Ordering Things

o r d e r i n g t h i n g s

Dean Cooke Rare Books Ltd

Extracts from Sir Richard Hoare’s (1648-1719) commonplace book. (pp19-22)

Manuscripts and annotated books do not always yield to straightforward categorisation – not because they lack some of the usual bibliographic features of printed books, but because they so often cross boundaries and include idiosyncrasies. But this resistance to easy codification is not something to be ironed out; the multidimensional forms of some artefacts can be key to understanding the context of their creation and crucial to determining their significance. Nonetheless, some modalities are necessary to gain any kind of useful interpretation. But too loose and we risk saying nothing; too tight and we lose vital individuating factors. Aristotle’s precept offers a useful approach by allowing for overlapping modalities:

“One way of classifying things is to distinguish different questions which may be asked about something and to notice that only a limited range of answers can appropriately be given to any particular question.”1

The early modern period introduced new ways of thinking about the world and new questions to ask, which in turn called for new ways of organising things. This catalogue, rather than attempting to provide exact definitions, considers some of the ways in which the early modern manuscript makers organised knowledge themselves – either from a pre-existing model or in an attempt to create something new.

Even a blank sheet is not a neutral tabula rasa: the context, form and framing of a blank space guide the forms and framings of thought articulated by the scribe on the manuscript’s surface. Various scholars have explored ideas around this: Julie Park’s work discusses how different forms can influence scribes and their readers, guiding their thoughts towards certain kinds of narrative and expression including graphic ones such as grids, tables, and other strategic arrangements of lines.2 Ian Hacking distinguishes between things (usually substances) which are not affected by categorisation but can still aid an understanding of them (eg carbon as arranged in the periodic table does not change carbon itself, but does change our understanding of it) and things (usually humans) that are affected by how they are categorised which causes modifications in their behaviour and approach to the world, creating what he calls a “looping” effect on the person.3

FILLING IN THE BLANKS

The interleaves in early modern almanacs begat certain kinds of narrative (brief, practical, chronological). Almanacs distil the unruly sprawl of life into reassuringly neat, predictable forms easily carried in the pocket. They were often interleaved with blanks, encouraging users to interact with them, but their format and written style fostered a particular kind of annotation: practical, often quantitative information conveyed concisely. The resulting narratives can seem blankly inscrutable and sometimes devoid of feeling, but, as Adam Smyth has demonstrated, they often formed part of a network of texts: the likes of Evelyn, Dugdale, and Wood used almanacs as “an early, although not necessarily initial, site of recording” for their diaries and other forms of life-writing. Evelyn, for example, revisited his brief almanac notes years later and expanded them into a fuller, more rounded picture of his life, raising questions about the veracity of remembered experience and the supposed spontaneity of such texts. 4 As modern-day readers of almanacs and other historical forms, we do something similar: for example, in presenting a long run of almanacs annotated by Francis Drewe (pp1-8), we have, in a sense, re-expanded his collection into a fuller, more rounded account, without the benefit of having lived the life in question, but with – we hope – the benefit of an impartial assessment of the material evidence.

The physical arrangement of manuscript volumes may speak to the attitudes and intentions of scribes towards their contents. Early modern receipt books often arranged culinary recipes at one end and remedies at the other to form different but equal parts of an integrated picture of human health. Such volumes are often referred to as dos-a-dos, but this term more accurately refers to a binding method with a board between the texts; a form suited to binding up texts such as the Old and New Testaments, so that each is opened at its beginning. Following the lead of the Folger Library and others, we have opted for the term tête-bêche (see pp93-98), which translates as “head-to-tail”. Since it’s a way of organising an already bound blank book, têtebêche does not call for a dividing central board.

As their name implies, books of receipts (ie things received) often tell stories of social connections; of giving and receiving. We have several instances of these exchanges, but one in particular exemplifies this practice (pp75-80). It began as an account book (which also uses the tête-bêche format), and gradually morphed into a miscellany that incorporated several ways of receiving including advice, finance, and recipes. A culinary manuscript by Jane Coxhead (pp23-26) includes a group of recipes that precede their printed appearance, implying that she was a member of a social group connected with the author of the later printed work. In another section she juxtaposes culinary recipes from an earlier printed book with similar but untraced recipes, seemingly her own improved versions. She appears to have compiled the volume over a short period of time, with an eye for aesthetics and a purpose beyond simply keeping a running list of recipes.

In a similar vein (although without the element of “display”), the several anonymous compilers of a multilingual book of remedies (pp27-28) cite professional physicians as authorities, but still created the book for home use. Its more medicalised focus is perhaps symptomatic of the gradual separation of recipes and remedies into two distinct fields of interest. This slow parting of the ways was perhaps inevitable because scribes amended recipes based on their subjective experience of whether this or that recipe tasted good, whereas remedies are tested empirically by noting whether the evidence indicates a salutary effect on a patient.

It would go beyond the scope of this catalogue to draw a direct line from the education offered at grammar schools, private schools, and free schools to that of their modern-day equivalents. But it is interesting to observe the kind of scope available to those who could afford an education. Our 17th-century schoolboy’s rhetorical exercises (pp29-32) would have equipped him with ever-ready witty remarks for every occasion as he expanded his horizons; in contrast, later ciphering manuscripts with their narrow range tended to limit the horizons of pupils to the “trades”. Hacking’s notion of “looping” might come into play here, as such expectations, in whichever direction, may be easily internalised. As James Baldwin observed: “the standards of the civilization into which you are born are first outside of you, and by the time you get to be a man they’re inside of you [...] they’re real for you whether they’re real or not”.5

READER, I ANNOTATED IT

Annotations in printed books have long been rightly prized for the insights they bring to our understanding of the minds of other readers. The margins of a printed book afforded space enough for pithy remarks or terse objections, and they can create a kind of one-sided conversation, without the original author being present to answer back. Such is the case in one of the texts included in this catalogue (pp55-58). It was annotated by Isaac Watts and helps elucidate his thought and some of the crosscurrents of 18th-century Enlightenment philosophy. Other annotations are not so much a conversation as an extension of

another’s thought. In the 1650s, Joseph Clarke augmented Walter Blith’s already expanded edition with additional blank leaves bearing his personalised additions (pp9-12).

Explorations of the relationship between annotations and notebooks has led to insights into the luminaries of the early modern period. Such work demonstrates that marks and annotations in books were evidence of engaged, pen-in-hand reading and that notes in commonplace books were not simply copies of people’s thoughts, but part of an active process in which compilers sometimes ordered their volumes “spatially and materially as well as conceptually” juxtaposing ideas “to generate new examples, and thus in turn to produce new discourses and new knowledge”.6

Commonplace books, typically gleanings from other works arranged under subject headings, are sometimes conflated with other notebooks, especially miscellanies. While there is certainly overlap with other notebooks, Steven May cautions against conflating the forms: “literary anthologies are routinely termed commonplace books”, resulting in such works being overlooked by literary scholars.7

There is no neat line of progress from the early modern period, or the Renaissance as it is sometimes known, to the present day. Among the undoubted advances, there were faltering starts and dead ends which, in a parallel universe, could have become accepted conventions. Our chess manuscript (pp63-70) represents both an innovation and a cul-de-sac: some players perceived the need to develop a codified language – a realisation which in itself marks a great step forward in the systematisation of the chess moves themselves. While this particular method of recording did not catch on, it is part of the story of experimentation that led to the development of new forms of codification.

CONCLUSION

Ann Blair remarks that “many of our current ways of thinking about and handling information descend from patterns of thought and practices that extend back for centuries”.8 Some nascent patterns are evident in these manuscripts. Scribes often begin with a heuristic that is subsequently adapted or jettisoned in the face of new developments or needs, leading to a series of “rules of thumb” to help navigate an ongoing process of trial and error. In some cases, forms and arrangements are attempted, then changed or abandoned for no apparent reason, leaving a kind of testament to the scribe’s indecisiveness or fickleness. But out of these approaches emerged some of the ways in which we understand our world now. They might not be talking about the human condition in the way that a poem or a play does, but they can still be expressive of the human condition.

References:

1. ARISTOTLE. Categories and De Interpretatione. Translated with Notes by J. L. Ackrill. (1963).

2. PARK, Julie. The Self and It. (2010) Line-Making as Life Writing. (2023).

3. HACKING, Ian. The Social Construction of What? (2000)

4. SMYTH, Adam. Autobiography in Early Modern England. (2010).

5. GIOVANNI, Nikki. Conversations with Nikki Giovanni. Edited by Virginia C. Fowler. (1992).

6. VINE, Angus. Miscellaneous Order. (2019).

7. MAY, Steven. English Renaissance Manuscript Culture: The Paper Revolution. (2023).

8. BLAIR, Ann. Too Much to Know. (2010).

ANNOTATED ALMANACS

[DREWE, Francis (1673/4-1734)]; RIDER, Cardanus. A remarkable run of ‘Riders’s British Merlin’, interleaved and annotated by a single owner.

[The Grange, Broadhembury, Devon]. London: 1699-1733. 12mo. Pagination 48 p. All volumes are complete and interleaved with blank leaves, with annotations to front and rear leaves.

Provenance: ownership inscription of Francis Drewe to several volumes, then by descent to previous owner.

INTRODUCTION

¶ Fact, fiction, and forecast all jostle for position in the little worlds created by almanacs. Time pulls in all directions: an entire millennium might be squeezed into a single page, improbable prognostications project the reader into possible futures, while a fleeting moment is captured in an annotator’s brief memo.

Almanacs guide the reader through a world of uncertainties by reducing the vicissitudes of life to neat, predictable forms easily carried in the pocket. They were often interleaved with blanks, encouraging users to interact with them, but their format and written style fostered a particular kind of annotation: practical, often quantitative information conveyed concisely. The effect may seem cold and distanced, but these narratives formed part of a network of texts and can give insights into often overlooked areas of people’s worlds.

This remarkable group of 17 annotated almanacs encapsulates many of these elements but is even more unusual for being annotated by a single user, one Francis Drewe, whose public, professional life is a matter of record, but whose private life is here partially revealed over a period of more than 30 years. Drewe’s memos capture his interactions with the world in a series of notes about the things that most concerned him: birth, people, money, death, and tree planting. And occasionally the pen reveals more than the writer intends.

PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS

The pseudonym “Cardanus Riders” was an anagram of the compiler, Richard Saunders, whose almanac first appeared in the 1650s and was so successful that the “brand” survived until the 19th century. The inverse law of print survival has reduced this once ubiquitous publication to a few surviving copies of the earlier editions, with some lost completely. This collection comprises extremely rare editions and one previously unrecorded copy.

Beneath the title’s predictive promises, the imprints tell their own story. The earliest edition of Riders’s almanac recorded in ESTC was printed by John Field in 1654 (one copy only, Folger). It came under the control of the Company of Stationers, and the right to publish it passed from Robert and William Leybourn to Samuel Griffin who each held the rights for around a decade. Next, it came to Thomas Newcombe who held onto this lucrative publication from the mid1670s until the late 1680s when his apprentice, Edward Jones, took command. Jones is the first of the printers credited in our collection, appearing in the imprints between 1699 and 1707. After he died in 1706, the rights passed to another Newcombe apprentice, John Nutt, whose name appears in our sequence from 1711 to 1715.

Nutt died in 1716, and his widow, Elizabeth Nutt, continued printing, becoming solely responsible for the years 1719-20. She was joined by their son Richard in 1722, and their names appear in our collection in 1725 and 1727. Elizabeth was prosecuted for libel in 1727 (apparently while bedridden), which probably accounts for her absence from that year’s printing (1728); but she rejoined Richard for printing almanacs until the 1740s. Our collection ends with the death of Francis Drewe, so Elizabeth’s name appears in this collection between 1725 and 1733.1

According to Capp, the “story of the eighteenth-century almanac is [...] one of evolution as well as stagnation and decay”2. Stagnation was well represented by the likes of Moore and Partridge, whose almanacs offered “an endlessly popular diet of jingoism, abuse of Catholics and predictions of the downfall of the pope and the French”. But the survival of Riders owed at least as much to its form as its content: it was “small and interleaved to make it suitable as a pocket-diary”.

The name “British Merlin” invoked the Arthurian magician’s legendary powers of foresight to promote the almanac’s mix of predictable astronomical information (“Eclipses this Year”) and general advice on husbandry (“the best times to fell Timber”). Some of the content was carried over from one year to the next (“Dimensions of England”, “Geographical Description of the World”), and regular events were updated each year (“Fairs in England and Wales”), interspersed with the occasional advert for products that relieved perennial problems: “Buckworth’s Lozinges”, say, or “Artificiall Teeth, set in so firm as to eat with them”.

THE ANNOTATOR

Francis Drewe (c. 1674-1734) was a lawyer, and Member of Parliament for the City of Exeter (reportedly in the Tory interest) in four parliaments: 1713, 1715, 1722 and 1727. A member of the Drewe family of Broadhembury whose descendants still own The Grange today, Francis matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1690, aged 16, and entered the Middle Temple in 1691. In 1695 he married Mary Bidgood (died 1729/30), daughter of Humphrey Bidgood of Rockbeare, near Exeter. He was called to the bar in 1697 and appointed a bencher in 1723.3

Francis had two sisters: Susan (later Ayloff) and Elizabeth (later Mitchell), both of whom are mentioned in his annotations; other family references – births, deaths, etc – are also included.

THE ANNOTATIONS

In all 17 volumes, Drewe has often made annotations to the front and rear leaves, but rarely the additional blank interleaves. His coverage of these blanks varies with each almanac, from 45 pages (volume [6], 1705) to only three (volume [13], 1725); the rate of annotation fluctuates, until it declines in the final few years. The predominant topic is money, but family and related matters also feature strongly – and these entries are sometimes inadvertently moving, as Drewe’s outlook seems to shift, either with age or with grief.

The first few annotations in the earliest almanac concern hirings and payments: “Elizabeth ffary came to live with me on the 5th of December I bargained with her to give her for her wages p[er] an – 1816 / 1669 / 119”; and “Thomas Greet came to live with me on ye 23 of January 1698/9. I bargained with him to give him for his wages p[er] an -05-00-00”; then, “Elizabeth

Norman came to me on ye eleventh day of November 1699 I bargained with her to give her for her wages p[er] ann. 06-0000”. The crossings-out probably indicate that Drewe has copied these lines to another volume – illustrating the practice, identified by Adam Smyth, of annotators “shifting material from text to text”4. After further financial record-keeping, he reports: “My Grandmother Drewe dyed on ye 7th of September being Thursday”. A few pages later, he marks a professional milestone: “I was published in ye Temple Hall on ye 9th of feb: 1698/9 […] ye day after I took ye oathes at ye Kings bench”. Money matters soon reassert themselves, with “Expenses for this year”, a tally that self-referentially begins “Almanack – 00-00-10”, then continues with items including “Candles – 00-00-06 / Mending of Jones coat & breeches –00-05-00 [...] my Barristers gown – 06-15-00 [...] a silver headed cane – 01-03-00 / Chocolette 7 pd – 01-01-04” – and a few lines later, perhaps hinting at a sweet tooth, another “8 pd chocolette”.

The fourth volume takes a graver turn with the lines: “Mem: yt on March ye 20th about 6 o clock my daughter Elizabeth dyd of convulsions.” His terseness shows signs of strain when he continues: “Mem: also yt about an hour & half after ye same day evening my now daughter Betty Mary was born”. It is as if his grief breaks through, literally rupturing his carefully poised demeanour (the correction is written in lighter ink, so added sometime later) – and perhaps prompting another moment of discomposure when he concludes, also in lighter ink: “& xned ye Sunday monday […] after at ye cathedral Exon”.

The fifth volume includes another poignant example of brevity evoking the outlines of tragedy: “Mem: yt my son Thomas was born on Tuesday ye 26 day of September 1704 about 8 at night & christend ye Sunday sevenight after at St Peters Cathedral Exon 5th […] Mem: my son Thomas dyd on Tuesday ye 28th of Nov: & was buried at ye Cathedral Exon”. His child’s short life is thus compressed still further on the page.

Chronology is also manipulated in the first volume, to very different effect: what looks at first glance like a solemn marking of his father-in-law’s passing (“Humphry Bidgood Esq dy’d on ye 12th of May 1691”) is belied by the date (eight years before the printing of this almanac in 1699), indicating some other purpose. Sure enough, he continues: “ye interest of pxxx of my wives legacy from yt time to ye 12 of Aug: 1699 at 5 p[er] cent being 8 years & a quarter is 1443-00-00 / 350000-00 / 4943-00-00”. Drewe’s apparent memorial of a past death suddenly becomes an accounting of present finances.

Memos frequently include prominent public figures such as “Sr W Carew”, who “gave Mr John Bampfylde a guinea to give him 20 if ever he lost 50 shill. At play at cards or died at any one time”, and “Mr Manship”, whom Drewe paid “5d upon ye account of Mr Chishull wch money was lodged in my hands by Mr Chishull before he went to Smyrna”. Edmund Chishull (1671-1733) was a clergyman and antiquary who graduated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was appointed chaplain to the factory of the Turkey Company at Smyrna, where he arrived in 1698. He published scholarly works including Antiquitates Asiaticæ (1728 -31), and his journals were posthumously published as Travels in Turkey (1747). The “Mr Manship” referred to above is Samuel Manship, who published several titles by Chishull from premises in Cornhill, London.

Back in rural Devonshire, Drewe’s entries at times reach into the future in the form of arboreal legacies frequently favoured by the aristocracy. On three occasions he records tree planting (in 1714 he records “Mr Cox ye gardners Catalogue of ye fruit Trees planted by him in ye year in Grange garden”; in 1731 he creates a woodland of indigenous trees; and in 1733, over 70 fruit trees, including many varieties of nectarines and peaches, are planned for “the best garden beginning from the study window”). The lists are so carefully laid out as to make physical, or at least mental reconstructions of the woodland and orchards possible.

Occasionally, Drewe’s characteristic straightforwardness becomes opaque – at least, for the reader. In the ninth volume, we find the note: “Charles begun his Reign 30 Janry 1649”. Which Charles? The date is that of Charles I’s execution, but his son was not recognised as king until the Restoration in 1660. Is Drewe quietly declaring himself a Royalist, 65 years too late? The fourth volume contains two notes written in 1703 whose intentions are less of a mystery, but whose context is now lost: “yr son hath been too forward in ye scandal of Mr B. but yn no wonder from a man I formerly told you tooke pains to shew he had no regard for churchmen […] as his ill nature & looseness in his principles reflect on you I must take notice of both”; and “say no more of this matter or of yr sons whome I shall be glad to doe all kindnesses to […] I wish now yn 2 of yr / letter were in ye fire”. These are clearly drafts of part of a letter, but to whom, and concerning what “scandal”, remains unknown to us.

COUNTRY SHEEP?

The contemporary gilt-tooled sheep bindings in this set are both unusual and intriguing, in that they diverge from the typical bindings – either very plain or elaborately tooled morocco – found on almanacs. All of these volumes are bound in contemporary light tan sheep (some with marbled endpapers), with gilt tooling typical of the later part of the 17th century: small tools, including drawer handles and floral shapes, and even the occasional bird, are combined into geometric designs. Each of these differs from the others, but all share what may be called a “family resemblance”; David Pearson has confirmed that they

“are all clearly from the same source, and were presumably issued sequentially year by year”, rather than being “all bound at the same time to those variant patterns”. The tooling is very aesthetically pleasing, and Pearson believes them to be “the work of a professional binder” but agrees that there is a certain “rusticity” to the workmanship, suggesting that these were done locally – that is, in Devonshire. Identifying the binder is no simple task, because, as Pearson remarks, there is “[s]o much work that could be done, and has not been, on provincial binding work” 5 .

CONCLUSION

The time-warping tendency of almanacs, so well exemplified here, culminates in a final, posthumous leap in the thirteenth volume, whose front endpaper bears a later inscription: “I have found 19 of these Pocket Books W D” – that is, presumably, William Drewe (1745-1821). The note suggests that two volumes have been lost from this collection and there is some perplexing manuscript numbering (see below), but it remains a tremendous run of almanacs covering a span of some 34 years of Francis Drewe’s life. The collection yields a rich series of glimpses of a life lived both publicly and privately. The unusual, perhaps provincial bindings throughout make for a very appealing external presentation worthy of further research.

The almanac’s format encouraged a focus on the perpetual concerns in the human life cycle (birth, death, relationships, money), and presented this material in a reassuringly orderly manner. But such concerns and events, for all their inevitability, are inherently unpredictable. Drewe’s collection shows the arbitrariness of life juxtaposed against the almanac’s fixed framework, and offers a rare opportunity to view these brief, scattered sketches as part of a connected whole.

SOLD Ref: 8179

1. http://bbti.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

2. Capp, Bernard. English Almanacs, 1500–1800: Astrology and the Popular Press. (1979).

3. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/drewe-francis-1674-1734

4. Smyth, Adam. Autobiography in Early Modern England. (2010).

5. With thanks to David Pearson for his invaluable assistance and permission to quote from correspondence.

17 rare editions of Riders’BritishMerlin.

[1]. 1699. “No. 7” to endpaper. Annotations to approximately 26 pages.

2 UK. British Library, Northampton Record Office Central Library,

1 USA Yale University, Sterling Memorial

[2]. 1700. Annotations to approximately 16 pages.

2 UK. Northampton Record Office Central Library, Oxford University, Bodleian Library

1 USA Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery

[3]. 1701. “No. 8” to endpaper (apparently ignoring the 1700 almanac noted above). Annotations to approximately 11 pages.

3 UK locations. 2 at Northampton Record Office Central Library, 4 at Bodleian Library, 1 in the National Archives.

2 USA. New York Public Library, UCLA, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

[4]. 1703. “No. 15” to endpaper (apparently ignoring the almanacs noted above). Inscribed “Francis Drew / 1703”. Annotations to approximately 28 pages.

4 UK. Oxford University Queen’s College, Oxford

University, Bodleian Library, The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester. USA no copies.

[5]. 1704. Inscribed to endpaper “Francis Drewe”

Annotations to approximately 19 pages.

