The Hidden Art of the Book

The the Art of B o o k

THE HIDDEN ART OF THE BOOK

The consensus of opinion is that watermarking began in the Italian town of Fabriano – one of the earliest European centres of paper production – in the 13th century. A watermark served as an indication of origin and, especially for the top rank of producers such as those in Fabriano, an assurance of quality. A clear parallel with modern commercial and marketing practices is to think of it as a logo.

A watermark is made by twisting a length of wire into an ornamental design and stitching it to the mesh of the paper mould. The wire causes fewer fibres of pulped linen to form along its contours, creating a thinner area that shows as lighter than the rest of the sheet.

The design of a watermark was generally chosen by the company that made the paper, and would sometimes incorporate their initials or settle on a variation of various emblems such as a pot, a shield, grapes, or a fool’s cap (the latter now enshrined in the lexicon as foolscap, also denoting a size of paper).

A mark could also express something about the paper’s intended destination: in the later 17th century, Dutch firms making paper specifically for the British market would combine Dutch marks with the monograms of British monarchs and other elements invoking their target consumers. This exporting of their product to Britain continued throughout the 18th century, even as paper production in England, having been hitherto fitful at best, became more established with mills such as James Whatman’s in Kent and the Portal family’s in Hampshire led a boom in fine English paper-making.

The selection and use of a watermark was not subject to approval by any authority, making it common for watermarks to be used by different makers and for different markets. It also led to unsanctioned imitation, for example of Dutch watermarks by mills in France, Württemberg and Bavaria. Such an unregulated state of affairs has posed challenges for historians working in this area; the benchmark for filigranology (the study of watermarks) was set in the early 1900s by Charles-Moïse Briquet, who attempted to systematise marks by appearance and assigned a descriptor to each. He then matched these with dated examples to provide a reliable four-volume reference work – a method adopted by Edward Haewood to produce his handy singlevolume book which concentrates on the 17th and 18th centuries. From an overview perspective, W.A. Churchill produced a historical survey that takes in the international developments in printing and the movement of the watermarks across continents.

The presence of watermarks in early-modern paper is a key part of the material history of books and manuscripts. A watermark can tell you that a manuscript was written within a certain date range: from the date the paper was produced to a relatively short time after that. We can establish this with a degree of confidence because it is unlikely that paper would have been left unused for long after being made. So, while a watermark can only tell you with certainty that a manuscript was not produced before a certain date, it does provide a useful ‘time window’, which when taken as part of the constellation of tools for dating documents can be extremely valuable to the codicologist.

Bibliography and other reference sources

Briquet, Charles-Moise. Les Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600. Hacker. 1985.

Churchill, W.A. Watermarks in paper in Holland, England, France, etc. in the XVII and XVIII centuries and their interconnection. Amsterdam: M. Hertzberger, 1935.

Haewood, Edward, 1863-1949, Watermarks, mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries. Krown & Spellman [2003]

Müller, Leonie. Understanding Paper: Structures, Watermarks, and a Conservator’s Passion https://harvardartmuseums.org/article/ understanding-paper-structures-watermarks-and-a-conservator-s-passion

www.memoryofpaper.eu/BernsteinPortal/appl_start.disp

https://memoryofpaper.eu/gravell/

www.paperhistory.org/Standards/IPHN2.1.1_en.pdf

www.paperhistory.org/Watermark-catalogues/

www.cdh.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/digital-approaches-to-the-capture-and-analysis-of-watermarks/

https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/bib244378-309586?=&sort_order=ASC&sort_by=field_collection_sort_order

ONE

[HOUSEHOLD RECIPES]. English manuscript containing recipes and remedies entitled ‘Booke of Receipts’. [England. Circa 1670-1791]. Folio (300 x 190 x 14 mm). A total 113 text pages on 92 leaves. Text in the earlier hand, mostly to rectos. Binding contemporary limp vellum, using an old deed. Heavily used condition, page edges frayed with loss of text to first 30 or so leaves.

Watermark: Horn (see Haewood 2666-2690 – dated circa 1650-1690 – for similar, but not exact match).

Provenance: old Sotheby's catalogue description loosely inserted.

¶ There were at least four contributors to the manuscript at one end and its earliest scribe (circa 1670) has also “flipped” the volume to create a section devoted to remedies at the opposite end.

Hand I (17th recipes and remedies over 39 pages.

Hand II (17 or so recipes and remedies to 9 pages.

Hand III (mid 23 pages.

Hand IV (late 18

At the opposite end:

Hand I (17th century): approximately 75 remedies on 27 pages.

INTRODUCTION

¶ This homemade household book of recipes and remedies has been constructed in perhaps the cheapest way possible: the text block is formed from two stacks of paper stab-stitched and then stitched together as one volume, with a binding fashioned from an old vellum deed. Yet for all its parsimonious construction, it has been made with care, as hinted at by the title to the front cover: “Booke of Receipts 1670 [heart]”. The earlier leaves at each end have been damaged as a direct result of the unrobust binding, but such signs of use only add to the appeal of the artefact.

NAMES AND PROVENANCE

There are no straightforward clues to the identity of our scribes or their household. A pen trial to f.6r, which reads “Will White”, is the only inscription to the text. The vellum document that serves as the binding features numerous names including “Nicholas Dawkins”, “Katherine Cole”, “Thomas Mark Cuthbert” and “Margaret and John Piggott”, and further research may connect some of these to the text. There are several ascriptions in the section 1670-1700 (Hands I and II), including “Sr Tho: Millington” and “The D. of Newcastle” who each supply a “Diet drink”, “Lady Dorrell”, has a medicine “for the drying up of all the humers in the body”, “Dr. Burges”, other remedies are given by “Dr Stevens”, and “Dr Butler of Caimbrid[ge]”, but the conspicuous honorifics lead us to suspect these were attributed recipes circulated in manuscript rather than by individuals known to the scribes. More promising, at least as potential acquaintances, are a “Mrs Joha: Gard” and “John Gard”. Other clues are scattered throughout the recipes, as we shall see.

INGREDIENTS, INSTRUCTIONS AND IMPLEMENTS

While its physical appearance might suggest a humble household, the ingredients tell a more nuanced story. The family are obviously affluent enough to afford a varied diet which, particularly in the early, fruit-heavy section (Hand I), includes sugar (“refined sugar”, “double refyned sugar”, “suger if you like itt”, “Clarified sugar”). They even have a “Candy Pan”, which in one recipe you should employ “with wyres Lay the Least of you wyres Lay 4 in the bottome of your Pan”. “To make Jelly of Pippins Amber Colour” also presupposes a healthy array of equipment: “Bagg it into a silver or earthen vessell upon a Chaffing dish of Coales& while itt is warme fill your moulds or box them [...] remembring always that your boxes or mouldes be aforehand Layd in water & then the Jelly will not cleave to them” (f.19r.).

The recipes feature a range of herbs and spices including “Gillyflowers”, “violetts”, “Cowslipps”, “peece of whole Cinamon” (or a “Thimble full of beaten Cinamon”), “sarsaparilla”, and “Carrott seed” – but appearing in remedies alongside such harmless ingredients is “crude Antimony in powder”, an ingredient no longer used in medicine, because although it can kill such things as parasites, it can also have the same effect on the patient!

