1570-c.1623), a sculptor, painter, and metal-engraver who has left more traces than his sibling in the historical record, is quoted in the 1886 edition of Robert Cooke’s The visitation of Herefordshire, edited by Frederic William Weaver, giving an account of Alexander’s death in the following note by his brother Epiphanius: “The transcript [of Harley MS 615] was made at the charge of Alexander Evesham, of whose death there is an account on folio 1. ... “In the year of our Lord God 1592 dyed Alexander Evesham and in 28th day of descember he dyed in the house of the Lady Stafford at Westminster and was buryed on the South Syde of the Church of Saint Margrett his hed lyeth just agaiynst the end of the pew of the left hand; he was the son of William Evesham of Wellington in the County of Hereford ... Thys wrytten by me Epiphanyius Evesham in the yeure of our Lord god 1592 whos soule Resteth with Gode. Amen.”
THE CONTENTS
Our volume begins with letters M-W of an alphabet of arms (ff. 1-19, 21), followed by sketches of armorial shields (ff. 20, 22-24) and blank pen-and-ink shields, approximately 99 to a page (ff. 24v-33). After some blank leaves (ff. 34-37), there is a contemporary copy of a grant of arms to William Haynes dated 1578 by Robert Cooke (f. 38) and notes on the nobility, possibly copied from Robert Cooke’s work (f. 39r).
There follows a drawing of a shield to f.39v: Stury arms is Argent a lion rampant crowned queue forchee double nowed Purpure, annotated above “Stury”. This leaf has been cut down with significant loss, but preserving at the top a short poem in its entirety:
To old men or childrene few giftes geve and eke to wemen kynde
The old man dyes, the child forgetes and wemen chainge their myndes
Beneath is the same text in Latin:
Munera pauca seni puero des et mulieri
Hic moritur puer immemor est cor femine mutuat
References:
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts. 1808.
A Catalogue of Manuscripts in the College of Arms. 1988.
Cooke, Robert The visitation of Herefordshire, edited by Frederic William Weaver. 1886.
We are extremely grateful to Dr Robert Colley and Christopher Whittick for their invaluable assistance.
£1,750 Ref: 8251
After another set of pen-and-ink sketches of armorial shields, these numbered 150-233 (ff.40-42), and some blank pen-and-ink shields (ff 41-43), another alphabet of arms begins, but only covers A-B (ff. 44-47v). Its format is different to that of the M-W section with which the volume begins: in the A-B section each entry is numbered, whereas M-W is unnumbered; and while both give family names along with their blazon, in A-B some are illustrated with small inset shields. The numbering here seems not to correspond to the M-W illustrations, so it is unclear whether Evesham was experimenting with the format using two different alphabets of arms or whether he simply abandoned the numbering system partway. A notable feature of the manuscript is that the shields are not tricked and blazoned sufficiently to identify arms, so any user would have had to be among the heraldic cognoscenti.
On f.48v Evesham has copied another grant of arms, this one to Henry Brodbridge dated 1577 by Sir Gilbert Dethick (unfortunately with the shield excised); and folios 49-54 comprise part of a baronage, unattributed but probably originally prepared by Robert Cooke.
As is often the case with early modern manuscripts, some of its interest lies in the extra details – and these are especially notable as Evesham renders them as addenda to each section. For example, in the M-W section at the end of P we learn that “John Passwater first steward to Sr tho cheyney knight after steward to Sr henry Sidney knight Lord deputy in Ireland wch John died ye 24. aprill 1555”, that one “Wm Phillipp of London [was] customer or Recever of the custom for wooll & clothe wthn the porte of London”, and, tragically, that “John Osbourne one of the auditors ... in Q.E. tyme ended his life ye 21. may. 1577” (although we do not learn how or why, as the text reverts to a description in blazon of his arms).
CONCLUSION
Evesham’s Elizabethan miscellany is the very definition of a working document: it shows him in the act of assembling and ordering information, including parts of an alphabet of arms, sketches of armorial shields and copies of grants of arms by Cooke and Dethick. Its material history has been complicated by loss, damage and restoration, adding to its air of untidiness, but it retains its character as an on-the-fly workbook and a work in progress.
9. ANNOTATED PLANTIN BIBLE
¶ A profusely annotated Plantin Bible, with 16th century annotations in secretary and italic hands with underlining throughout. It was owned first by the prominent 16th-century physician Thomas Moundeford – and annotated in either his hand or a contemporary – then by the influential 18th-century Scottish moral philosopher Frances Hutcheson.
Thomas Moundeford (1550-1630) was president of the College of Physicians and author of a slim volume entitled Vir bonus (1622) (dedicated to several worthies including James I, the Bishop of Lincoln, and a batch of judges) in which he “praises the king, denounces smoking, alludes to the Basilicon doron, and shows that he was well read in Cicero, Tertullian, the Greek Testament, and the Latin Bible” (ODNB).
¶ [MOUNDEFORD, Thomas (1550-1630); HUTCHESON, Francis (1694-1746)] Biblia, Ad vetustissima exemplaria castigata, 2 parts in 1, Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1567. Octavo. Foliation [8], 303, [1, blank], 74, [4]. Woodcut architectural title border, I7 verso printed correction slip pasted in. [D&M 6150].
18th century speckled calf, spine gilt in compartments with tulip decoration. Front board detached, small hole in lower margin of title, margins cropped affecting manuscript notes.
If the hand is indeed Moundeford’s (his inscription (see opposite page) is too elaborate to bear comparison with the annotations), we can see him engaging thoroughly with this copy of the Latin Bible: some 465 individual pages have been copiously underlined and annotated (circa 385 in the Old Testament, and circa 80 in the New). Notes range from single-word memos with relevant printed text underlined (“Ebrietas”, “sapientia”, etc) to longer marginalia running over several lines (e.g. “Angeli lenarates ne flarent mali & qui spirit verbi dei impe anter pro omibus posint repugnant verbi dei” f.70v NT). In his inscription to the rear, he states “praetiu vs . anno 1569 . Ætatis 18”, so if the annotations are his, he may well have made them as a callow 18-year-old eager simply to mark, learn and inwardly digest the contents.
£3,500 Ref: 8237
Provenance: Thomas Moundeford’s copy with his ink ownership inscription at head of title (“T. Moundefords”) and colophon at end
“Thomas Moundeford. praetiu v Ætatis 18”.
Francis Hutcheson’s inscription to *2r Hutcheson 1720”
bookplate of F. Hutcheson M.D. to front pastedown. A slip inserted into the back of the book reads “This book belongs to E.H. Leslie”, with an embossed address in Donaghadee, County Down. Hutcheson was born in near Saintfield in Country Down, Ireland.
Francis Hutcheson (1694Hutcheson 1720”), was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow and author of several treatises on beauty and virtue, morality, and the emotions, as well as the posthumously published, multi-volume
David Hume, Adam Smith and other Enlightenment thinkers, and several of his works “were widely used in Scottish and American universities in the eighteenth century” (ODNB). Hutcheson’s library was passed to his son Francis Hutcheson M.D. (1721 front pastedown.
Moundeford’s facility with Biblical Latin, noted by the ODNB, could have originated in his labours with this text; at the very least, the annotations, show the scribe in the process of developing their skills through copiously and studiously annotating this book.
¶ [BAYFIELD (née RISEBROW), Elizabeth (1722
Provincial Woman.
[North Walsham, Norfolk. Circa. 1743
The seven items in the archive are arranged in approximately chronological order
century women are often recorded in scant detail, much of which relates to their husbands. The 1790), whose material this is, is a case in point. Following the usual format, we might say that she was the daughter of Samuel Risebrow, surgeon, of North Walsham, Norfolk, (d. 1727 aged 32)
Elizabeth, however, gives a good account of herself in this rich and varied archive. Her writing style is fluid, accomplished, and often observant or witty, and she is clearly well read and sufficiently aware of the era’s coterie culture to partake in some of its conventions. Three of the volumes in turn show her engaged in the activities of writing, travelling, and reading. The archive is given further breadth and context through complementary material including a book of recipes and remedies and evidence of books
¶ [1]. Elizabeth’s opening inscriptions date these poems to her early-to-mid-twenties and suggest that her earnest versification ended the same year as her marriage began (1747); indeed, they could represent her ‘farewell’ to her younger, unmarried self. The first poem, “My Wish 1744/5”, acquires some poignancy in this light, as she beseeches “yea Gods” to grant her wish to “enjoy a house […] Near to a wood near water”, with a small menagerie, two servants and “two Hundred pounds a year”. The second poem, “My Epitaph”, seems of a piece with the first, with its introverted, idealistic air and its exhortation to “Contemn all Riches look for Peace above”. And the place of women in society is touched upon, in a poem in which the death of an infant is felt:
“Without Doubt the more as this was a Boy, As Girls are esteem’d no more than a Toy”.
In her volume’s original poems, Elizabeth engages in a culture of exchange which she reinforces through classical allusions (“Juno”, “Cupid”, “Leander”) and coterie names (some of her poems are signed “E. Risebrow” or “ER”, while in others she uses the sobriquets “Rosalinda” or “Belinda”).
¶ [1]. Manuscript notebook entitled “Verses on several subjects” [Circa 1743-47].
Slim quarto (185 x 155 mm). Approximately 34 text pages on 31 leaves, plus two loose leaves. Contemporary stationer’s booklet with wrappers made using an old engraving by De Poilly.
Damp damaged, text block loose in binding, binding and text torn and edges frayed.
Inscription to front wrapper reads “Verses made by me E Risebrow began in ye Year 1744 / October ye 31 1745 1745:” and inscribed to inner wrapper “Verses on several subjects made by me E: Risebrow 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747”.
“Miss Kitty Cooper” (also referred to as “Dearest Sister”), who actively encourages exchanges (“To Miss Cooper who Bid me write to her in Verse”), and at other times is admonished for remissness (“write a Long Letter, or else you Receive / no more Letters from me”). Other figures include the Berneys who lived at Westwick House, a short “Horse Chaise” ride away from Elizabeth’s home in North Walsham. We encounter family members such as “Miss Julia Berney”, but it is William Berney who is elevated with the coterie moniker “Thirses” (presumably a reference to the shepherd Thyrsis, in Virgil's seventh Eclogue), in numerous poems where they exchange such things as “Paper of Ashes in a Glove” and “a Receipt to Cure Love”.
¶ [2]. A year before her marriage, Elizabeth took a trip to Yorkshire with three friends (“Captain Cooper, Miss Peggy & Miss Kitty”), which she commemorates in a narrative dedicated to “Miss Kitty Battely, Suffield” (probably Catherine Battely (circa 1717-1787) of Suffield, Norfolk). Like her poems, this story seems to be part of a gift economy (although it is not certain it was ever sent): it is offered to “to you, and you alone, I dare Attempt to send it”.
Elizabeth relates her journey in lively prose and with a keen eye for details. Along the way, she remarks upon the places she stayed (“The Market is an Extream good one, well supply’d with all sorts of Provisions Especially Salmon the River abounds with Plenty of Soles Smelts & other fine Fish in great Perfection” (p.2)), while avoiding others (“We did not stop at this Town [Leeds] the small pox being allmost in Every House” (p.17)).
¶ [2]. Manuscript notebook entitled “Travells of a Month into Yorkshire in 1746”. [Circa 1746]. Slim quarto (195 x 160 mm). Approximately 30 text pages on 17 leaves. Contemporary stationer’s booklet, marbled wrappers.
She comments on architecture (“The East Window is all of A Bright Colour’d Blew Glass both odd & Prett” (p.3); “nothing of any Curiosity worthy Attention except three Alablaster Monuments of Sr Edward Carr his Lady & two Sons” (p.5)) and includes historical notes – for example at York, she reflects on the fate of prisoners taken there for execution following the Battle of Culloden in April 1746: “In this Castle were two Hundred of the Scoth Rebels Poor Despicable Wretches, in their Highland Dress, four of whom where women, We staid but little time at this Melancholly, tho’ strong & well defended Place.” (p.15). A few days into their expedition, they are accosted by “four Rude Disorderly Fellows who Oblig’d the Gentlemen in their own Defence to Draw their Swords & take their Pistols they had A Skirmish about ten Minutes with no great Harm on either Sides, only we where much frighted”. After about an hour “they Gallop’d full speed past us, saying to the footman we shall meet you in A Better place By & By”; they did not meet with the ruffians again, but “we can’t help thinking them to be either Highwaymen or Smuglers, they had no Armes but where bold Desperate Fellows & extremely well mounted.” (pp.4 -5).
After this unpleasant incident, she relaxes into her journey through the countryside, making notes on agriculture and landscapes and shifting seamlessly from geological observations (“having many great Quarrys of stone some Veins of Iron Lead, & Coal” (p.8)) to poetic reveries (“I think nothing can come up to the Beauty of Unbounded Prospects on some of the Hills […] Which Strikes the Attentive mind with great Surprise, To see the Hills in Natural order Rise” (pp.8-9)).