2 UK locations. British Library, and 2 in Northampton Record Office Central Library. USA no copies.

[6]. 1705. Inscribed to endpaper “No 18. / Francis Drewe of ye middle Temple”. Annotations to approximately 45 pages. Worming to text.

2 UK. Cambridge University Library, The National Archives. USA no copies.

[7]. 1707. Annotations to approximately 20 pages.

2 UK locations. British Library, 2 in Northampton Record Office Central Library. USA no copies.

[8]. 1711. Annotations to approximately 10 pages.

2 UK. British Library, The National Archives.

1 USA. Folger Shakespeare.

[9]. 1714. Inscribed to endpaper “No 9”. Annotations to approximately 14 pages.

1 UK. Northampton Record Office Central Library.

1 USA. University of California, Los Angeles, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

[10]. 1715. Inscribed to endpaper “No 9”. Later inscriptions of “William Drewe” and “Ann Drewe”. Annotations to approximately 11 pages.

4 UK. British Library, Northampton Record Office Central Library, Senate House Library, University of London.

USA no copies.

[11]. 1719. Annotations to approximately 13 pages.

2 UK. British Library, Eton College Library.

USA no copies.

[12]. 1720. Annotations to approximately 20 pages. Worming to text and loose in binding.

2 UK. British Library, Royal College of Physicians of London.

USA no copies.

[13]. 1725. “No 9”. Annotations to approximately 3 pages. Spine broken, text block loose.

1 UK. British Library.

USA no copies.

[14]. 1727. Annotations to approximately 4 pages.

1 UK. British Library.

USA no copies.

[15]. 1728. Annotations to approximately 6 pages. Unrecorded. No copies in the UK or the USA.

[16]. 1731. Annotations to approximately 4 pages.

2 UK. British Library, The National Archives.

USA no copies.

[17]. 1733. Annotations to approximately 6 pages.

2 UK British Library, The National Archives .

1 Canada. University of Toronto, Library.

1 New Zealand. Alexander Turnbull Library.

USA no copies.

AUGMENTATION

BLITH, Walter (1605-1654); annotated by CLARKE, Joseph. The English improuer improued or the survey of husbandry surueyed discovering the improueableness of all lands. With contemporary manuscript additions.

London: printed for John Wright, at the Kings-head in the Old-Bayley, 1652. [Manuscript additions dated 31 July 1652].

Quarto. [54], 230, 2], 231-248, [2], 249-256, [2], 261-264, [1], 258-262, [2 (blank)], [20] p., collated and complete with the 4 plates (2 full-page woodcuts, and 2 folded engraved plates). Additional leaves present. [Wing, B3195]. 18 blank leaves bound in at each end.

Manuscript notes to five full pages, seven part-pages, and occasional brief annotations to text. The watermarks front and rear differ: the front is difficult discern, but the rear is Pot (similar to Haewood 3637, but enclosing letters PDB).

Provenance: inscribed to a front free endpaper twice by “Joseph Clarke” and with his purchase note: “p. 0.3.4 / Julij 3i. i652”.

AUGMENTING

¶ The first user of this book, one Joseph Clarke, surely deserves the epithet of “Industrious READER”, whom Blith addresses in the preliminaries to this “much Augmented” edition of his English improuer improued or the survey of husbandry surueyed. For immediately upon buying his copy for “p. 0.3.4” on “Julij 3i” in the year it was published, Clarke has taken it straight to the binder to have it neatly bound in full reverse calf and enlarged with additional blank leaves at either end – and has augmented it still further with his manuscript additions.

Blith himself was a one-man hive of industry who, besides farming his own land, produced two books on husbandry which “surpass all others of their time for their practical good sense, their evidence of his own and others’ farming experience […] and the care given to describing new farming practices and making textual changes as time and improved knowledge permitted” (ODNB). Indeed, The English improuer improued, although presented as a third edition of the original volume, was so thoroughly revised that it can be considered a separate work.

IMPROVING

Clarke – whom we have been unable to identify with certainty – was evidently a great reader of contemporary gardening and husbandry books, and follows Blith’s lead by “improuing” and expanding this copy. His first manuscript entry, “Of Bees”, “The best bees are small, round, light, & glistering like gold, & angry (which anger is appeased by dayly haunting among them”. This text is untraced, but it does bear some resemblance to passages from Thomas Hill’s Profitable Arte of Gardening (of

which there were several editions between 1563 and 1608), so we assume that he used the information from Hill’s book, perhaps mixed with details from other works or his personal experience.

brief recipes: “To make red or greene wax” and “To make wax White”, the first of which instructs the reader to “Take one pound of bee’s waxe, three ounces of cleare turpentine” (variations on this recipe can be found in many compilations of the period).

There are two pieces entitled “Of sheep”: the first is ascribed to “M. Conradus Heresbachius Pag. 138 &c to 144”, ie the German scholar Konrad Heresbach (1496-1576), whose Rei rusticae libri quatuor was translated into English in 1577 as Fovre bookes of husbandry. It was followed by four further editions (1578, 1586, 1596, 1601). It is clear from looking at Clarke’s page references that he has précised from the text rather than copied directly. The other, shorter text is ascribed to “Tho. Hill p.59”, and this, too is a précis.

Manuscript additions continue at the end of the printed text, with three short notes headed “A French experiment for the Multiplication of Wheat &c”, “Against ye Smuttiness of Wheat”, and “For planting or sowing wallnuts”, neatly written out on half a page. Overleaf, a half-page entry on “The Mulberry” is again sourced from “M. Conradus Heresbachius”.

The cross-pollination continues with a four-page section on growing from seed (“How to set & sow seeds, stones, kernells &c for plants”) and grafting trees (with five subheadings including “Ingrafting” and “Inoculating”), and “Of translating plants”. These have all been either copied verbatim or précised from A treatise of fruit-trees by Ralph Austen, whose book had only just appeared in 1653, so if, as seems likely, Clarke added his manuscript sections soon after purchasing and interleaving this volume, he took these notes immediately upon publication.

We get a brief glimpse from a note to the final text page of where he obtains at least some of his seed: “Mr James Long’s shop at ye Barge on Billings=gate, for Claver-seed &c” – a recommendation he may have come across from his perusal of Richard Weston’s A Discours of Husbandrie used in Brabant and Flanders (1652), the second edition of which included an advertisement for Long’s establishment.

Clarke’s addition of many blank leaves clearly signals his intention to expand Blith’s resource considerably more than he managed to. We have no way of knowing the reasons for his eagerness to begin annotating the book so soon after publication certainly indicates a high level of commitment, so perhaps some misfortune intervened. The additions he did make, however, show an impressively broad interest in husbandry – both animal and arable – and provide a superb example, in original condition, of how a 17th-century reader interacted with a printed publication by sowing further material from other contemporary works onto the leaves of his recently purchased book.

£4,750 Ref: 8187

BIBLIOPHILY

[WRIGHT, Rev. Thomas (c.1775-1841); PAXTON, Jonas] Claydon Rectory. Valuable and carefully selected library of upwards of 1,200 volumes, and other effects, of the late Rev. Thomas Wright, to be Sold by Auction, by Jonas Paxton. On the Premises, at Claydon aforesaid.

[Claydon Rectory, Buckinghamshire. Circa 1841]. Slim quarto (193 x 162 x 4 mm). There are 21 sheets (plus a sliver of one sheet) of two octavo printed catalogues. These sheets have been trimmed and pasted to the versos of quarto stationer’s book. The title of one of the catalogues has been trimmed and pasted to the front cover, with details of the date of the sale added in manuscript.

This unrecorded catalogue chronicles the sale of the books of a largely little-known country parson. As such, it nicely reflects the reading or at least collecting tastes of literate and once-important local figures whose profiles dwindled posthumously to near-anonymity, but who, through their acquisitive habits, contributed to the preservation and shaping of the wider culture and the formation of our collective memory.

THE BIBLIOPHILE

Thomas Wright was born circa 1775, the eldest son of Thomas Wright, a London merchant. As so often for the period, his mother’s name is not recorded. He was educated St. Paul’s School, London before matriculating at Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1794 (B.A. 1798; M.A. 1801). He was ordained deacon in 1798 (London), subsequently becoming rector of Otton-Belchamp, Essex (1807-11), and of Little Henny (1811-20) before attaining the living as vicar of Middle and East Claydon, Buckinghamshire in 1820 until his death in 1841. Venn notes that he was the “Father of Thomas (1827)”. There are several possible matches for his marriage, but we have been unable to confirm the name of his wife or the date of their marriage with any degree of certainty. What we do know is that she predeceased him, since he requests in his will that he be “buried in the same grave as my beloved wife at Steeple Clayton”.

THE BOOKS

His books, however, seem to have left more of a trace in the “valuable and carefully selected library of upwards of 1,200 volumes” which lists 414 lots. The majority are individually lotted books, which usually include author’s name, title, date and very brief details (“Dryden’s Juvenal, 1713”, “Donne’s ditto [i.e. ‘LXXX Sermons’], folio, 1640”), while some lowervalue items are grouped into titles of two or three (e.g. “27 Levizac’s French Grammar, hf. bd., Clef de Levizac’s 2 copies, and Boyer’s Dictionary, bd.”), and others of apparently nominal value do not justify naming (“School books”, “Ditto”).

The collection has been grouped into nine categories arranged in the following order: “Novels, Books for Children, &c.” (1-25); “Works in Modern Languages Grammars, &c.” (26-43, plus one added in manuscript: “*43 Cobbetts Grammar”); “Works on Gardening, Botany, &c” (44-50); “Classics, School Books, &c” (51-104, although 54 is recorded as “no lot”); “Hebrew Works” (105); “Works on Law” (106-121); “Works on Divinity, Sermons, &c” (122-254*; this latter and six other extra lots are marked with an * or added in manuscript); “Miscellaneous” (255-410); and “Odd Volumes or Imperfect Books” (411-414). The numbering is continued in manuscript to 431. These sundry lots include “Odd Books” (415-6), and five lots (427-31) of “Miscellaneous books” which were all bought by a “Mr Road” for “1.3.0”, and the others (417-26) are left blank.

As the above list indicates, pride of place is given to novels and children’s books, although it is not certain that this reflects a value judgment by the auctioneer: of these first 25 lots, several are bundled up together (e.g. “5 Gumal & Lina, 2 vols. hf. bd. & Almoran and Hamet, bd.”, “11 More’s Tales, bd. Depping’s Entertainments hf. bd. Frend’s Evening Entertainments and Evening Amusements, hf. bd.”); lot 20 is generalized “Various books for children” and 21-25 follow simply with “Ditto”. Books which warrant a single-entry name include “6 Rasselas and Dinarbas, bd”, “Shelton’s Don Quixote, 4 vols”, and “17 Gil Blas, translated by Smollett, 4 vols. bd.”

Wright kept several books on languages including Welsh, Italian, and French. The last of these is reflected in some of his books, but to judge from his collection, he preferred works in Latin or English. Unsurprisingly for a man of the cloth, there are many theological books. These range from influential 17th-century works like “Pearson on the Creed” in “2 vols. hf. bd”, “Butler’s Analogy” and “Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, bd., and Pilgrim’s Progress, bd” (these latter lotted together), and important works from the 18th century like Paley’s “View of Christianity” and “Natural Theology” and “Wilberforce’s View”, through to contemporary authors such as Hannah More (here represented by “on St. Paul”, “Christian Morals”, “Moral Sketches”, and “Bible Rhymes”).

The “Miscellaneous” books encompass works of literature (including “293 Pope’s Odyssey, 5vs. bd. Ditto Iliad, 6 vols. bd. Ditto Works, 9 vols bound”, “294 Shakespeare, with notes, 8 vols. bd.”, and “329 Works of Rabelais, 1694”), travel books (“267 Maundrell’s Journey, Bingley’s Voyagers and ditto Travellers”, “283 Salame’s Algiers, bd”, “286 Voyage to China, by M’Leod, hf. bd”), and scientific works (“280 Plurality of Worlds, Fontenelle”, “325 Treatise in the Globes, 1639”, “358 Lavoisier’s Chemistry”). And Wright would have taken his place in the pantheon of the great and good recorded in “327 Graduati Canatbridgienses ab anno 1639 ad 1824”.

THE AUCTIONEER

We are confident that this was the auctioneer’s retained copy. As noted in the physical details above, it was collaged together from at least two printed copies of the catalogue and then mounted into a book to allow the scribe to record in manuscript the buyer’s names, the prices paid, and several other crucial details. These include manuscript notes such as “5 Lots of Miscellaneous works to be inserted as Lots 427, 428, 429, 430 & 431” – and the “clincher” is the record of several instances of the buyer having settled their invoice (several lots are marked “Paid” or “Pd” next to the purchaser’s name).

Jonas Paxton was an auctioneer based in Bicester, Buckinghamshire. From this rural market town, he held sales of farms and farmland as well as household dwellings and contents. The earliest record of his name as an auctioneer was in 1838, with the announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of a sale to be held in Bicester. However, the earliest record for Paxton in library holdings is a catalogue for a sale held in 1849 (Particulars & conditions of sale of freehold and copyhold estates at Blackthorn and Fritwell in the County of Oxford). His son appears to have joined the firm around 1854, and Paxton senior sometimes worked in partnership with George Castle (library holdings record various combinations of Jonas, his son, and Castle). The early catalogues were often printed by “E. Smith and Son, printers and booksellers”.

As noted above, the earliest library holding for a Paxton sale catalogue is 1849. Although he travelled as far as Cambridgeshire on occasion, all his other sales were for land, dwellings, or house contents; this sale, therefore, not only marks his earliest recorded sale catalogue, but suggests a remarkably intrepid debut, involving as it did the taking on and cataloguing of a library as a stand-alone sale and conducting it in situ at Claydon Rectory.

THE BUYERS

The most voracious buyer was a “Mr Elliott”, who secured 107 lots – over a quarter of the total sale. Given the sheer quantity and range of his purchasing, we would assume he was a dealer. “Mr Rowsell” picked up 36 lots (again wideranging), and several buyers bought in the high teens to early twenties. A cluster of bidders secured around a dozen lots each, including a “Mr Child” who bought John Donne’s sermons for “7s”, along with several other books. After that, the purchases tail off into small amounts or even single books. Whether they were unsuccessful or highly focused in their buying is difficult to say at this distance, but a few are certainly worth drawing attention to. Paxton himself appears to have bought

bought nine lots, including “297 Dictionary of “15s” as well as Hind’s Arithmetic, Moore’s Juvenal, Edinburgh Dispensatory (342-344), and several others, so was perhaps selling books from his premises in Bicester as well as printing, among other things, Paxton’s sale catalogues. The scribe has prewritten “Mr” before each entry, but lot 35 (“Italian Pocket Dictionary and Zotti’s Italian Grammar”) has been amended to “Miss” followed by “Elliston” who paid “4s 6d” – an unusual early record of a woman purchasing at auction.

The 1,200-plus volumes recorded in this sale catalogue offer a window onto the rich cultural and literary landscape of a rural clergyman in the early 19th century. Wright’s vocation may (or may not) have secured him eternal glory, but in the temporal realm, it was his passion for books that has left the clearest traces of his earthly existence.

£2,650 Ref: 8152

COMMONPLACING [GARDENING]

[THOMPSON, Dr.] Manuscript commonplace book on farming and gardening.

[Chudleigh, Devon. Circa 1800-1825]. Quarto 207 x 160 x 30 mm). Pagination [2, index], [3, unnumbered remedies], 367 numbered pages, several illustrations. Original half sheep, rubbed and worn, joints splitting, spine worn. Engraved bookseller’s advertisement “Chudleigh” to front paste-down. Loosely inserted letter addressed to “Dr Thompson, Chudleigh”.

¶ This manuscript compilation of agricultural and horticultural observations began as a series of remedies jotted down randomly for approximately 20 pages, before the compiler decided to systematise the collection by arranging subjects in the traditional alphabetical form of a commonplace book. But after about 180 pages the system breaks down and it once again becomes a place for random jottings of medical as well as horticultural notes. Order is partially restored by the creation of an index to two leaves at the beginning of the volume which presumably had previously been left blank.

The volume appears to be the work of one Dr Thompson of Chudleigh, Devon. The two pieces of evidence for this attribution are a loosely inserted letter addressed to “Dr Thompson, Chudleigh”, and the stationer’s label to the front pastedown of J. Efford, also of Chudleigh in Devon. Efford advertises “Bibles; Common-Prayer Books of different Sizes, and in various Binding” as well as “Spelling Books [...] Writing Paper of all Sorts [...] Indian, Japan and Common Ink; Dutch Quills”, etc.

Thompson collects material on horticulture, agriculture and veterinary matters (from growing “Apricots” and “Cyder Apples” to the economics of animal husbandry and treating “the Scab” in sheep), with diversions into cheesemaking, viticulture, apiary (including “A Caution” on the swarming of bees), maintenance of regalia (receipts for “regimental blacking Balls” and “regimental Colouring for the belts”), and a few remedies (“Mistletoe of the Oak” for “Use in Epilepsy”). The text is variously dated between 1753 and 1825 but appears to have been compiled in the early 19th century. Attributions, which occur throughout, take in a wide array of sources, including periodicals (“Gent Mag”, “Bath Papers”), books (“An Invitation to the Inhabitants of England, to the Manufacture of Wines, from the Fruits of Their Own Country […] By R. Worthington […] 1812”), and individuals (“Capt Farquarson”).

£500 Ref: 8142

COMMONPLACING [LEGAL]

[HOARE, Sir Richard (1648-1719); DEARDS, William (d.1761)]. Early 18th-century legal commonplace book.

[London. Circa 1712]. Folio (340 x 210 x 10 mm). Approximately 108 text pages on 60 leaves and a tipped-in slip. Text in at least three neat, legible hands. The pages are numbered erratically, and volume appears to have been bound from loose sheets of slightly different sizes, however they all share the same watermark: Pro-Patria with a GR countermark.

Contemporary plain grey boards, calf, spine, very heavily rubbed with loss, remnant of paper spine label which appears to have read “PRIVILEDGES”.

Provenance: note in pencil at the end of the preface attributes the text to “R. Hoare, Lord Mayor of London 1713”, and an ownership inscription to f4r reads “William Deards”. The volume apparently passed by descent to the previous owners via Henry Merrick Hoare (1770-1856), the husband of Sophia Thrale (1771-1824).

¶ This legal commonplace book appears to have been compiled with a specific purpose in mind. Its compiler was, according to a pencilled note to the preface, “R. Hoare, Lord Mayor of London 1713”. This attribution of the text to Sir Richard Hoare is extremely plausible: Hoare was appointed Lord Mayor of London in 1712, and an easily consulted reference work such as this would have been extremely useful in such an important role.

It was this kind of conscientiousness that would have enabled the only child of Henry Hoare (d. 1699), a horse-dealer of Smithfield, and his wife, Cicely (d. 1679), to rise through the social ranks, beginning as an apprentice goldsmith in 1665. By 1673, having been granted the freedom of the Goldsmiths’ Company the previous year, he was able to buy the business of his lately deceased employer; and in a shift of focus, he began acting as a banker to his customers, earning a reputation for sound judgement and assiduous client relations. He entered politics through his election as an alderman in 1703, became Sheriff of London in 1708 and, after several setbacks, finally became Lord Mayor in 1712 (the same year in which he became a founding director of the South Sea Company). Ill health forced him into retirement, and he died in 1719. C. Hoare & Co still operates, as the oldest surviving bank in the UK.

It seems highly likely that Hoare compiled this volume – or supervised its creation – around the time of his becoming Lord Mayor of London (although he had already made several foiled bids for the position, so it is possible that he had begun preparing it earlier, in optimistic anticipation). Its title page reads: “Powers, Jurisdiction, Rights, Privileges & Functions of of [sic] the Mayor’s Commonalty of Citizens of the City of London” (f1r); and in an accompanying, two-page “Preface”, Hoare (or an assistant under his direction) explains the purpose behind the book. He describes several changes of approach, as he began to suspect that his initial criteria would generate too short a work, then that his revised parameters take the project “as much beyond the compass of my design, as the other was short of it”; and having settled on a third way, he painstakingly sets out this more satisfactory methodology, which encompasses only “the Clauses of such Statutes which relate to the Citizens of London, as Citizens & Inhabitants therein”.

Having decided the scope of his requirements, he has arranged the text alphabetically in just over 90 pages. The first 33 pages have been filled by a neat scribal hand and cover subjects from “Aliens” to “Juries” and the beginning of an entry for “Lamps”, via the likes of “Brokers”, “Cloth Workers”, “Gun-Powder” and “Inn-Keepers”. A section headed “Gold and Silver” (which would have had personal significance for both Hoare and Deards, the latter of whom was a very highly regarded silversmith), has been partly crossed out and amended in a loose but easily legible italic hand to read “Goldsmiths”

It is this latter editor (again, we assume either Hoare or a clerk under his guidance) who seems to have been responsible for organising the volume into a user-friendly reference book. They have added the title page and preface mentioned above, extended the text by approximately 61 pages and edited the previous scribe’s work with numerous crossingsout, amendments, and annotations. A section comprising may also be in the same hand, but it is much neater, so we remain uncertain. A second table listing the statutes is mentioned in the preface, but does not appear to have been executed. This “Table” forms part of a group of six slightly shorter leaves (but with the same watermark) which are inscribed by “William Deards” and comprise “The Clauses of the Acts of Parliament relating to the Powers Jurisdictions Rights Priviledges & Franchises granted to the Mayor Alderman & Commonalty & Citizens of London” arranged as “Table ye First containing All the Titles in an Alphabetical Order” and two pages of notes on “Attain”

Having edited the previous scribe’s work, the second scribe has restarted and completed the entry on “Lamps” and continued the text through to “Workhouse of London” (with one insert by the first scribe entitled “Physician, Apothecaries and Surgeons”). Their contributions include “Misdemeanors”, “Nonconformists”, “Orphan’s Fund”, “Pavement of the Streets Scavengers & Sewers”, “Prisons”, “Victuallers, “Watermen”, and the perennially persecuted “Papists & Popish Recusants”. They have also subjected these sections to correction and amendment.