Some recipes are quite particular about where to source ingredients (“Take Pippins whilst they be very greene those that especially grow upon the water boughs in the shadow”) and others about methods and materials for preparation. For example, when making “Past of Geneva ye true way as they doe beyond seas”, you must be sure to keep “stirring itt until you see it come from ye bottome of ye skillett then ffashion upon a pye plate or sheet of glasse some Like Leaves & some like halfe fruites & some you may prynt out wth mould then putt them into a warme oven” (f.8r). One’s choice of implement is also to be carefully considered, as in the recipe for preserved lemons, which advises the use of an “earthen Pipkine for Brass is not soe good” (f.11v). A simpler and frequently mentioned piece of equipment is paper: the recipe “To make marmalade of Quinces”, for example, directs: “take it of the fire Lay it on a sheete of white paper” (f.14r).

PRESERVING

Of the recipes for fruit that predominate in the earlier sections of the manuscript (Hand I), there are over 20 varieties of marmalade, which, as well as the fairly common recipes using oranges and lemons, also include “Pomcittrons”, “Peare Plumes”, “Malecetones”, “Goosberrys”, “Quinces called Lumpe Marmalade yt shall Looke as red as Rubye”, “wardens a most Cordiall Marmalett”, and “Pippins yt shall Looke verry Orient”. Oranges, pippins and cherries are used to make jellies, in either “Quaking” or “Crystall” forms.

There are also more than 30 ways to “p[re]serve”, among other things, “Malacatoones”, “Rasberryes”, “Pippins” (of various colours: “greene”, “white”, “amber”, “Red”), “Barberryes”, “Pear Plumes”, “Lemmons”, “Apricockes”, “Cittrons”,

shellee” and the more unusual “Lettice Staulkes”

Some fruits are boiled into pulps called “Tartstuffe”, ranging from the nonspecific “white” or “yellow Tartstuffe” to damsons, prunes, hipps, and “Excelent Tartstuffe of Rasberrye or English Currants to serve all the yeare of a most delicate Tast & Colour” (f.17r).

ORDERING

This saccharine onslaught does eventually give way to a couple of savoury dishes including “How to pott a Swann” (f27v.) (and if you don’t have a swan, “you may pott a bustard butt you must not fflea ye bustard”) and directions to “bake Ducks or Teale” (f.28r.). The large grouping of fruit dishes proves the exception when it comes to organising: “Plague Water”, with its usual plethora of herbs, sits fairly contiguously next to a remedy “for sore in the eyes of what kind soever” (f.29r.), but these are immediately followed by “Harts horne jelly” and “To pickle Oysters” (f.29r.) and on the following page, “eye water” is followed by “Sause for a pig”. Similarly, the remedial trio of “To make Dr Stevens water”, “To make Balme Water”, and “To make Angellica Water” (f.22r.) is jarringly succeeded by “To make Marmaled of Cherryes Mrs Joha Gard” and “To Candy Goosberryes”.

This miscellaneous order continues as the book passes from its first user in the 1670s to Hand II who was writing in the late 17th or early 18th century. The final entries by Hand II are “The D. of Newcastle’s Diet Drink”, “Dr. Burges’s drink against ye Plague, Purples, spotted ffever. Meazles, or ye like sudden sicknesses”, and “To make Ginger bread” (f.32v). Opposite these (f33r), Hand III has left a similarly disparate arrangement, in which “To destroy Buggs” (f.33r), “To make Pancakes” and “Mrs Huntchinsons searcloth for a Strain or Bruise” follow in quick succession

A note beneath the remedy “To destroy Buggs” reads “The Mix Vomica to be had at the Golden Ball in Burleigh Street near Exeter Exchange in the Strand 1746 at 1s 6d ye Ounce Vial”. Whether this gives a location for our manuscript is a moot point because the address would have been sufficient for a postal transaction (although “Dr. Burges’s drink” on the opposite page does include “London”, but again, this was surely portable). The date “1746”, too, leaves room for ambiguity as there may have been a hiatus of several years before Hand III picked up the manuscript and continued adding recipes and remedies in the spirit of melange inherited from its earlier users. That said, small clusters continue to occur: for example “Duke of Norfolk’s Punch” is grouped with “Sack Mead”, “Small Mead” and “Cowslip wine”, but they are immediately followed by that ubiquitous panacea “Daffy’s Elixar” and “An excellent Cordial”, then a hotchpotch of eels and veal, oranges, lemons, fish, and a remedy for “the Itch”

After an undefined period, Hand IV (and possibly another) adds a few recipes. Several are attributed to “M. M.” and one is annotated at the end: “N.B. This is the best possible raisin wine if it is made with perfectly fresh Malaga raisins. They arrive at Nott. in the months of February, March & April. The wine should be made as early as possible in April. The raisins in 1791 were 1:8:0 an hundred” (f.50 r). The mention of “Nott[ingham]” perhaps gives us a location, and the date a time period, for our final contributor.

REMEDIES

As is frequently the case in early modern household manuscripts, the volume is “flipped”, with remedies arranged by Hand I at the opposite end (although as we have already noted, remedies are liberally sprinkled throughout the recipes). Several use the apothecary’s abbreviation “Rx ”, but the manuscript does not appear to be the work of a professional.

Our scribe drifts into the realms of sympathetic magic “The Weapon Salve” (f.68v), which suggests that “When one is hurt take the same weapon & with a ffeather annoynt all over with the oyntmt & with Linnen wrap itt handsomely up & roll itt as you do the . Perhaps less magic-based but still evocatively named is “To make Unguente apostolorum” (“The Apostles’ Ointment”), “wch clenseth a ffistiloe & Clenseth all Cirrupt fflesh with paine & maketh itt to f.77v.).

More recognisable from modern herbals are a few other remedies, such as “An Unguent after hard f.66v.); “To make a drinke for the Collicke wch a woman may take If she be with Child”, which requires “handfulls” of various herbs (“Parsley”, “Burridge”, ) and “water Creses”, and directs that you “give the Patient every day 3 tymes” (f.83v.); and a concoction ]voke paines in Labour” (f.67v.). The “Powder for the Teeth” in Hand II’s section, begins with “a proportion of well burnt brick”, beaten very fine, then instructs that, to make this abrasive substance tolerable, you should add “fine sugar” (f.42r).

CONCLUSION

This handmade household resource has grown over the course of more than a century, by the end of which some of the earliest entries – particularly remedies such as “The Weapon Salve” – must have seemed decidedly quaint to its readers. Indeed, one of the draws of this artefact is its survival and development through time, despite its crude construction. Further research may establish connect the potential threads of provenance, but its usefulness to several generations seems beyond doubt.

TWO

[SILHON, Jean de (1596-1667)] Manuscript scribal copy of ‘The State Minister’.

[Circa 1660]. Quarto (1196 x 145 x 18 mm). Pagination [4, blanks], [9, “to the Reader” and “Table”], [1, blank] 220 numbered pages. 20th-century burgundy half morocco gilt over marbled boards by Elizabeth Greenhill. Pencilled note to front endpaper, the hand-coloured frontispiece and six plates, were added in 1939.

The watermarks are split in the gutter, so exact matching is difficult. However, most sheets are identifiable to Post (similar to Haewood 3534); some later sheets are Pot. Both watermarks date from the mid-17th century.

Provenance: armorial bookplate of Charles Walmesley, Westwood; pencilled gift inscription to front endpaper, “Captain Samuel Lucas, York & Lanc. Regiment to A. J. Ellison of the same, 1925”; Sotheby’s, 20 June 1932, lot 213 (disbound); Bookplate to paste-down: W. A. Foyle, Beeleigh Abbey.