She closes her account with another apology for “the faults I fear in this Journal” and a reaffirmation of their bond, hoping Kitty will cast “A Gentle Eye of Friendship and be always as much my Friend as I am Yours ER”.
¶ [3]. In this volume Elizabeth has mixed, and sometimes juxtaposed, diverse material from her reading with her own original verse. For example, “The search for Happiness or the Vision Universal Magazine March 1774” (pp.27 -31) is followed by two verse meditations on the close relationship between sleep and death by Elizabeth: “To sleep” and “Thoughts on sleep Ocr. 1785” (pp.32-33), annotated “*Don Quixote says Heaven bless the Man who first invented Sleep: it covers one all over like a cloak”, and concluded with a bittersweet reflection on the sight of a transient visitor: “Ode to the Swallow 1787”, whose migratory habit allows the bird to enjoy “summer all the year”
Some of the extracts are from contemporary novels, including thoughts on friendship from
¶ [3]. Manuscript notebook of “Sentimental Memorandums and Observations from the different books I have Read since the year 1766: Eliza: Bayfield”.
[Circa 1766-88]. Demi quarto (208 x 80 x 13 mm). Approximately 67 text pages (numbered in manuscript) on 68 leaves. Vellum stationer’s book, lacking clasps.
The Fool of Quality (1765-1770); The Mutability of Human Life; or, Memoirs of Adelaide, Marchioness of Melville” (1777); and The History of Emily Montague by Frances Brooke (1769), often considered the first Canadian novel. Elizabeth’s rendering of the text is very similar to printed text, but some of the wording differs, which implies she is absorbing the meaning rather than simply copying. Elizabeth’s thoughts are often mirrored in the books she read: on page 40 she comments on a melancholy written-out passage from George Crabbe’s “The Village” (published 1782), “a picture of my self at 64: E Bayfield 1787” – a year before her death.
¶ [4]. Written in different hands from the late 18th to the early 19th century. The volume was possibly begun by Elizabeth; the first two remedies (“For a sore Throat Mrs Coleman, Hembsby” (i.e. Hemsby) and a receipt for removing ink) have some resemblance to her hand. Thereafter, the volume is added to by several scribes, with a later contribution dated 1809.
¶ [4]. Manuscript book of recipes and household remedies.
[Circa 1780-1810]. Small oblong notebook
Manuscript recipes include the amusingly titled “Milk of Roses For Ladies Noses as well as Toeses” by a “Mr Randall”, and the more straightforward “For a Cough”, which is attributed to “Mrs Clarke and considered very good”. These are interspersed with printed clippings to “make a never-failing Mouse Trap, by which forty or fifty Mice may be caught in a night” and the “celebrated Pomade Divine” by “Dr. Beddoes” i.e. Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808).
(115 x 88 x 11 mm). Approximately 66 pages of text and pasted-in clippings on 42 leaves.
Bound in limp-calf, rear cover missing, but retaining original tie.
Watermark: Fleur-de-lis.
Whether begun by Elizabeth or not, it certainly appears to have stayed in the family: a recipe “For Chilblains” and “Plum or seed cake” is attributed to “Miss Bayfield, London”.
¶ [5]. Elizabeth does not display evidence of being Latinate in this archive, and she has not inscribed this book, so we do not know if it was hers. However, as noted above, she does make numerous classical allusions in her coterie writing.
¶ [6]. Elizabeth Risebrow has inscribed her name to the paste-down and the engraved title (the latter dated 1739), added a short poem to A6r which begins “Thus adam look’d when from ye garden driven”, and inscribed her name to the verso.
An inscription to the final blank reads “ffebr ye 12th 1675 Prudence Couldham her booke of the guift of my loueing Husburn James Couldham” and another in her hand dated 1690. This is probably Prudence Couldham (or Coldham) (d. 1703) of Swanton Morley, Norfolk. The probate inventory of her husband, James Couldham, gentleman, of Anmer is recorded 1678-1679 – just a couple of years after her first inscription.
¶ [7]. A travel diary of a 32-night tour of the Continent, addressed to “My dear Elizabeth”. One of the entries dated is 1839, and another entry mentions that they carved the initials H.C. into a tree. As with the Sallust, we don’t know how, or even whether, this item ties in with the Risebrow material, but since it came as part of the archive, we have kept them together.
¶ [5]. SALLUST (86-34 B.C). C Crispus
Sallustius. : Martial: Hic erit, ut perhibent doctorum corda vivorum, Primus Romana Crispus in historia.
Amstelredami. Apud Guiliel: Ianssoniu. [1621]. 16 mo. Contemporary vellum.
¶ [6]. QUARLES, Francis (1592-1644).
Emblemes.
London: Printed for I. Williams & F. Eglesfeild. 1676. Octavo. Pagination [8], 311, [7], 321-381 [1], p 2 engraved pictorial title-pages, and 91 text engravings within text.
A rather battered copy, in contemporary calf, with amateur reback using a piece of vellum, staining to text and some tears.
¶ [7]. Manuscript Travel Journal.
[Circa 1839]. Small oblong notebook. Clothbacked boards. Over 100 text pages on 54 leaves, plus loose leaves pinned in. Itinerary in ink to inner pocket, journal written in pencil throughout.
CONCLUSION
Elizabeth Risebrow’s archive of books and manuscripts offer a valuable literary panoply. Her “Memorandums and Observations” records some of the “different books I have Read” and registers her self-reflective responses; “Travells of a Month” shows her to be an observant witness of the world around her and a student of history; and her collection of original verse shows her to be an imaginative and thoughtful author who reinforces her social life through coterie culture. Taken together, her manuscripts arc across her single and married life and offer rare firsthand insight into the world of an 18th provincial writer and reader.
£9,500 Ref: 8248
11. OXFORD NEOPHYTE’S ANNOTATIONS
¶ This book is profusely annotated by Peter Cassy, who, according to Alumni Oxonienses, was the son of Edward, of St. Helen’s, in the city of Worcester. He matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford on 12 March 1718-19, aged 18, then graduated B.A. in 1722 and M.A. in 1725.
Cassy is thought to have descended from a landed Roman Catholic family, but as Coulter points out, “Peter abjured his allegiance to Rome, for on matriculating he subscribed the thirty-nine articles”. Indeed, given the date of his inscription in this copy of the 39 articles, it seems highly likely that he used this book to reinforce his position, as the first annotation we encounter on opening the book reads: “As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto Idols, we know that an Idol is nothing in the world, & that there is none other God but one.” In his 1849 essay “Peter Cassy and his Books”, Coulter remarks upon this volume, noting that it was interleaved with manuscript notes that Cassy probably made at lectures.
In his will, Cassy wrote: “I was poor when I came to the living [at Norton and Lenchwick]; it cost me from time to time much money to purchase books; my successor peradventure may experience the same inconvenience; I will therefore, as much as in me lies, prevent it by bequeathing my library in the nature of an heirloom to the living.” The bookplate to our volume attests to this.
Cassy has copiously annotated many of the interleaved pages (about a dozen full-page and 24 half-page), giving a window into the studious world of an early-18th-century Oxford neophyte.
¶ [CASSY, Peter (c.1700-1784]. Annotated copy of XXXIX Articuli Ecclesiae Anglicane, Textibus e Sacra Scriptura.
Oxonii, E Theatro Sheldoniano, Ann. Dom.
MDCCXIII. [1713]. Octavo. Pagination [10], 42; [4], 32p. Interleaved
Provenance: inscription “E Libris Petri Cassy /Ex Aul: Magd: pre- 2s-3d 1719” to upper left corner of paste-down, and his letterpress bookplate
“For the Parochial Library of Norton & Lenchwick, by P. Cassy, Vicar.” Ownership inscription to front endpaper of the historian, Peter Laslett (1915-2001).
£400 Ref: 8252
12. UNPUBLISHED WORK BY SWITZER
This unpublished work is the only known manuscript by Stephen Switzer, “one of the most outstanding authors on practical gardening during the first half of the eighteenth century”. 1
THE AUTHOR
Internal evidence supports an attribution of this manuscript to Switzer: at the head of the “Table of the Contents” he refers to “Grass, Seeds, flowers, Roots &c. Sold by the Seedsman and Gardiners in and about London Especially by S. Switzer att the flower pot over against The Court of Common pleas, Westminster Hall”; and on the seventh leaf of the synopsis the writer pens a note at the foot of the page “for a farther Enquiry into the Etimology of the Phascolus or kidney bean I refer to my Practical Kitchen Gardiner Sec 5, Chap XLIV, pa 236” – the author of which volume was the same “S. Switzer”
[SWITZER, Stephen (1682-1745)].
Author’s manuscript with running title: ‘A Synopsis or practical Compendium of Husbandry & Gardening’.
[London. Circa 1740]. Folio (314 x 200 x 14 mm). 63 leaves. Text to rectos: 1 (notes in French in a different hand), 10 (“The Preface”), 14 (“The Contents”), 38 (“A Synopsis...”). Some alterations, corrections, or additions in ink in the same hand.
Contemporary vellum, soiled and discoloured, covers bowed, text damp stained, final leaf frayed affecting a few letters. Watermark: Pro Patria; Countermark: LVG.
Stephen Switzer (1682-1745), a landscape designer, author and seedsman, was born in a village near Micheldever, Hampshire into a family that had farmed in the county for generations. He was apprenticed at the renowned Brompton Park Nurseries run by George London and Henry Wise, under whom he “rose to be lieutenant […] in their projects, and also formed a congenial relationship with the architects Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor” (ODNB). Switzer played a key role in laying out the gardens of great houses including Castle Howard, Blenheim Palace, Grimsthorpe Castle, and possibly untold others, according to Henrey, who believes he “may have been responsible for many undertakings for which he received no credit from contemporary writers”. 2
Switzer drew on these experiences and his wealth of knowledge for his first book, The Nobleman Gentleman and Gardeners Recreation (1715), which began with a history of gardening that is still a valuable text for researchers. Two further volumes soon followed, the trio collectively becoming known as Ichnographia rustica. In the next decade he consolidated his reputation as a landscaper in the service of the Earl of Orrery and Lord Bathurst, published Introduction to a General System of Hydraulicks and Hydrostaticks (1729), often considered his magnum opus, and went into business as a seedsman, based at Westminster Hall, where he “became a public figure from the mid-twenties,
corresponding widely about improvements in the various aspects of landscape making fertilizers, hydraulics, or beneficial legumes and issuing a series of informative pamphlets”. (ODNB)
It seems to have been as a seedsman, with a growing clientele beyond the landed wealthy, that Switzer developed a kind of ‘consumer guide’ approach to his publications; Henrey explains that he became irked at being “often obliged to write directions for his customers concerning the management of the seeds he sold them” 3. Far better, and more potentially profitable, to set these directions down in marketable form. Our manuscript is one such example in (partial) draft.
The manuscript was written circa 1740, to judge by a reference to the “Late Lord Peterborough”, i.e. the Commander of the Chief of Forces sent to Spain and Ambassador to the Court of Turin who died on 20 October 1735 on a voyage to Lisbon. Switzer’s death in 1745 both gives us a chronological cutoff point for the book’s composition and raises the strong possibility that this volume represents an unfinished – or at least unpublished –final work; the contents pages make it clear that this material amounts to the first eight complete chapters of a book which was projected to run to 30 chapters. We do not know whether Switzer ever completed the other chapters, because he has used a stationer’s blank book, so the subsequent chapters may have been completed in further stationer’s volumes.
Switzer himself explains his reasons for writing this particular book, besides the self-evident goal of income through publication. In the preface he acknowledges a marketplace filled with other such works; but “Numberless as they are”, these books “Fall very short of A System or Chain of Directions” (f.1.). He boasts that this new volume is “more Intelligible, than Any other Attempts of this Kind as yet Published whatsoever” (f.1.), and stresses its originality, rebutting any possible objection that a new publication in this field must have been “pyrated from Evelyn, Mortimer, Lawrence, Bradley or […] Miller”. On the contrary – his work is “Entirely New, And Generally the Result of Practice, more than Books Taken as they truly are from the Field and Garden itself ^themselves, and from Gentlemen and others of Great Veracity’s and Experience in all ^several of the Different Counties of Brittain”.
The seedsman in him emerges soon thereafter: “the Reasons which have Induc’d him to the following methods or manner of Publication” are rooted in “those Lists or Catalogues [by] the best seedsmen and Gardiners about London” – resources which provide “no more than the bare names of Seeds and Plants they sell”; whereas “This Synopsis or Compendious Catalogue” supplies “not Only the Names […] but the seasons also in which they are sown with the Quantity proper” (f.3).