Hoare’s evident reputation as a diligent, detail-conscious businessman is reflected in his careful, twice-revised approach to creating this ready reference for his duties as Lord Mayor of London. A major point of interest is his highlighting in the “Preface” of the heuristic that changed alongside his evolving notions of a format would answer his needs. Untidy though its appearance may be, it was still an efficient tool for its sedulous creator.

£2,500 Ref: 8206

COMPILATION [RECIPES]

COXHEAD, Jane Early 18th-century Culinary Manuscript.

[Circa 1721]. Folio (320 x 200 x 15 mm). 70 leaves. Ink on paper. Written in a neat hand to rectos only and numbered to 69 at upper right corner throughout. A few recipes with calligraphic headings. Contemporary vellum, some soiling, title page dusty, thereafter clean.

Provenance: inscription to first leaf reads “Mrs. Jane Coxhead / Her Book, Octr. 21st: 1721.”

Watermark: Pro Patria; countermark: IV.

MAKING

¶ Selecting, adapting, copying, and converting are among the myriad ways in which recipe books were created as part of an ongoing process in which recipes merged and changed as they passed through manuscript, printed publications, and of course, kitchens.

Just as printed books might use manuscripts as their sources, household manuscripts took some of their material from printed works or other manuscripts. So it is with this volume, in which its compiler, Jane Coxhead, has taken recipes from printed sources some copied verbatim, others adapted to suit her needs and mixed these with manuscript sources, some of which later made their way into print.

RECIPES

The volume comprises 92 recipes on 70 leaves. It begins with half a dozen kinds of pastry (or “Paste”) – for “Cheescakes”, “High Pies”, “Hare Pye” and so on – then move to a handful of sweet dishes (“Orange Tarts”, “a Rich Cake”), before alternating between clusters of savouries (“a Lumber pye”, and seasoning for the likes of “a pigeon Pye”, “a Goose or Turkey pye”, and “a Chicken Pye”) and sweeter fare (“Allmond Pudding”, “Lemon Cream without Cream”, etc). After a brace of meat and fish recipes and several kinds of pickling, Coxhead devotes the second half of her volume to fruit.

Many of these fruit recipes can be traced to the anonymous The True way of preserving and candying, first published in 1681 and reprinted in 1695 (Wing T3126A and T3126B). This provides a good example of the kind of journey a recipe undergoes: among those taken from The True way is “To dry Pears with Sugar, to keep all the Year” (p58). A similar recipe was later published in Eliza Smith’s Compleat Housewife (first published in 1727), but with small variations in quantities and method, suggesting that Smith either adapted her recipe from another printed book (perhaps the above) or found a recipe filtered through manuscript usage.

Variations on this practice occur throughout Coxhead’s manuscript – for instance, the first of the main group of fruit recipes, which bears its own calligraphic title: “To Preserve whole Oranges” (p.32). Again, this has been copied from The true way (and is the first recipe in that book), but the recipe on the following page of the manuscript, also entitled “To Preserve whole Oranges” (p.34), is untraced, and Coxhead has juxtaposed it without comment, so it may represent her own improvements on the preceding recipe, or it could be something taken from a now-lost publication or perhaps another manuscript. Whichever is the case, it contributes to the endless process of variation through reading and practical use.

One particular recipe has the extra ingredient of notoriety mixed in: “The Dutchess of Cleavlands Pan=Cakes” (p.14) refers to Barbara Palmer (née Villiers) (1640-1709), Countess of Castlemaine and 1st Duchess of Cleveland, “the first acknowledged royal mistress in Britain for some centuries” (ODNB), who bore several children sired by King Charles II, merited multiple mentions in the diaries of Samuel Pepys, and wielded considerable influence at court. Her eponymous recipe appears not to have been published in print, although as we see from this volume, it was clearly circulating in manuscript. There is a degree of chronological teasing-out to be done on this mélange of dishes, with some entries apparently predating their printed debuts: for example, several recipes (“To make Paste for Cheescakes”, “To make Puff Paste” (p.1); “To make Paste for tarts or Mince Pies” p.2; “To preserve Pippins in Jelly” (p.69)) were included in The young lady’s companion in cookery, an anonymous collection ublished in just one edition in 1734, over a decade later than the given date of this manuscript. Coxhead’s arrangement of certain recipes compounds this sense of a porous divide between print and

manuscript, as when she pairs “To preserve and Dry Wallnuts” (p.67) (which she has copied verbatim from The true way), with “To preserve Wallnuts when they are Green” which, while it has similarities to its predecessor, also appeared later in the abovementioned The young lady’s companion in cookery.

“It is Use that makes Perfectness; and no person can do that with a pen”, declares the anonymous author in their preface to The True way of preserving and candying; there are indications, though small, that Coxhead has employed her volume in the kitchen. Though lacking “clinchers” such as “probatum est”, her text includes cross-references to other pages: in “To preserve green Apricocks” (p.39), she adds “If you please you may make it a New Jelly with Double refined Sugar & Pippin Water as Directed before in the Receipt for doing whole Oranges”; and for the directions “To Dry Apricocks Green” (p.40), she instructs: “you must Preserve them ffirst as before Directed” (on the previous page). Similarly, her recipe for “Quiddeny of Rasberries” (p.46) specifies that one “Make a Decoction of Rasberries as you do of Currants (See Page 43)”.

WHO COMPILED IT?

We found two possible matches in the records for a Jane Coxhead: the first is Jane Lloyd (birth details unknown), who married Richard Coxhead on 2 December 1697 at Saint James Dukes Place in London; the second is Jane Sanders (again no details), who married William Coxhead on 3 May 1715 at St Lawrence, Hungerford in Berkshire. We have found no corroborating evidence for either attribution, but we suggest that the latter is more likely since the date is closer to that of the manuscript.

CONCLUSION

As to evidence for the background to its composition, it is worth noting that the “Advertisement” to The young lady’s companion in cookery declares: “The following Receipts were Collected by a Gentlewoman who formerly kept a Boarding School; her often being Importun’d by her Friends for Copies of them, has occasioned their being published” – a statement raising the distinct possibility that Jane Coxhead was one such friend who diligently copied some of the recipes into her book several years before they appeared in print, and contributing to a manuscript compilation that, with further research, promises to yield insights into how manuscript and print culture met and mingled in the kitchen.

£6,000 Ref: 8169

COMPILATION [REMEDIES]

[HEALTH & REMEDIES] 18th-century manuscript book of remedies and notes on health.

[Circa 1770-80]. 16mo (127 x 100 x 5mm). 82 text pages on 48 leaves. Stitched marbled wrappers.

¶ This small, home-made, square booklet mixes material from different continents and languages united by their subject matter: health, its preservation, and the treatment of illness.

Instead of the more usual neat vellum stationer’s book found in early British manuscripts, six quires have been crudely but effectively hand-stitched into marbled covers; a style more often found in America. The resulting notebook has been almost filled (save for a few blank leaves) with text written in Italian and English by at least three scribes. One of these contributes a section in Italian; another is evidently bilingual, and switches between the two languages with ease but, curiously, without any obvious reason.

The notebook begins with “Precetti per Conservare La Sanita, del Sigr Mackensie Medico d’Edinburgo” (“Precepts for Preserving Health, by Mr Mackenzie Physician of Edinburgh”). This is untraced but appears to be a commentary on James Mackenzie’s The history of health, published in Edinburgh in 1760; it begins “L’Aria sana dev’esser pura, secca & temperata” (“Healthy air must be pure, dry & temperate”), and some 26 pages later, concludes: “Mackenzie non crede, che queste rimedi posso estendere la vita olere l’ordinario termine che non s’e cangiato dal tempo di davidde sino a noi” (“Mackenzie does not believe that these remedies can extend life beyond the ordinary term that has not changed from the time of David to us”).

At this point, a second scribe chips in with two remedies written in English over three pages: “Lord Blakeneys Cure for the Yellow Jaundice” and “A Tinea, or Scald Head &c &c”, attributed to “J. Cook. M.D.” (“Tinea” being a fungal infection better known as ringworm). The latter recommends boiling “4 Ounces of pure Quicksilver in 2 Quarts of Water in a glazed pipkin” and suggests that the patient drink it “freely as a diet drink, as much and as often as you please”.

The hand changes again, as a third scribe signals a new section with the full-page title “Dr Sutherland on Health”, set in a nest of ornamentation. The subsequent 21 pages are copied from Alexander Sutherland’s (1710-1773) The nature and qualities of Bristol -water: illustrated by experiments and observations, with practical reflections on Bath-waters, occasionally interspersed (1st edition 1758, 2nd edition 1764), although the material, presented under three headings (“Of Aliment”, “Of Exercise”, “Of Sleep”, also given some modest embellishment), only occasionally refers to mineral or spa water. Sutherland, who practised in Bath, is best known for being allegedly the first physician to use placebos in a medical context.

The same scribe, after signalling the end of the Sutherland transcriptions with some hasty curlicues, goes on to set down a number of remedies, beginning with “To make the Balsom called Turlington’s Balsom of Life” – famously one of the first patented medicines (in 1744). Other remedies follow, including “Three easy Rules to preserve health in hot climates”, ascribed to “Dr Hallis”; “A Receipt for a Cold”; “An infallible Receipt to destroy Buggs”; and “For the Nightmare, Low Spirits,

Melancholy, & disturbed Sleep”, ascribed to “Dr Whytt’s Obsns on Nerv: disordrs” (and consisting of the instruction to drink “a dram of Brandy”). Dropped in among these, but not sequentially, are two further items in Italian, which also differ from the majority in their non-medical topic: “Ricetta per fare inchiosto nero” (“Recipe for making black ink”) and “Segreto per Levare dalli Abiti agni Sorte di Macchie senza alternarne I Colori” (“Secret for removing all sorts of stains from clothes without affecting the colours”).

Having so far represented Britain and Italy, the selections include two from the American colonies: “The famous American Receipt for the Rhumatism”; and “For the Yaws, Venerial Complaint, Dropsy &c. discver’d by a Negro in Virginia & rewarded with a pension of £30 per annum for life”. A similar recipe was included in Sarah Harrison’s House-keeper's pocketbook (1764), but the wording is slightly different, especially the accreditation, which concludes “This is esteem’d in Virginia a Valuable Discovery”

£1,250 Ref: 8204

EDUCATIONAL NOTEBOOK

[CLARKE, John]. Mid-17th-century English manuscript schoolbook and notes on gardening.

[Circa 1670]. 16mo (123 x 91 x 20 mm). 144 leaves (including endpapers), some leaves excised. Pencil guidelines. Ink on paper. Contemporary sheep, rubbed, edges worn and spine chipped at head, upper joint cracked. Provenance: 17th-century ownership inscription of “John Clarke”, which is a close match for the manuscript text. later inscription of “Arthur Hutchins” dated 4 December 1811. Watermark: Horn.

IN THE BEGINNING

¶ Before one even opens this volume, the inscription to the top edge of the text block (in a 17th- or 18th-century hand) announces that its title is “Garden of Eden”; a later hand has repeated the title on the other two block edges. But that is not the whole story: inside the book begins and ends like a 17th-century grammar schoolbook, with notes on Ovid and parallel-text Latin and English phrases. Sandwiched between these sections are passages copied from the 1653 edition of Sir Hugh Plat’s Garden of Eden, a horticultural work whose relevance to the concerns of a school pupil is far less obvious than that of the Latin texts and exercises that surround it.

The titling to the page edges suggests that the contemporary hand (probably that of the book’s first owner) and the later hand both consider the Plat transcriptions to be the chief draw of this artefact. So why do these prized extracts sprout incongruously from the middle of this grammar book? We can offer a few speculations for this unusual juxtaposition of text, but none of

Judging from the style of the hand, the paper and at least one of the sources used (i.e. Helwig – see below), the manuscript appears to have been written during the Restoration. The young “John Clarke” has a clear, legible hand (in line with Hoole’s direction that young scholars should be able to “write a fair hand before ever he dream of his grammar” 1). Clearly a precocious pupil, he begins with brief notes (apparently his own) on characters from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (“pentheus fuid filius echionis & agaves qui arrifit verba praesage & tenebras Tiresice, etiam contempsit bacchum”, “bacchus fiut filius jovis ex semele et deus vini”). He then tackles one of the staples of English grammar school education: Christoph Helwig’s (1581-1617) Familiaria colloquia, operâ Christophori Helvici D. & Proffesoris Giessensis olim; ex Erasmo

Roterodamo, Ludovico Vive, & Schottenio Hasso selecta. Helwig was “professor at Giessen from 1605, and reputed a good grammarian and skilful teacher”; his Familiaria colloquia, containing selections in Latin from Erasmus, Ludovicus Vives and Shottenius, was first published in England in 1652, with further editions into the 1720s. Watson confirms the popularity in the mid-to-late 17th century of Helwig’s work, which enabled “frequent perusal of vocabularies for common words and colloquies for familiar phrases” 2

Clarke’s Latin text conforms to that found in Familiaria colloquia, but the English translations are untraced: they may have been provided by the teacher to learn by rote or produced by Clarke himself. They may, alternatively, have been the outcome of classwork. Watson suggests that this period saw a collaborative form of learning in which the teacher “may appoint one or two of the best boys in each form to have in hand the grammatical translation” 3 – a method that would have been especially useful in light of evidence that many of the teachers were not themselves first-rate Latinists, this in turn being a legacy of “a catastrophic collapse of elementary education in the period of the civil war and its aftermath”. The situation was compounded during the Commonwealth when “proponents of mass literacy were never more vocal than in the revolutionary era, and never less effectual” 4, resulting in the training of new teachers being neglected. Much of this assumes that Clarke was a school pupil rather than taught at home, but the book offers no concrete evidence for either – and, as we shall see, positing a home-learning environment would offer a possible explanation for the intrusion of horticulture into Latin grammar.

Clarke’s diversion may interrupt the classical flow, but it seems at least partly planned: the preceding section concludes with a firm “FINIS”. His transcriptions from Sir Hugh Plat’s Garden of Eden are the only material in this manuscript to be given a date (“1653”); this was actually the second edition of Plat’s Floraes Paradise (1608), reissued in 1653 “with some omissions and rearrangements, by Charles Bellingham” 5. Clarke has followed Bellingham’s lead and made further and greater omissions and rearrangements. The passages are copied verbatim or very close to the text, but Clarke has selected only certain sections, omitted others, and sometimes changed the sequence from that of the printed text.

The extracts begin at with “Tempering ye Ground. Break up your Ground & dung it at Michmas, In Janry turn yr Ground 3 or 4 times, to mingle yor Dung & Earth ye better […] Proved by Mr T” before getting into specifics such as how “To keep Artichocks from Frost”, “Carrots Parsneps & Turneps kept long” and “To have Early fruit”. Later, he sets down methods “To kill Worms”, and “Of grafting one plant upon another or upon a Tree”, both on the same page. He records practical tips on how to “Sow seeds yt are not above one year old” and the advice that “If herbs be nipt wth fingers or clipt they will head well. They will grow to have good heads”, ending with notes on “Apples without Wrinkles” and “Sap choaked, to make barren trees bear” before returning to his translation work on the very next page.

BACK TO SCHOOLING

What drove Clarke – who to judge by his Latin studies was aged around 15 – to select and plant this assortment of extracts from a gardening book into the middle of his grammar exercises? He has evidently arranged certain pieces in an order that suits his needs – but what those needs are remains unclear. It’s possible that, although the Latin texts and translations are commensurate with a grammar school education, Clarke may have been tutored at home, leaving him freer to indulge his broader interests away from the potentially constraining forces of peer pressure or a master’s disapproval of his distinctly personal use of a schoolbook.

Clarke completes his manuscript volume with translations “Out of the 3d book of Ovid” and further advanced studies along the lines laid by Watson (“More forward and keener boys should be encouraged to provide themselves with Gerard’s Meditations, Thomas a Kempis”; although he has diverged from those particular models, apparently having instead acquired a book containing “Roman Phrases”, which he has translated into English. We have been unable to identify the book in question; perhaps, again following Watson, “[t]he explanation is to be found in the fact that foreign scholarship and foreign books found their way into English schools” 6 .

IN THE END

That an early-modern adolescent had a keen interest in gardening and in curating these passages from Plat is not impossible, merely unusual; and it’s this aspect of the book’s content that is highlighted on each side of the page edges (“Garden of Eden”), initially apparently by Clarke and then almost certainly by its later owner, “Arthur Hutchins”. Perhaps Clarke’s interpolation of this material, thus creating such an idiosyncratic arrangement, ultimately reminds us that the early modern period was often messy, and the principles which categorise and create genres were still being written.

£6,500 Ref: 8195

References:

1. Hoole, Charles. A New Discovery of the old Art of Teaching (1660). Quoted in Watson, Foster. The English Grammar Schools to 1660. (1908).

2. Watson, Foster. The English Grammar Schools to 1660. (1908).

3. ibid.

4. Cressy, David. Literacy & the Social Order. (1980).

5. ODNB.

6. Watson, Foster. The English Grammar Schools to 1660. (1908).

JEAMSON, Thomas (d.1674). Artificiall embellishments. Or Arts best directions how to preserve beauty or procure it.

Oxford: printed by William Hall, ann. D. 1665. ONLY EDITION.

Octavo. Pagination [16], 192 p. Collated and complete. [Wing J503; Madan III, 2705]. Contemporary calf, rebacked, head of spine chipped, front hinge cracking, endpapers renewed, marginal worming (not affecting text), corner of L8 torn away, just touching edge of catchword, but without loss, paper flaw in L3 with loss of one letter.

Provenance: inscriptions “Archibaldi Spark” (dated “1666”), “John Lloyd” dated “1706” and “Catherine Lloyd”. (See notes below).

THE ORDER OF APPEARANCE

¶ Emulsions, emollients, creams, and other concoctions were often included among the various recipes in English printed and manuscript compilations. But around the middle of the 17th century, some writers began to collate and arrange preparations exclusively concerned with personal appearance, and in doing so, created a new genre: the beauty manual 1 .

Outward appearance was thought to reflect one’s inner morality and balance of humours, so any attempt to hide the “true” inner identity by face-painting – which had been in vogue during the previous century – was considered immoral and might be condemned from the pulpit or whispered about behind the backs of those who practiced such acts of deceit. In contrast to face-painting, cosmetics were considered by some more acceptable because, rather than completely covering the face, they merely enhanced a person’s natural attributes.

When Thomas Jeamson published Artificiall embellishments in 1665, there were very few antecedents for a book devoted solely to cosmetics, and all of them were nearcontemporary. Sir Hugh Plat’s Delights for ladies, to adorne their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories with beauties, banquets, perfumes, and waters first appeared in 1600, and included cosmetics alongside culinary and household recipes. John Gauden’s A discourse of auxiliary beauty. Or artificiall hansomenesse. In point of conscience between two ladies (1656) and Johann Jacob Wecker’s Arts master-piece: or, The beautifying part of physick (1660) only just predated Jeamson’s book; but taken together, these works signalled a shift in attitudes: layers of paint and paste were out; more subtle enhancements were in.

Jeamson’s book, according to more than one account, did nothing to enhance his reputation. As a physician, he was, according to William Munk, “much ridiculed”, presumably for writing something considered superficial and infra dig (Artificiall embellishments was published anonymously, but Munk blames “the indiscretion of his publisher” for the leaking of the author’s identity). How much damage this really inflicted is unclear: Jeamson published the book in the year after his graduation from Wadham College, Oxford (Bachelor of Medicine, 1664), and went on to become a Doctor of Medicine in 1668, before being admitted to the College of Physicians in 1671 – hardly a downward spiral (although he died only three years later, in 1674).

PROVENANCE

This copy of Jeamson’s book was bought shortly after its publication. An inscription to the front endpaper reads “Archibaldi Spark”, beneath the date “1666”, and the purchase price of the book (pret-0-1s-4d”), followed by an inscription in the same hand in ancient Greek and lines of verse taken from Ovid (to which we shall return). There are two further inscriptions: one to the front free endpaper by “John Lloyd” dated “1706” and the other, that of “Catherine Lloyd” (with two further inscriptions of her forename) to the rear endpaper. Historical records offer up an Archibald Spark who was born in Scotland and attended Jesus College, Cambridge, where he earned an MA in 1634 and a BD in 1637. Among his posts as a clergyman were several in Merionethshire, Montgomeryshire and Flintshire, in the latter of which he was buried in 1669/70 2 .

But why did a clergyman in rural Wales acquire a book on cosmetics almost immediately after its publication? The evolution, noted above, from artificial face-painting, with its moral connotations of “whited sepulchres”, to supposedly more complementary and healthier “Cosmeticks”, arguably made the practice more acceptable to many in the church: external beauty, subtly enhanced, could express inner virtue. More pointedly, Spark’s inscription of lines from Ovid’s Ex Ponto are quite endearingly suggestive of something deeply felt in him:

“Iam mihi deterior canis aspergitur aetas

Iamque meos vultus ruga senilis arat

Confiteor facere hoc annos sed et altera causa est

Anxietas animi continuusque labor”

(“Now is the worse period of life upon me with its sprinkling of white hairs / now the wrinkles of age are furrowing my face […] I admit that this is the work of the years, but there is yet another cause anguish and constant suffering.” 3)

Whether he pontificated from the pulpit or perhaps took subtle tips from Jeamson’s book on hiding the “sprinkling of white hairs” and the furrowed “wrinkles of age”, we cannot say for certain. He died three or four years after buying this book, but it appears to have stayed in Flintshire where it came into the possession of John and Catherine Lloyd. There were two couples in the area by those names: a John Lloyd who married Catherine Pierce on 30 November 1715 at Nannerch, Flintshire4; and a John Lloyd who married Catherine Roberts on 3 September 1719 at Northope, Flintshire5. Although we have not found any connection between the Spark and Lloyd families, this volume does seem to have remained in Flintshire for some time.