¶ Why would someone labour over translating a book from French into English if it had already been published in an English translation? The first part of Jean de Silhon’s Le ministre d’estat, avec le veritable usage de la politique moderne. Première partie (1631), is rendered in the contents pages of this manuscript as “Silhons State Minister”. This translation broadly similar (with many variations) to the first part by Henry Head, published by Thomas Dring in London in 1658 (a second part followed 1663). We can hazard a couple of theories concerning this apparent duplication of effort, but theories they must, for now, remain.

Jean de Silhon was born in 1596 at Sos in south-western France and became secretary to chief minister Cardinal Richelieu (who appointed him in 1634 to the nascent Académie française) and to Richelieu’s successor, Cardinal Mazarin. Silhon was closely acquainted with René Descartes and published several philosophical works including a refutation of scepticism that anticipated Descartes’ famous cogito, but Le ministre d’estat, as its title implies, is a political work – and de Silhon was a highly esteemed

political writer. Written at Richelieu’s behest, the book makes the case for raison d’état, or political realism, which, in essence, argues that the state has a right to diverge from accepted laws and ethical standards – for example, truthfulness – if political necessities require it.

Raison d’état has particular application to foreign policy, and developed as a doctrine during the 17th-century rise of what we now recognise as the modern nation state and the parallel evolution of international law. Its appearance in a printed English translation is an indication of how arguments were continuing to rage over the notion of what we would now call Realpolitik.

Our scribe, whose identity remains a mystery, was clearly highly engaged in these arguments; but what drove them to translate the first part of de Silhon’s treatise, if an English translation was already available?1 One possibility, given that this manuscript is difficult to date with any precision, is that it predates, or is contemporary with, the 1658 publication of Head’s translation; another would involve some kind of dissatisfaction our scribe felt with the published version, although this seems unlikely as a powerful enough spur to such an undertaking.

The variations between the two renditions are, as mentioned above, many but often slight, and mostly concern synonyms (“tempests” / “storms” in an example below), and syntax or punctuation. For example, the “Advertisement” to the reader in the printed version begins: “I Have some Considerations to represent unto thee concerning this Work, whereupon I beseech thee to cast thy eyes. The first is in relation to the Matter, which is composed of Reasonings and Examples.” Our scribe has arrived at something very similar: “I have some considerations, to represent unto thee, concerning this worke, uppon wch, I shall desire thee, to cast thy eyes, the first is, for the matter, wch is composed of Ratiocination, and of examples”. Later, “The seventh Discourse”, entitled “Of the disgrace of the Duke of Alva”, the Head translation begins: “Since we are upon the subject of Disgraces which happen at Court, and tempests which are there raised; Let us add the Duke of Alva’s to the former examples”; our scribe’s version (headed “Lib: 1. disc: 7: The disgrace of the Duke of Alva”) begins: “Since wee are upon ye subiect of y disgraces w arrive in Co , and y there arise, lett us add to y 2 preceading examples y of y

Published by Charles & Henry Baldwyn, Newgate Street. R. Cooper sculpt” (circa 1815-1836). This further complicates the artefact’s history, since vital clues to its early provenance may have been lost in the rebinding, but this act itself has now become part of its long history.

Whether or not our scribe accomplished their translation before Henry Head completed and published his own (which seems the most likely scenario), this is still an impressive piece of work that conveys some of the intensity with which the emerging issues of nation states and international relations were being considered in early modern England.

THREE

[SCOTTISH LAW]. 17th-century manuscript entitled ‘Syles 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, circa 1685 (MS 3066/7); one at the University of Glasgow: 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.

CONCLUSION

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

FOUR

[RICH, Claudius James (1786/7-1821)] Correspondence related to Claudius Rich’s time in Baghdad.

[Baghdad and Bombay. 1809-10]. A group of 20 letters. Folio and quarto. Various watermarks, including Horn (illustrated left) which shows a 19th century variation of a motif often found in much earlier papers (e.g. item one in this catalogue).

¶ As an account of ‘a little local difficulty’ encountered by a representative of the still 20 letters depicts, in miniature, its uneasy relations with a branch of the Ottoman Empire, largely through the eyes of a tra and collector of manuscripts and antiquities whose interest in oriental languages began in childhood.

Claudius Rich was born in Dijon, “probably the illegitimate son of Colonel Sir James Cockburn, fifth baronet (1723–1809), whose mother’s maiden name was Rich, and who lived in Bristol” (ODNB). Already something of a prodigy in ‘oriental’ languages before his adolescence, in 1803 he joined the East India Company as a cadet, and the next year his linguistic prowess earned him a transfer to the Company’s Bombay establishment on a writership. After a series of exploits that took him to Malta, Naples, Constantinople, Smyrna, Cairo (where he became assistant to the consulgeneral) and most of Syria and Palestine, he arrived in Bombay in 1807. Early in 1808 he married Mary, daughter of Bombay’s governor, Sir James Mackintosh, very shortly after being appointed the East India Company’s resident at Baghdad.

These letters show some of the more vexatious aspects of Rich’s interactions with local functionaries. Things begin pleasantly enough, with a letter to Rich in Persian from the King’s Grand Vizier extending cordial relations (accompanied here by a translation into English). But by early August 1809, he is writing apologetically to Robert Adair (who was based at the Constantinople embassy) with a request for aid in dealing with Ottoman officials. Rich opens with his credentials: “In the last five years I have made the manners & language of the Turks my particular study, I have travelled over almost every part of Turkey”; and experience has shown him that “the most positive firmness is requisite in all transactions with them, All submissions being by them invariably construed into an acknowledgment of inferiority, and consequently an encouragement to greater excesses” He contrasts the agreeable behaviour of “the Turks in their Capital”, where “the Politeness is in a great measure reciprocal”, with “the difficulties I have experienced at this provincial Court”. Rich continues with palpable frustration: “I have tried every means short of unbecoming concessions, but with no other effect, than that of occasionally carrying the immediate point, without stopping general current of opposition – which I perceive can only be effected by your means.”

Relations fail to improve throughout the autumn of 1809: both Rich and the Grand Vizier of Baghdad, Suleiman Pasha, write to Adair complaining of each other’s behaviour (Rich believes that Pasha’s enmity goes beyond the personal and signals the Grand Vizier’s bid to reduce British influence; Pasha complains to Adair that Rich plays fifes and drums at prayer time and asks for him to be replaced). Rich makes repeated requests for Adair to intervene in various matters, and on 23 October dispatches two letters to him from “Gherara Camp” near Baghdad – suggesting an enforced relocation outside the city – one speculating on the causes of recent antipathy (“the Pasha’s conduct was visibly altered since the Peace between Great Britain and the Porte was concluded […] during the War we had the government entirely at our mercy [...] the Pasha is now encouraged by the belief that we cannot annoy him from India”), the other announcing that, since Suleiman “seems inclined to refuse me a Tatar [ie a messenger] for the conveyance of this dispatch [...] I have therefore come to the resolution of

Further tensions arise in late November 1809, when Rich informs Adair that “the Messenger bearing my last dispatches to you, had been plundered near [Aleppo]”, which Rich considers “equivalent to a declaration of war against the British property both official and private”. He goes on to report that “after the Pasha had prohibited the entrance of any British subject into his town [...] I have discovered by means of my secret agents that the Pasha has so far forgotten himself as to write in the most unbecoming manner accusations or rather calumnies against me”. Suleiman has also “prohibited any Musselman from serving or having any connection with me under pain of a thousand strokes of the Batinade and banishment from the territory”, but Rich brags that “My people (though I advised them to quit my service) declared their resolution to suffer death rather than abandon me and my Camp has been more crowded with visitors than ever”.