Aside from the practical business of gardening and husbandry, Switzer displays an interest in etymology. In the preface, he accepts the notion that “Tis true that the Erroneous writing or badd spelling of the name of any Species of Herbs or plants Does in No wise Detract from its Intrinsic Value; and provided the Vegetable be good it is no
matter (as some will, Undoubtedly be ready to say) whether the Name of it in Catalogues be right or Wrong”; but he continues: “if it Does not make better so it Does not make it worse […] The Etymology or Right pronunciation of a word an Amusement [is not] Unbecoming any Gentleman of Reason or Learning”
It seems logical that a seedsman might seek to bring consistency to the spelling of plant names, if only to ensure that customers and sellers know exactly what they are buying and selling. But Switzer’s exploration of the roots of words appears to be motivated more by intellectual curiosity than by the practical question of consistency, and he concludes that the gardener is “Certainly Left to write or Speak as he pleases”. After all, “the Language of Botany is not the Chief Aim of the Author”; rather it is to provide a “Compendious Narrative” which takes in the various aspects of the plant.
A summary of the chapter on “Cepa or Onions Leek Ciboule &c” provides convenient example of the scope of his narrative. He begins with an “Introduction”, in which he makes an initial stab at derivation (“from the French Oignion”), and a historical overview (“it was held in Great Esteam […] amongst the Egyptians […] and Heroditus (as Mr Evelyn observes) writes that there was Ninety Tunn of Gold spent on them whilst the Pyramids were Building”). He details the best conditions for cultivating them (“Of the Soil and seasons of soweing”), acknowledging that none are “so fine as those Brought Either from Portugal or Spain”. He gives details of the varieties of onion, listing “Shasbourgh”, “Red Spanish”, “English of Mixt”, “Welch”, as well as “Leeks”, “Ciboles”, “Cives”, “Shalott” and others. For each he recommends how to grow them and to use them in the kitchen (Spanish make “Excellent Sauce”, but “Welch” are “fit for nothing but Soups”). Along the way he draws attention to locations where plantsmen are succeeding in growing varieties (“The Red Spanish kind is also rais’d att Axbridge in Somersetshire”). Each section is rounded off with an etymology (“Of Garlick Etymology Kinds &c”), with sources scattered throughout the text (often “Miller”, “Bauhinus”, or “Evelyn”) or, if longer, they are bordered off into footnotes (“* See Millers Dictionary Sub titulo
2. ibid p.326.
3. ibid p.328.
1. Henrey, Blanche. British Botanical and Horticultural Literature before 1800. (1975). p.235.
£12,500 Ref: 8250
Allium Garlick quad Exiliendo Cusuit Roii Hist: Plantarum Lib: 21 Chap 5 pa: 1125”).
CONCLUSION
This manuscript shows Switzer setting out his patch in the field of horticulture as an authority who knows whereof he writes, with knowledge which is “the Result of Practice” and of retail experience: he knows what is needed, both by plants and by their growers. He writes with a kind of knowledgeable ease earned by a lifetime’s experience, although his handwritten volume strikes a poignant note, since this was one project destined not to come to fruition; but as the only surviving manuscript by Switzer, it remains an artefact full of insights into the methods of a major figure in early-18th-century English horticulture.
13. A MEDIC IN LONDON & ANTIGUA
¶ This notebook, begun by a surgeon in England and probably carried to Antigua, has a medical history all its own, having apparently been ‘inherited’ and continued by a second surgeon with a similar specialism to the first, namely venereal disease. It is clearly an object for active use, and a tool as valuable to its owners as some of their sharper implements.
tells us that he was a “Surgeon” who began the notebook on “October 1st 1795”. The unusual double -barrelled forename helps us narrow our search of the records, where we find a Robert Wiltshire Evans, born in 1755 at Brent Knoll, Somerset to Mary and Thomas Evans (Somerset Archives: BRNT K 2/1/1).
¶ [EVANS, Robert Wiltshire (1755-1804].
Manuscript medical notebook containing notes on surgery and remedies.
[Antigua and England (?). Circa 1795-1805].
Quarto (200 x 155 x 20 mm). Approximately 298 text pages on 154 leaves, lacking rear endpaper and some leaves excised with only stubs remaining. Contemporary sheep-backed marbled boards, rubbed and worn.
Watermark: Lion, dated beneath: 1794; Willmot (obscured in gutter).
Provenance: From the library of the late Robert Bogdan (1950-2023), of Boghead of Torries and Dykehead of Avochie, Aberdeenshire, geography master at Charterhouse.
Further details are somewhat scattered: one “MaryWiltshire” was baptised 1 February 1778 at South Brent (an old name for Brent Knoll), Somerset, and is recorded as the daughter of “Robt Evans & Mary Anne Evans”. It seems plausible that Mary-Wiltshire Evans was the daughter of our scribe, and that Anne was his first wife. More certainly, he married Jane (birthname unrecorded) in 1796, by which time he may already have become a surgeon in the 70th Regiment of Foot.
We do know that Evans served in Antigua, and died there: an army document dated September 1817 lodging a claim for a widow’s pension states that “Robert Wiltshire Evans, Surgeon in the 70th Regiment of Foot died at Antigua on the 23d day of August 1804, leaving his Widow in reduced circumstances”. Since the 70th (Surrey) Regiment of Foot arrived in Antigua in the autumn of 1803, we can assume that Evans started the manuscript in England – and that he lived barely a year after reaching Antigua, perhaps succumbing to one of the fevers discussed in the notebook.
A second scribe continued the manuscript after Evans’ death but has not inscribed their name. We can be certain that they, too, were practicing medicine around the same time, and with numerous overlapping interests – it may even be that this second scribe succeeded Evans in the post in Antigua. These shared concerns complicate the sequencing of the texts because the second scribe has added notes to Evans’ earlier work. It does, however, make for a livelier, more interesting working artefact.
The first nine pages of the manuscript begin matter-of-factly with notes on the treatment of “irritable wounds” – a euphemism for sores and other afflictions caused by venereal disease. These notes appear to be by the second (unnamed) scribe, as they make several references to “Mr Pearson” and his authority on matters such as the sideeffects of “a successful mercurial course” and the use of “decoction & Powder of the Sarsparilla” in cases where mercury is inadvisable. John Pearson (1758-1826) was a surgeon who studied at St George’s and “was found qualified to act as surgeon to a regiment” in 1781 – the same year that “he became house surgeon to the Lock Hospital” (one of the earliest hospitals founded to treat venereal disease), a position he held until 1818 (ODNB).
In a discussion of the uses of “vapour of Mercury” in the treatment of “Venereal excrescences, Fungi, or Ulcers”, he (that is, Pearson, transcribed by our scribe) says that “In the course of two or 3 years after my appointment to the Lock Hospital I observed that in almost every year one or two instances of sudden death occurred among the Patients admitted”. Patients at the Lock Hospital were treated with, among other things, “Vitriolic Acid in Lues” and “Muriated Barytes” (strontium in a state of decomposition), which “ought by no means to be regarded as a medicine”, although “when properly prepared” it provides relief of “Venereal Symptoms”. These notes were probably copied from Pearson’s Observations on the Effects of Various Articles of the Materia Medica (1800).
However, these initial pages appear to have been written sometime after Evans set down 14 pages of notes on midwifery. The first page concerning labour has been excised so that the first remaining page of this section begins mid-flow in a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of a small or large pelvis and assessing dilation. The manuscript then cautions against responding too hastily, showing due consideration by reminding the midwife that “if a single woman should meet with an accident” during pregnancy, and “wished concealment wrong motives might be imputed to her and by your opinion she may fall a sacrifice to the Law”.
Evans then moves on to a 21-page discussion of “Organs of Generation”, which covers the anatomy and diseases of the labia, clitoris, penis, and urethra, and includes references to the work and opinions of Dr Smellie, Dr Haller, and Dr Dixon. His manuscript notes continue their journey via an anatomical description of “The Fallopian Tubes”; the structure and diseases of “Ovarium” (which references the work of De Graaf); “Conception” in humans and other mammals; the “Placenta”; “The Changes of the Gravid Uterus”; and four pages on the “Signs of Pregnancy” by the physician Dr William Lowder (1732-1801) and the eminent Scottish anatomist Dr William Hunter (1718-1783).
The longest single section of the manuscript is an 84-page “Collection of Receipts & Memorandums”, which includes notes such as “The Cases of this kind I have found where opium has failed, that Hen-bane, the Hyoscyamus Niger […] has proved useful”; receipts like “Injections used in Gonorrhoea”, and “Sir Hans Sloans
receipt”; and treatment of conditions such as “Elephantiasis”, and “Gravel”. Other ‘notes to self’ include: “I have often found this useful in those extrinsic Ulcers that succeed to Buboes”; “Onions are very useful to carry to Sea with troops for the purpose of mixing with their soup”; and that “Citric Acid is recommended by Dr Trotter of the Navy as an infallible sure for the Scurvy”.
Among the extended memoranda is a nine-page section (pp.100-108) on fevers which runs down “The tertian type of fevers” and features notes such as: “The Quartan in those countries where I have lived was rare, & then existence of a Real Quotidian was is doubtful – Jackson. Dr Jackson is of opinion that new & full moon have great influence on Intermittent Fevers”. This and several other references to “Jackson” probably refer to his book A treatise on the fevers of Jamaica (London, 1791). But Evans also seems to draw on his own work on fevers, remarking: “the Malignant Fever of Jamaica as soon as I discovered the malignancy of the Disease, the head was immly shaved & covered with a Blister”; and describing his methods for treating yellow fever.
Evans then records a “List of Books” which includes mostly scientific and medical titles such as “Cavallo on Electricity”, “Clark on Fevers”, “Lees introduction to botany”, “Elliot on Mineral Waters”, and the odd periodical, for example the “London Medical Journal”.
In a section entitled “Extracts from Mr Home’s Lectures 17 8ber 1805(?)”, the scribe summarises some of Home’s methods and adds observations from their own practice. Given the date, these notes must have been written by our anonymous scribe; however, we have not located any printed or manuscript lectures by Home for 1805, so it seems plausible that these were derived from notes taken by them from Home’s in-person lectures.
The scribe has “flipped” the volume and continues their medical observations for another 82 pages. Conditions and treatments include “Amputation of the Penis”, “Mr Thomas upon the Cure of Scrophulous tumours” “Cancer”, “Of Fractures”, “Diseases of the Nose”, “Diseases of the Ear”, “Of Gonorrhoea & Lues Venerea”, “Thomas Upon Operations” (which mentions “Mr J. Hunter”), and “Of the remedies in inflammation”. There are also notes either taken from personal experience or jotted down from lectures including “For the Bronchouli I have employed burnt Sponge with Nitre made into a Bolus”
This remarkable notebook appears to have travelled to Antigua and back, perhaps changing hands as part of Evans’ medical kit after his demise on the island. Its contents – clearly the work of experienced practitioners rather than callow novices – convey much about the orthodoxies and uncertainties of late-18th-century medicine and surgery, especially concerning venereal disease. The manuscript also illustrates the transmission of medical knowledge, experience and opinion (however misguided in some cases) between professionals – most poignantly, between the deceased Evans and his apparent successor.
£3,000 Ref: 8255
14. SCOTTISH PROTOCOL BOOK
A rare Jacobean protocol book by a Scottish notary. According to Beal, “the term ‘protocol’, used in the context of a document, means a note or record of a transaction or negotiated agreement drawn up and attested as genuine by a notary or public official that forms the basis of a subsequent formal deed or official written or engrossed agreement. A protocol book is a book or register in which copies of such records are entered, usually by or at the behest of the official concerned”.
The spine label to our volume reads “Protocol of Mr. J. Ramsay N.P./ 1613”. The “N.P.” likely stands for Notary Public. The contents of our manuscript conform to Beal’s definition, containing as they do examples of documents for subsequent use. Ramsay has provided upwards of 80 exemplars in Latin ranging in date from 1613 to 1618.
The hand is the same throughout, but the ink varies, so we assume the book was compiled over several years. It was clearly a working document, which contains numerous crossings-out, with corrections and amendments, and many of the examples are subscribed “J. Ramsay notarius”, indicating that he has checked and certified the examples as being fit for purpose.
[RAMSAY, J.] Scottish Lawyer’s Manuscript Notebook.
[Scotland. Circa 1613-18]. Quarto (196 x 140 x 16 mm). Approximately 226 text pages on 122 leaves.
Bound in 19th-century full calf, marbled endpapers. Front board detached, initial leaves softened, with text loss to first two leaves.
Written in a neat scribal hand throughout, ink faded but clear and legible.
£1,250 Ref: 8259
15. SCOTS HERALDRY
¶ This scholarly, handsomely illustrated manuscript treatise was written by the Scottish antiquarian Richard Augustine Hay. The text clearly addresses a general readership, so it was created for scribal circulation or for print publication rather than for personal use.
[HAY, Richard (1661 Manuscript entitled ‘A Short & Easy Treatise of Scots Heraldry Collected form the the best & most approved Authors Together with Ane Index of the Arms of several Considerable Familys and of the terms of Art used in Heraldry By R. H.’