FORM AND CONTENTS

In the introductory “Epistle”, Jeamson takes up the inner/outer theme that so concerned 17th-century moralists. But although he fleetingly mentions the soul and evokes “a Hell of misery”, he largely elides the question of morality, and opts instead for a simple appeal to vanity (especially under the male gaze). He promises “to save you Ladies from the loathsome embraces of this hideous Hagge” with “these Cosmeticks”, and to improve their chances of marriageability (while also indulging in class snobbery): “none save Grooms or Oastlers think those worth their courtship, who are rusted over with ill-inticing looks”. He sets out his scheme at the end of the “Proeme”: “it is regularly methodiz’d into a quaternion of parts. The first whereof treats of Embellishing the Body in generall; the Next of the Head, neck and breast; the Third of the Hands, Armes, Leggs and Feet; and the Last supplies you with Sents, Perfumes and Pouders”.

Jeamson begins this tour of the female body with a few words on pregnancy – that is, “How Women with Child are to order themselves that they may be delivered of fair and handsom Children”, so that the new arrival will be “not a misshapen or monstrous lump, but a sparkling luminary”. Some fairly sensible advice, such as taking “moderate and frequent exercise”, coexists with passages that hammer home the importance of “regulating the phantasie, or imagination of the Mother”; for this “phantasie”, or “Phancie”, has a life of its own: “finding the soft and plyant Fœtus pinion’d in a membranious mantle […] it freely without resistance makes impression as the Mother directs it. So that she by the help of this invisible Agent usually works & adorns the Infant with those features which her mind most runs upon”.

He dwells on this idea, laying it on thick by recounting a series of improbable tales: of a woman “big with Child” who witnessed a duel “twixt two Soldiers, one whereof lost his hand”, was “frighted with the sight” into labour and “was delivered of a Daughter with one hand”, the other having been “cut off at the same place with the maimed Soldier”; and of several cases of pregnant women who, “by often looking on a Black-a-moores picture, have been delivered of a Child clouded with Natures sooty mask”. One wonders whether Jeamson himself took the stories at face value or was simply employing them to embellish his argument for the more credulous of his readers.

After these preambles, he begins to supply the many recipes, which include methods to “alter the ill colour of the eyes and how to make them bigger or less”, “To make the Lip ruddie”, “To make Haire what colour you please”, “To whiten a tan’d visage and to keep the face from Sunburn”, “To Sweeten the Breath”, and “to keep the Breasts from growing too big, and to make them plumpe and round”, along with formulations to make “Pouders for the Hair”, “Sents and Perfumes”, and other nostrums.

These are the kinds of recipes that might have been found in any number of compilations of the period; but Jeamson’s book has the distinction of being one of the earliest to bring together so many recipes and so much contemporary thinking on cosmetics and appearance into a single volume. His book did not accord agency to early modern women, but it did wrest the subject from the clutches of the moralists and placed the materials of transformation into their hands. As such, it simultaneously reflected and shaped society’s shifting attitudes to outward appearance and contributed to modern ideas of beauty.

While this may be true of Jeamson’s publication in general, what makes this copy especially interesting is that the book travelled so quickly from the Oxford printer into the hands of a rural Flintshire clergyman, who eagerly inscribes his newly purchased book with lines from Ovid so expressive of the conflicting concerns of outward appearance and inner torment – just a few short years before he succumbed to the inevitable effects of “the work of the years”.

£5,000 Ref: 8181

1. Woods, Kathryn, Dismembering Appearance. (Doctoral thesis, 2014).

2. https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?

sur=spark&suro=w&fir=archibald&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50

3. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ovid-ex_ponto/1924/pb_LCL151.287.xml.

4. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/301970:62104?

tid=&pid=&queryId=b3d0ed1da1ede1c78b515b999789b737&_phsrc=KvK504&_phstart=successSource

5. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/415652:62104?

tid=&pid=&queryId=b3d0ed1da1ede1c78b515b999789b737&_phsrc=KvK504&_phstart=successSource

INDEXING

abolition, 50

accounts, iii, 4-5, 41-42, 44, 47, 49-50, 59, 75-78, 87-88

Ackrill, J. L. ii

additions, 3, 9, 11-12, 63, 81

agriculture, 9-12, 15, 17-18, 49, 87

alphabetical, 17, 21, 37-40, 73

almanacs, ii, 1-8

amendment, iii, 1-8, 16, 17-18, 19-21, 64, 76, 85, 97-98

America, 27-28, 47, 49-50

apprentices, 2, 20

augmentation , iv, 9-12, 63, 84

annotation, ii-iv, 1-8, 9-12, 15-16, 19-21, 34, 52-54, 55-58, 66, 69, 81-85, 89-90, 92

Aristotle, ii

Atwood, George (1745-1807), 65, 68-69

auctions, 13-16, 57-58, 63, 86

Austen, Ralph (?-1676), Treatise of Fruit Trees, 11

Cambridge University, 13, 16, 34, 68, 95

Cambridgeshire, 93

Capp, Bernard, 2 catalogues, ii, 5, 13-16, 57, 63, 86

chess, iv, 63-69 chronology, ii, 4, 6, 25, 51, 75, 84, 88

Chisholm, George, 59

Clark, John, 29-32

Clarke, Joseph, iv, 9-12

Clasps, 47, 93

codification, ii, iv, 63-69 collecting, 2, 6, 13-16, 17-18, 19-21, 25-26, 47, 60, 63, 71-74, 83, 86, 87, 92, 95

collectors, of books, 13-16, 57-58, 63, 81

Collingwood, Margaret, 61-62

colloquia, 30

colour, 35, 51-53, 81-84

commerce, 47-50, 59-60, 75-79

commonplace books, iv, 17-18, 19-21

Baldwin, James (1924-1987, iii

Barwell, Edward, 65-69

bees, 9-10, 18

Berlin, 51-52

bibliophily, 13-16

bindings: contemporary, 5-6, 9, 13, 17, 19, 24, 33, 43, 47, 51, 55, 59, 61, 63, 75, 81, 87, 92, 93; home-made, 27, 59; paper, 13, 27, 43, 59; provincial, 5-6; stationery, 24, 29, 47, 61, 63, 75, 87, 92, 93; vellum, 24, 27, 47, 61-62, 87, 92

bifolium, 51

Blair, Ann, iv

blank leaves, ii-iv, 1, 3, 9, 12, 17, 24, 27, 29, 47, 51, 53 61, 63, 66, 75, 83, 84, 85, 87, 92, 93

Blith, Walter (active 1649), English Improuer Improued, 9-12

book labels, 17-18

Buckinghamshire, 13, 15, 87

Butler, Joseph (1692-1752), 14, 55-58

compilation, 13-16, 17-18, 19-21, 24-26, 27-28, 29-32, 33-36, 47, 61-62, 63-69, 71-74, 77, 81-85, 87-90, 92, 93-98

Cook, J., 27

cookery, 24-26, 87-90, 92, 93-98

copying, 9-12, 17-18, 19-21, 24-26, 27-28, 29-32, 34, 43-46, 4750, 61-62, 65-66, 68-69, 71-74, 77, 84-85, 87-90, 92, 95, 98

correcting, 1, 4, 16, 19-21, 64, 72, 79, 85, 97

cosmetics, 34-36

Coxhead, Jane, iii, 24-26

Cressy, David, Literature and the Social Order, 30

Cromwell, Crumuell, 93-98

crossing out, 1-6, 16, 19, 21, 75-76, 93, 97-98

culinary, 24-26, 87-90, 92-, 93-98

Cumberland, 75, 78

cutting, 13, 19, 27, 59, 63, 75, 87-88, 92, 93

death, 1-6, 13, 57, 75, 82

Devon, 1-8, 17-18

dinner, 51-54

diplomacy, 51-54

Donne, John (1572-1631), 14, 16

dos-a-dos, iii, 94

Drewe, Francis, ii, 1-8

drink, 18, 27-28, 44-46, 87-90, 92-94

duodecimo, 1, 51

Eden, Morton (1752-1830), 51-54

Edinburgh, 27, 71, 75

education, iii, 14, 29-32, 49

Eliot, John (1735-1813), 47-50

Erasmus (1466-1536), 30

Exeter, 3-4

family, 1-6, 35, 46, 49, 51-54, 75-79, 81-85, 87-88, 94-95

financial, 1, 3-6, 41-42, 43-46, 47-50, 59-60, 75-79

folio, 14, 19, 24, 43 (see also quarto), 47 (see also quarto), 71, 81

food, 4, 24-26, 51-54, 87-90, 92, 93-98

friends, 26, 46, 47-50, 68

gardening, 5, 9-12, 14, 17-18, 29-32,

gathering, 9-12, 13-16, 17-18, 19-21, 24-26, 27-28, 33-36, 5154,59-60, 61-62, 63-69, 71-74,75-79,81-85, 87-90, 92, 93-98

Gauden, John (1605-1662), Discourse of Auxiliary Beauty, 33 genre, 32, 33-36, 75

Goldsmiths’ Company, 20-21

Hacking, Ian, ii, iii

Hallis, Dr, 27 hands, see scripts

Harrison, Sarah (active 1733-1777), House-keeper’s Pocket Book, 28

health, iii, 17-18, 24-26, 27-28, 35, 75, 77-78, 87-90, 92, 9398

Helwig, Christoph (1581-1617), Familia colloquia, 30

Heresbach, Conrad, Foure Books of Husbandry, 10-11

Hill, Thomas, Profit able Arte of Gardening, 9-10

Hoare, Richard (1648-1719), 19-23

Hoole, Charles, 30

household, 3-6, 24-26, 27-28, 41-42, 51-54, 75-79, 87-90, 92, 93-98

Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire), 93-98

husbandry, 3, 9-12, 17-18

indexing, 17, 19-21, 37-40, 73, 81, 92 inserted leaves, 17,-18, 19, 47, 63, 75, 87-89 interleaving, ii, 1-6 interlinear notes, 15, 19-21, 55-58

inventory, 41-42

Ireland, 43-46

Italian, 14, 16, italics, see scripts

Italy, 27-28, 44, 52, 63

Jacobite Rising, 41-42

Jeamson, Thomas (d.1674), Artificiall Embellishments, 33-36

kitchens, 24-26, 41-42, 87-90, 93-98

law, 3, 14, 19-21, 71-74, 78, 84

Leith, 75-79

letterbooks, 43-46, 47-50

letters, 5, 17,-18, 43-46, 47-50, 61, 87-89

libraries, 13-16, 58, 63, 81, 86

Lisbon, Portugal, 43-46

listing, 14, 21, 43, 41-42, 51-54, 59-60, 74-78, 81, 92, 97

Locke, John (1632-1704), 55-58

Lloyd, Catherine, 33-35

Lloyd, John, 33-35

London, 1, 5, 13, 19-21, 43-46, 49-50, 55, 57, 64-69, 75-76, 8788, 95, see printers

loose leaves, 17-18, 19, 46, 63, 75, 79, 87-89, 92

Park, Julie, ii pasting, 13, 18, 87-90

Paterson, Samuel (1728-1802), bookseller, 57 Paxton, Jonas, auctioneer, 13, 15-16

Pearson, David, 5-6

Penn, Richard (1735-1811), 63, 68-69

Penn, William (1644-1718), 49 Pennsylvania, America, 49-50, 68

Philidor, Francois-Andre (1726-1795), 64-69

postal service, 43

prescription, 17, 27-28, 95 printed inserts, 17, 87-90

printers, Oxford: Hall, William, 33; London: Jones, Edward, 2; Knapton, James, John and Paul, 55; Nutt, Elizabeth, 2; Nutt, Richard, 2, Wright, John 9; Tubingen, 81

Mackenzie, James (1680?-1761), History of Health, 27

marbled paper, 5, 27, 55, 81, 87

marginalia, iii, 55-59

May, Steven, iv,

medicine, iii, 17-18, 27-28, 34, 77-78, 87-90, 92, 93-98

memoranda, 1, 5, 11, 43-44, 51, 59-60, 64, 75-79

miscellaneous, iii, 9-12, 14-15, 17-18, 61-62, 75-79, 94

miscellany, 61-62

mixed, see scripts

money, iii, 1-6, 45-46, 47-50, 75, 79

Plat, Hugh, Garden of Eden, 29, 31-32; Delights for Ladies, 33 precedents, legal, 19-21, 71-74

Quakers, 47-50

quarto, 9, 13 (see also octavo), 17, 43 (see also folio), 47 (see also folio), 55, 61, 71, 75, 87, 92

networks, social, iii, 1-6, 24-26, 27-28, 34, 43-46, 47-50, 51-54, 63-69, 75-79, 8185, 87-90, 92, 93-98

notebook, 1-6, 17-18, 27-28, 29-32, 51-54, 59-60, 61-62, 63-69, 75-79, 92, 93-98

notation, 63-69

numbering, 614, 17, 19, 24, 47, 66, 68, 71, 81, 92

Radclyffe, James (1698-1716), 41-42

Radclyffe, William (1770-1828), 81-85

reading of books (evidence of), 9-12, 13-16, 17-18, 19-21, 2426, 27-28, 29-32, 33-34, 47, 50, 55-58, 61-62, 63-69, 71-74, 77, 81-85, 87, 95

receipts, iii, 3-4, 24-26, 27-28, 75-79, 87-90, 92, 93-98

recipes, iii, 10, 18, 24-26, 27-28, 33-36, 77-78, 87-90, 92, 93-98

reference books, 19-21

remedies, iii, 18, 27-28, 33-36, 77-78, 87-90, 92, 93-98

revising, 3-4, 9, 20-21, 76, 85, 92

Riders, Cardanus, 2

Rimington Wilson, James (1822-1877), 63

octavo, 13 (see also quarto), 33, 59, 63, 93

Ovid ( 43 bce-17 ce), 29-32, 34, 36

Oxford University, 3, 5, 51, 94, 95, 98

Ritterhausen, Nicolaus (1597-1670), 81

rules and grids, 13, 29, 51, 63, 75, 87

Saunders, Richard, 2

schooling, iii, 49, 72; boarding by a Gentlewoman, 26; Eton, 51, 68; grammar, 29-32; home 29-32, St. Paul’s School, London; 13, Westminster, 68

schoolbooks, 14, 29-32

Scotland, 27-28, 34, 59-60, 71-74, 75-79

scrapbooks, 87-90

scripts, italic, 1-6, 17-18, 19, 21, 24-26, 27-28, 29-32, 34, 4142, 43-46, 47-50, 51-54, 55-58, 59-60, 61-62, 63-69, 75-79, 81-85, 87-90, 92, 93-98; mixed, 9-12, 71-74, 75-79, 93-98; secretary, 75-79, 89

sextodecimo, 27, 29

sheep, 5-6, 10, 17-18, 29, 49, 51

shorthand, 67

Smith, Eliza (d. c.1732), Compleat Housewife, 24

Smyth, Adam, ii, 4

Spark, Archibald (d.1669/70), 33-36

stationery books, 13, 17, 24, 29, 47, 51, 61, 63, 75, 87, 92, 93

Stevenson, Thomas, 75-79

sticking, 13, 18, 19, 27, 63

stitching, 27, 43, 59, 63

Stratton, Mrs, 87-90

Sullivan (inc. Ben and Matty), 43-46

Sutherland, Alexander, Nature and Qualities of Bristol-water, 27 symbols, 67, 95

tabula Rasa, ii

tabulation, 81, 83-85, 92

tête-bêche, iii, 43, 47, 66, 92, 93-94

time, 1-6, 9, 36, 44, 57, 60

tipped in leaves and slips, 13-16, 18, 19, 47, 63, 81

Thompson, Dr, 17-18

transcribing, 9-12, 17-18, 19-21, 24-26, 27-28, 29, 31-32, 34, 47, 61-62, 66, 71-74, 77-78, 82-85, 87-88, 92, 95

transmission, textual, 9-12, 18, 19, 24-26, 27-28, 29, 31, 33, 43, 47, 61-62, 63, 71, 75, 87-90, 92, 95, 98

trees, 1, 5, 11, 31, 41, 59-60

True Way of Preserving and Candying, 24-26

vellum, see bindings vertical text, 4, 53, 88, 95 Vienna, Austria, 51-53 Watson, Foster, English Grammar Schools, 30, 32 Wales, 33-36, 90

Watts, Isaac (1674-1748), iii, 55-58

Wecker, J. J. ( 1528-1586), Arts master-piece, 33 wine, 18, 87, 89-90, 92

women, at auction, 16: inscriptions, 35; scribes (where attributable), 24-26, 61-62, 87-90, 93-98

Wright, John (1651-1716), 95

Wright, Thomas (c1775-1841), 13-16

Young Lady’s Companion in Cookery, 25-26

INVENTORY

[RADCLYFFE, James (3rd Earl of Derwentwater, 1689-1716)] Early 18

th-century manuscript inventory.

[Dilston Hall. Circa 1717]. Bifolium. In on paper. Text to 2 ½ sides. Docketed “An Inventory of the late Lord Derwentwaters Goods att Dilston House”.

¶ James Radclyffe was executed for his role in the Jacobite Rising of 1715, after a career marked by a fierce loyalty to James Stuart that had begun when, as a boy, he arrived at the exiled court at St Germain to act as companion to the young prince. After his beheading in February 1716, he “immediately became a romantic martyr figure”, and it is said that a few Catholics “treasured his relics” (ODNB).

In April 1717, appraisers (“Math Llewelin” and “Nicho Tooke” took the more pedestrian task of evaluating Radclyffe’s “Household Goods” (or those that remained after “his titles and estate became forfeited”1). This manuscript begins “At the Garretts”, which contain Bedsteads, 3 with Blew & 4 with green coarse Kidderminster Curtains” Moving to the “Servts Room”, they list only “3 old Bedsteads with Ordinary beding to one” and “5 old Matted Chairs 3 old Cane Chairs” entry for the “same floor”, however, records an impressive arboreal cluster consisting of “A pr of small Bay Trees, 5 orange trees, 2 laurentines, 3 small Myrtles, 1 Spanish brome”

The appraisers take account of the “Nursery” (minimally furnished, but with “2 Nunns Pictures”, chiming with Radclyffe’s Catholicism) the “Dining Room” (“12 Carve Chairs […] 39 Great & Small Prints”), and in a passageway, “A Napkin press with drawers” Meanwhile, the “Servts Hall” takes its turn (“2 long Tables [...] Old

), followed by the “Cellars” (“9 Empty Casks, 2 ), and a complex of operational spaces: the “Kitchen”, the “Scullery & Bakehouse”, the “Wash House”, and the “Brew House”.

The material relics of this Jacobite martyr’s life are summed up at the with “742 Deal Boards” worth “45:00:0” added to this total), and are recorded as having been sold the same day “to Mr Ralph Wood of Needless Hall […] for the Sume of Sixty Eight which is paltry by contemporary standards but explicable by the Crown’s seizure of most of his possessions.

1. Banks, T. C. Dormant and extinct baronage. 1809. Volume 3, p.243

£950 Ref: 8178

[SULLIVAN]. A group of five 18th-century manuscript letterbooks.

[Ireland: Cork, Douglas, Dublin. England: London. Circa 1757-1773]. Foliation includes wrappers, as these have frequently been used as text pages.

[1]. Copy letters from 1757 to 1758. 93 text pages on 48 leaves. Folio (325 x 200 mm).

[2]. Copy letters from 1758 to 1773. 80 text pages on 42 leaves. Folio (325 x 200 mm).

[3]. Title to first leaf: “Memorandums 1766” but continues to 1770. 53 text pages on 34 leaves. Quarto (255 x 195 mm).

[4]. Copy letters from Lisbon and London, dated from 1766 to 1768. 26 text pages on 14 leaves. Folio (300 x 210 mm).

[5]. Title to one end: “Letters from June 1770 to September 1771”. The volume is flipped tête-bêche and titled “Memorandums of Bills”. 116 text pages on 60 leaves. Quarto (255 x 200 mm).

¶ On the back cover of the second of these volumes, the scribe, one Mr Sullivan, sets down an aide memoire concerning the weekly postal schedule that dictates when “Letters may be sent from London”: on Mondays, “France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Flanders, Sweden, Denmark, Kent & the Downs”; Tuesdays, a few of the same destinations plus “Holland […] Ireland […] Scotland, all parts of England & Wales”; and so on. He concludes with the information that, although deliveries to London from within Great Britain are at least weekly, “from other parts” they are “more uncertain in regard of the Sea”.

Hence the common practice of keeping letterbooks: in an uncertain world where communication could be slow and letters frequently went astray, one had, as it were, to back up one’s important data. When your livelihood depended on international trade, the need to keep good records and maintain connections made this all the more pressing. Our scribe adds an “NB” to the effect that “one Tuesday the packett goes to Lisbon, & the next Tuesday to the Groyne [La Coruña, a province in Galicia, Spain] & so on” – meaning that the Portuguese port on which he hung much of his business aspirations could take weeks to get a message to (or from).

These five volumes contain copies of letters sent by a man called “Sullivan” to his business contacts and relatives (some, such as his brother, qualify as both), along with memos and accounts, all relating to his business affairs in Ireland, Liverpool and London and on the Continent. The letters show him beginning as a man of apparently narrow means but wide ambitions – and running aground on age-old hazards such as cash flow and competition.

Sullivan explains in an early letter (10 Jan 1758) that he “quitted Lisbon” and set up business in Ireland. Other biographical details are scant, but he mentions he was “some years bookkeeper […] in Lisbon”. He seems to have set himself up in Douglas, a village near Cork in the southwest of Ireland.

The first copied letter, to his brother “Ben Sullivan” and dated “Douglas, 27 Decembr 1757”, sets the scene: he confirms that “Matty” (probably his wife) is safely arrived, and he repeats his “thanks to you for yr care about Matty it was a great mercy they had not all perished thorough the means of the Capn being always drunk”. He laments the expense of staying in a “Publick house” and states their determination “to live as close to the wind as possible till it please God to put us in a way of business”; austerity is the watchword, hence “We drank yr health in a sip of Punch, higher tipple we can’t go to yet”.

Sullivan is clearly in the difficult early stages of setting up a business: he has “letters of Recommendn”, which he is looking forward to showing his brother, since “they are in very strong terms I hope in some months they will be productive of some good these things require some time”. He spells out his hopes for the near future: “If any Mercht that had money would put in a Capital of 3 to 500 l & suffer the house to run in his name & this employed in nothing but Teas & Brandys to be imported here at the first hand & so sold out again it would give them a good Proffet & in a little time induce them to countinance the thing in a more Extensive way”.