A letter from Adair to Suleiman Pasha, dated 19 December and translated into French, concerning Rich’s treatment, may have contributed to a certain easing of the situation, since Rich, now back in Baghdad, writes on 28 January 1810 to Jonathan Duncan, Governor in Council, Bombay, to report that the “disputes between the Pasha and myself have been at length brought to a most honorable conclusion [...] the Pasha consented to acknowledge publickly my Resident, and to mention me as such in al his acts and letters”. In a similar update to Adair two days later, he announces that the Pasha “is now convinced of his Error” and, clearly emboldened by this successful resolution, relaxes into racist stereotypes: “The Turks, in common with most Orientals, are invariably presuming and insolent if countenanced, mean & submissive if checked”.

Rich’s final letter, dated 12 April 1810, serves as a kind of epilogue: he thanks Adair for his interventions “The Pasha’s present conduct to me is of the most gratifying nature He confesses to me to have been deceived, and takes every opportunity of doing away the unfavourable impressions”. Invoking a ‘higher authority’ than himself to signal the restoration of order, Rich reports: “General Malcolm has arrived at Abushehr (Bushehr) in Quality of Envoy from the Governor General to the Shah, to vindicate, as his Instructions express it, the insulted dignity of the Anglo-Indian Government. He will proceed to the Court of Persia”.

Rich drew on his time in Baghdad, and his travels to Babylon, Kurdistan and beyond until his death from cholera in 1821, for a handful of well-received memoirs and travel narratives. He remains a representative figure in the British Empire’s cast of characters: intrepid, deftly multilingual, culturally curious, highly acquisitive, and – as these letters compellingly demonstrate – chauvinistic, Anglocentric and exasperated by the behaviour of foreign antagonists who posed obstacles to the Empire’s expansion.

£2,500 Ref: 8242

FIVE

[BRETT, Anne]. 18th-century miscellany book of poems. [England? Circa 1763]. Quarto (200 x 165 x 13 mm). 174 pages (numbered to 172), including five blank pages (four of which separate the main text from the two-page index). Written in a neat italic hand throughout. Contemporary sprinkled calf, rubbed and worn, front board nearly detached. Watermark: Pro Patria. Provenance: inscription to paste-down: “Anne Brett. 1763”.

A PORTABLE SOIREE

¶ This neatly written compilation of poems captures an early-modern moment in the rise of women readers, women authors, and the integration of both into the mainstream of British culture and society. Its compiler, Anne Brett, who does not seem to have been part of “coterie culture”, has nonetheless created her own portable soiree in the material form of a literary miscellany.

CONVERSATION AND COMPILATION

According to Carly Watson, “Conversation was regarded by many in eighteenth-century Britain as the lifeblood of society and culture [and] was seen as the engine driving the circulation of knowledge and opinion”. This culture was embedded in the compilation of “miscellanies of various kinds modelled and facilitated forms of conversation and sociability” and that “conversation played a key part in defining the character of the miscellany as a literary form in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” 1 .

The dramatic increase in women’s literacy during that century meant that miscellanies found a ready readership in this growing demographic; for the same reason, some of the ideas expressed in these and other works were attentively received by women readers, as demonstrated by the practice of compiling their own selections in manuscript. Meanwhile, conversations grew and evolved, giving rise to new coteries and circles: among the most famous of were the bluestockings (originating in the “literary breakfasts” held by Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey, and Frances Boscawen) and the Scriblerians (whose focal points were Swift and Pope), but dozens more proliferated, in the provinces or in less exalted seams of literary culture.

THE POEMS

Anne Brett, the compiler of our manuscript miscellany, has included work by several poets associated with coteries – including Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), a bluestocking member, and Elizabeth Pennington (1732-1759), who belonged to the literary circle frequented by Samuel Richardson and Frances Sheridan. These and other women writers featured here were also publicly acclaimed in panegyric works such as John Duncombe’s The Feminiad (1754) and the anonymous Biographium faemineum (1766). Many poems were available in print editions by the time Anne made her selections: several by Elizabeth Carter were published in Poems on particular occasions (1738), and three anonymous poems (“An Ode to Adversity”, “Hymn to the Evening”, and “Resignation”) appeared in The court magazine; or, royal chronicle of news, politics, and literature between 1756 and 1762. A handful of others, however, she set down before the published versions, suggesting that these circulated in manuscript.

For example, “An Ode to the Morning” is one of only a small handful of surviving poems by Elizabeth Pennington. Her poems circulated in manuscript and three of her poems were posthumously published in collections such as Specimens of British Poetesses (1798) and Poems of Eminent Ladies (1780); Anne’s manuscript copy, however, predates the published versions. Similarly,

“To Prosperity. By Miss Sally Carter” seems not to have appeared in print until 1781/2 (in The lady's poetical magazine, or Beauties of British poetry “An Ode to Solitude” by Maria Susanna Cooper (1737-1807) appeared in her epistolary novel Letters between Emilia and Harriet (1762), published anonymously but here attributed to her under her birthname “Miss Bransby”, suggesting that Anne had access to this information via another source, perhaps in manuscript.

Another poem, the anonymous “To Melinda on her dancing a minuet”, sits on the cusp of its print publication: it appeared in The Scot’s Magazine and Gentleman’s Magazine in 1764 and The British magazine: or, monthly repository in 1765, variously entitled a young lady, on seeing her dance, Advice to a young lady, on seeing her dance, On seeing Miss Parrot dance. Brett’s dating of her compilation to 1763 means that she may easily have scooped it up on first reading it in print, but the variant titles might signify that several manuscript copies were already circulating.

She certainly nurtured no exclusively female agenda for her collection: the likes of John Campbell (1708-1775), Nathaniel Cotton (1705-1788), Andrew Kippis (1725-1795) and James Merrick (1720-1769) are represented in abundance. But her inclusion of pieces by Martha Ferrar (1729-1805) (“An Address to the Moon”, published in The works of Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, Moschus and Musaeus (1760)), Fanny Greville (c. 1724-1789) (“Ode to Indifference”, which also seems only to have circulated in manuscript), and Anne Ingram (c.1696–1764) (“An Epistle to Mr. Pope, Occasion’d by his Characters of Women”, her

famous riposte to Pope’s “Epistle 2. To a Lady” published in Gentleman’s Magazine, (1736)) indicates a lively interest in the work and discourse of the rising cohort of women writers. Her selection by Laetitia Pilkington (1709-1750), whose response to her unhappy marriage made her the subject of infamy, leads one to conclude that Anne was, despite her inclusion of a few hymns, no piously unthinking moralist. She seems, rather, to have had a broad palate, and her collection is highly suggestive of how women’s writing became a component, rather than an anomaly, in the British literary diet.

CONCLUSION

It would be tempting to infer from the presence of several pre print or never-printed poems that Anne had access to, or membership of, some coterie or other. But it is equally possible that the work and ideas of these pioneering women writers were already circulating far and wide, and that Anne’s ‘conversation’ was with herself. In either case, our manuscript miscellany could prove fertile ground for an examination of how print and manuscript transmission interacted with “conversation and sociability” to drive social change.