[Edinburgh? Circa 1730?]. Octavo (185 x 116 x 12 mm).
Watermark: Horn. 72 leaves. Pagination [8, (title page, full page illustration and four pages of prelims)], text numbered to 61, [13, blanks]; 28 (index), [4, blanks], [14, illustrated “index of terms”], [18, blanks], a total of four full-page illustrations (two included in page numbering), and approximately 130 inset illustrations to final section.
The book’s intentional address to a broad readership is evident from the preface, which directs us to “Read over the following Chapters and upon finding any hard or difficult term Turn over to the Alphabeticall Index of terms at the end”. This 14-page “Alphabeticall Index of terms” includes 130 inset illustrations and runs through some “terms Used in Scotish Heraldry” (e.g. “Order of St Andrew or Scotland”), and at the end of the preface he includes a highly accomplished full-page illustration of Armorial Ensigns of the Kingdom of Scotland” rendered in ink and wash in fine detail. The purpose of this is to demonstrate how “you may delineate any coats of arms” by reading through the main text and referring to the “Alphabeticall Index” at the end of the volume. There is also a second, 28-page “Alphabeticall Index” which includes the “Armorial Bearings of Severall Nations” including “Sirnames & familys in Scotland”
18th-century calf backed marbled boards, rubbed, hinges cracked and front board near-detached, text dusty.
Provenance: ownership inscriptions of “Peter McGregor / Dumbarton / 1856”, and “Alexr. Ballantine / Edinburgh”. Loose leaf receipt from John Grant: Booksellers: Ltd, 31 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh and dated 10th June, 1958.
The treatise is divided into 12 chapters varying between one and 10 pages in length. These include “The Origine and Use of Arms”, “Of Marshalling and Impaling”, and “Of Bastards”. Some chapters, such as “Marks of Cadency” include a full-page illustration of “Minute Differences”, with said variations displayed in grid form. For cases of dishonourable conduct, the chapter “Of Abatements” outlines the misdemeanours concerned (including “deflouring Maids”, “boasting too much in Marshall Arts”, “Traiture”) and shows shields, reversed and inverted. However, as has been pointed out elsewhere, a bearer would be more likely to relinquish their arms rather than blot their escutcheon. The chapter on “Partitions of ye Shield” illustrates divisions of the field, and the text incudes a digression into their use as rewards in battle.
GENEALOGY OF ARMS
The elaborate title page is bordered by the heraldic cognisances of the 12 tribes of Israel, each set inside a tent. This intellectually extravagant idea of tracing genealogies back to the bible and retrofitting heraldic symbols is one of the more farfetched heraldic pretences of the early modern period: as Clare Tilbury observes, the heraldry of the 12 tribes of Israel is “a distinct iconographic invention in post-Reformation England… the theme became popular during the reign of King James, a period usually regarded as iconophobic.” Hay follows this up in the first chapter, where he writes: “Some think that the bearing of arms arose from Jacobs blessing his Children, In which he gave them marks of distinction, as to Judah a Lyon &c: And
He seems, however, to be comfortable promoting this idea of an underlying truth to “nobility” at the same time as he outlines the more pragmatic “Reasons of Inventing this Art”. These “Reasons” turn out to be distinctly instrumental in nature, from the lofty (“The great Design Men had to Perpetuate their own Actions”, “The Desire Magistrates has to Spurr on the ambition of others”) to the socially convenient (“To show what Country the Bearers came, Thus the Maxwells and Ramsays bear the or serve as a handy identifier and “make the Bearers known if perhaps
WHO WROTE IT?
Despite its ostentatious title page, the book’s author says only that it was written “By R.H.” Given the date and the specifically Scottish scope of the treatise, the most likely candidate is Richard Hay 1; and allowing for the fact that this volume was written in his “best” hand, it is indeed a very good match for two items known to be in Hay’s hand at the National Library of Scotland: a manuscript catalogued as Adv.MS.32.6; and his annotations in another, MS.6316.
Hay, an Augustinian canon and antiquary, was born in Edinburgh in 1661 to George Hay (d c.1666), son of Sir John Hay of Barra, lord clerk register of Scotland, and Jean Spottiswood, daughter of Sir Henry Spottiswood, high sheriff of Dublin. After over a decade studying for the priesthood in Paris, he was ordained at Chartres in 1685 and returned to Scotland, but his plans to bolster the Catholic presence at Holyrood palace collapsed when James VII and II fled the country in 1688, and he returned to canonical life in Paris.
Hay began to research Scottish history, and in 1722, having moved back to Edinburgh, he published Origine of the royal family of the Stewarts, a scholarly riposte to an assertion that the royal family originated in Ireland. A longer work, Vindication of Elizabeth More from being a concubine, and her children from the tache of bastardy (1723), used transcripts of many documents to disprove the accusation that the Stuart dynasty was illegitimate. These publications clearly signal the interests and themes that Hay pursues in our manuscript. Although his “printed work was meagre” (ODNB), extracts from his impressive collections and compilations published posthumously (he died some time before 1736 in relative poverty) helped to build his lasting, if relatively minor, reputation.
CONCLUSION
Whatever we may think of the social divisiveness of confected hierarchies, Hay’s status as an assiduous antiquarian is inarguable; as his ODNB biography concludes, he “deserves to be better known for his pioneering work as a records scholar, and many later writers have used his collections”. This manuscript treatise, besides including many interesting details specific to Scottish history and its families, is a rich addendum to the output of a somewhat overlooked figure.
£3,000 Ref: 8244
References:
1. We are extremely grateful to Robert Colley for this suggestion.
16. COLLECTING & EDITING SHAKESPEARE
¶ The literary canon was formed largely through printed books; but the scholarly labours and debates that helped to establish these standards were conducted not only by those in the limelight but by less celebrated figures: supporting players often working in the shadows, whose work nevertheless helped create our notions of ‘great literature’. This manuscript notebook reinforces that argument, bringing a further layer of nuance to our ideas of how the literary canon was formed – specifically one if its greatest monuments: William Shakespeare.
¶ [SHAKESPEARE, William; MONRO, John (1715-91)] The manuscript notebook of a Shakespeare First and Second Folio owner.
[Leiden, and London? Circa 1747-1770]. Quarto (195 x 155 x 40 mm). Foliation [1], 184 ff. (numbered to rectos). Over 240 text pages on 190 leaves, plus two printed clippings and eight looseleaf manuscript notes. Watermark: Pro Patria; Countermark: Crown GR.
Contemporary blind-ruled vellum stationer’s binding, with “JM” cypher in ink to front board.
The notebook’s author, John Monro, owned copies of the First and Second Folios and, as we shall see, read and used them in ways that were nothing if not scholarly. Figures like Monro, and his contemporary Styan Thirlby (1692-1753), are not represented by their own printed publications (at least, not on Shakespeare), and often obscured from accounts of Shakespeare scholarship. But their roles in forming the canon were far from insignificant: Thirlby is known to have contributed remarks to Theobald’s Shakespeare and, by a more circuitous route, informed Johnson’s edition; and Monro, as our manuscript confirms, contributed to George Steevens’ edition of the Bard’s works.
and no further revisions were needed for the reader; the plays “are now offer’d to your view cured, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them”. It could stand as a textual monument “not of an age but for all time” – an act of canon-formation avant la lettre.
Only nine years later, the Second Folio (1632) appeared, essentially reprinting its predecessor line-by-line and pausing only to “correct” the text with slightly modernised language. The Third Folio (1663), which added seven plays to the total, was followed in 1685 by the Fourth and final folio edition. This was largely a reprint of the Third Folio and formed more as a result of publisher’s rights than any claim to definitiveness the basis of the 18th-century editions of Shakespeare’s plays, which were no longer Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, but his “Works”.
The quest for the true word of the Bard is played out on the pages of our manuscript, as John Monro wrestles with competing claims to ‘definitiveness’, working at a high degree of detail and making a significant contribution to Shakespeare studies.
EDITING SHAKESPEARE
The 18th century saw a flourishing of Shakespeare scholarship, with a succession of editors applying themselves to the task of untangling the textual knots created by the additions and “modernisations” in the four Folios in the previous century; the search for authentic Shakespeare was under way.
Provenance: Ink inscription to upper right corner of front free endpaper: “J:Monro”, with numerous pen trials: the word “From” is written twice, and there are numerous attempts at a monogram, which is neatly reproduced on the following blank and to the front board. The first numbered leaf (f. 4) bears the inscription “Leyden. 1744” in a loose sloping hand. This date tallies with Monro’s education there, where he attended the lectures of Boehaave, but these textual notes include a discussion of, among others, William Warburton’s eight-volume edition of Shakespeare, which appeared in 1747. A later
The bardic battalions began in 1709 with Nicholas Rowe’s The Works of William Shakespear, and proceeded via editions by Alexander Pope (1725), Lewis Theobald (1733), Thomas Hanmer (1744), William Warburton (1747), Samuel Johnson (1765), Edward Capell (1768), and George Steevens (1773), until the high-water mark of Edmond Malone’s The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare (1790).
manuscript note is affixed to the paste-down which reads “I think this is your Grandfather’s writing is it not? 150 years ago.
J. E. Monro”.
The inscription to the front endpaper is a close inscription appears in the same position on the page as ours, although theirs is cropped leaving only “J:M” visible. Nevertheless this studied, slightly decorative hand is very distinctive and is continued through much of our manuscript, leading us to ascribe it confidently to the physician John Monro (1715-91).
Each new edition responded to the previous ones (with varying ratios of approval, qualification, copying, disputation or outright hostility): Rowe’s lack of philological expertise was criticised but his pioneering attempt at a short biography of Shakespeare was often reprinted; Pope’s somewhat cavalier approach, which included rewriting passages to ‘improve’ them, was lambasted by Theobald, who, among other things, drew on his wide reading to consider Shakespeare’s sources, but still used Pope’s 1728 edition as the base text for his rendition; and so on. In the course of this competitive relay, as Marcus Walsh puts it, “principles were contested and methodologies established that have had the most fundamental effects not only on Shakespeare studies, but also on literary studies in the academy and beyond.” 3
John Monro’s place in these developments was hitherto little known – he published very little, and nothing at all on Shakespeare – but his methods and insights, as our manuscript clearly demonstrates, were highly impressive; and he seems to have been quietly connected to intellectual circles and well acquainted with at least one of that century’s luminaries mentioned above: the eminent George Steevens.
THE MONRO/STEEVENS CONNECTION
According to Jonathan Andrews in the ODNB, Monro was “an admirer of classical and more modern literary works, from Horace to Shakespeare, and his research into the latter was of assistance to George Steevens in his edition of Shakespeare’s works”. Unfortunately, Andrews does not provide his source for this assertion, but the same relationship is also remarked upon in the Rylands catalogue entry for their copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio:
“Provenance history: Acquired ca. 1744 by Martin Folkes, F.R.S. (1690-1754). Sold at Folkes’s sale Feb 21, 1756, by Samuel Baker, for £3 3s. to Dr. John Monro (1715-1791), an associate of George Steevens (1736-1800). It seems likely that Monro left this copy to Steevens, from whom it subsequently passed to the second Earl Spencer, probably ca. 1790.” They add that “It was certainly in Earl Spencer's library before 1822, when it was catalogued by T.F. Dibdin, Earl Spencer’s librarian at Althrop”. 4
The Rylands copy has a manuscript note at head of second front fly-leaf recto: “Bought at Mr. Folkes's sale / Sat Feb:21. 1756. / N.B. This was the book Mr. Theobald / made use of for his edition.” The Rylands have not identified this annotation, but David Kastan ascribes the hand to George Steevens. 5
A second hand appears to take over; however, comparison with examples known to be by Monro suggest that, although he sometimes he wrote in a very neat hand, at other times he used a looser, more fluid hand (as seen in Monro’s autograph notebook held at Bethlem Museum of the Mind 2). We therefore ascribe both hands to Monro, who appears to have worked on this text over at least a decade (which may partly account for the variation).
According to Dibdin, “Every leaf of this copy was carefully examined by George Steevens, for his Lordship; a task, requiring no ordinary skill, as copies of it are sometimes made up from leaves of the subsequent editions. This copy was purchased by Mr. Steevens, at Folkes’s Sale. …The binding of this copy, by Walther … is in blue morocco, lined on the sides in the Grolier style and the back is thickly studded with gold in the manner of Roger Payne”. This description matches the Rylands copy (“Late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century full blue goatskin in the manner of Roger Payne; … interlacing gilt ribbon/strapwork in the Grolier style, … Bound by H. Walther”); so they are clearly one and the same copy. 6
But Dibdin does not mention Monro’s inscription, and he states that Steevens bought this copy at Folkes’ sale in 1756. So was Dibdin mistaken in claiming that “This copy was purchased by Mr. Steevens, at Folkes’s Sale”? One possibility is that Steevens was aware that Monro bought this copy at Folkes’s sale, and that Steevens later acquired it for Spencer at the auction sale of Monro’s books in 1792 (Bibliotheca elegantissima Monroiana). If this is correct, then the folio now in the Rylands is the copy used by Monro to write our manuscript.