This first letter shows him keen to build his network contacts: “perhaps Mr Paul Mayler or Mr David Fzgerald would come into such a plan […] or some of the Dublin people”; using what would now be called the power of positive thinking, he adds: “here is one thing they may rely on, no man breathing would give them a more faithfull & honnester account than I would”. A few lines later, he demonstrates his cultivation of associates from his Lisbon days when he expresses the hope that “Mr Peter Lucas holds his Resolution […] to quit Lisbon in the Spring & come to London”; Lucas has written a letter of recommendation for Sullivan to present to “Mr William Keys of Dublin”, and Sullivan frets that Lucas has not followed through on his promise to write a similar letter to “Mr Saml Hoare of London”.

Sullivan is soon well provisioned with such letters, and writes to “Francis Carleton Esqr” enclosing a letter of recommendation from “Mr Barrett”, then to “Paul Mayler” and to “Peter Zaulke” on the same date. In all these he begs leave to “make you a tender of my services”, and demonstrates his calibre by reeling off market prices and the extolling the popularity of “Green

we are each of us to put in a Capital of 100£ each this is to be imployed in trade, as followith, in Flower, in Cheese, Oatmeal, Bacon, & things of this nature wch he will constantly send from England and I shall retail from here in small qtys this will be a ready money trade & will certainly answr very well”. He immediately tempers this triumphant tone by continuing: “we are under a great difficulty to get a house, there is no such thing to be had, however we have got a warehouse till Mayday what we shall do afterwards for one God knows”.

Once properly in business, Sullivan buys tea from Holland, Rotterdam and Gothenburg and brandy from France and Spain (“these are staple commodities”) via “Neapolitan ships”, but things remain rocky: in a letter to Matty (whom he often calls “My Souls delight”), on “12 March 1758”, he wrings his hands over the refusal of “Mr Hoare” to settle a bill (“If he will not discharge this bill I know not what I shall do”) and the reluctance of “Brother Sullivan” to assist. A frequent correspondent, “Richard Kennedy”, apparently a family friend, seems more supportive; Kennedy is sometimes noted as living at the “Manx Arms on Astons Quay Dublin”, or the “Three Legs of Man” – the same pub – and in the second volume, Sullivan explains in a letter to “Peter Lucas” that Kennedy “keeps a Publick house in Dublin where the traders of this place put up” – making him a valuable contact indeed.

The subsequent books trace an uncertain trajectory, as the obstacles and hazards keep coming. He frets at having offended “Messrs Gurnell & Hoare” by “making an offer of my service, being Ignorant of their attachments to an other”. Cashflow problems seem to lie at the heart of his misfortune, along with a bout of illness in 1760 that increases his debts, and by 1762, once more living in Lisbon, he is telling several of his correspondents his tale of woe, entreating “Jos. Marquez” to “grant me Liberty to go to London & take ye benefit of the act of Insolvency” (why this is in Marquez’s gift is not clear), and to “seek my bread”, apparently as a book-keeper again (volume [5] includes two loose-leaf copies of undated letters asking for a position and citing referees). At one point, he becomes involved in “the lottery business” and writes letters to those who have invested (“I wish you were not in such a confounded hurry when you write to me”); and it seems that he continues to pursue his import enterprise, judging by letters dated “1771” that discuss bills and merchandise.

These apparent overlaps in his career mirror an overlap of periods covered in some of these volumes; the reason for this is unclear (although volume [3] seems to focus on the lottery business), but it reflects the peripatetic nature of Sullivan’s exploits: he returns again to Lisbon in the mid-1760s, but by 1767 he is back in London and has set himself up as a “Broker in the Exchequer”.

One gleans from these letterbooks the impression of a determined but embattled would-be entrepreneur attempting to navigate the choppy waters of 18th-century international commerce. A thorough reading of them, and a careful examination of his many contacts, would enable a partial reconstruction of the narrative of Sullivan’s varied business fortunes, and by extension the nascent global networks that characterised the growth of early-modern trade.

£1,650 Ref: 8196

LETTERBOOKS

[ELIOT, John (1735-1813)]. Two 18th-century manuscripts, comprising financial accounts and letterbooks. [Circa 1780-88]. Folio and quarto volumes. Contemporary, green-stained vellum bindings.

[1]. [ELIOT, John]. Manuscript fair copies of “Letters from several friends to Philip Eliot” and a Collection of Journeys. [Circa 1780]. Folio (243 x 195 x 25 mm). Contents page and approximately 140 text pages (numbered to p.96), followed by 16 blank leaves. Green vellum, initialled “J E III” in manuscript to front board. Written in the same neat, clear copper plate hand. Watermark: Fleur-de-lis above GR; countermark: C Taylor. (Haewood 1856, except countermark: I Taylor).

John Eliot’s manuscript fair copies of letters and accounts of journeys sent by Friends to his uncle, Philip Eliot between 1750 and 1779. Copies of 12 letters from correspondents including “James Gough”; “Claude Gay” (“While I was in France, I wrote to Friends of the Meeting for Sufferings, chiefly on Account of our few Friends in Jersey”); “Thos Whitehead”; and “Robt Kinsley”. Accounts of journeys include those “to Friends in Holland. (The 7th of the 7th Month 1770)”; “to Portsmouth, Gosport & the Isle of Wight in 1779”; “to York Quarterly Meeting [...] 22nd of 6th Mo: 1774”; and “to Thomas Whitehead at Reading. 16th of 3d Mo: 1771”. Also copied is “Some Account of Samuel Emlen & Thos Thornborough’s taking Shiping for America. 1772”.

Manuscript Letter Book and Accounts. [Circa 1784-89].

Quarto (208 x 164 x 30 mm). Text arranged tete-beche. Letterbook: approximately 170 text pages; and approximately 60 pages of accounts (together 230pp, excluding a few blanks). Some pages excised at each end. Green vellum, one clasp intact. Ruled in red for accounts. Probably a stationer’s book. Text and accounts written in the same neat, clear italic hand. Watermark: Pro Patria above GR. Manuscript inscription stuck in to paste-down: “Gulielma Briggins her book March 1734”. There are no other entries by her. The paper has a different watermark to the rest of the volume and has evidently been inserted, probably by Gulielma’s nephew and the compiler of this volume, John Eliot. The manuscript comprises copies of over a hundred letters to and from John Eliot (correspondents are mainly Quakers, including Thomas Shipley, Ann Arch, John Trehawke, John Chamberlain, James Upjohn) between 1784 and 1789, together with his financial accounts for the years 1784 to 1788.

¶ Record keeping has always been a key part of running a successful business. It has also played an important role in Quaker practice since their founding: as one archivist points out, a consequence of their 17th-century persecution was that they “became assiduous record creators, carefully recording the details of their lives because they did not have access to the formal institutions which did this for everyone else”. She also remarks that “if all organisations followed the Quaker approach to record-keeping, our work would be a lot easier!” 1 .

This pair of manuscripts includes five years of financial accounts, such as any businessperson worth their salt would maintain; it may be that John Eliot’s Quakerism helped such assiduity to come easily. But the majority of the volumes takes record-keeping much further, with copies of well over one hundred letters and other written material. Eliot’s reasons for preserving these copies so carefully inside the books’ green vellum bindings must surely have a lot to do with his concerns and activities as a Quaker.

18th-century Quaker merchants stood in marked contrast to most of their peers. While so many of their fellow countrymen became rich through the slave trade, Quakers not only repudiated participation in the trade, but actively worked to achieve its abolition. Their development of ethical business practices, which grew out of their close

connections, provided a model for English traders who preferred to see themselves as having ushered in the Industrial Revolution through sheer hard work and sound morals, rather than admit that the country had grown rich – directly and indirectly – through the trade in the lives of enslaved African men and women.

The characteristics which informed the Quakers’ sense of identity – morality, abolitionism, charity, and a pragmatic approach to business – are evidenced throughout these manuscripts. Indeed, the letters move easily from one theme to the next, as when John Eliot writes to Thomas Shipley (who appears to be managing his farming business) in February 1787 to confirm that “M. Birkbeck shall have the Sheep”, but “when the Sheep are in good Condition, or it may make a considerable Difference in the Price”, and in the next paragraph directing that “my Reason for refusing to pay Tithes in general may be shewn to the Justices, hoping thou will attend them on this Occasion” (Quakers rejected the authority of the Anglican Church and consequently refused to pay tithes).

Money frequently figures in Eliot’s deliberations, whether over his own finances (including rents from lands), gifts of money for poor people (such payments are sometimes recorded in the accounts section e.g. of responsibility towards them ( Profits and Adavantages” [1789]). He can often be seen advocating for fairness in business dealings ( thy undertenant […] & thy private dispute with him, it has no Relation to thy Engagement with Dan to be paid notwithstanding” pursue religious and domestic matters, and is keen to contribute to the establishment of new schools.

John Eliot was the son of John (1707 Weston (1743-1812), and they had four children: Mary, Mariabella, Ann, and John underwriter at Lloyds of London, a landowner, and a merchant – a diverse portfolio that chimes nicely with the impression in the letters of a man practicing faith and finance with equal commitment.

This, in turn, reflects the way in which Quakers’ strong moral beliefs and their network of close family and social bonds created a community of Friends individuals with whom they could trade. Such relationships were crucial for successful Atlantic commerce, as Friends in Britain could rely on the honesty of their colleagues in America, notably Pennsylvania, which was founded by the English Quaker, William Penn (1644-1718).

Eliot is a key player in an international network that includes Friends in France, Holland, and – most importantly – America. He keeps track of the comings and goings of various American Friends, writing in one letter: “I heard that Ann Jessop one of the last friends from America was in your Neighbourhood [...] I had a Letter from Saml Emlen by the same Ship”; and in another, “Five of the American Friends have taken their passage in a Vessel bound to Philadelphia to sil soonviz: W. Matthews, Z. Dicks, A Jessop, P. Brayton & R. Wright. Did I mention to thee John Storer and T. Colley were returned?”. His attention, naturally enough, is directed keenly towards Pennsylvania, of which he writes that “there is not an Acre of Liberty Land vacant, and that the most valuable City Lots are sold”. The concept of “Liberty Land” was an important aspect of the colonisation of Pennsylvania: “William Penn had made a gift of land in these sections to the first purchasers of lots in the city proper, the amount of “free” land given being in proportion to the amount of “town” land that was bought. The term, “City and Liberties of Philadelphia,” was commonly used in the early days of the province”. 3

Eliot’s zeal for abolitionism is strongly represented in the letters: he writes, in one dated “London 12/1 1788”: “Our Society intends to petition Parliament again to abolish the Slave Trade, and we are requesting our fr[ien]ds in the Country to apply to such members of Parliament with whom they may be acquainted for their support of such a Petition or of any motion that may be made in the house for an enquiry into the African Slave Trade”; and again, on “31 of 1 Mo 1788”: “the Committee appointed about Cranbourn Chase think to bring forward a Petition to Parliament [...] I expect Friends will very soon apply to Parliament on behalf of the Negroes”. The dates are significant, since this activity was part of a concerted campaign in 1778, when one hundred such petitions were presented to Parliament in the space of three months. The value of record-keeping in such large-scale campaigns is self-evident, and Eliot’s preservation of these letters is itself a kind of accounting, making their juxtaposition with his financial records not at all incongruous.

Eliot also busies himself with the important work of transmitting the Quaker message as effectively as possible, and not just in English: in a letter to “J de Marcillac”, he assesses the translation of Mary Brook’s (c.1726-1782) Reasons for the Necessity of Silent Waiting (1774) “into French by Claude Gay” as “not so well done” and consequently, “I send thee enclosed a Specimen thereof in French and English. If thou wilt please to try to render it into a better style [...] The intention of the Friends is to print a new Edition of this book”.

John Eliot’s manuscript letterbooks embody all the Quaker values and conveys the energy and thoughtfulness with which he pursued them – not least by copying out so many pieces of correspondence concerning a cause fundamental to his identity. The letters also capture a key period of development, both of Quakerism as an international movement and of the abolitionist campaigns that they so fervently espoused.

£3,250 Ref: 8157

1. Eleanor Woodward. <theironroom.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/a-lesson-in-good-record-keeping-from-the-quakers>

2. < https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/11145120/person/322002943258/facts? _phsrc=KvK338&_phstart=successSource>

3. Rupert S Holland, William Penn. footnote p.163. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42567/42567-h/42567-h.htm#FNanchor_2_2

LISTING

[EDEN, Morton, first Baron Henley (1752–1830)]. Late 18th-century manuscript, entitled ‘Dinner Book’.

[Berlin and Vienna. Circa 1791-1797]. 12mo (164 x 100 x 15 mm). Approximately 173 unnumbered text pages on 90 leaves. Ink on paper in black, brown and some red inks.

Contemporary half sheep, covers with grey paste paper, manuscript title label to the upper cover which reads “Dinner Book Berlin Novr 15th 1791”. Worn, lacking spine, stitching broken, text block loose. Preserved in a modern slipcase and chemise.

SOCIAL MATERIAL

¶ The chronological list of names in this little notebook may seem an unpromisingly opaque form in which to find signs of life. But the names evoke the confidential conversations at intimate dinners where key decisions in European history were made over port, or the lively gatherings and grand parties where small talk cemented social relations. And often beneath, between, and beside the punctilious records of dinner companions, intimacies slip through; the silence of a blank page speaks clearly of emotional distress, and even the colour of ink can sometimes tell us more than the words it forms on the page.

THE COMPILER

The compiler of this manuscript was the diplomat, Morton Eden. He was educated at Eton and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1770, but left without taking a degree. Nonetheless, he was considered sufficiently qualified for a career in the diplomatic service at the age of 24. From 1776 to 1779, he was Minister to Bavaria, then to Copenhagen 1779-1782, and to Dresden 1783-1791.

In 1783 he returned to England and married Lady Elizabeth Henley (1757-1821), whom he usually refers to as “Lady Eliz” in this volume. In 1791, Eden was appointed envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary at the court of Berlin, which is where this manuscript begins (“1791 Novr 14th Arrived at Berlin”). He transferred to Vienna in 1793, taking this notebook with him. According to the ODNB, “after reluctantly agreeing to be dispatched to Madrid as ambassador-extraordinary, he was reappointed envoy-extraordinary to Vienna to negotiate the war loan to the emperor. He remained in the Austrian capital for five years”.

LINKED IN

Eden records the people with whom they dined or supped on an almost daily basis. The occasions range from state balls and dinners to large events of 20 or more people to smaller, cosier suppers, and on occasion, the Edens appear to shed their company long enough to dine in alone (“We supped at Bellevue”, “I stayed at Bellevue”). He lists the names of all the attendees, including many prominent figures in Prussian and Austrian diplomacy, as well as representatives of Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the United States. Emigré French nobles also complete many of the tables. In Berlin, the Edens were frequent guests at the court of Prussian King Frederick William II (1744-1797) and Queen Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt (1751-1805). The couple seem to have shared duties quite effectively: Lady Elizabeth is frequently recorded as having “dined” or “supped” with either the king or queen separately, as well as with the “Queen Dowager”, while Eden was entertaining elsewhere.

British dining companions include “Sir Watkin Williams Wynne”, “Duke of Buccleuch”, “Lord Henry Spencer”, “Sir Robt Cotton” and “Lord Dalkeith”. French guests include the emigré duc de Richelieu, Louis de la Trémouille, and Armand de Polignac; and on 12 November 1797 in Vienna, Eden notes a dinner with some 26 guests, annotated at the end in red ink “given to the Duke d’Enghien, who stayed here 3 days in his way to Russia”. As a member of the House of Bourbon, Enghien commanded a corps of emigrés established by the Prince de Condé, and he was executed seven years later by Napoleon for collaboration with the British (one hopes not simply for dining with them). Also among Eden’s acquaintances in Vienna was American statesman Gouverneur Morris, who was in Vienna in the autumn of 1796 as American minister-plenipotentary to France. He is noted in Eden’s book as “Mr Morris American” and dined with him at least six times.

The dinners form the diplomatic and social background to the negotiations concerning the balance of power in Europe during the French Revolutionary Wars on 4 May 1795, for example, Eden had signed a treaty with Austrian chancellor Thugut, guaranteeing a loan of £4,600,000 to Austria for fielding 170,000 troops in Germany against France. Thugut avoided society in his professional dealings, and despite their negotiations, he does not appear here as a dinner companion. Eden, however, as this manuscript shows, was extremely sociable and knew how to work with other people of influence:

“P. Stahremberg” (i.e. the Austrian diplomat, Prince Ludwig von Stahremberg) was another frequent dinner companion; usually alone, but sometimes with “Baron de Muhle” whom Eden also met alone on other occasions.

RED LETTER DAYS

The manuscript is mostly written in brown ink within red-ruled columns for dates and with a line between each day. Important events, often of a more personal nature, are written in red ink. For instance, Eden records on 19 February 1793 that they “set out for Vienna where we arrived safely on the 27th at Noon”.

Eden’s aforementioned reluctance “to be dispatched to Madrid as ambassador-extraordinary” is conspicuous in his remark in red ink that on 11 April 1794 “We left Vienna & with great regret”; a sentiment that becomes palpable when, rather than record anything of his eight months in Madrid, he leaves a blank page to separate this sad day from that of his happier return “to Vienna Decr 13th 1794”. Things improve still more one week later when he reports (again in red ink) “Lady Eliz!! arrived”.

The volume continues with a further round of dinners, until the personal and the political again combine on “Janry 3d 1796”, when he writes vertically in red ink “Dinner given on Acc: of the Christening of my little Girl”, marking an event whose guests included the likes of the “Russian Amb. & Ambs” , “Earl Cowper”, “Marquis of Carmarthen”, “Mr. Le Mesurier” and over 40 others.

CONCLUSION

This last example demonstrates how the personal is often employed in the service of the political – a crucial tactic in diplomacy. Such acts are planned (as were, surely, the sharing of duties between Eden and his wife), while others may have been inadvertent. But it must always be difficult for a diplomat to sit down to dinner with anyone outside their family and be perceived as an individual separate from their role as representative of a country and its interests – for a diplomat, surely the personal can hardly escape being the political.

Beyond its significant historical reach, this remarkable document illustrates how recording only the barest of details – in this case, the names of dinner companions – can still enable human expression to slip through the net, revealing unguarded moments and emotions in the process.

£5,500 Ref: 8199

WATTS, Isaac (annotator) (1674–1748); BUTLER, Joseph The Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. To which are added Two brief Dissertations: I. Of Personal Identity. II. Of the Nature of Virtue. By Joseph Butler, L. L. D. Rector of Stanhope, in the Bishoprick of Durham. London: Printed for James, John and Paul Knapton, at the Crown in Ludgate Street. MDCCXXXVI. [1736]. First edition. Quarto. Pagination [12], x, 11-320, complete with the half-title. [ESTC, T67971]. Contemporary full calf, marbled endpapers, early reback, rubbed, corners worn, occasional scattered spotting to text. Annotations by Isaac Watts to over 100 pages.

¶ Isaac Watts’ reflections on one of the intellectual conundrums of Enlightenment thinking are captured in the margins of this copy of the Analogy of Religion. The vexed question of whether reason and faith can co-exist tormented many Enlightenment thinkers, and still troubles some modern minds. This copy of Joseph Butler’s major work, annotated by Watts, illustrates some of the confluences and cross-currents that characterised these deliberations. Watts’ handwritten comments range from simple notes like “Objn: Ans:” to more sustained and detailed observations. They demonstrate the level of rigour he applies to his critique of Butler’s ideas as he tries to marshal his own arguments, especially as they relate to John Locke and the problems of materialism; for, as he notes, “Others have Drawn Mr Lockes opinion to unhappy lengths” (2R1r).

WATTS AND BUTLER (AND LOCKE)

Isaac Watts was a significant figure in the 18th century. Although often referred to as the “Godfather of English Hymnody”, his books on logic, theology and astronomy were among the most influential works of the period; Watts’ edition of the Psalms of David “was the most frequently published work in eighteenth century America, followed by his Hymns and Spiritual Songs” (Benyon. Isaac Watts. 2018). Moreover, his Logick (1724) became the standard text on logic at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Yale.

1752) is already recognised as a major influence on Watts’ thinking. In his most famous book, The Analogy of Religion, first published in 1736, Butler drew analogies between nature and scripture in an attempt to show that God was the author of the “book of scripture” as well as the “book of nature”. Against the deists who strove to prove the existence of God through reason, he attempted to demonstrate that a reading of scripture and of nature in all their complexity shows that God was not, as the rationalists would have it, a provable certainty –leaving no role for faith – but rather a probability.

REASON AND FAITH, MEN AND BRUTES

Watts was deeply influenced by the empiricist philosophy of Locke and Isaac Newton, which he combined with ideas from his own nonconformist upbringing to form a complex mix of reason and faith. The empiricist theory that our ideas and knowledge of the world are derived through reasoning from physical experience was considered too materialist by many, who were uncomfortable with the possibility that, as Locke says, what “we call Thoughts ... are only the Operations of Matter.” But if everything is a mechanism in this new world of empirical explanation, what differentiates man from other animals? There is evidence in this volume’s annotations of Watts grappling with this and other related questions; he seems to be seeking arguments robust enough to counter the materialist side of Lockean philosophy, while preserving its empirical core.

As its title indicates, the book’s argument is built on analogies, so Watts expends much of his energy checking these for robustness and reporting on his conclusions. For example, in one passage, he concedes that “This Argt: drawn from our Intellectuall Ideas & Reflecting Powers not being injur’d by Severall Diseases, has much more weight in it than the former” (D4r), but while he considers it stronger than its predecessor, it is still too weak: “Yet since some ^other Diseases & even Sleep do hinder ^ weaken or stupefy our reflecting Powers, ye Materialist will say, the Analogy of Nature here is as Strong Agt:: ye immortality of ye Soul as it is for it.” Similarly, in a slightly later passage, he is again sympathetic to Butler’s ideas, but thinks they lack rigour: “This Chap. has severall good thoughts in it but upon the whole a Mortalist woud feel but small power of Conviction. The common generall Proof of a future state from ye want of due Recompenses to Vice & Wertue in this World carrys with it stronger Evidences than those supposed or Slight Analogies, many of wch: are found among Brutes as well as Men.” (K3r).