£1,500 Ref: 8231

1. Carly Watson, Miscellanies, Poetry, and Authorship, 16801800 (Palgrave Macmillan 2021)

Household manuscript entitled ‘A Most Valuable Collection of Curious Receipts in Cookery in all It’s (sic) Branches Also Confectionary, of all sorts, of Picklings Flesh, Fish, Greens, Stalks, Budds, and Whatsoever is Profitable and Usefull or has as Yet been known to be Pickled. & Kettchups And How to Pot all sorts of Flesh

Fowls and Fish How to make Meads, Wines of all Sorts that are made of Our English Produce. To Make the Best Elixars and Cordills And Curious

Physical and Chyrurgical Receipts Carefully

Collected by Charles Collins. G.’

[England. Kensington? Circa 1720-30].

Contemporary sheep, rubbed and worn, joints split, hinges holding. Pagination [4, (title and blanks)], [277 (numbered to 274)], several leaves excised, but this appears to have been done deliberately by the scribe to create sections (see pagination below). Watermark: Pro Patria; countermark: GR.

INTRODUCTION

The compiler of this folio manuscript styles himself “Charles the initial, we assume, standing for “Gentleman”. Was he a little too modest to describe himself in full, or doubtful that he was fully a gentleman? Regardless, Collins has created an impressive, densely filled household book of the

SCRIBAL PUBLICATION

While its selection of recipes may be the result of its compiler’s experience, the volume itself does not appear to have been anywhere near a kitchen. Rather, it is an anthology of the choicest dishes from the table, much as one might compile recipes for a printed cookery book. Indeed, Collins’ ostentatious volume employs many of the conventions of a printed publication, and he has devoted great attention to its appearance. It opens with an elaborate, verbose title page characteristic of the early modern period; recipes and remedies are organised into sections with running titles; each recipe is separated by double-ruled red lines; and the pages are bordered in double-lines throughout and numbered to the upper corners. All of this contributes to a very pleasing “display” manuscript, but with detailed instructions which could easily be followed.

ORGANISATION

The sections’ running titles begin with “Soops”, (1-10); “Catchup” (13); and “Fricasseys” (with subsections “and Suchlike” and “Ragoos Harshes and the Like”) (16-36). Pages 37-42 have been excised, before the next run of sections picks up with “Fish and their Proper Sauces” (including “Divers Dressings” and “Pickling & Sousing”) (43-58); “Ragoo’s, Balls, Forc’d-Meats, and Harshes” (61-98); “Some General Rules in Cookery to be Observ’d” (94); “Of Collaring” (100-105); “Of Potting” (108-110); “Of Pastes, Pies, Pasties, Puddings, Tansies, Cakes, Jellies, &c” (later entries also include “Creams Confectionaries &c”) (114207); “Of Pickling” (208-221); “Meads Made Wines and Cordials” (222-231); and “Cordials and Physical and Chirurgical Receipts” (232-277).

Collins appears to have done his curation while compiling rather than in advance, to judge by the excised pages (see pagination jumps above). These may seem at first glance to be damage, but on closer inspection they turn out to have been deliberately removed in order to create sections that segue from one subject to the next. The excised pages are all preceded by either a blank page or a blank lower margin, suggesting that Collins was deliberately removing the pages to give order to his manuscript. It looks as if he has begun several sections in the earlier stages, but has found that he allowed for too much space between them and has removed the extraneous leaves. This excising continues for around the first half of the volume, but in the second half there are no removals, and each topic moves seamlessly to the next.

SOURCES AND CLUES

It is not uncommon for household compilations to gather material from a wide range of sources, whether printed publications or recipes circulated in manuscript. Examining these sources can yield vital clues to the reading habits and social connections of the scribe.

Of the 30 or so attributed recipes, some 23 occur in the “Cordials Physical and Chyrurchical Receipts”. Several of these contributors provide more than one remedy, and a couple also supply entries for the culinary sections. “Madam Granville” (also “Granvil”) is a case in point: she is credited with the culinary recipe “To Make Cheese Cake Madam Granvils Way” and two recipes for “Elder Wine” (one made from “Malaga Raisins” and “Elder Blossoms”, the other featuring only “Elder Berries” distilled in an “Alembeck”) as well as “Surfeit Water”, although one wonders whether “a Gallon of Brandy” mixed with “two Pecks or more of Poppys”, various spices (“Cinnamon”, “Ginger”, “Cloves” “Nutmegs”), “Figgs” and “Raisins of ye Sun ston’d” will really do much for the effects of overindulgence.

The recipe “to Make Plague Water Mdm Granville” (p.238) mixes “Wines Lees sider or Brandy” with over 30 herbs, flowers and roots including “Angelica”, “Dragon Baum”, “Featherfew”, “Orange flowers” and “Virginea Snake Root” (the latter recently imported, one presumes). Should this cosmopolitan concoction prove ineffective, Collins also includes on the facing page “A most Excellent Medicine for ye Plague”, in which alcohol (“Muscadine Wine”) is again a key ingredient, this time mixed with “Pepper, Ginger and Nutmeg”, some “Treacle” and the non-specific and quasi-mythical cure-all “Methridate”. The last great wave of plague in England was some 40 years before the compilation of this manuscript, but outbreaks were recorded in Continental Europe in the 18th century and fears of its recurrence clearly lingered on, as Collins adds another six cures. These include one by “Lord Rich”, who likewise recommends alcohol (“Malmsey Wine”), herbs and “Methridate”, and we are told that “there was never Man, Woman or Child, that this drink Deceived, if the heart Were not already clean Mortified and drown’d with the Disease Long before”. But if any were “Deceived” after all, a crack team of dignitaries and medical professionals combined to recommend “A remedy for the Plague sent ye Lord Mayor of London by King Henry the 8th and approved by Dr Burgess and all ye Eminent Physitians of London” (p.251).

Slightly lesser authority seems to have been accorded to certain other medics, as in the case of “Dr Purslows Water who at 125 Years of Age read without Spectacles” and the (no longer) “Famous Dr Double of Chichester’s Plaister for ye Eyes” (both on p.250), together with “Dr Ratcliffs Receipt to make Salutifera” (p.251); and they are listed alongside the likes of “The Burnt Oyntment Mtrs Hall’s” and “Madam Waintworth’s Excellent Medicine for any Ach”.

The movement of recipes from manuscript to print and vice versa is exemplified over several pages: “two receipts for ye Cure of ye Bite of a Mad Dog” are prefaced: “ye first was attended to ye Publisher for a General good by a Reverend Prelate of Our Church the following taken out of Church in Lincolnshire” (p.271-2); and the reverse movement occurs on the following page: “This Receipt was Inserted in Mist’s Journal Saturday December the 2d – 1727 as an Approved Remedy for Cure of a Violent Cold”. Similarly, an entry treating “Of Mushrooms and how to raise them” is credited as “Translated out of the French” by “John Evelyn Fellow of the Royal Society” – presumably referring to Evelyn’s 1693 translation of La Quintinie’s The compleat gard’ner (but Collins’ text appears to be a detailed summary rather than a verbatim copy).

WHO AND WHERE?