William Munk: “Horace and Shakspeare were Dr. Monro’s favourite authors, and his notes and remarks on the latter were considerable. These he communicated to Mr. Steevens previous to the publication by that gentleman of the works of our immortal bard.” 7
Munk’s assertion that Monro’s “notes and remarks on [Shakespeare] were considerable” is clearly evidenced by this manuscript; indeed, it is likely that this manuscript is the channel through which Monro “communicated” his scholarly reading of the Bard to Steevens.
WHO WAS MONRO?
John Monro was born in 1715 at Greenwich to James Monro (1680-1752), a physician (and, as his son was also to become, an expert in insanity), and his wife, Elizabeth. After being a pupil at Merchant Taylors’ School in London, he graduated BA from St John’s College, Oxford in 1737 and MA in 1740. He pursued a medical education, having won a travelling fellowship that took him from Edinburgh to Leiden, and thence back to Oxford where he earned further medical qualifications before returning to his travels on the Continent. By 1750 he was in London, in 1751 becoming a physician at Bethlem and Bridewell alongside his father, and succeeding him on his death in 1752. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians the following year.
MONRO’S WORKING LIBRARY
Monro was a keen connoisseur who made great, studious use of his extensive collections of engravings and books: he assisted Strutt, for example, in preparing the latter’s Biographical Dictionary of Engravers (London, 1785). In 1792 Leigh and Sotheby sold his extensive library (Bibliotheca elegantissima Monroiana. A catalogue of the elegant and valuable library of John Monro, M. D. Physician to Bethlehem Hospital, Lately Deceased) – 3412 lots – over 15 days from 23 April. It was rich in early printing, especially of editions of English literature and Italian books in general, and included several significant manuscripts, including lot 3388, a “fine MS. on vellum” of Richard Rollet's Stimulus Conscientiae.
His early Shakespearean holdings as dispersed in that sale included the first quarto of Two Noble Kinsmen (London, 1634, lot 179), the spuriously attributed London Prodigal (London, 1605, lot 307) and later quartos of Hamlet (London, 1637), Richard III (London, 1634), and Love's Labours Lost (London, 1632).
Among other titles that featured in the sale of his library are many sources that Monro explicitly draws on in this manuscript, as he searches for what he considers the correct reading of passages and individual words. Key among these are copies of both Theobald’s and Warburton’s Shakespeare, and of Theobald’s Shakespeare Restored (1726). In his manuscript he also mentions the lexicographer John Kersey several times (“Colly. Kersey. To dawb with smut” (f.6v.); “wage is a law term vid Kersey” (f.19v.)), and indeed, a copy of Kersey’s 1720 edition of Edward Phillips’s The new world of words: or, universal English dictionary appears as lot 1255 in Bibliotheca elegantissima Monroiana. On f.13 he consults Kersey on the meaning of “Eyas” and compares the latter’s suggestion (“an Eyess […] is a young hawk taken out of the nest”) with that of “Skinner”, where he finds “a Nyas hawk” – one of many citations of Skinner, whose Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicana (1671) is lot 3285 in the sale catalogue. 8
There are many more references – to works, for example, by Gavin Douglas, Francis Peck, and Henry Spelman –and further comparison between our manuscript and Monro’s library catalogue would yield a host of such correspondences confirming the key role his own collection played in the search for clarity we witness in this manuscript. But by far the most significant volumes in his library, at least by modern standards, were sold as lots 1733 and 1734: these are, respectively, Shakespeare’s Second Folio of 1632 and his First Folio of 1623, and they formed the basis for his textual comparison.
MONRO’S MANUSCRIPT
The contents of this manuscript can roughly be divided into two sections. The first, occupying the opening 119 leaves, is a meticulous examination of language used in Shakespeare’s plays. The 34 separate plays follow the order of Lewis Theobald’s seven-volume 1733 edition of Shakespeare, which he compares with Warburton and his own copies of the First and Second folios. The remainder of the volume continues these studies, often in length and always in assiduity. Both the first and second parts of this manuscript are occasionally struck through; it very much appears to be a working and evolving production. He remains impartial, always calling out errors or misjudgements as he sees them, no matter the scholar concerned.
Monro expends a good deal of effort comparing the claims of Theobald and Warburton against the First and Second folios and marshalling all the other authorities to provide supporting evidence. At the very outset, he launches straight into a detailed textual comparison of Theobald’s edition with these folios, which sets the standard for his subsequent in-depth investigations: “As leaky as an unstaunch’d wench Shakespeare makes use of this word in the 3d part of K. henry 6th p. 157 1st folio / p. 138 unstaunched thirst” (this corresponds to p.138 in the 2nd folio, 1632) “ – where it signifies not allay’d, not stopp’d; whether this be his meaning in this place, I very much doubt, I should rather think he meant unstanch i.e. unsound”. He continues further down the down the page, “I have search’d for the word trash in the sense it is here us’d but cannot find it; *Bayley indeed, says, to trash, is to lop, but then he quotes our Author”. One of the lines has been crossed out, and the whole page has been struck through with a large X. The facing verso is written in both loose and neat hands. The loose hand begins: “Unstaunched. not stopped, not stayed. – with the issuing blood. Stifle the villain, whose unstaunched thirst York & young Rutland could not satisfie. Leaky, signifies both to let in & to let out. Johnson likewise loquacious”. (Monro returns to “Unstaunched”, “Leaky” and “Trash” later in the volume, in what appears to be a re-examination of the plays).
Beneath these notes, and in a neater hand, are the following notate bene:
“NB. 1. Mr Theobald’s Large edition, in 8vo .
2. Mr Will: Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies publish’d according to the true original copies the second impression. 1632. N.B. There is a difference between the second impression that I have, & that mention'd by Mr Theobold in his catalogue; mine being printed by Tho: Cotes, for Wm Aspley at the Parrot in Paul’s churchyard; at the end indeed R. Allott is mention’d with several others, but what makes me imagine there is a real difference is that Mr S. charges both Mr Rowe & Mr Pope in several places for having no authority for the alterations they have made; which I find not to be true by the 2d impression which I have, for it not only confirms several of their readings, but also corrects several other passages that are faulty”.
This note is separated between the words “not only” and “confirms several” since it has been written around an earlier note referred to above by an asterisk (i.e. *Bayley indeed, says, to trash, is to lop”) which reads *besides Bailey, Sewell in his glossary explains to trash, to lop, but mentions no authority”. The obvious conclusion is that
the note “Mr S. charges both Mr Rowe & Mr Pope” was added later. His observations concerning the word “trash” are further explored on the recto; “I have search’d for the word trash in the sense it is here us’d, but cannot find it; *Bayley indeed says to trash, is to lop, but then he quotes our Author, for his authority; & I suppose this very passage […] I should therefore suspect an error of the press”. Having noted the circularity of Bayley’s reference, he continues his search onto the following recto, concluding that the word was likely “crash”.
Monro subjects Warburton to his own grilling but demonstrates an admirable even-handedness, expressing both disagreement (“Mr Warburton is of the opinion we should read slack instead of lack, I must own that I am for keeping to the old reading” (f.29r.)) and approval (“Mr W n’s emendation of Isle to soil, is good” (f.47v.)), and sometimes issuing a curt dismissal (“there is no need of Mr Warburton’s ^negative^ particle” (f.31r.)) to stand comparison with some of his schoolmasterly ripostes to Theobald (“Mr Theobald, has alter’d this passage for want of attention” (f.49r.); “Mr Theobald has very unreasonable alter’d this to Med’cin” (f.33r.)). On occasion, he compares these two authorities with one another and adjudicates on their competing arguments, for example declaring: “The word revives (says Mr Theobald) conveys but little sense & therefore he proposes an emendation of Mr Warburton’s; I do not think he attends to the sense of the sentence when he says it conveys little sense. Helen is here comforting the Widow & Diana with the hopes of future happiness” (f.35r.)).
Though Theobald and Warburton receive the greatest attention, they are joined by many other authorities for consultation: besides those mentioned above, he cites Nicholas Rowe, although at second remove (“This supplemental word then was first clapp’d in by Mr Rowe say Mr Theo: but I find it in the second folio Edition” (f.10v)); Pope and Johnson mentioned above; and the textual critic and theologian Styan Thirlby, also mentioned above, who, like Monro, remained in the shadows but made important contributions to the published scholarship of figures such as Theobald and Johnson. Monro clearly makes no distinction between Thirlby and his more exalted peers, judging them purely on their merits as he sees them: he freely pronounces: “p.130. note 21. Dr Thirlby has set the speeches right, which are terribly misplac’d in the 2d folio” (f.22v); and sometimes assesses his judgements favourably with those of the leading lights, considering that “p.62. Dr Thirlby’s is certainly the right emendation, Mr Warburton’s tho ingenious, but is not true […]” (f.22r.) The tenor of some of these remarks suggests that Monro had access to Thirlby’s manuscript work – or to Thirlby himself – since he does more than simply reproduce Johnson’s published citations of Thirlby.
Monro is far from reluctant to rely only on his own view of a passage, whether in the course of comparing folios (“p.133 note (29) the 2d folio Edition reads naught”; “p.211. note 16 note her eyes are grey as grasse. The 2d folio reads Grasse tho’ wrongfully” (both f.10v)), considering the quirks of print production as a causal factor in an error arising (“it might slip in the place of it by the printer’s inadvertence” (f.8)), or making a logical supposition (“I have long suspect this reading, for no other reason than that we generally say dogg’d by company & not with company, but if it was us’d in that way in our Author’s days, my objection is of no force, but I believe the printer has carelessly join’d a c & l together and made a d out of them, the same mistake is to be met with in Coriolanus where
I think the sense almost demands the alteration I propose viz. – clogg’d with company” (f.7)). His careful placing of “our Author” in time confirms the circumspect approach that obliges him to place Shakespeare in his historical context rather than slip into what we might now call presentism (a consideration also evident in his note: “D. K. says this word signified the pox, in our Author’s time” (f.12)).
CONCLUSION
This manuscript abounds with evidence of Monro’s attentive and scrupulous treatment of the Shakespeare folios and of their interpreters. His deft handling of numerous authorities speaks of a scholar who was part of a network of peers, though establishing its precise co-ordinates and interactions requires further research. Perhaps above all, the unpublished endeavours that make up this volume make it clear what we risk losing if we only consider print as a factor in literary and bibliographical history. Who and what builds the canon and how? This manuscript, by a largely unrecognised but highly skilled author, should be an important contribution to any efforts to address this question.
£9,500 Ref: 8249
References:
1. https://firstfolios.com/Documents/Detail/john-rylands-research-institute-and-library/7290?item=7300
2. We are extremely grateful to David Luck, Archivist at Bethlam Museum of the Mind for providing images of John Monro’s manuscript casebook.
3. Walsh, Marcus. Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century (CUP, 2012), p.19.
4. https://firstfolios.com/Documents/Detail/john-rylands-research-institute-and-library/7290?item=7300
5. With special thanks to David Kastan for this, and for his invaluable guidance.
6. Dibdin, T.F., Aedes Althorpianae, (1822): https://archive.org/details/aedesalthorpiana01spen/page/n7/ mode/2up
7. Munk’s Roll: https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/john-monro
8. https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_bibliotheca-elegantissim_leigh-and-sotheby_1792
17. ANNOTATED HERALDRY
¶ This copy of Yorke’s heraldic classic was annotated by the antiquarian Ralph Spearman, who, it is claimed, served as the model for one of Sir Walter Scott's finest characters, Jonathan Oldbuck (aka ‘Monkbarns’), in his 1816 novel The Antiquary. Whether Spearman was in fact the prototype for Scott’s character (several contenders including Scott himself have been suggested), Spearman apparently played the part of the great antiquary. Like Scott’s hero he remained unmarried and without progeny,
¶ YORKE, James (active 1640); annotated by Ralph SPEARMAN (1749-1823) The union of honour. Containing the armes, matches and issues of the kings, dukes, marquesses and earles of England from the conquest, untill this present yeere, 1640.
London : printed by Edward Griffin, 1640 [i.e. 1641]. First edition.
Folio (272 x 175 x 26 mm). Pagination [16], 331, [1], 76, 53, [3] p. complete with the engraved title page, leaf Dd duplicated. [STC 26102.5]. 18th century calfbacked marbled boards, vellum corner pieces.
Provenance: inscription of “Thomas Rochester” to title page and errata verso (one dated 1727); inscription to the engraved title of “Ra: Spearman Eachwick Hall Northa’mb. AD. 1809” and another to the final blank. Bookplates to paste-down of Reginald Bladen and Melvin Gwynne Jeremiah.