As Watts evaluates the arguments in The Analogy of Religion, he often finds Butler unequal to the task at hand: “I am so far from thinking ye Authors reasoning strong here yt, as far as I can see, the Analogy of Nature in ye Death of Brutes wd: lead us to conclude we have no living Powers abiding after Death; ffor all yt Sense & Experience can discover to us make no difference between ye Death of Brutes & men.” (C4r). Just a few pages on, he again refutes Butler’s argument, this time explicitly from the point of view of “A Materialist” who, he says “wd answer to all this, yt our Living powers are not in the Limbs – but in ye Brain or Heart, & these being destroyed, ye Living Powers are destroyed too.” (D2r). Watts often plays devil’s advocate in this way, intent on anticipating future objections to his own arguments.

As Watts is acutely aware, if humans and animals are subject to the same physical laws, any differentiation must be a genuine one, otherwise “Q. Will not this sort of reasoning prove ye Souls of Brutes immortall too? See p. 22.” (D2v). This remark occurs on p.20, and if the reader follows to p.22 as instructed, against Butler’s assertion that “Brutes” are governed by the same order and “by consequence capable of everlasting Happiness. Now this Manner of Expression is both invidious and weak”, Watts has underlined “invidious” and “weak” and justifiably protests that “This Objection is reproached rather than refuted”. Ever the logician, Watts clearly requires a stronger argument than mere distaste.

PERSONAL IDENTITY

Butler famously critiques Locke’s theory of personal identity. Locke’s definition of a person as an entity that can think reflectively and recognise itself as persisting over time was dangerously materialist, as it requires only self-awareness and makes no mention of a soul. Butler was among those of Locke’s contemporaries who took him to task; in the appendices to The Analogy of Religion, he accuses Locke of circularity, arguing that it is “self-evident that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity”. Watts summarises Butler’s argument (“Personall Identity to be determind as personal Similitude” (2Q3r)) and seems, in part at least, content with the thrust of this argument “Agt Mr Locke.” (2Q3r). He marks the passage on self-awareness through time on p. 306 “Lockes opinion answd”, and puts numerous dashes along the margin of the text. But he raises some objections to Butler’s arguments along the way – for example, against the idea that a person is aware of who they are from one moment to the next, he retorts “Qu: May not Madness make Nero think himself Hercules?”, suggesting that a person reporting upon themselves does

PROVENANCE

The importance of Watts’ annotated copy seems to have been recognised even at the time: a note to the rear endpaper reads: “I bought this book from Paterson Auctioneer London at the sale of the Library of Nathanael Neal Esq […] C.S. London March 1766”. Samuel Paterson (1728-1802) was a noted bookseller and auctioneer whose series of catalogues established him as a pioneer in the book auction trade. The ODNB says that he was “remembered by his contemporaries, such as Joseph Nollekens, as a great cataloguer and auctioneer […] [Samuel] Johnson wrote of him as ‘a man for whom I have long had a kindness’.” It therefore appears that, after Watts’ death in 1748, this book fairly quickly

found its way into Neal’s ownership and became part of an auction entitled The Genuine Library of Nathaniel Neal Esq., Solicitor in Chantry and Secretary to the Million Bank, Lately Deceased. Including Many Valuable Books, Chiefly English, held on 13-14 February 1766, where it was bought by “C.S.”, who, appreciating its significance, contextualises it in terms of Watts’ other work.

The endpaper note also records that the book “belonged originally to Dr. Isaac Watts whose name ^is in his own handwriting & also Notes in the Margin, exemplifying his directions in his book on the Improvement of the Mind”. Watts’ inscription (“I Watts. 1736 / Pret 8r:”) has been grafted to the front free endpaper – whether taken from another book or retained from the original endpapers is not clear, but the latter seems more likely, as the inscription and publication date are both 1736 (and, indeed, the purchaser clearly thought so). Either way, the marginal marks and annotations are in Watts’ distinctive hand throughout, exemplified by his eccentrically curlicued “ye”

MORE QUESTIONS

The relationship between reason and faith is, of course, far from resolved: in the final pages, Butler offers his “Conclusion but for Watts the questions keep coming. He even appears to query the role of Christ (at least in terms of the general argument), when he asks: “Why by a Mediation?” (2P3v) and “Again, why by a Mediator.” On the same page, he skirts the realms of scepticism: “Why Christty: not universally reveald? Why not stronger Evidence?” (2P4r). It is not clear from these remarks whether he is actually questioning the necessity of there being a mediator – Christ – between God and man or whether they are part of his overall strategy to anticipate opposing arguments.

Such questioning typifies Watts’ relentless logical engagement with Butler’s author helps sharpen his own thoughts and organise his own reasoning for future debate. Watts’ annotations deepen our understanding of the development of the ideas of one of the key figures of the 18th century and help to trace some of the nuances in a complex and long-running intellectual debate that endures to the present day. £9,500

[CHISHOLM, George]. 18th-century manuscript entitled ‘Memorandum Book for Nursery’.

[Scotland? Circa 1793]. Octavo (55 x 90 x 2 mm). Ink on paper. 14 text pages (plus a few lines to two pages) on eight leaves. Stitched into contemporary plain brown wrappers. Watermark: Pro Patria (obscured in upper edge of pages).

¶ This unusual Scottish “Memorandum Book for Nursery” records a year in the two-way flow of trees, shrubs and other plants, either delivered to the nursery or sold to its various customers and ranging from “10000 Scotts fir” (surely enough to create a woodland) to a single “Snowdrop”.

Exact provenance has proved elusive, but the names of people and places given throughout (“Coudenknow”, “Mr John Scott wright Selkirk”, “Mark Pringle Esqr Honing”, “Mr Dobson Sedler”) clearly locate the nursery in Scotland; indeed, the name of Chisholm is Scottish in origin, and Clan Chisholm is long-established in the Highlands.

The slim, unassuming notebook is home-made, with a cover made of pasteboard and simple stitched binding, creating an earthy feel that suits the subject matter of its contents. The title page inscription calls it a “Memorandum Book for Nursery 19th Novr 1793 For George Chisholm”

The phrasing of the inscription leads us to assume that “George Chisholm” is not the scribe, but the owner of the nursery on whose behalf the memos have been set down by an employee. Neither does the artefact’s rough-and-ready nature make it likely to be the main repository of accounts for the business, but rather an underling’s tally that would have been transcribed into a larger, more “official” volume. Sometimes it is unclear as to whether an entry concerns stock incoming or outgoing – again signifying an on-the-fly record with moments of opaqueness, but probably easily understood by its creator.

The first entry is fairly typical of what follows, with a year, name, date and location, and the kind and quantity of mostly indigenous plants involved: “1794 Kelso. Recd – from Mr Andr Lockie / March 7 – 3000 Seedling Birch / 2000 Dto La (?) / Mr Ormiston 27 – 6000 Thorns” (A1v). The “Recd”, along with the sizeable quantities, clarify that this is ‘stock’ being bought in. Similarly, a whole-page entry beginning “1793 Coudenknow / sent / Decr 9” lists “1000 Ashes / 500 Elms / 500 Beach / 1000 Larxe / 1000 Scotts Firr”, followed by “20” (i.e. 20th December) “1000 Oacks / 500 Elms / 500 Beachs / 500 Larxs / 500 Ashes / 1000 Scots fir”, and, on “Febr 8”, another “4800 Scotts firrs / 500 Elms / 500 Ashs”, on “15” another “500 Oacks / from Hawick / 500 Larxs”, on “21”, “500 Ashs / 500 Elms / 2600 Thorns”, and on “march 4 – 500 Spruce fir / 3000 Thorns” (A3v).

Elsewhere, the quantities help us to determine whether the consignment is incoming or outgoing: a person by the name of “Clearkson” is recorded as – we must assume – purchasing the likes of “6 Goosberrys / 2 Sweet Brair […] 1 Snowdrop” in “1794 Febr 5 – 6” (A4r); and “Mr Dobson Sedler” in “1794 […] / Janr 9”, buys a collection that includes “12 Gousberrys / 2 Hunysckles […] 4 Sweet Breairs”, then returns several times: on “march 13” to snap up “2 Apples 2 Polyanthes / 1 Areculus”, on “15” for “100 Beachs”, on “17” for “12 Curants”, and on “April 1” – 1 Gousberrys / Sume Deeses” (A4r).

Towards the end of the volume, the scribe records “Mens [and one woman’s] time of work” for the months March to June 1794. One “John patterson” appears to be the most regular employee, followed by “Ann Gillas”, “Petter Wright”, and others.

The use of flimsy materials and the haphazard arrangement of these cursory notes imply that this was an intermediate text which would likely have been discarded after its records were transferred to a more permanent volume. This rare survival, with its fleeting transactions, captures some of the movements of substantial quantities of plants transferred between century Scottish estates.

£1,250

Ref: 8191

MISCELLANY

[COLLINGWOOD, Margaret] Manuscript book of a Georgian woman’s reading.

[Circa 1804]. Quarto (244 x 192 x 35 mm). Contemporary green vellum, spine split, but stitching holding. Approximately 200 leaves. Ink on paper. Text to both sides to approximately 205 pages.

Watermark: Fleur de lis. Portal & Co.

¶ The widely read and bilingual “Margaret Collingwood” has inscribed “May 17th 1804” at the front of her manuscript selection of prose and poetry, filling just over half of the roughly 400 pages. She begins with “Character of Alfred”, taken (unattributed) from David Hume and Tobias Smollett’s History of England, and follows it with “Pliny to Calestrius Tiro”, a letter from the Roman writer concerning the death of a friend, and two linked pieces, “Of Henry the Second, and Thomas Becket” and “Of the murder of Thomas Becket” (from Oliver Goldsmith’s History of England.) By far the longest, at 130 pages and written in French, is “L’Histoire de France”.

She also includes extracts of classics and theology, and poetry by the likes of Robert Bloomfield ( Evening Sigh”

Friend”

is actually Cowper’s “The Faithful Bird”), Amelia Opie (“The Poor Hindoo”

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (

Her extensive reading preferences are all recorded in an accomplished copperplate hand. She has used a substantial quarto volume bound in green vellum – a style which was in vogue for a relatively short period from the end of the 18 century through to the beginning of the 19 century. It was probably sold as a blank stationer’s book, which she has neatly ruled in pencil. The contents are included without comment, but they amply demonstrate the reading habits and the educational level of some sections of Georgian Britain.

£850 Ref: 8165

NOTATION

[PENN, Richard (owner)] A highly unusual compilation of 18th-century chess gambits. [Italy and England? Circa 1780]. Octavo. Approximately 160 pages of text and chess notation on 126 leaves (some loosely inserted leaves). Bound in an Italian 18th-century panelled calf with elaborate gilt tooling, rubbed. Text block loose in binding, some leaves loose.

Watermarks: a few leaves with Horn above LVG (similar to Haewood 2736, which he dates after 1714); thereafter, the volume is a mixture of Horn above GR with countermark IV (Haewood 2754, 2756, and 2758 without countermarks, which he variously dates between 1754-1800; Haewood 2745 for countermark IV, but with L V Gerrevink, which he dates 1755) and Bird below an F (no exact match for this watermark, but Haewood, Briquet, and Gravell record similar papers as Italian).

The binding appears to be Italian, possibly a stationer’s binding. The first and final leaves are written in Italian on paper produced in Italy. The volume shows signs of having been augmented over time with the addition of English paper, and the text continues in Italian, French, and English – the latter increasingly predominating. It therefore seems probable that the volume was bought in Italy in the mid-18th century as a stationer’s blank book and augmented over the period of perhaps a decade – although by whom is far from certain, as we shall see.

Provenance: Bookplate of Richard Penn Jr. (1735-1811) to pastedown: Pennsylvania in a ribbon above a crest (on a wreath [argent and sable], a demi lion rampant argent, gorged with a collar, sable charged with three plates), Richard Penn beneath.

An inscription to the pastedown reads “Mr Rimington Wilson / Chess Library”. James Wilson Rimington Wilson “was well known for many years as an ingenious solver of problems, an industrious collector of fine (unpublished) games and the possessor of the best chess library in the world.”1 This library, which also contained sporting and gaming books, was sold at Sotheby’s in 1928, but in fashion that did posterity no favours: many of the books and manuscripts were grouped together into small lots, often with only the first title mentioned, making exact matching almost impossible except for some of the named items. Quaritch bought many of the lots and issued catalogues supplemented with books from other properties. Their catalogues were itemised but still brief. The closest reference we can find to our manuscript is: “949 Manuscript on Chess in English, Italian, and French. A Series of Games, etc., extracted from Carrera, Lolli, Salvio, &c. and the “Value and Chronicle of Players” in which most of the eminent players and writers are noted, from the earliest period to about 1640. 2 post 8vo. notebooks of 165 leaves, with a number of loose additions: eighteenth century Italian binding, richly gilt. 18th cent. [£]3 [s.]3 [d.]0”. We do not have a volume entitled “Value and Chronicle of Players”, so it may be that the two were separated, or that our manuscript either did not appear in the catalogue or is not clearly identifiable. However, their binding notes are similar, as is the reference to “English, Italian, and French”, so it seems likely they are one and the same.

INTRODUCTION

¶ Chess has been a source of fascination for well over a millennium. But as fascinating as it can be, it can also be a source of frustration for the unprepared. This remarkably rare 18th-century manuscript represents an early attempt to conduct a systematic study of a particular variation by drawing on multiple sources. But it also takes us beyond the private study of one individual and reveals a social world in which competition thrived through shared knowledge – a world at whose centre lay the nascent London Chess Club.

THE LONDON CHESS CLUB

The most exceptional chess player of the 18th century was François-André Philidor (1726-1795). Philidor travelled extensively throughout Europe improving his game against the likes of his countryman Legall de Kermeur, the Syrian Phillip Stamma, and his famous American friend, Benjamin Franklin. But from 1774 onwards, he was engaged to act as the chess teacher to an exclusive club based in Parsloe’s Club, London. This became known as the London Chess Club. It consisted of only 100 members, each of whom paid a subscription of two guineas; the proceeds were used to financially support Philidor. His talent for chess, his publications, and his role as a teacher, combined with his readiness to entertain (he would play simultaneous games blindfolded) have ensured that he is remembered as one of the great figures in chess history.

During the early years of the club, three London editions of Philidor’s Analyse du jeu des échecs were published (one was a translation into English and two were in the original French. ESTC: T119798, N53069, and T145116). Of these, T145116, was published by subscription and included a dedication to the chess club (“Aux très illustres et très respectables membres du club échecs ... A. D. Philidor à Londres 4 Juin, 1777”). This edition forms a vital part of our story. It is quoted in our manuscript and some of its subscribers feature prominently, as we can see from remarks such as “Very adventurs: Says Payne” (f18r), “Bad Says Payne falso Cozio. C.30. p.234” ((b)f22r). Lady and Lord Payne are both recorded as subscribers, as is “Bernard” whose name occurs several times in the manuscript. But one of the most frequent names to appear is “Barwell”. ‘Edward Barwell, Esq.’ and ‘Nath. Barwell Esq.’ are both listed among the subscribers (Barwell is discussed in more detail below). These names provide tantalising clues about the original club members, not least because Twiss in his book Chess, published 1787-89, mentions only a few of its strongest players.

The club itself seems to have become the catalyst for a step change in analysis and codification of the game. At least one member of the club, the mathematician George Atwood (1745-1807), is known to have recorded the games of Philidor and others in manuscript. It appears he was not alone: our manuscript demonstrates that, our compiler, not to mention Barwell,

CONTENT

This manuscript contains a detailed analysis of the main lines of the Bishop’s Gambit opening, which derives from the King’s Gambit (1 e4 e5. 2 f4 ef 3 Bc4). It brings together notes from Philidor’s 1777 edition and compares these with variations from printed and manuscript sources. As well as Philidor, among the most frequently mentioned are Alessandro Salvio (c. 1575 - c. 1640), apparently drawing from his La Scacchaide Tragedia (Lazaro Scorrigio in Naples. Re-published in 1618) or Il Puttino (1634. Republished in 1723); Pietro Carrera’s (1573-1647) Il Gioco degli Scacchi. (Militello. 1617); Carlo Cozio’s (c.1715-c.1780) Il giuoco degli scacchi (1766); Giambattista Lolli (1698-1769) and Philipp Stamma (1705-1755), as well as “Calabri” i.e. Gioachino Greco (1600-1634) and “Lopes” i.e. Ruy Lopez (1530-1580). These are juxtaposed with “Barwell”, whose name is referenced extensively throughout.

OPENING GAMBIT

The practice of compiling manuscript notebooks on opening theory only became a standard part of a grandmaster’s repertoire in the twentieth century, and more recently such explorations of opening variations have become an integral part of the offerings of subscriber chess websites. This manuscript is an early work along these lines: it marks an innovation whereby an already experienced player is attempting to record in writing and study a variation exhaustively from all possible sources, in order to better prepare themselves and to improve their practical chances against similarly skilled opponents.

The manuscript is arranged tete-beche. One end is entitled “Gambitt[s]” (prefaced by a brief section entitled “Considerazi.sa: Il Gambito Carrera M.C.XVII. p406”), and the other, “Gambitt[s] Refused”, making remarks to both sections along the way, like “Whether he takes or not tis all one since he can find no safe place”. Each line is meticulously recorded, noting player, game and page numbers, and many contain further annotations. For example, on f2v. he writes “1s. Gambett. [...] Carrera

L.V.I. C.IX. p.388 copio”, and compares sections of the gambit (e.g. from moves 10 to 12 and another working through from move 8 to 14), to which he adds his thoughts on the possible outcomes (“Phillidor 1st Gambt Else if – play

The BLK gives up 1 [...] Gambet besides a better situation wd have attack [...] This – is at Salvio p.21 [...] also Cozio p.390 3 Rec.g favor [...]How Wte might have playd ill.” On the following page (f3r), he writes “NB from Rege. 4t The Remorq. (b) p.243. [...] Lolli. Difesa il Gambito. P.220 C.XXI. Carrera. P.392. Rgr p.390 Ouuero”, presents variations “if the Blk. 9-12 [...] Salvio L.III.C.VI.”, and adds notes like “NB The above is 1st Game of Calebrius .146. wth the Defence p.149. wth this addition. There he fills up the blank of 1bLK [...] This p.391 above is [notation] Salvio Cap XX. P.22 [...] where he says tis best to play”. The scribe is clearly multilingual and moves from Italian, to French, and to English with ease, presumably guided by his sources.

During the eighteenth century, a number of different notations were employed, which eventually settled down around two different variants: the descriptive (P-K3; Kt-KB3 and so on), and the algebraic (e3, Nf3). The author of this manuscript when surveying his sources was faced with both of these, including the very clumsy and long-winded descriptive form employed by Philidor, and the early algebraic employed by Stamma. His answer was to use neither, but instead write in a form of shorthand, a partial key to which he himself includes

1 e4 e5

2 f4 ef

3 Bc4 Qh4 (+)

4 Kf1 d6

5 d4 g5

6 Nf3 Qh5

7 h4 Bh6

8 Kg1 g4

9 Ne1 Ne7

10 Nd3 f3

11 Nf4 Bxf4

12 Bxf4 Nc6

13 c3 Bd7

14 Nd2 fg

15 Kxg2 0-0-0

The secret to understanding this notation is to realise that the different signs of which it consists can be combined to elegant effect. Additionally, a superscript 1 or 2 after a pawn symbol means that the pawn moves forward one or two spaces, and just as in the descriptive system a symbol can be used to indicate either the destination square or the piece. The shorthand is unusual to our eyes today, but it is without a doubt a great advance on the Philidorian notation, and concise enough to record games, should that be required, as they are being played. The author himself is evidently thoroughly at home with it and writes quickly and accurately. The manuscript is persuasive evidence that, when writing the history of chess notation, we should take into account shorthand systems along with the more usual descriptive and algebraic.

BARWELL

What do we know of the mysterious Barwell who figures so prominently in this manuscript? Of the two Barwells mentioned among the subscribers to the 1777 Philidor, Edward is the more likely. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1751 (a year before Richard Penn, whose bookplate appears on the pastedown), and they were contemporaries at the House of Commons: Barwell served as a clerk there, and Penn as a Member of Parliament. Barwell was friends with Eva Maria Veigel (1724-1822)2 and with her husband, the actor-manager David Garrick (1717-1779), both of whom were chess enthusiasts, and Mrs Garrick’s name appears as a subscriber to the 1777 Philidor.

The numerous references to Barwell appear to stem from a manuscript either written by him, or in his possession. On f5v. following notation on the game (“Segue Salvio. C.III p.55 [king] Gambett”), a note reads: “NB (vid. Barwells Short hand MSS”, and on this same page he also records “Altrimte Barwl No 172”. This latter is representative of other similar notes which abbreviate Barwell’s name and state the game reference number. Barwell’s original “Barwells Short hand MSS” is probably now lost – certainly we can find no other references to it – but it is used continuously throughout this manuscript, both as the initial example and as an oft-mined source for variations on gambits (e.g. “Sequel Barw. No 122 – from here Autremt”, “Altrimte”, “Variation” – here as elsewhere, he switches easily between different languages).

WHO WROTE THE MANUSCRIPT?

The manuscript bears the bookplate of Richard Penn (1735-1811), the lieutenant governor of the Province of Pennsylvania from 1771 to 1773 who was later a member of the British Parliament. He was educated at Eton College and St John's College, Cambridge before joining the Inner Temple in in 1752. He was elected a trustee of the College and Academy of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) in 1772, serving as president of the board in 1773 and 1774. He returned to England in 1775.