Evidence of manuscript circulation occurs in several recipes, some of which is helpful in locating our scribe. One for “The Lady Katherine Windhams powder for Convulsion fits” (p.237) likely refers to Katherine Windham (fl 1669-1729) of Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, whose ‘A Book of Cookery and Housekeeping’ (dated 1707) is held at the Norfolk Record Office (NRO, WKC 6/457). Unlike the abovementioned Madam Granville’s five recipes, Lady Katherine appears only once, so it seems probable that any connection Collins had to her socially or geographically was fairly distant. A much closer connection is recorded in “An Inward Cure for deafness wch cured a person above seventy and had been deaf 40 years and used a speaking Trumpet and cured the Clark of St Clement’s Danes of whom I had the Receipt ye Clarks name Cox” (p.272). The church of “St Clement’s Danes”, completed in 1682 by Sir Christopher Wren, is situated in Westminster. Another remedy which seems to have been

obtained directly is “Chymichal Drops never known to fail in Rheumatism. So safe are they that a Sucking Infant may take them and any one without any Inconvenience are sold only at Jacobs Coffee House against the Angel and Crown Tavern in Threadneedle Street behind ye Royal Exchange, at 3s & 6d the Bottle, with Directions” (p.273).

Such references usefully narrow down the area in which Collins lived and possibly worked. On p.258 he provides a very exact reference that brings us even closer: “Mr Fox of Kensington’s Receipt for ye Gravel and Stone” has the distinction that it “brought away several stones at several Times and gave present ease to Mr Newlin of Kensington tho’ a Wreck”; and on p.275

“Sr John Busby’s Most admirable Black Plaister” came not from Sir John, but “ye Receit was given me by Madam Tempest of Kensington”. Another remedy both confirms his location and points to a likely family connection: “A Receipt to pickle Mango Melons or Pickle ym Mango Fashion” carries the addendum: “N:B: This receipt I have tried […] Famous Christopher Johnsons Receipt that Presented several Crro Crown’d Heads with a Melon on Christmas Day as fresh and good as in the Summer cut fresh out of the Garden and has imparted ye Secret to None but his own Family, though tempted with much Money. is now living at Kensington this present 22 Day of October 1724” (p.213). From this it appears Collins was either related to Christopher Johnson or acquainted with a family member. Either way, having obtained this closely guarded recipe, he has secreted it in the pages of this volume for private use. Given the exact local references, we conclude that Collins lived in the fashionable suburb of Kensington.

THE RECIPES AND REMEDIES

The arrangement of Collins’ volume mirrors that of a full-course dinner, with dishes taken from printed and manuscript sources.

For the first course: “soups”, some 29 recipes from various sources, including “A good Herb Soop for the Spring” (which appeared in several 18th-century recipe books, including Robert Smith’s Court cookery (1723)), “A good English Soop”, “CrayFish Soop”, and “Muscle Soop”

Multiple savoury dishes follow, including “Fricasseys” (“Chickens”, “Rabbets”, “Surpriz’d Fowls”); some are copied from Smith’s Court Cookery, while others appear to be from manuscript exchange. These include “Another way to Make Ketchup Mrs Cutliffs” (p.13) and “The Lady Lansdons Sauce for Pidgeons or Chickens” (p.27), which includes the unusual analogy: “Take one Anchovie, the bigness of a Pidgeons Egg in Capers”.

Recipes for “Fish”, “Ragoos, Balls, Forc’d-Meats”, and “Potting” include some copied from Smith’s book, including “An Admirable Way to Roast a Pike”, “Scotch Collops”, mixed with others which are untraced, and presumably taken from manuscript sources – for instance “To Dress a Pike a Nother Way” (p.47), “to Pickle Scallops” (which notes that “Slimy Skirt lyes between the two had finns with the Black Eye and Red Tail must needs be left”, and is to be done “Mrs Blunt’s Way” (p.48)), and “The Lord Lovelace’s way to Fry Mutton” (p.69).

If sheer quantity of recipes is an indication of Collins’ preferences, then from the almost 100 pages of “Pastes, Pies, Pasties, Puddings, Tansies, Cakes, Jellies, &c” (including “Creams Confectionaries &c”), we now know why the abovementioned “Surfeit Water” was required!

The section begins with basic recipes for pastry (“Puff Paste”, “Paste for Pasty”), one for a “Caudle”, and two for “A Lear” (a kind of liquor for the pies). A partiality to encasing animals in pastry emerges in several recipes including “Swan Pie to be

Eaten Cold”, “Lobster Pie”, “Carp Pie”, “Venison Pasty”, “Lamprey Pie”, and “Neats Tongue Pie”. Somewhat easier on the digestion are “Lady Saundersons Biscakes” (“bake them in such Pans as they do Naples Bisket”) (p.126), “Portugal Cake” (“strow in the Flower and Currans by degrees; still keeping them beating till tis little Past and bake them in Tin pans or with Paper Hoops round them”) (p.134), and a range of fruit-centred recipes such as “Light Plumb Cakes for Breakfast” (p.125), “Little Plumb Cakes” (p.126), and “Orange Cheese-Cakes” (“beat the Peels in a Mortar till as tender as Marmalade, without any Knots”) (p.135). Also present are recipes for “Spanish Butter” (p.149), “Trout Cream” (p.150), “Rock Sugar” (p.177), and the ambiguously named “Doncaster Sick Wife’s Cakes” (p.125).

Some of the recipes include instructions on how to cook and recommendations on how to prepare food with notes on the best utensils and other paraphernalia, from simple home-made “Butter’d Paper moulds long or square” for “Ratifea Bisket” (p.130) to preparing “Spanish Butter” (“beat it with a Silver Ladle or Wooden beater, till it is stiff enough to lie as high as you would have it, be sure to beat it all one way and not change your hand”) (p.149) and “Chocolate Almonds” (“Take two pound of fine sifted sugar, half a pound of Chocolate grated and sifted thro’ a hair sieve, a grain of Musk, a grain of Amber, twos spoonfulls of Benn”) (p.181). Others have notes on presentation: for “Trout Cream”, we are directed “when you send it up turn the Baskets on a plate and give it a knock with your hand, they will come out like a fish, Whip Cream and lay about them, they will look well in any little Basket that is shallow, if you have no long ones” (p.150). Some have very specific instructions: the “Red earthen pot that will hold about four Quarts those potts that are something less at the top and bottom then in y e Middle” is exactly what is required “To Make Rock Sugar” (p.177).

All the above dishes may be washed down or followed by dinner drinks, including “Lady Litchfield’s Mead”, various wines (“Quince”, “Cowslip”, “Birch”, the abovementioned “Elder Wine Madam Granville’s”), and an incongruous recipe to “Make Ketchup with Mushrooms ye Lady Foxs’s way”.

Having attended to their sustenance, the volume ends with over 40 pages of remedies (“Physical and Chirurgical Receipts”) which tell us something about the health complaints of the Collins household (besides a keen anxiety about a resurgent plague). One or more of them may have been experiencing fluid retention (“Dr Shore of Chichesters Receipt to Cure a Dropsie”), kidney stones (“Mr Fox of Kensington’s Receipt for ye Gravel and Stone”), hearing and vision problems (“Mr Rideout’s Receipt to help ye hearing or cure Deafness”, “An Admirable receipt to help ye Hearing Dr Halsey’s”, “Famous Dr Double of Chichester’s Plaister for ye Eyes”), and possibly a speech impediment (“A cure for Stuttering”, p.247).

From its specific local connections to its Transatlantic references, Charles Collins’ lively and comprehensive folio household book epitomises the crosscurrents of the early modern period. It gathers material from printed works and manuscript recipe exchange, and the results of copying, swapping, approving and discussing, and brings together some of the domestic and social interactions of an early 18th-century Kensington gentleman.