A pencilled note to the front endpaper reads “The MSS notes are by Peter Le Neve”, but Peter le Neve’s copy of The union of honour is at the Bodleian (Gough Gen. Top. 210) and the numerous annotations in this copy are clearly by Ralph Spearman (a similar example is at the National Library of Scotland).
Cadwallader Bates, in Archaeologia aeliana, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity (1886), casts doubt on the Monkbarns connection but illuminates the fictional persona that Spearman seems to have constructed for himself: “vanity led him to endeavour to trace his descent and name from the ‘lords of Aspramont, a castle and county on the confines of Lorraine and Bar.’ His new hall at Eachwick was built entirely for show: being three stories high, with gingerbread battlements, and of great length, though only one room thick […] Seen from a distance, it quite deceives a stranger by its palatial appearance […] the neighbourhood still believe that Eachwick belonged to his family for generations.”
Despite Bates’s barbed remarks, Spearman is often mentioned favourably. For example, the Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive View of the County of Northumberland (1825) calls him “a celebrated local antiquary […] gifted with an excellent memory”, and says that “Mr. Surtees observes, ‘almost the sole depository of a vast mass of oral and popular tradition.’ … He was most liberal in his communications; and his correspondence with other antiquaries would, if collected, be extremely curious.” In The Bishoprick Garland (1834), Cuthbert Sharp remarks that Spearman “frequently mentioned a latent intention to arrange the recollections of a long life spent in the acquisition of antiquarian and legendary lore”, and laments “that he has left no work behind him to perpetuate that extensive local knowledge of which he seemed to be the sole depositary.”
Spearman’s interactions with Yorke’s text range from hatching to 10 shields and some 45 pages of manicules, underlining, corrections, and short notes (“it was taken up in digging the foundation of Henry 7ths Chapel” p.37; “& 2dly the Daughter & Heir of Sr Jn Lambth” p.133), through to longer, more detailed annotations on approximately 10 pages (e.g. Spearman has marshalled the printed blank shield of Radcliffe, added a crest, and appended the note “This Coat of Arms of a Knight of the Garter, with Quarterings as above, is copied from A Letter. Is late in Grimstones History of Spain printed at London AD 1612 with An Ordinary knights Helmett and encircled with the order of the Garter, the crest is Cockatrice I thinnk but imperfect as Above: Quere whether it is not of Henry Earl of Sussex; who died 1593 [...] see * bottom of preceeding page 297” p. 298). There are also full-page notes to four pages of endpapers.
Spearman died without children and left his property to his steward, Mr Hunter, and his elder son, on condition they took his surname. For all Spearman’s desire to claim a long bloodline, his true legacy lies in the personal relationships he formed and the thoughts he left on the pages of his books.
£1,500 Ref: 8253
18. MISCELLANY OF LAW &
VERSE
¶ A miscellany, in general, “exemplifies that defining combination of fragmentary texts and practical knowledge”.1 Within that description there lie many variations, both in choice and presentation of material. Context is everything, and those variations will naturally reflect the needs and interests of their creators and users. This miscellany, although conforming to some of the characteristics common to collections compiled by members of the Inns of Court, nevertheless departs from certain other conventions, and proves fascinatingly elusive on several counts.
¶ [TRIMNELL, Giles (c. 1634-1693); WOOD, Eliza;]. 17th-century manuscript entitled ‘A Miscellany of things for my private use & Readeing G. T.’
[Inns of Court? Worcestershire, Tibberton, Ankerden Farm? Circa 1655]. Octavo (170 x 110 x 20 mm). Approximately 260 text pages (of which around 80 are from 17th century, and 180 date from the late 18th- to the early 19th century) on 165 leaves. Several leaves excised with only stubs remaining.
Provenance: inscription to paste-down reads “Liber Egidij Trimnell”; faint pencil inscription to title page: “Anne Wood”. Early 19th century inscription to f.74 reads “Eliza Wood, Ankerden Farm”.
The culture of reading in the 17th-century Inns of Court – itself a kind of postuniversity ‘finishing school’ for lawyers – was marked by a necessary split between the professional and personal. As Harold Love remarks, “Not only were the readers more mature and under laxer discipline [than students], but they must have made a much sharper distinction between professional reading – the process of familiarizing themselves with a vast, imperfectly co-ordinated body of legal precedents – and reading for the purpose of intellectual development, self-cultivation or enjoyment.”2 The legal side required patience and a concern with formulaic expression, since “A very large part of the wording of legal documents has always been conventional and repetitive”.3 The second kind of reading, in addition to the purposes Love identifies, also suggests a breaking free from the strictures of the first, and perhaps a revisiting of the subjective, playful, emotional modes that legal texts explicitly reject.
This volume represents both kinds of reading – but its first owner and scribe has preserved the distinction by placing them at opposite ends of the book. He calls it “A Miscellany of things for my private use & Readeing G. T.” but to what extent is that “private use & Readeing” accurate, or his original intention, later to be abandoned? Did he share it, or did that occur with later owners? The elusive nature of this extends to “G.T.” himself.
THE SCRIBE
So who was G.T.? An inscription to the paste-down reads “Liber Egidij [i.e. Giles] Trimnell”. The name does not appear in Inns of Court records (though this may simply reflect the incomplete nature of its surviving historical archives), but a wider search yields several matches, including the will of one “Giles Trimnell, Gentleman”, dated 12 September 1693 “of Precincts of the Cathedral Church of Worcester”.
Other records give us his dates (1634 Richard; first wife Frances Harris; second wife Anne Chesler. Commensurate with a legal practitioner, his will mentions his clerk, one Mr Richard Wolley, to whom he leaves “Three of my best ffolio Books after my Wife shall have chosen what she hath a minde to and the rest of my books I doe for the present leave to my dear Wife’s disposall”. He was buried in Worcester Cathedral, with a Latin inscription describing him as “Generosus Vir pius, probus, Jurisque peritus” (a generous man, a pious man, honest, and expert in law).5 His name also occurs several times in legal proceedings.
Poetical collections, as Marotti argues, reflect “both the tastes of a particular collector and the socioliterary environment in which certain poems and groups of poems both circulated and were transcribed in a number of related manuscripts.” atmosphere of lively interaction, and strongly indicates that the solitary purposes he began with ( perhaps in the face of an onslaught of convivial colleagues.
The first section (ff.1 up our supposition that Trimnell is a legal man, although one is hard pressed to deduce any slant to his legal interests from his relatively brief selection. He begins, however, with taken out of Heywoods Hierarchies of
Angells” (ff.2r-3r.) (i.e. The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels (1635)). Since this occurs first, it suggests that Trimnell may indeed have intended this to be a literary miscellany; but his second entry brings matters back down to earth, being the first of a dozen legal precedents.
These precedents remain true to Love’s summary of the genre as “conventional and repetitive”: Trimnell lays out the likes of “Mr Edward Thomas’s manner of Setlemt by will” (f.3v.) (annotated “By a Grayes=Inn man”); “The Lord Morley & Mounteagles Setlemt after Marriage” with the note “this done by Sr Orlando Bridgman” (f.4r.); and “Captaine Wardes Son in Lawes Settlemt. upon his Wife and Children drawen by Judge Milward” (ff.18v-20r.), along with a handful of generic texts such as “This Indenture Betweene A. B. of the one parte and C. D. sonne and heire …” (ff.8v-11r).
The 17th-century material continues at the other end of the volume, but switches from the legal to the literary, with a group of 21 poems and adages, all in the same hand (likely Trimnell’s), entitled “Choyce Epitaph’s &c”.
Death, as Marotti observes, is “a major theme in most manuscript poetical collections,” with “epitaphs and elegies usually making up a significant portion of their contents.”8 So we see here; however, Marotti also says of a specific collection that some poems are “…explicitly bawdy […and] contain
misogynistic humour”9, and argues that this was a norm for such collections of the period. But our manuscript seems to be an exception to this: Trimnell and the other 17th-century hands are not, here or elsewhere, indulging in the bawdiness and misogyny that was endemic at the Inns of Court in this period. Indeed, the “Choyce Epitaph’s &c” include nine selections concerning women, all of them laudatory or respectful in tone.
Thus, after a few copied-down verses on worthies such as “Martin Luther”, “O Richard the 1o of England”, and “Charles the 1o of England” (f.134r.), we find the panegyric “Upon a good Gentlewoman” (f.135r.), a verse in Latin (“Digna hac luce diuturniore / Nisi quod luce meliore digna”) which, like several other pieces in our manuscript (such as “on Queene Ann” – of Denmark, not the later monarch of Britain (f.135v.)), appears in Camden’s Remaines (1605). This is followed by a four-line English poem that we have been unable to trace:
Shee might a longer life have lived here
But that shee did deserve a better there
The philogyny continues with an elegy “on a vertuous Gentlewoman” (first line: “Here though her spotlesse span=long life bee spent”) (f.135v.), a rendering of ‘An Elegie upon the death of his deare friend Mistresse Pricilla Wadl’ which appeared in Samuel Pick’s Festum voluptatis, or the banquet of pleasure (1639); then George Wither’s ‘Epitaph on a mother and child buried together’, here entitled “on a woman that dyed in childebed” (first line: “Beneath this marble stone doth lie”) and ‘on a Childe’ (first line: “Here lyes within a Cabinet of stone”) (f.136v.), both of which appeared in Wither’s Faire -Virtue, the mistresse of Phil’arete (1622).
After a final handful of verses in praise of virtuous women ( “on a Gentlewoman no lesse virtuous than faire”, “Reader if thou had’st a Teare” (both f.137r.), “Here shee lyes whose spotles fame” (F.137v)) –traceable to published versions – the hand, which until now has been a close match for Trimnell’s in the legal section, becomes more varied, signalling that the book has made a decisive shift from private to public and is being passed around and added to, as was common practice. But still, bawdiness and misogyny are nowhere in evidence, and sober reflection holds sway.
References:
1. Vine, Angus. Miscellaneous Order. (2019). p.21.
2. Love, Harold. The Culture and Commerce of Texts. (1998). p.225.
3. Ibid.
4. (PROB 11/416/107).
5. Abingdon, Thomas. The Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Worcester. (1723). p.78.
6. Records in the National Archives of Giles Trimnell taking legal action (land or money disputes) include C 6/289/41: C 6/289/41: Trimnell v Lench , Trimnell v Lench; and even one which appears to be against his brother: Trimnell v Trimnell: C 6/37/82.
7. Marotti, Arthur. Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric. (1995). p.61.
8. Ibid. . p.76.
9. Ibid. . p.77.
10. For this, and other references: Union First Line Index of English Verse: https://firstlines.folger.edu/search.php
11. National Archives D1798/596/7: ‘Capital messuage with appurts. called Anchorton [Ankerton] Farm’.
12. https://orlando.cambridge.org/people/262f8a82-9ab2-4ac8aaf4-57f9f419d984
We are extremely grateful to Angus Vine for his generous contributions.
£8,500 Ref: 8260
Several selections are of particular note for the authors concerned. The poem “on a faire Gentlewoman” (f.136r.) is a retitling of Ben Jonson’s acrostic elegy on Margaret Ratcliffe (first line: “Marble weepe for thou dost cover”), published in the first volume of The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (1616); “Upon Nothing The Ld Rochester” (ff.141r-142r.) is here presented in 16 stanzas, whereas the 1680 published version in Poems on several occasions had 17. The likelihood is that this was a manuscript version circulated prior to publication.
Various figures and events have their moment in the collection. “On ffelton that stab’d the Duke of Buckingham” (f.134v.), a poem often found manuscript miscellanies,10 memorialises John Felton, George Villiers’ assassin, and reflects the latter’s unpopularity; “On General Monke” (f.138v.) renders the first four lines of Flatman’s ‘On the Death of the truly valiant George Duke of Albemarle’, and is complemented by “on Genrall Monk’s Gallantry at Sea” (f.139r.).
Such extracted passages have resulted from deliberate acts of editing, but at what stage is difficult to tell; many works would have been in manuscript circulation, either whole or in part, and versions or extracts would have been handed round, often with different titles. In the culture of the Inns of Court, this may be where the lawyer’s necessary habit of editing dry legal texts is brought to bear on more ‘recreational’ material.
LATER SCRIBES
In the pages between Trimnell and partners’ 17th-century entries, later hands have added further content: late 18thto early 19th-century records of marriages and deaths (ff.33r-34r.), historical notes (ff.78v-84r.), and copied-down texts, largely on classical subjects (“Oracle of Delphi”, “Lycurgus”, “Petrarch”, “Hyperides”, etc (ff ff.35r-53r.).