We can find no record of Penn having an interest in chess. However, of his four children, Richard Penn, FRS (1784-1863) showed a notable aptitude for the game and an interest in writing in code. In 1829 he published On a New Mode of Secret Writing, on a ciphering system; and his Maxims and Hints for an Angler was published with Maxims and Hints for a Chess Player (London, 1833). The hand of our scribe, while bearing some resemblance, is not a close match for either Penn. Where similarities do occur, these seem more generic than specific, so the connection remains elusive.

One further possible figure for our compiler is the aforementioned George Atwood (1745-1807). He was educated at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge (M.A. 1772, Fellow 1770). Atwood was elected FRS in 1776 and won its Copley Medal in 1796. He was a friend, and highly rated amateur chess opponent, of Philidor, and was regarded as a pioneer in that he began to write down games by Philidor and others, at a time when it was unusual to record them. Indeed, it is partly due to Atwood that we have a good knowledge of Philidor today. But, as with Penn, while there are similarities to Atwood’s hand, we are not confident in ascribing it to him.

A tantalising note on f6v. reads “Segue my Variats. L preceedg page”raising the possibility that the author might be identified via their variation on the game. But whether our author is Atwood, Penn, or another as yet unidentified scribe, our manuscript, along with that to which it refers - the elusive Barwell’s “Short hand MSS” - demonstrates that others connected to the London Chess Club were stimulated to seek to codify and systemise. Equally interesting is its notation, and its attempt to draw upon multiple sources to produce an up-to-date opening compilation for individual use. To have a manuscript that epitomises the transformation of chess under Philidor at the London Chess Club at the end of the Eighteenth Century is a remarkable and important find.

£20,000 Ref: 8066

Sources:

1. “Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News”, Saturday 8th December 1877, p.22

2. http://www.davidgarrickhereford.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/1992-24_36-Mrs-Garricks-diary.pdf https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Atwood/ https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/the-man-who-saved-philidor

PRECEDENT BOOK

[SCOTTISH LAW]. 17th-century manuscript entitled ‘tyles of the most usual and Important Securities of and Concerning Rights personal & real, Redeemable & Irredeemable, used by and Conforme to the Laws & practique of The Kingdom of Scotland’.

[Scotland. Circa 1699]. Small quarto (205 x 163 x 19 mm). Pagination [18], 248 numbered pages. Ink on paper in a legible English mixed hand. Disbound, lacking covers. Water staining throughout, especially to the title page. Fore margins of pp.203248 charred with loss of text, but not of sense.

Provenance: 18th century ownership inscription to final text page in a difficult hand: “Liber Davidson”(?).

PRECEDENTS

¶ The standard printed manual of legal stiles (or precedents) for the early modern Scottish lawyer was George Dallas’s System of Stiles (1697), a formidable folio of no fewer than 904 pages. Walter Ross referred to it as the ‘vast opake body’ of the work, and described how the hearts of apprentices ‘failed within them, when presented, in the Writing-office, with such a frightful volume of arid, naked, unintelligible Forms’. (ODNB).

No wonder, then, that some legal professionals chose to compile their own books of precedents. This comprehensive but handy quarto volume, written in a clear and legible hand, could be easily consulted by any legal professional. Its general arrangement and mis en page resemble a printed book: the title page announces its intentions, varies the sizes of the lettering, and ends with a line aping an imprint; and all is neatly arranged within a decorative border. Single-line bordering is continued throughout the volume. The preliminary sections “The Writters Preface”, and “An Table of the Styles and others Contained in the following Collection” are unnumbered, and the main body of the text is numbered in the upper margins. The “Dictionary” mentioned in the subtitle is arranged in double columns (pp201-218).

WRITTEN AGREEMENTS

This volume was “Collated, digested and written Anno 1699” – two years after Dallas’s publication, which is reckoned the first Scottish book of precedents. But the anonymous scribe of this volume makes no reference to Dallas, which suggests that offices continued to compile their own reference works independent of printed publications. Instead, this scribe, in the “Preface”, identifies their antecedent in the very beginnings of written agreements: “In the first Ages of the World there appears to have been greater simplicity and ingenuity behind nations and amongst particular families and persons in the Commerce, and transmission of rights to Land and other goods from one to another then there is now”.

Our scribe reaches back through human history to establish a precedent for the very notion of written agreements. For all their supposed “simplicity”, people could not “trust one anothers bare words or verball promises”, and the Bible (“Genesis cap.23 v.16.17. and 20”) cites an early example of the art of conveyancing in the story of “Ephron with the Cave and trees in the field” in which his “Right to the field was transmitted [...] both by writ and other outward deeds”. The need for “some other outward art” beyond the spoken word was compounded “as nations and kingdoms grew more populous and polite, and their

Commerce and trading with others and amongst themselves did increase”, which further underscored the vital importance of legally binding agreements in the form of “written Evident, Chiro graphy, hand writting”.

For any such system to work it was of course vitally important that agreements be regulated and the forms agreed upon; and this manual was created to supply examples. But even where there is concord between people, there will be those who wish to subvert the system. As “nations and kingdoms grew more populous and polite”, societies became more sophisticated and so, too, did methods of subverting or evading the rules which support such societies. Indeed, according to our scribe, some of the very institutions which help sustain complex societies can also be used to subvert them for personal ends (“As also the progress the learning by the erecting of universities and schools and the Arts therein taught specially the logicke, whereby subtilty, deceit, and fraud full Contrivances did increase more and more, and yet under the collour of right and fair dealling”). But “Law givers” could offer some protection against such sophistries through the exercise of the written law: “these writtings and securities, that all these frauds, and deceits might be forseen, prevented and guarded against”. The models for such measures are provided here in “these writtings”.

The use of the word “styles” for precedents, together with numerous other Scottish words, indicates an ancestry which is confirmed in the sentence: “And now to come home to this our nation of Scotland”. The scribe goes on to describe a country where “before the Reformation in this kingdom from popery, As Churchmen did almost wholly, restrict Learning and the Liberall arts to themselves, and assumed the whole power in spirituall, so likewise they took upon themselves to be judges in Civill matters”. Their stranglehold on power was exercised in their capacity as “publick nottars and drawers of securities and instruments”. Furthermore, “nottars were admitted and had their dependence on Bishops and the pope, and therefore to this day, nottars usually design themselves of such a bishoprick or precinct”

REFORMING THE LAW

Following the Reformation, “when Learning and the Liberall arts come to be more publick and free to all, secular as well as others”, power was wrested from the “Churchmen [who] were most rightly tyed up to matters Sprituall and Ecclesiasticall” and “affairs of Civill and wordly concerne left to the laity or secular men, bred up at schools and with those professing the Law, such as Judges, Advocates, propriators, writters to the signel Clerks and nottars”.

This process of Scottish secularisation created the need to educate professionals outside the spiritual realms; and while the author inveighs against some of the sophistries of university teaching, especially “logicke”, it is not learning itself that troubles him; rather it is what is being taught (“subtilty” and “deceit” rather than the firm ground of legal precedent).

Our scribe concludes by commending the volume’s contents, both as a corrective to this educational malpractice and as a reference tool that can stand comparison with its peers: “their styles seems to be as exact, new and formall, as well as methodicall in distinct titles and chapters as any extant”. It is certainly true that, although this manuscript was compiled shortly after Dallas’s publication, it is more concise and readily useable than its printed counterpart.

CONTENTS

The contents are neatly summarised on the title page (detailed and indexed contents are also provided in the preliminary section):

1. A Collection of Speciall & Singular Clauses through all securities, Alphabetically digested.

2. Symbolls and Solemnities used for the perfecting and Consumating of these writs and rights.

3. The order of the Chancellary, and the styles of writs that are issued therefrom.

4. A Dictionary Latine and English of the most matteriall words in Charters, Leasing &c.

5. Clauses of writs and their import by the Decisions of the Lords of Session.

6. Also their Decisions as to the Solemnities & formalities Requisit in Law and by Municipal custome, for making writs and securities valid, binding and effectual. With an Act of Parliament Concerning probative writs and instruments & an Act of Sederunt Anent Nottars.

COLLECTIONS

The earliest extant style book is that by compiled by Oliver Colt (NAS RH13/2), circa 1600. Style books compiled before the Act of Union include one at Edinburgh University by William Lindesay of Culsh, c.1685 (MS 3066/7); one at the University of Glasgow: one circa 1695 (GB 247 MS Murray 554); and a circa 1685 at Yale University (Boswell Collection, Box 156, folder 2854), which belonged to James Boswell.

Style books continued to be compiled into the 19th century, but this manuscript was written during an interesting period in Scottish law. Eight years later, the Act of Union was declared, and although Scotland retained a different legal system from England, the English were the dominant party in the Union and exerted their influence upon Scots law.

The compiler and scribe of our manuscript demonstrates a passionate belief in the importance of codified laws and their correct practice, while also conveying a keen sense of the national – ie Scottish – context in which he is writing. His borrowing of the format of a printed work, with title page, preface and a list of contents, also suggests the need to “codify” these precedents into a framework that carries authority (hence, perhaps, the preface with its largely unnecessary apologia) and aligns in form and function with the printed resources being published around the same time.

£2,250 Ref: 8205

RECEIPTS

[STEVENSON, Thomas; ADAMSON, Mrs]. 17th-century household book of accounts and recipes. [Scotland, Leith. Circa 1656-1738]. The manuscript spans two centuries and is written in several different hands. Most of the text was written between 1656 and 1672. Quarto (210 x 180 x 28 mm). Contemporary full sheep, with evidence of missing ties. Approximately 150 text pages on 173 leaves, plus 6 cut-down leaves and four loose leaves. Many leaves frayed at edges and neatly repaired using Japanese paper. Watermark: Coat of Arms (similar to Haewood 661).

“ME MOTHER CAUSES ME”

¶ Around the year 1656, the Scottish merchant Thomas Stevenson reports that “me mother Causes me to keep count of this pees”

borders of geography and genre, capturing the lively early modern world in all its messiness, riskiness, and uncertainties, before settling down to the more comfortable grounded

Leith near Edinburgh in the mid 150 miles away in Cumberland. The abundance of names within provides many threads to follow, and the disparate themes and subjects represented by the book’s entries over time are united in their universality: family, money, land, health, death.

The volume begins as an account book: outgoings at the front, income (or at least itemised money owed) at the back. Although these are inaugurated by Thomas Stevenson, they also reach one generation back, and show the influence of his mother.

Stevenson was a merchant in Leith, Scotland, to judge by several of his entries ( janwari i659 / Att fowrtine Dayes sight (or so soone after as you shall be enabled by receat of moneyes for the use of the forces in Scotland) be pleased to payunto Mr Thomas Charles the somme of fowrscore poundes” including linen and drapery, household goods (including toothpicks and cases”

London traders, and his 73 pages of accounts at the front of the volume a record of items ste[ 1656”

Compasese at 2

“4 pear bellowes at 15

Having decided that “I having a minde to goe to London” he keeps “a generall accompt of my compt bookes billes and baudes”. He picks up small items from “William Wathing Pinmaker att the Singh of the Whyte Lyon neire St Tooles church in Souwthwork agust 31 1658”, but mainly he deals in large quantities of cloth. Among his many suppliers are “Thomas Clark and Richard fford”, from whom, on “2 of September 1658”, he purchases goods – such as “i5 yeardes ½ of Light gray cloath”, “i6 yeardes of black cloath”, and “45 yeardes of Scarlet Deuonshyre baise” – for which the total bill is a not

inconsiderable “86 – 13 – 00”. Another, totalling “ii3 – 02 – 10” for items “Bought off Mark Coe”, includes “½ ps of single Lyon vermillion” and “scarlet padwa”. Away from the hardware and linen departments, Stevenson runs up a relatively small bill (“07 – i8 – 00”) with “Richard Stephenes the 3i of Agust1658” in acquiring sundry everyday items, among them “2 grosse of Tooth picke of wood”, “½ grosse of Ivory with some ear picke”, “½ grosse of speckticle cases””, “Ivory Sone Dialles” and “silver belles”

Buying stock in this way would have entailed a hefty outlay, and there are indications that Stevenson had some cashflow assistance from his mother. In a shorter accounts section at the back of the book, he records that have payed my mother that

day which I gote threed which was on the 12 day of September 1676” times goods and cash seem to have flowed both ways (“my mother has payed me this above written Acompt”). As well as dispensing accounting advice the Stevenson matriarch seems also to have been influential in his maritime trade: “My mother has given me ane Asignatione to a renditione of ane 64 part of James Casselles ship which is in Jonat Vaitches name this being the first of the product that I have gotten of it this last vaige 1676”.

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Commerce makes way for a different kind of exchange when another late 17th-century hand takes over to set down nearly 14 pages of remedies, entitled “Some receits Copyed out of Mr Ja: dalr: book”. Conditions to be treated range from the perennial (“the tooth ach”, “pimples of the fase”, “the Collick”, “diabetes or over mutch pissing”) to the seasonal (“For sun burning Anoint the face with hares blood”) and to some of the scourges of pre modernity (“the rickets”, “the Scurvie” – several remedies for each – as well as “the crewels and waxon kirnels” (scrofula and lymphatic tumours)). In the latter category, “Consumptione” appears to be of particular concern, with at least five remedies included; some vary by symptom (“a Consumptione or decay in the Inward parts”, “a Consumptione in the Lights”), some stand out for the detail in their instructions (“Asses milk is very good, but not if it be in the labour”). The remedies include clear, user-friendly directions, such as “Take of Lintseed, and fennigreek, of the roots of althea, of each a little Boyle it in water”; after straining this through a cloth, “mixe it with fresh butter, and anoynt the chylds breast therwith”. Equal clarity characterises the treatment for “Ane Electorary for Melancholy Vapores from the Splain”, for which you take several readymade ingredients (“Conserve of Rosemary flowers, conserve of bettony flowers, of each of them ane ounce” and “make all this up together in forme of ane Electuary, with a little quantitie of the syrope if green ginger”. The patient may “take it at any tyme day or night, where yow find thes vapores arysing from the splain”

SCOTTICISMS

Besides Stevenson’s location of himself in Leith, the volume’s provenance is also evident in the use, in his and others’ hands, of several Scottish terms: the frequent use of “ane” for the indefinite article, for instance, and the inclusion of several remedies “ffor the kinkhost” (whooping cough), as well as one “For the Gilsay” (perhaps meaning “gulsoch”, or jaundice). This suggests that the book remained in Scotland, perhaps being used by another family member, until at least the early 18th century.

BORDER CROSSING

By 1699 it has probably – and by 1738, it has certainly –migrated south to Cumberland, presumably in the possession of a descendant of Stevenson. In a 10-page section dated “April the 3d 1738”, the writer has their own accounting to – one recording “all the Hedges and ditches, and by whome was made time out of mind at my Estate in great Crosthwaite. also what I am to pay by less for every Twenty shillings that is raised and paid in the Cunstablewick of underskiddow”. They emphasise that the arrangement was “first setled by a Sessions order about 40 years since”, before outlining how, “in the year 1699”, they “took in and hedg’d about it that peice of ground Lieing south west below my Low Laith. I had no disturbance from any of my Neighbours when I took it in. If any disturbance had then been made, I could have proved suffitiently my right to it, now all dead it can never be now taken from me or my haires.”. Their lengthy pacing-out of the property borders ends with the “Value and Acres of said Closes”, totalling “37 acres” at “29 – 0”.

The impression one gets of someone keen to establish the facts of the matter is reinforced by a two-page narrative in the same hand recounting events a decade earlier: “An accot wt happen’d between Mr John Tubman and my self”, describing a dispute with Mr Tubman that involves a debt, imprisonment, and an uneasy agreement.

PROVENANCE

The book’s first user, “Thomas Stevenson”, has inscribed the book several times. There are several loose-leaf sheets including a brief note recording place names (“House where Nanny Lives”, “brew house”, “runing acre”) which is in the same hand as the section on hedge boundaries but inscribed in a different hand “Jackson Law”. Another loose page, which appears to be the same paper as the book, is inscribed “Sarah Law’s book, Whitehaven Feb 11th 1793 – Events recorded by Mary Mark the daughter of the above” and a valuation of Joseph Mark Farm at Great Crosthwaite. An undated but probably 19th-century inscription to the inner front board reads “Mrs Adamson Book Given by Mr Lindsay”. More recently, it was in the possession of Sir Percy and Lady Hope of Keswick.

CONCLUSION

Receipts, defined by the OED as “something received; the amount, sum, or quantity of something received”, are here presented in several forms: advice, financial, and recipes. Interestingly, at least the first two are provided by Thomas Stevenson’s mother as the book was beginning its journey across time and geography.

As the volume has passed from one hand to another, crossings-out, cropped pages, and little asides (“acompt of the linnings which is in the coffer in the studie upon the 19 day of June 1676”) all serve to underscore the impression of the early modern world in ever-changing flux and flow; this sense of movement and shifting viewpoints is further accentuated by the book’s long history which records brief interactions from the 18th to the 19th century, culminating in recent, well-intentioned and professionally executed, but visually challenging preservation work.

£9,500 Ref: 8161

REINVENTING

RADCLYFFE, William (1770-1828); RITTERSHAUSEN, Nicolaus. Genealogiæ imperatorum, regum, ducum, comitum, præcipuorumque aliorum procerum orbis Christiani : deductæ ab anno Christi MCCCC. continuatæ ad annum MDCLVIII. [with] extensive manuscript tabulated genealogies and biographical notes.

Tubingæ [i.e. Tübingen]: Impensis Johannis Georgii Cottæ, 1664. Third edition. [Manuscript notes circa 1800-25]. Folio. Pagination. Volume 1: [16], and [120] double leaves of genealogical tables; volume 2: [4], [92] double leaves of genealogical tables. Bound in early-19th-century russia, with marbled endpapers, upper cover detached and with worm trail, chipped and rubbed.

Manuscript biographical notes and tables to approximately 300 pages, plus 7 tipped-in notes and a three-page manuscript index at end.

Provenance:

[1]. William Radclyffe (1770-1828), Rouge Croix Pursuivant, College of Arms, his armorial bookplate to verso of ffep. and manuscript notes to over 300 pages.

[2]. William Noel-Hill, 3rd Baron Berwick of Attingham Park, Shropshire (1773-1842), with his bookplate (crest: On a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, an eagle, wings extended or, preying on a child proper, swaddled gules in a cradle, laced or. with motto beneath: “Sans changer”) to pastedown.

The book was sold at the Sotheby’s sale of Lord Berwick’s library (1843) where it was described as “Lot 954 Genealogiæ Inperatorum (sic), Regum, Ducum, Comitum, a Ritterhusio, with copious additions in MS. by Radcliffe Rouge Croix Tubingæ, fol. 1664.”1 It was bought by

[3] Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby (1775-1851), who has inscribed the ffep “Purchased by Boone May 1st. 1843 at Ld Berwick's Sale Lot 954

2l.2s - for me Derby Knowsley.” A second inscription records the book’s new location at “Knowlsey Private Library/West Division/East Bookcase/Shelf 1 No. 7.”

Boone mentioned in the first inscription is probably the bookseller, William Boone (fl. 1825-1848) of 480 Strand, London and later 29 New Bond Street, London2. He is known to have purchased at least two other lots: “Lot 137 Banks, Thomas Dormant and Extinct Baronage, 4 vols. bds. 4to 1807-37” (for 1l. 11s), and “Lot 2896 Yorkshire :- Pedigrees and Arms of Families of Yorkshire, with drawings in trick, bound in russia, Manuscript. fol. n.d.”3 .

Note: Radclyffe has numbered the pages inconsistently. To avoid any confusion, we have opted instead for referencing by continuous foliation.

¶ Heraldry is one of the most obvious forms of social construct: it takes for its foundation such mythical notions as the exceptionalism of “old families”, when even an elementary grip on genetics teaches us that all families reach back into the dim and distant past (whether they have a paper trail or not), and birth, marriage and death are common – indeed, inevitable – occurrences in all of them. In order to continue their grip on power and land, pedigrees are created and handed down to descendants wrapped in argot and orders by scriveners who create the heraldic “paper (or vellum) trails” so crucial to the maintenance of heraldry’s structures.

But while it may be easy to poke fun at its fictional foundations, heraldry has very real effects in the social and political realms. And like many forms of classification, it affects the way those within the group think of themselves. So, it should be no surprise that its exponents wish to maintain its power structures, and that others attempt to worm their way in. Such is the case with this artefact which may well be considered an exhibit in an early-19th-century case centring on a forged pedigree by the heraldic scrivener, William Radclyffe, once Rouge Croix Pursuivant of the College of Arms.

Radclyffe was the book’s first inscribed owner, and the uses to which he put its blank pages are striking in light of his lat rather, contemporaneous) transgression. Indeed, it is partly the ‘blank space’ to which so many early biographies were consigned that enables Radclyffe to construct this false branch of his family tree.

RISE AND DESCENT

Radclyffe began as a shopkeeper and confectioner in Oxford Street between 1790 and 1795, when his sister’s marriage to an elderly but wealthy man enabled him to retire from commerce and pursue an interest in genealogy and heraldry. Having gained access to the records of the College of Arms via an acquaintance, in 1801 he produced a pedigree deriving him from Anthony Radclyffe of Blanchard, Northumberland, and via this connection, establishing his descent from the Lords Derwentwater. In 1803 the Duke of Norfolk nominated him Rouge Croix Pursuivant, and he built a considerable reputation as a genealogist.

Over a decade later, beginning in 1816, Radclyffe’s pedigree, which had been registered at the College of Arms, was the subject first of doubts, then of an investigation. An entry in a parish register recording a marriage in 1640 – involving one Rosamund Swyft, and upon which Radclyffe’s pedigree chiefly hung – was found to be forged, and the culprit identified as Radclyffe himself. He was fined and imprisoned, and surrendered his patent as Rouge Croix, although the disgrace that followed could not completely eclipse his reputation as a genealogist: after his death, the College of Arms approached his widow to request his manuscript collections, but this volume, despite its importance, seems to have escaped notice.