£8,500 Ref: 8228

SEVEN

AUBREY, John (1626-1697); POPE, Alexander (1688 subjects. I. Day-Fatality. II. Local-Fatality. III. Ostenta. IV. Omens. V. Dreams. VI. Apparitions. Vii. Voices. Viii. Impulses. IX. Knockings. X. Blows Invisible. XI. Prophesies. XII. Marvels. XIII. Magick. XIV. Transportation in the Air. XV. Visions in a Beril, or Glass. XVI. Converse with Angels and Spirits, XVII Corps-Candles in Wales. XVIII. Oracles. XIX. Exstasie. XX. Glances of Love and Envy. XXI. Second-Sighted-Persons. XXII. The discovery of two murders by an apparition. Collected by John Aubrey, Esq; F.R.S. The second edition, with large additions. To which is prefixed, some account of his life.

London: printed for A. Bettesworth, and J. Battley in Pater Row, J. Pemberton in Fleetstreet, and E. Curll in the Strand, M.D.CC.XXI. [1721].

Octavo. Pagination [4], x, [6], 236, [2], p. Collated and complete with the engraved plate and first and final blank leaves. With two engraved portraits of Pope tipped in at the front; a manuscript page with a clipped signature of Pope affixed is tipped in (see below). Annotations to 63 pages which range from a few words to profuse marginalia.

Binding: 19th-century diced Russia gilt, a.e.g. Front cover detached; lower portion of backstrip missing; some spots and marks; collector’s notes in ink to two preliminary leaves; extensive marginal ink annotations throughout, some trimmed by the binder.

“THE FAMOUS SYKES COPY”

A certain ambiguity attends the history of this copy of Aubrey’s . According to a manuscript note to the front free “This book belonged to Alexander Pope: of with whose hand writing this Book Abounds”. We do not know whether this note was written by an optimistic bookseller or by the book’s erstwhile owner, Sir Mark Masterman-Sykes (see below). Either way, the ink annotations, which run throughout the volume, continued to be attributed to Pope until relatively recently. A letter with Pope’s signature pasted on (“Odd Observations on St Pauls Cathedral

London Journal of Sat Feb. 15. 1723/24” with a slip signed Friend & Sert A. Pope Aug. 16. 1732”) were probably added for comparison with the annotations. But are the annotations really by him? This is a vexed question: many of the distinguishing features of Pope’s hand changed markedly over his lifetime, and even comparison with manuscripts in library collections that are known to be his hand often do not resemble each other. We will try to weigh up the evidence of provenance, palaeography, and

PROVENANCE

The book has the gilt arms of Sir Mark Masterman-Sykes (17711823) to the front and rear boards and his shelf-mark, initials and address, “Sledmere”, to the front endpaper. MastermanSykes, a baronet and member of parliament for York, was well known in his time as a bibliophile who amassed an impressive

Sykes’s collection was auctioned by Robert Harding Evans in 1824, as detailed in the Catalogue of the splendid, curious, and extensive library of the late Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, Bart 1. The first part of the sale began on 11 May and continued for ten days; the second part ran from 28 May to the five following days; and the third part was on 3 June 21 and continued on seven following days (in all sales, Sundays were excepted). There were some 3,700 lots in total, which brought nearly £18,000.

This book was lot 98 in the Sykes catalogue, where it was laconically described as “Aubrey’s Miscellanies with manuscript Notes by Pope, and his Autograph”. This surely refers to our added manuscript page and Pope’s signature, so it seems these were added at an early stage. A pencil note to the front endpaper reads “Sykes Sale 1824 Lot 98 £3.15.0.” The book was acquired by the celebrated collector Richard Heber (1773-1833); a note of the cost of this book at the Sykes sale and commission of 11 shillings to the London bookseller, 1851) is written at the upper left corner of the endpaper.

The book reappeared on the market just over a decade later in the famous sale of Bibliotheca Heberiana 2. Once again, the annotations were ascribed to Pope: “101 Aubrey’s (John) Miscellanies with numerous Manuscript Notes by Pope, and his Autograph, russia, portraits inserted, 1721”.

So, in the Sykes and Heber catalogues the annotations were attributed to Pope. However, an early 20th-century bookseller’s catalogue entry (clipped and loosely inserted) is more equivocal: “THE FAMOUS SYKES COPY, long supposed to be Alexander Pope’s, with a profusion of manuscript annotations said to be in his hand (according to a contemporary note on flyleaf). A genuine signature of Pope is bound in for comparison.”

When the book was sold at Sotheby’s (1970), they gave no attribution, and opted instead for “extensive annotations through the book in a contemporary hand including an inserted leaf with Pope’s signature pasted on to it”. The Sotheby’s catalogue also describes a further autograph item, namely a receipt to John Fownes, signed by Pope, for a subscription to Pope’s translation of Homer. There are remnants of paper where this item was probably attached. This seems to be the earliest mention of a receipt, so we assume it was added in the 20th century. Either way, it became separated from the book at some point and later turned up inserted into to a set of Pope’s Homer sold by Bauman Rare Books in New York.

In 1976, the book was sold at Swann Galleries with the Sykes provenance noted, but they seem to have simply elided the issue of Pope’s hand, instead making no mention of annotations despite their profusion. The book then went into a private collection before reappearing on the market recently.

PALAEOGRAPHY

Any comparison of our annotations with those known to be in Pope’s hand is contentious because his hand differs depending upon time and context.

Joseph Hone charts these changes in Alexander Pope in the Making (2023). In his early years, Pope carefully prepared his manuscripts and “precisely imitates the swashes, serifs, and ligatures of printed type”.3 Hone also cites Pope’s literary executor, who observed that Pope’s manuscripts were so beautifully written, “one can hardly believe they are not really from the press”. But over time Pope became less concerned with appearance and his later manuscripts and annotations were in a “less careful hand”. Similarly, the young Alexander Pope inscribed his books “Alexandri Popei” in imitation roman and swash italic, whereas our book has no inscription. However, as Hone observes in ‘Pope and the Blounts’ (2023), “It is important to note that although as a young man Pope habitually inscribed his books, with age he became increasingly lax” 4 .

Perhaps the early manuscripts, with their attempts to imitate printed books, reflected the pretensions of a young man creating his idea of a ‘great author’, but once he acquired an indisputable greatness, he had no need for youthful affectations.

If our annotator is indeed Pope, then it is most certainly a later example. The book itself tells us that much: it was printed in 1721, so the annotations are obviously after that date. But how long after? Hone is again helpful, noting that by the 1730s, Pope’s handwriting had deteriorated considerably. There are no dates in the annotations, but an array of books are cited and none date from after Pope’s death, so we can be reasonably confident that, even if our annotator is not Pope, it is nonetheless one of his contemporaries.

We used three examples of Pope’s hand as our comparators: British Library Add MS 4807, f. 87v and Add MS 4808; and Beinecke GEN MSS 270 (an album formally owned by John Murray, which includes “original proof of two pages from Pope’s Epistles, pages 69 and 70, with the author’s corrections”).

To avoid excessive ‘cherry-picking’, we present examples from only the last of these (GEN MSS 270) and compare them with our annotated Aubrey.

On the right are two sample annotations in GEN MSS 270 (upper and lower sections of margin):

…and these are examples of pages from our book:

When we look at individual words, there are as many matches as there are misses.