These late-18th century entries could plausibly be in the same hand as an inscription on f.74r. which reads: “Eliza Wood / Ankerton Farm” – and if so, at least one of her selections is worthy of attention. A passage beginning “The education of women is liable to so many doubts and difficulties” (ff.54v-57r.), has been copied from the anonymous and little-known novel Ponsonby (1817). The presence here of an extract from such an obscure work, apparently written out by a woman in rural Staffordshire (where Ankerton is located 11), is especially noteworthy because it is juxtaposed with a similarly uncommon extract: “Female influence is universally acknowledged, in its effects upon society as well as individuals.” – from A Sequel to the Antidote to the Miseries of Human Life, (1809). This too was published anonymously, but has since been identified as a work by Harriet Corp. “An obscure early nineteenth-century writer of religious and didactic fiction … with striking talent and intelligence, as well as a strong interest in the spiritual and material condition of the poor. Though earnest, she is also full of humour and common sense”.12 A member of the Wood (we assume) family has extended Trimnell’s original title to include the words “A Journal of Memora by R. W.”
CONCLUSION
The puzzles attending this rich artefact merit further study: how does Giles Trimnell’s contact with the Inns of Court, apparently undocumented in the records, fit into his life and career? What does his choice of literature, with its unusually decorous selections from the likes of Jonson, Rochester, and Camden tell us about this young lawyer about town in the 1650s? And how did the volume come to fall into the hands of Eliza Wood a century or more later? Its long history, which extends over 150 years, records a journey from “private use & Readeing” to broader interactions in shared cultural spaces which explore multifaceted aspects of the roles and ideas of men and women in early modern society.
19. DIPLOMATIC ARCHIVE
¶ This impressive archive documents several major periods in the diplomatic career of Sir Robert Adair. It is arranged, broadly speaking, in three batches, corresponding to the two periods of intense diplomatic activity during his time in Vienna and Constantinople from 1806 to 1812, and a third batch dating from his return to diplomatic duties late 1830s in Brussels.
Adair was born into a well-connected family: his father, Robert Adair, was sergeant-surgeon to George III, and his mother was Lady Caroline Keppel. He attended Westminster School and Göttingen University. Despite studying at Lincoln’s Inn and being called to the bar in 1785, he forsook a legal career for politics, having become close with his cousin, the whig minister Charles James Fox, and his circle.
Adair visited Berlin, Vienna and St Petersburg in the wake of the French Revolution, to examine its effects on foreign states and to prepare for diplomatic office. He found himself paying dearly (in ridicule and suspicion) for his steadfast support of Fox, who dispatched him as a minister to Vienna in 1806 – when the bulk of this archive begins (after a few document bundles reaching back to Adair’s career as an MP and touching on some electoral controversy in his constituency of Camelford in 1802).
¶ Sir Robert Adair (1763–1855). An archive of correspondence mostly relating to Adair’s career as a diplomat in mainland Europe between 1806 and 1838. A total of upwards of 380 letters and documents. Items in this archive are very good condition.
The archive was collated by a member of the Barrington family, or an archivist some time in the 20th century. They used a straightforward alphanumeric reference system. However, it should be noted that they used small “post it” notes, some of which have either been lost or attached to the wrong items. We have rearranged the material into a different order, but as best we could, retained some of their codes in our catalogue.
VIENNA
Letters and dispatches during the summer and autumn of 1806 show a promising but delicate peace process unfolding, then disintegrating, between France and Russia: on 14 June, Fox informs Adair that “the Emperor of Russia has sent Mr Oubril to Vienna for the Purpose of directing Count Razumowski” to make “overtures for a general Peace, and to discuss this Subject with the French Ambassador at Vienna” “that you should express to the Count Razumowski & M: Oubril the Satisfaction felt here at the frank and honorable Manner in which these Communications have been made to his Majesty & that you act most cordially in Concert with them” [CB/3/5]. By “August 8: 1806”, a letter from of the gravely ill Fox) mentions “the high improbability of the Court of Petersburgh ratifying the Treaty concluded by M attempts to “persuade Count Razamovsky to delay issuing the orders for the Restitution of Cattaro” (a fortress in Montenegro). The complexities of negotiation are palpable, as is the sense of the fairly new language of international diplomacy coming under strain, as Vincent invokes “the System of Confidence and mutual Support” between Russia and England that risks collapse [CB/3/4]. After several uncertain weeks, “Sir A Paget” writes to Adair on “Octr 23d 1806” that “something like Hostilities have commenced between Prussia & France” [CB/3/3].
Nuggets and sallies of information continue to travel across the Channel: Vincent again writes from “Downing Street” on “Octr 27 1806”, relaying intelligence “of a Victory obtained by Prince Hohenlohe over the French” and of “the Defeat of the Russian Grand Army on the 14th – the Duke of Brunswick being wounded & according to some reports the King & Prince William also.” While Whitehall grapples with such news, the domestic picture adds further complication: Vincent adds that “We are here very much occupied with the approaching Elections” and reflects lugubriously on “the loss that has fallen upon us” – i.e. the death of Fox.
CONSTANTINOPLE
Adair’s posting to Constantinople in 1808, as British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, thrust him into still choppier waters, as local loyalties and enmities – not to mention the ramifications of conflict elsewhere – made themselves felt. A fascinating letter from Lord Collingwood in October 1808 [CB/1/6] brings Adair up to speed with the uncertain position of “Ali Pacha” and lays out the challenges – both diplomatic and topographical – of military action in the Adriatic : Collingwood has “encouraged the Pacha of Albania to expect assistance in expelling the French from his territory whenever he declared himself their enemy”, but the latter has refused to take “any measure of actual hostility against the French”. Having heard that Pacha especially seeks help “in reducing Parga” (a town on the Ionian coast), Collingwood remarks that this action “may require more of the Art of War than the Vizirs Generals possess”, and illustrates this with a summary of Parga’s physical conditions, before arguing that “St. Maura” would be a more sensible target since it “would limit the French intercourse very much”.
Collingwood’s letters, and those from others, dramatically evoke the atmosphere of precariousness, the concern with proceeding cautiously, and the importance of reliable information on the ground. From HMS “Ville de Paris, off Toulon”, on “14th June 1809” [unnumbered], Collingwood addresses Adair’s dispatches about “the Arms which were intended to be purchased in the Austrian States”, reporting that “Mr Bathurst, who was directed to procure them […] informs me that in the present circumstances of Austria it is not possible to make any arrangement for the purchase of them.” Collingwood assures Adair that “The Squadron now employed in the Adriatic is very powerfull,” and “will be found sufficient”. Turning to another pressing issue – the new Septinsular Republic in the Ionian Islands – he continues: “Sir Alexander Ball has communicated to me the Circumstances of the Septinsular Ships at Constantinople changing their Colours from French, to those which were worn by the Republick”. He considers that “it would have been adviseable to have chosen Greek, – or other neutral Flag”, and concludes that he “cannot on a resolution of a few Individuals of that nation make any change in the General orders respecting them, while their Country continues to be governed by the French”.
The back-and-forth continues: Adair’s draft letters inform Collingwood of minor diplomatic successes, and not a few failures, as priorities in one arena (for example, peace negotiations with Russia) interfere with operations in another (the planned passage of a British fleet through the Dardanelles) [CB/1/7]. And always, there are unreliable rumours: a group of 11 letters between Adair and a “Mr Wherry” in “Smirna” [CB/9/1 to CB/9/12] includes an unconfirmed report that “the Grand Viziers Army have rebelled against him, cut him in pieces and chose Taghir Pacha Vizier”.
BRUSSELS
Adair returned to British politics around 1810, but during the 1830s he resumed his diplomatic career, spending 1831-1835 in Brussels “engaged on a special mission to the newly crowned king of the Belgians (his exertions helped to prevent a general war between the Flemish and the Dutch troops)” (ODNB). In drafts or copies of letters to Lord Palmerston between 1832 and 1834, Adair delivers updates, speculations and pontifications: on the significance of “Gollets resignation” and what happens next; issues concerning the Dutch and the Polish; a summary of a conversation with “Cr Diedrichtstein” about the “Treaty between Russia and the Porte” and relaying Diedrichstein’s opinion that he “would not trust Russia out of his sight” (and elsewhere mentioning “the approaching crisis of the Turkish dominion in Europe”); and Adair’s rather patronising assessment that “Little Belgium is indeed a fine and flourishing country, and I am happy in contributing what I can to save it from the perverseness of its own politicians”.
One letter to Lord Holland seems to express his anxieties about no longer being in the loop: he requests that Holland “keep me “au courlant” as to our transactions generally with foreign powers. For all my knowledge on these matters I am left entirely to the newspapers”. He may indeed have begun to feel obsolescent; by the late 1830s, when this archive ends, Adair was in his seventies, and during the next decade he seems to have enjoyed a retirement basking in a degree of admiration from many as “the last living Foxite”.
CONCLUSION
These documents are rife with details of the concerns of their era: negotiations for successive treaties between European nations; the Napoleonic Wars; the Ottoman threat; and Great Britain’s competing priorities as an imperial power contending with challenges on multiple fronts. The immediacy of many of the dispatches – many of Adair’s in draft form, shot through with crossings-out and second thoughts – contributes to a bracing sense that we are reading history before it acquired the tidiness and veneer of hindsight. The sheer quantity of material in this archive amounts to a wealth of primary sources for any researcher wishing to examine British perspectives on this fraught period of European history.
£12,500 Ref: 8271
CONTENTS IN BRIEF
CB/1/1]. Correspondence mostly between Collingwood and Adair.
[London, Constantinople, Pera, Malta, and Several from on board a ship (e.g. off the coast of Toulon)]. [Circa 1808-1810]. Total: 8 items.
• Eight letters or letter drafts: one marked “relative to Ali Pacha” [CB/1/5], another marked as “Intended” for Collingwood but apparently not sent. Also a letter from “Capt Nourse” aboard HM Frederickstein
[CB/2/1]. Draft and copy letters, and letters received.
[London, Vienna, St Petersburg, Gibraltar, Barbados. Circa 1806-1810]. Total: 27 items.
A ribbon-bound bundle of 21 documents, including:
• To Adair in Vienna, from “Albemarle” in “Earl’s Court”, “April 17 1807”, relating the results of a vote in parliament concerning a “pledge to the King” and the dissolution of parliament. [CB/2/19]
• Other letters from Albemarle, his sister Diana (1807), Augustin de Arguelles (1810), and “JH Adair” (his son?) in Barbados (June 1810), Roger Wilbraham (March 1807), “Thanet [?]” (1806), “Fitzpatrick” (April 1807), and “John Stewart” (December 1810).
• Several draft letters from Adair to people inc Lord Pembroke (“June 18th 1807” from Vienna), “Count Stadion [?]” (“August 6th 1813” from London).
A subfolder in this envelope, marked “Miscellaneous Political Manuscripts Projets &c &c” [CB/2/15 also marked [CB/2/26 and CB/2/25], contains another 6 documents including:
• Draft letter from Adair to Fox (“Aug 4th 1806”) about the “Russian separate Peace”, the precariousness of Sicily and other matters. In a PS: “The Pope’s Minister has been with me today […] He says that Bonaparte wants him to enter into offensive measures against us, but that rather than do that, he will submit to any extremity. I do not believe him, but as this looks very much as if the French were about to occupy his dominions, and as if his ^Holiness was preparing for flight, I have suggested Malta or Sicily to him.” [CB/2/3]
• A memo or report (“Decembre 1806”) 12pp, in French, concerning disposition of the Russian and Prussian armies and the implications.
• Another memo or report (c.35pp) in French, undated. Entitled “Observations sur l’Etat actuel de l’Europe et plus … particulierement sur celui de l’Italie, relativement a un nouveau systeme de Guerre pour le Mediterrannee.”
[CB/18/1 – CB/18/10]Correspondence between Adair and others including Mackintosh concerning a controversy in Camelford.
[Camelford. Circa 1801-1802]. Total: nine items.
Envelope marked: “Camelford” and annotated “Sj / Mackintosh also mention he advised Adair on this ref…” (Camelford was one of Adair’s constituencies as MP, 1802-1812).
• Bundle of 9 letters and letter copies (1801-1802) with a slip marked “Camelford”. Several letters refer to “the Camelford Business” and some altercation with a “John Fonthangue”(?) – Adair gets quite heated at times (“For God’s sake what am I to understand from your letter!” [CB/18/11]).
[CB/3/3 – CB/3/22]. Correspondence and other documents relating to Adair’s post in Vienna, including an attempted peace treaty between France and Russia, 1806-1807.
[London, Montenegro, Vienna. Circa 1806-1807]. Total: 22 items.
• [CB/3/3 – CB/3/7]: Correspondence to Adair from Fox, Paget and Vincent (1806).