Ritterhausen’s book comprises a series of tabulated genealogies of earlier kings, emperors, and rulers, but do not directly touch upon Radclyffe’s enquiries; his choice of Rittershausen’s volume appears to have been driven by the quantity of blank pages that he could fill with his own work. His motivations for so doing are, at this distance, inscrutable, but given the strong suggestion (as we shall see) of a nefarious purpose to some of his writings here, it’s at

least possible that he intended to evade detection by hiding his notes in an unprepossessing volume. If he did, it worked, because when the College of Arms sought his manuscripts, this vital piece of evidence – which may fill a blank space in the chronology of his pedigree-forging – apparently went

BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS

Radclyffe’s manuscript consists mostly of genealogical notes and tabulated descents of British families. They begin quite generally, with four pages of genealogical tables entitled “The Decent of the Ancient Kings of Brittain” (copied from Geoffrey of Monmouth), then become more specific as he tabulates the pedigrees of various noble British families assembled from other printed and manuscript sources. For example, there are seven pages of notes and tables including “Kings of Burgundy”, “Earls of Anjou”, “Kings of Scotland”, the Earls of Huntingdon, Chester, and Northampton, and the (i.e. Balliol) Kings of Scotland (the latter from “Dugdale’s Barone. 523”). He provides tables replete with armorial shields for the “Northern Barons &c”, which are “Ex Nicholson & Burn’s Hist. of Cumb. &c” (i.e. Joseph Nicholson and Richard Burn’s The History and Antiquities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland. London, 1777), and he augments these with notes from “Dugdale Baronage & My Old Peerages”. Tables with armorial shields and roundels are also provided for “Clare’s Earls of Glocester, Clare, & Hetford” and “Barons Fitzwalter”. Within the roundels he occasionally cites sources, including “Dugdale”, “Vincent” and “Mills”, together with several page references to manuscript pedigrees he has completed on later pages. Other sources include copies of legal documents (wills, indentures), and epitaphs (one of which is illustrated with gravestones (f89r)); Glover is referenced (e.g. “Glo: Coll: B.30. P.22. 65”) and the Harleian Manuscripts are frequently mentioned.

ARMS

Notes such as these do lend weight to the notion that Radclyffe was a capable genealogist, but the volume’s most compelling aspects lie elsewhere: his treatment of the Barons of Kendal is curiously elaborate and attentive. He begins with a full-page shield (divided into 20 panels) and two crests, and continues with genealogical tables that include roundels and shields, the latter hand-coloured. Radclyffe’s motivation for such a luxurious presentation soon becomes clear: the second page of tables charting the Barons of Kendal, once they reach the 15th century, segues into the Radcliffe family and provides our scribe with the earliest piece of evidence for his own pedigree – and our first piece of evidence for his intentions in writing this manuscript.

Radclyffe seems to have executed much of the work in 1800, a not insignificant fact bearing in mind that he produced his dubious pedigree a year later: there are numerous references to people living in that year (“Thomas Biddulph Clerk nm. Bristol now living Sepr. 1800”; “Robert Forster [...] now living in the Army 2nd Novr. 1800” (f64v); “George Smith alias Marechale […] now living in London & attested this Pedigree be true 18 July 1800” (f52v)). But the full time span of his work on the manuscript extends over several decades. He was convicted in March 1820, but continued working at the house he was apparently given by the College of Arms until they finally ejected him in summer 1823. Despite this ignominy, we can see from his manuscript notes that he lost none of his assiduity and continued his antiquarian studies after this date (“William Perkin only son & heir born 9 Oct 1807 died unmarried17 January 1825” (f58v); “Hannah Milnes sole heir of her father married to Walker sometime of Round Green now of Upper Woodhall W. Barfield 1825” (f59r)).

This earnest pursuit of true lineage far outweighs Radclyffe’s more perfidious acts, but one’s attention is naturally drawn to evidence of the latter. Three pages (which are all referred to as p60 in the manuscript) are of particular interest: these contain the genealogy and biographical details of the Swyft family, which served as the raw material for his fraudulent pedigree. The tabulated genealogy extends to Mary (“living 1st Febr. 1644”), and Rosamund, whose brief details are: “born after 1612. Youngest Daughter. was” (f126v). This truncated entry, so expressive of the frequent sparseness of detail concerning the lives of early-modern women, also illustrates how this biographical vacuum allowed Radclyffe to “fill in the blanks” and continue Rosamund’s story in a way that suited his purposes. What gives this blank space added intrigue is that text has been carefully erased leaving a “ghost text” of what was probably Radclyffe’s original contrived connection.

Radclyffe’s creation of a fictitious line of descent for himself seems beyond question; what drove him to blot his escutcheon in such a manner is less clear. But the timing of the bulk of his manuscript notes and the areas of concentration and detail make a compelling case for further study.

£2,750 Ref: 8129

References

1. Catalogue of the ... library, and ... collection of heraldic and historical manuscripts, the property of ... William lord Berwick, which will be sold by auction. By William Noel- Hill (3rd baron Berwick.) Sotheby’s. 1843. <https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ Catalogue_of_the_library_and_collection/HTdbAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0>

2. NeC4667-8778 - Papers of Henry Pelham-Clinton, 4th Duke of Newcastle under Lyne (1785-1851), in the Newcastle (Clumber) C < https://mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk/DServe/TreeBrowse.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=NeC4667-8778%2F6186>

[STRATTON, Mrs] Manuscript collection of household recipes and remedies.

[London, Whitechapel and Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Circa 1690 vellum, marbled endpapers, in good condition. Approximately 150 recipes in total of various dates and lengths, including household and medicinal prescriptions.

GATHERING

¶ This peculiar artefact gathers loose-leaf recipes from the late 17 through to the middle of the 19th century, using as its ‘base’ a repurposed 19th-century farm accounts book. How the collection came to be assembled in this way, by whom, and for what purpose, amount to an interesting puzzle: the haphazard arrangement of the pasted recipes confounds any notions of orderliness, and several references and signs of interaction give a tantalising impression that these are the remnants of a ‘paper trail’ – one that it would take further research to attempt to follow.

PROVENANCE

The two strongest clues to the volume’s past are references to members of the Stratton and Fuller families (with dates ranging from the 18th to the 19th century), and the object itself which – in its first incarnation – records I” (covering 1822 to 1823) of the “Accounts of Hundridge Farm”, located near Chesham, Buckinghamshire.

The earliest dated item is a loosely inserted letter, dated “Nottingham April ye 7 1733” and addressed to “Mrs Stratton Att the sign of the blue Anchour In wight Chappel a littel withing the Barrs London”. Mrs Stratton’s “Sincear Cousin M R” begins by expressing mild frustration at the delivery service (“your letter was dated the 3 so whear thay had been wandring all the time I cannot tell for a tradesman in the towen brought them to me”), and among the solicitous messages she mentions a “Mr Battson” who “gives his servis to you”. The letter is docketed in a different hand “Severall Wine Recipes in this Letter”,

helping to explain its preservation here. A later 18th-century recipe (pasted in rather “Barley Meal”, “Potatoes”, and “4 red Herring”, has the name written vertically across the entry, and a 19th-century letter is also addressed to a Mrs Stratton, so the recipes evidently remained in the Stratton family

Contemporaneous with the later Stratton letter is a loosely inserted “Receipts for Mrs Fuller”, sent by “Miss Lucas” providing our next clue to how the recipes came to travel from

CITY TO COUNTRY

The Strattons and Fullers were linked by the marriage of Mary 1831) and the Rev. John Fuller (?-1825) of Chesham, who together had three children: John, Stratton and Benjamin 1. The Stratton name was continued in their second son’s name; and John Stratton Fuller of Hunderidge-in-Chesham is recorded as a juror in a midcentury trial 2. It is unusual for the woman’s birth name to be perpetuated like this, but perhaps the fact that the Strattons were wealthy London merchants had some bearing on the decision.

THE ARTEFACT

Most of the accounting entries have been obscured by the recipes, which show no sign of any attempt to order them: it is as if one of the Stratton/Fullers has scooped up over a century’s worth of recipes and stuck them randomly into an unrelated volume simply to prevent any being lost.

This presents a conundrum for the latter-day researcher: any attempt to group recipes by subject fails to capture the date; and establishing a chronological order is made challenging by the difficulty of discerning the watermarks. Dating contiguous recipes is also hard because they are scattered throughout the book. However, we can focus on the few more certain dates, in order to highlight some of the contents.

THE RECIPES

The earliest two recipes are pasted near the end of the volume (f85v), both written in a late-17th-century secretary hand and both giving very similar directions as to “How to make an oyntment yt is good for a bruse or broken bone”. The ingredients comprise mainly “butter Clarified”, and herbs (including “Cowslips blasums”, “aderstounge”, “elder:leaues”, “Camamile”) with “halfe pint of brandy halfe apound of Capens : grease” instruction: “according to ye quantity you make you must obserue two put to euery pound if butter two handfulls of each of those hearbs” “Severall Wine Recipes” in the 1733 letter mentioned above include instructions for “Sack Mead”, “Orange Wine”, “orange aile” “Balm wine”. A note at the end of the letter reads “I hope you will excuse me for troubling you with so many receipts if ^ use of them it tis but giuing them the reading though I beleiue thay ar pretty good of the kinde”, annotated est”.

Other 18th-century recipes include Wine Mr Gibson”

“My Fathers Receipt for Cholick Water”

a loosely inserted bifolium (watermark: Pro Patria; countermark GR) which gives a method for “Papering” the first page and detailed instructions for “Varnishing” over three pages. Elsewhere, one of two pasted-in recipes for “Lavender Water” is dated “October 15, 1788” (f19v); and an undated but probably 18th-century recipe for “Orange Wine” (f15r) is written in a copperplate hand with a pasted-over ascription to “Mr Rumsey”, in a sloping, but less refined italic (this latter hand has copied out the recipe again in full, and it has been pasted to a later page (f37v)).

The inclusion of this duplicate is not an isolated instance: the recipe beginning “To every 5 pounds of flour add one pound of Rice”, ascribed to “T Johnes Hafod” (presumably the Welsh antiquarian Thomas Johnes of Hafod (1748-1816)), has also been copied out twice, but in two different hands, presumably with the intention of passing one on to another cook. This branch of a network of exchange may have been inadvertently truncated, but others survive, in the form of further attributions: there are references to “Universal Magazine Septbr 1811”, “Monthly Mag. May 1810”, “Dr Kitchener”), as well as to individuals (“Molly Webbs Chesecakes”, “Ginger Wine for immediate use […] from Mr “Baume de Vie”, annotated in pencil “Miss Brant”).

GATHERING UP

The lack of an organising principle or an index in this volume make it resistant either to culinary consultation or to scholarly interpretation. There is, however, ample evidence that the Strattons were active participants in a culture of exchange; and these gathered sheets perhaps represent the source material for a more user-friendly volume now lost, but once part of a wider network of copying, sharing, and recopying.

£2,000 Ref: 8189

1. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/ view/542705:2972?

tid=&pid=&queryId=bb8483532a958ac0900db222e197688d& _phsrc=KvK641&_phstart=successSource

2. http://nixey.one-name.net/chapter4.html

TABULATION

[CULINARY MSS] 18th-century culinary manuscript.

[Circa 1780]. Quarto (200 x 165 x 20 mm). Ink on paper. 124 leaves. [11pp tabulated index], 35 pages of recipes; [14pp tabulated index], 10 pages of remedies. Contemporary full vellum, bowed and some marking, probably a stationer’s book. Late 18th-century watermark: Britannia, with “Pro Patria Eiusque Libertate” in an oval border; countermark: Crowned GR.

¶ Perhaps in anticipation of the many recipes to be collected, curated, and cooked, our scribe has meticulously fashioned manuscript tabulated indexes from the leaves at each end of this stationer’s volume. But it seems their plans were curtailed we know not why since they have added just 58 recipes on 26 pages at one end, and it was left to another to continue the work. This second scribe has added another 10 pages of culinary recipes and a similar number of remedies at the opposite end, before they, too, abandoned it, possibly in favour of another book: the remedy for “Surfeit Water” is annotated “see Fol 2”, indicating that this volume functioned within a wider group of books in an ongoing process of writing, revising, and transferring.

The earlier recipes are mostly culinary. Savoury dishes (“To Pott Beef”, “To pickle Mushrooms”, “Pulled Chicken”, “To Pickle Sliced Cowcumbers”, “Oyster Pie”) are listed alongside desserts (“Flummery”, “Almond Pudding”). Fruit is a frequent feature, but usually in combination with sugar to make preserves (“To preserve Apricocks Dry”, “Jam of Damsons”, “Peaches in Brandy”, “Apricock Marmalade”), cakes and puddings (“To make an Orange Pudding”, “Lemon Sylabubs”, “Orange toasts”), or wine (“Rasberry Wine”, “Orange Wine”). Other recipes include “To pickle Lila an Indian Pickle” and “a lean Soup”, and there are a few remedies interspersed among the comestibles including “Spermæ Ceti Emoltion”, “Red Surfeit Water” and “The Great Specifick” which is “good for any wound, burn, or Chilblain”.

A few of the recipes are ascribed (“Mrs Ironmonger”, “Mrs Jocelyn”, “Mrs Bridges”), but we find no other clues to the compiler’s identity. Whoever they were, they were quite diligent, numbering and indexing every item. The second scribe, however, has started a new organisational system, numbering pages rather than individual recipes, with the result that page 1 begins on what would otherwise have been page 28. Their contributions include a mixture of culinary recipes and remedies (“For a Consumption”, “To dry Cherries”, “To Make Custards”), but these continue only to page 9, which they have entered into the index. The numbering continues to 64, before the volume is flipped tete-beche-style and the numbering restarted at the opposite end with a new tabulated index of its own. They have also introduced a second level of ordering by beginning to group their entries into sections of remedies (“Surfeit Water”, “To make Bitters”) and desserts (“Blumange”, “Shasburry Cakes”, “Lemonade”), with blank pages between. But they, too, have abandoned the book before too long (approximately 10 pages), so that, save for the optimistic page numbering, the remainder of the volume comprises blank leaves.

The scrupulous ordering and recording of the earlier section, and its neat, italic hand, together with the reference to another volume, suggest that this was to be a display volume which collected recipes from other, more heavily used cookbooks in the same household, neatly and precisely illustrating their taste and judgement.

TÊTE-BÊCHE

[CRUMUELL, Mrs] Late 17th-Century Manuscript of Culinary Recipes and Household Remedies.

[Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Circa 1690-1700]. Octavo (148 x 95 x 13 mm). Approximately 114 text pages (tête-bêche) on 84 leaves (some paginated in a contemporary hand). Some leaves excised.

Contemporary calf, very worn, front board detached, fixing to one clasp broken.

Provenance: inscription to free endpaper (recipes end) reads “C O in Southwell near Newarke Upon Trent in Notingham sheare” beneath a note reads “Sulpher of Antimont 8 grains is a vomite it is a Read pouder”. A note to the free endpaper reads “Mrs Crumuell (or Crunwell) Huntingdon”.

Watermark: Horn (similar to Haewood 2713, but the letters beneath in ours are obscured).

ARRANGEMENT

¶ At first glance, this volume seems to follow the familiar tête-bêche (often referred to as dos-a-dos) convention of receipt books; but on closer examination one finds that the recipes and remedies (approximately 77 of the former and 48 of the latter) are mingled together at both ends, by at least three contributors, so any hunt – whether for a dish or a cure – would require leafing through until the reader happened upon their need or desire.

The pattern seems to be established from the very first pages: first, Hand I supplies three remedies (“To make a Syrrup for a consumption. MC”, “Herbes for Plague water”, “An oyle for ye shrinking of vains or Sinnewes VP”), then Hand II (“Mrs Crumuell”) adds two more (“for the Heareing that lost by A Cold”, “A diet drink for a Coffe DL”), and Hand III another three (“To make Snaile water / How to teck of hair”, “A water for Sore eys”, “Rules for a milk dyet”).

This initial grouping together of remedies – whether by design or by accident – is soon broken by “Mrs Crumuell” with her recipe “To make Wiggs”. Remedial order is briefly restored by Hand I (“For A dyet drink”), but “Mrs Crumuell” immediately disrupts it with her recipes “To make Bisket” and “To Make a Cake”. Having sown her miscellaneous crop at one end of the volume, Mrs Crumuell adds a handful of culinary recipes at the opposite end, before creating another jumble by adding several remedies. All three hands have taken turns populating the pages, indicating that the book was a commonly shared resource in a busy household.

An inscription to one of the free endpapers reads “Mrs Crumuell (or Crunwell) Huntingdon”. Her inscription is a good match for the main contributor to this volume. She is joined by two other contributors, interspersed with the occasional “guest contributor”.

The Crumuell (Cromwell, Crunwell) family of Huntingdon are of course well known. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland; and he was succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell (1626-1712), who married Dorothy Cromwell (née Maijor, c.1620-1675). That branch of the family seems to have left Huntingdon by the time this manuscript was written, but our scribes were presumably relations of their famous namesakes.

Where attributions appear, they tend to be rendered as initials (“MC”, “VP”, DL”, “M:K”, “Mrs H”) or as generic references (“olde womans reaseats for the rupter” (f36v)). Two allude to Oxford University: one is a dish familiar from contemporary recipe collections (“To make New College Puddings”, Hand III (f33r)); the other is seemingly not traceable in any surviving sources (“The Baliel Receipt for mince pyes”, Hand II (f50r)).

A few attributions are more specific (“To make surfeit Water Mr goods” (f30r), “Mrs Isles her receipt to cure sore Eyes (f67r), “The peptic pouder Mr Eston” (f69r)) – none more so than a neatly written physician’s prescription entitled “For Mr Woodward Sept 8 1700” and inscribed at the end “J.W. Dr Wright in Kings Streete / near St. Ann’s Soho Square” (f38r). This is a good match for John Wright MD (1651-1716), a physician recorded as practicing from St Ann’s Westminster, London. Wright was the son of Thomas Wright, of Woodstone in Huntingdonshire, and was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he proceeded A.B. 1671, A.M. 1675, and M.D. 1684. He was admitted a Candidate of the College of Physicians in 1698 and a Fellow in 1702-3.

One remedy is notable for being the only entry written vertically: “Sr Edward Tertils Salue called ye Chief of all Salues” (f48v) with “Some of the vertues and use of it” on the facing page. This is also a rare instance in the collection of a recipe that has been copied from a printed book: The Queenes Closet Opened, a hugely popular work first published in 1655 and frequently reprinted into the first decades of the 18th century (others show suggestive, but not conclusive, similarities with printed versions – for example “To make perl” (f80v) shares a likeness with a pearl recipe from William Salmon’s Polygraphice, first published in 1672, but has not been copied directly from it). Unfortunately, our scribe did not choose to copy the “cure” for rickets from The Queenes Closet Opened, which begins with “a quart of new Milk”; instead, “An approved thing for the ricketts” (f13v) recommends such things as a handful each of “hartstonge”, “liverwort” and “maidenhair”, mixed with “reasons in the sunne”, “figgs”, and “currence”, all to be boiled, then mixed with “brown sugar candie & almost half a pint of Muscadine” – this nostrum to be taken by the child “as oft as it will but chiefly in the mornings”. The “oyntment for the Same” on the facing page (f14r) includes some ingredients we would recognise as potentially efficacious (“pound of may butter or fresh out of the Chern”), but the directions forgo ingestion, instead recommending that one “bath all the joynts by the fire in the bents of them”.

INGREDIENTS

This household clearly had the wherewithal to source an impressive range of ingredients. Sugar in various forms (“sugercandy”, “lofe suger”, “Powder sugar”, “white sugar”, “doblerefined suger”) crops up as an ingredient for both medicinal and culinary purposes; and meat, fish and poultry are well represented (from a “pint of snailes” and “flesh of porke or veale” to “Carpe”, “oysters”, “beef”, “Magistrallsnaile or worme water as you please”, and more specifically, “Riuer Crawfish caught in June”). Fruit and vegetables appear in many guises (“handfull of spinage”, “pound of Walnuts”, “Quinces”, “lemmons”, “Lemon pill”, “Sitron”, “hartychock bottoms”, “Gallin of Gooseberys”, “Oranges”, “Apricocks”, “onions”).

Of particular note is the sheer variety of herbs and spices called for: “Herbes for Plague water” (f2v) alone lists around 30, including “Rue”, “Agrimony”, “Wormwood”, “Galengal”, and “Coriander Seeds”; and others employ the likes of “liquorish

INSTRUCTIONS

Many directions are clearly inflected by experience and informed by trial and error: “To Make a Cake DE” (f7v) concludes by advising that “the ouen must not be stopt till the Cake is Coulered as you will haue it for it Will be uery apt to burn”; a recipe “To make Pease pottage” (f18r) specifies that one “slice in about half a peney loafe but french:bread is better”, and adds the postscript: “you may boill a peice of beefe in it if you please”. Some instructions acknowledge the larger context of serving a meal: “To make Puffes” (f21v) directs: “melt butter with some rose water and sugar & pour ouer them & surue them with the Second course”; “How to Souce A pigg” (f27v) recommends that “when you surue it in send in mustard & vinegar both”

Judging by the ubiquity of cures for the bite of a “mad dog” recorded in recipe books of the era, they seem to have been prowling early modern England in great numbers. The “Infallible cure” (f69v) given here is unusual in prioritising “a Dog that is bitt by a mad one” over human victims, and in endorsing the folk coupling of the Moon with lunacy: “giue this three days before the full of the Moon and three day’s after, and 3 day’s before the Change and 3 day after”.

CONCLUSION

This heavily used artefact offers multifaceted viewing into a busy early modern English kitchen. It collects material from manuscript and printed sources and calls upon a wide variety of authorities, from “Sr Edward Tertils Salue” and “the olde womans reaseats” to Oxford University, Dr Wright’s neatly penned remedy, and trial-and-error experience. Its disorderly arrangement by multiple contributors and the sheer variety of ingredients suggest that it was the product of a fairly prosperous household with a vibrant and bustling atmosphere in which the haphazardness of the book’s contents proved no hindrance to its usefulness.

£9,500 Ref: 8166

References:

Wallis, P. J. and R. V. Eighteenth Century Medics. (1988).

https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/john-wright

I specialise in interesting and unusual manuscripts and antiquarian books that record their histories as material forms, through the shaping of objects and the traces left on the surface, by the conscious and unconscious acts of their creators and users.

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