• 5 documents (ordered here by CB number, though it jumbles the chronology):
• [CB/3/3]: Letter from “Sir A Paget” dated “Octr 23d 1806”: “something like Hostilities have commenced between Prussia & France” … “I do not know why we send not an Ambassador to St Petersburg, I should rather have my doubts whether it will be my Lord Douglas, having heard that he has had something of a tiff with Ld Howick…”
• [CB/3/4]: Letter from “Sir F Vincent”, dated “Downing Street August 8: 1806”. Re attempts to “persuade Count Razamovsky to delay issuing the orders for the Restitution of Cattaro”. Mentions “the high improbability of the Court of Petersburgh ratifying the Treaty concluded by Mr d’Oubril with France”. Relays the king’s wishes that “you should use all your Efforts in seconding the Arguments of Count Strogonoff to influence Count Razamovsky to postpone the issuing the Orders for the Restoration of that Fortress”. Invokes “the System of Confidence and mutual Support which has hitherto so happily subsisted between the two Governments” which mustn’t be ruined “by the Ratification” of Oubril’s Treaty. Ends with a mention of “Mr Fox’s indisposition” being the reason Vincent is the one writing.
• [CB/3/5 – CB/3/7]: Three documents in a band marked “Dispatch / From Mr Fox to Mr Adair wth 2 Envelopes [ie enclosures] – June 14th 1806”. Letter: “the Court of Petersburg […] has confidentially informed the Kings Government that the Emperor of Russia has sent Mr Oubril to Vienna for the Purpose of directing Count Razumowski to mix with the Business, overtures for a general Peace, and to discuss this Subject with the French Ambassador at Vienna.” Encloses “the Note Verbale” sent with “Lord G: L: Gowers Dispatch” and “an Extract from the Communication which the Russian Minister here has made to me”. Then asks “that you should express to the Count Razumowski & M: Oubril the Satisfaction felt here at the frank and honorable Manner in which these Communications have been made to his Majesty & that you act most cordially in Concert with them”. Then goes into a few finer points of negotiation. Both enclosures are in French.
• [CB/3/8 – CB/3/14]: 7 documents (1807) in a band marked “Letters / Messrs Arnstein & Eskeles / from March to / 1807”. Statements and invoices to Adair from Arnstein & Eskeles, a banking-house in Vienna, showing payments on his behalf to many individuals, often mentioned in other documents in the archive.
• [unnumbered]: “Downing Street Sept: 5 1806” from “Lord Spencer” referring to “the refusal of the Emperor Alexander to ratify M. Oubril’s Treaty […] yet […] there were strong signs of an increased pacific disposition”. But the sense is that “the French Government did not feel confident of the Ratification”
• [unnumbered]: “Downing Street / Monday Evening Octr 27 1806”, from Vincent. “Many thanks for your letter by Count Stahrembergs Courier – he arrived in the night before last & brought Intelligence of a Victory obtained by Prince Hohenlohe over the French, but he also brought over the Dispatches from Lord Morpeth announcing the Defeat of the Russian Grand Army on the 14th – the Duke of Brunswick being wounded & according to some reports the King & Prince William also.” / “We are here very much occupied with the approaching Elections – there is a contest for Westminster.” Runs through the prospects in certain constituencies. Finishes with melancholy reflections and talks about “the loss that has fallen upon us” i.e. Fox’s death.
[CB/3/15 – CB/3/22], 8 documents (1806-1807):
4 letters (1806-1807): from “Shovel[?]”, “Vincent”, “Horne” and “Bedford”.
• 4 documents (1807): including a letter from “Bedford”; one from “Duff”; and two detailed documents analysing dispositions of troops and local conditions in places including “Montenegro” (eg “Cattaro can be blocaded by the sea as follows”). One in French, of which another may be a translation.
[CB/9/1 – CB/9/]. Letters and documents relating to Adair’s time in Constantinople.
[Constantinople. Circa 1809-1810]. Total: 47 items.
Envelope marked “Constantinople 1809”. Includes a ribbon-bound bundle of 31 documents of varying length, and a further 16 loose documents.
The ribbon-bound bundle includes:
• A banded bundle of 4 documents labelled “Report on Mocca Coffee / Papers relating thereto” [CB/9/56/57/58/59].
• “Extract of a letter from Vienna relative to the affairs of Spain / Feb: 3. 1809” [CB/9/53]
• Letters and summary documents in French and Italian.
• “From Mr. Pisani / Sketch of the State of the Ottoman Ministry” in Constantinople (“9 June 1809”) [CB/9/61]
• “Contple Correspondence / Letters to and from Mr Wherry. / 1809. 10.” [CB/9/1 to CB/9/12]. 11 letters mostly from Wherry in “Smirna” inc an unconfirmed report that “the Grand Viziers Army have rebelled against him, cut him in pieces and chose Taghir Pacha Vizier”, and returned to Constantinople where the upset has continued.
• “Smirna 15 March 1810” from “John Lee”, a longish report “on American trade” to Turkey, of which “I have been the chief promoter”, and which has been increasing. [CB/9/55]
• A memo [undated] from “Mr Solly / relative to measures of blockade”, including “A general declaration of blockade along the coast of the Baltic as far as ^to commencement of the Russian territory”. [CB/9/49]
• “List of English Ambassadors at the Porte from 1583 to 1809” [CB/9/50].
• The loose documents consist of 15 draft and copy letters from Adair to “Mr Canning” (Foreign Secretary) eg “April 20th 1809” addressing Canning’s query as to whether Adair would rather reside in Constantinople or Vienna; and others referencing the “Austrian Armistice” having caused “consternation” among the Turks. [CB/9/30 to CB/9/44]
[CB/12/1 – CB/12/11]. Correspondence to Adair in Vienna 1806-1807 and in London, 1811. [Vienna and London. Circa 1806/7; 1811]. Total: 11 items.
Mostly correspondence to Adair in Vienna including:
• From “Zobel”, reporting that “Lord Pembroke has been recalled, and that your Excellency is to remain in Vienna” (November 1807) [CB/12/1]
• From “Thunnington”, 9 Dec 1806, referring to the death of Fox and some correspondence between them. [CB/12/2]
• “Mr Kustendorf’s Note” – the unknown author presents urgent advice about the behaviour of the French and urges the recipient (Adair?) to “step out of the ‘line’ presented by your mission, & endeavour to be Minister for Europe.” [CB/12/3]
• A note re the “Duke of Richmond” who has been mistakenly caught up in the sequestration of land at Aubigny and seeks redress. Undated. [CB/12/6]
• A packet containing four separate leaves separately folded (might all be part of the same letter), one dated 8 July 1803, sent from Paris. “Dear Bob”… speculating as to Bonaparte’s intentions and possible revival of his plans to invade England, as well as Russia’s inclination to acquiesce. [CB/12/7]
• Letter from “Pemberley” 23 June 1807 announcing his imminent arrival in Vienna and requesting guidance from Adair. [CB/12/9]
• Several letters from “Conte D’Antragues” to Adair in “Mayfair”: July 1811 [CB/13/4], 27 July 1811 [CB/12/10], Sept 1811 [CB/12/5] . In French.
[CB/13/1, 6-9] [CB/14/1 to CB/14/31], CB/15/1 – 15/26]]. Correspondence in English and French to Adair and many draft replies by him.
[Vienna, London, Trieste, Brussells. 1806-1838.]. Approximately 77 items.
• A bundle containing some 36 documents, mostly copies or drafts of letters from Adair to Lord Palmerston, covering the years 1832-1834, with Adair writing mostly from “Brussels”.
• Also in this batch are draft letters to Lord Holland and others including Lord Granville.
• 27 items of correspondence, mostly dating from 1806 to 1814, then jumping to 1828, 1830 and 1838. Copies and drafts of letters from Adair and missives from “Rolliston” at the “Foreign Office” and “Mr Ramsay” at “East India House” in London, as well as from “Mr Villette”, “John Marco” from “Buccarest” (both in French), and “Francesco Solitzo [?]” from “Trieste” (in Italian).
• Adair writes to “Mr Fox” concerning the “policy with regard to Russia”, and to “to Sir John Stepney, July 23rd 1807” on the matter of “Lord Pembroke’s appointment superseding me at Vienna”. There are two copies of an 1806 letter from “Downing St” containing “Instructions to Lord Morpeth” for his mission to restore “Peace with the King of Prussia” (these copies apparently intended “for Lord Howick’s No.1”, ie Adair, after Howick succeeded Fox); and an account by another cousin of Adair’s, “Albermarle”, of the funeral of Fox in 1806. A jump of two decades intervenes before the final few letters, one accompanying an eight-page “Copy of a Memoir sent by me to the D. of Wellington and Earl Dudley on the 5th of March 1828”, another to the “Duke of Bedford”, dated “Jany 27th 1830”, beginning “In response to your question respecting Prince Leopold and the arrangements for Peace” – this last letter copy anticipating the second batch.
[CB/17/1 – CB/17/20]. Letters to Adair in Vienna from his “Informants”.
[Lintz, Wurtburg. Circa 1806-1807]. Total: 20 items.
• Letters to Adair in Vienna from his “Informants” – “A Horn” (in Lintz) and “B Ingram” (in Wurzburg), mostly 1807.
[CB/16/1 – CB/16/43]. Draft dispatches from Adair and other documents.
[Vienna, Constantinople, Pera, St Petersburg, Circa 1807-1810]. Total: 45 items.
• Mostly numbered draft dispatches from Adair including “No 50 / Septr 24th 1807”, conveying “the occupation of Tuscany and the Ecclesiastical States by the French” [CB/17/34]; “No. 49”, re “the situation of the Republick of the 7 Islands” and the “disposition” of the inhabitants “to seek his Majesty’s protection” [CB/17/35]; and one marked “Separate & most Secret – September 22nd 1807” concerning a “conspiracy for burning the Dock yards”, and “the late attempt upon the Dock yard at Chatham” which was supposedly part of the same plan [CB/17/36].
• Another 6 documents bound with ribbon, including a draft letter to “Count Hardenberg July 9 1810” urgently clearing up a misunderstanding that Adair had recommended “la Paix a la Porte” without condition [CB/17/10].
[CB/20/1 – CB/20/5 and CB/19/1 – CB/19/15]. Correspondence [from?] “Pozzi di Borgo”, and letters to Count Stadion and Count Razumovsky.
[London, Brussels, Paris, Vienna, St Petersburg. Circa 1803-1816]. Total: 21 items.
Envelope marked “Pozzi di Borgo”, but also includes letters to Count Stadion and Count Razumovsky. Two string-bound bundles:
• One with 6 draft letters and meeting minutes, with dates including 1803. One draft letter / note marked “Petersburg, July” but no year.
• One with 15 draft or copy letters including from “Woburn Jany 28th 1816” in which Adair assures Pozzo that he recognises a “memoir lately published” under Pozzo’s name is clearly false and an “atrocious injustice”. [CB/19/1]. Other dates: 1807, 1812, 1813, 1815.
[CB/4/1 – CB/4/31]. Letters between Adair and Palmeston, Grey, Albemarle and others.
[Frankfurt, London. Circa 1834-5]. Total: 36 items.
Two ribbon-bound bundles:
• 11 documents, mostly 1834. Mostly between Adair and a “Mr Cartwright” in Frankfurt, concerning issues including a “Resolution of the Diet directing the Military Govt of Luxemberg to prevent a Sale of Wood in the Forest of Grunewald likely to lead to an infraction of the Convention of the 26th May”. (1834) [CB/4/24] and “Resolution of the Diet respecting the issuing of passports by the Belgian authorities in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg” (1834) [CB/4/25].
• 25 documents, 1834-5. Including many draft letters from Adair to Lord Palmerston, Lord Grey, Lord Albemarle, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Holland, Lord Russell. In several, Adair professes himself despondent at developments (possibly the Tory gains in the election).
[CB/5/2 – CB/7/24]. Draft and received letters.
[Pera, Brussels, London, Tunbridge Wells. Circa 1811-34]. Total: 59 items.
Two ribbon-bound bundles and group of loose letters.
• [CB/6/1 – CB/6/12] Bundle of 11 draft and received letters spanning 1811-1814 to the Duke of York (1812), from Stratford Canning (1811, 1814) re Sicily and Constantinople; from “Arbuthnot” (undated) requesting Adair’s advice on a financial “claim” connected with “my Case”; also a couple of letters from Lord Holland (1831), apparently about his reposting to Constantinople.
• [CB/5/2 – CB/5/25] 23 documents, mostly draft letters and reports to Lord Palmerston, early 1830s, on topics including “Misgivings as to ratification of the Belgian Treaty” [CB/5/12]. Also letters to Charles Bagot, Lord Holland, others.
• Loose: 25 documents, mostly letters, all dated 1834. Many draft letters to Palmerston, and a handful to “Sir F. Lamb”, “Mr Jerningham”, Lord Albemarle, Lord Grey, King Leopold, Lord Russell, and Lord Holland (to whom he issues a strongly worded warning about the “Treaty of the 4 Powers”, refers to “armed intervention”, and invokes the prospect that “to support and sustain bankrupt Spain, you risk making a bankrupt of England” (Aug 18 1834, [CB/7/7]).