For example, the words Hear, years, tears from GEN MSS 270:

… and from our annotated Aubrey: Years, year, years:

The word Dead in GEN MSS 270: ... and Dead in our annotated Aubrey:

GEN MSS 270: fortune

GEN MSS 270: husband

Annotated Aubrey: unfortunate

Annotated Aubrey: Husbands

Given the differences as well as the similarities, this exercise illustrates how palaeographic evidence, at least when comparing Pope’s hand, is an uncertain business, and that any argument that hangs on it alone is insufficient.

LANGUAGE AND MARKS

One aspect of the annotations which is consistent with known examples of Pope’s style lies in the numerous little crosses throughout the book. However, this was not unique to Pope, and can be found in other annotated books of the period, so taken alone it is insufficient evidence evidence, it becomes more compelling.

A counterweight to this arises from the same restraint that characterises his use of little crosses: Pope did not usually indulge in annotating as profusely as the hand here has done, and Aubrey’s Miscellanies (notwithstanding that the miscellany was a form Pope himself favoured) seems a strange choice upon which to lavish his intellectual gifts.

A further argument against the attribution of Pope as scribe needs to be addressed: is his Catholicism consonant with notes such as the one to the upper margin of I5r that reads: [P]opish Tale of S Teresias Knocking after he[ Cells of her Votaries”; and, on K7r. against an annotation “see ye Superstition of Heathens & Papists”; in the index: “Prejudices of ye Wild Irish Papists ag 45” (Q6v)? (If we follow the reference to page 45 there is an “x” against the section of printed text referring to “the Popish Irish”). Would a Catholic use a pejorative term like “Papists”? In fact, Pope used the word frequently in his correspondence and often in a hostile manner: “I resolve to take any opportunity of declaring (even upon Oath) how different I am from what a reputed Papist is. I could almost wish, I were askd if I am not a Papist? Would it be proper, in such case, to reply, That I dont perfectly know the Import of the word, & would not answer any thing that might for ought I know, be prejudicial to me, during the Bill against such, which is depending. But that if to be a Papist be to profess & hold many such Tenets of faith as are ascribd to Papists, I am not a Papist. And if to be a Papist, be to hold any that are averse to, or destructive of, the present Government, King, or Constitution; I am no Papist” (Pope to Harcourt, 6 May 1723, in Corr., ii. 171-2). 5

CONTENT

The evidence for Pope as scribe, then, although certainly not to be dismissed, is inconclusive. What seems certain is that the annotator was at least a contemporary of Pope’s, if not the man himself; and Aubrey’s Miscellanies is itself a work of great interest. ODNB describes it as “an investigation into a variety of psychic and supernatural phenomena such as omens and prophecies, dreams and apparitions, day fatality and second sight, all of which he was concerned to explore and explain, verify or discredit”.

Our annotator follows Aubrey’s lead by taking a mostly detached approach to the subject matter; and while they are not afraid of giving an opinion, they mainly cite other books and authors. Among the most “Mr Wood” i.e. Anthony à Wood (1632-1695), whose great Athenae Oxonienses (“Athenae Ath. Oxon”, “A. O.”) (1691-2) and are referenced; also well represented are “Increase Mathers recording of Illustrious Providence. 12o 1684”, and “Mr Baxter’s Certainty of the World of Spirits”, with single references to the likes of “Tho: Widdowes ad ann. 1655 & from thence by Dr Plot in his Natural Hist. of Oxfordshire”, “Camden in his Hist. of Qu. Eliz. Sub. An. 1570”, “Bovets Pandæmonium”, and “Stows Survey of London”. Such sources are drawn upon to furnish additional information pertinent to the tales cited by Aubrey, so that the annotator is in effect ‘conversing’ with the printed text and its

To take a few examples among many: our scribe augments Aubrey’s accounts of superstition, omens and so on with an abundance of further incidents gleaned from their reading. Thus, we read: “N.B. Mr Str. In his Eccl. Mem. Vol 3 p286. modestly seems to ascribe […] ye great Death that happened in 1555 or 1556 to the appearance of the Blazing star there mention’d” (D1v); and on occasion, they hitch a couple of links to the chain of association, for example describing how “Deacon Eachard has in his Hist. of Eng. Vol 3 observ’d Kings of Eng. Nam’d Seconds [h]ave been unfortunate as Edw ii Rich ii & James ii”, then recounting that “Eachard” was “wittily censur’d” for this “by Mr Salmon in his Examinat. Of Bp. Burnets Hist. of his own Times. P.1065” (C7v).

The scribe often adds a ‘run-on’ clause to continue Aubrey’s printed text: the line “The Romans counted Febr. 13. an Unlucky Day” has acquired a note that extends this thought: “as also the month of May an unlucky month to marry in according to Ovid in his Fasti” (B2r); and Aubrey’s anecdote “The picture of Arch-Bishop Laud in his Closet fell down (the String brake) the Day of the sitting of that Parliament” has the manuscript addendum: “so did ye D. of Bucks on June 13. 1688 at Lambeth wch was look[ed] on also as ominous as it sa[ys] in ye Compl. Hist of Eng. Vol.3. p48” (D4r).

In keeping with Aubrey’s even-handedness, the annotator acknowledges different sides of the debate on witchcraft, mentioning the sceptical “Scots Discovery of Witchcraft” four times, while the rational “Websters Display of Witchcraft” and its spiritually motivated response “Glanvil’s Sadd. Triumph” receive equal billing with five mentions each. At the same time, one might choose to detect a certain

such as this one on the ominous quirks of the calendar: “N.B. In bp. Burnets Hist Ref pt.11. p.316. tis said yt at ye beginning of Qu. Marys Reign twas observ’d as a wonderful thing yt K. Edw. VI. shd die on ye same day of ye year yt Sr Tho: More was beheaded”. Furthermore, “it was said that the great Duke of Florence lay sick as many days as had reigned years” (B1v).

This mention of “bp. Burnet”, incidentally, is one of several, and lest it be seized upon as the clincher that Pope is not our scribe – since he would be unlikely to include an approbatory reference to Thomas Burnet (1694-1753), with whom he had a vicious and public rivalry – “bp Burnet” is, of course, Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715), whose History of the Reformation (referred to in the annotations) was a standard work on the subject for a century.

CONCLUSION

Our book’s journey and strong provenance convey an absorbing mixture of hopes, desires and disappointments of dealers, auctions, and collectors. It has a letter and Alexander Pope signature bound in for comparison. But as to Pope’s ascription as annotator, the consensus seems to have developed in relation to distance, so that the further it has travelled from its original source, the fainter the claim to Pope has become. The palaeographic evidence, though bringing us to a resounding “maybe”, is helpful in reminding us that time and context are essential features of any assessment, especially when those factors are brought to bear upon a character as complex as Pope. As to the content of the annotations themselves, we can at least be confident that, whether or not the ‘great author’ created them, they provide an engrossing window into the world of Pope’s contemporary readers.

Conversations abound in this profusely annotated book, and if we remain uncertain as to the identity of one of its chief interlocutors, the sheer quantity of discursive threads, references and additions makes it a hugely appealing showcase for the high levels of engagement and the emerging concerns with objective verification (albeit of the occult and superstition in this case) that characterised the period.

£11,500 Ref: 8203

1. Evans, Robert Harding (1778-1857). Catalogue of the splendid, curious, and extensive library of the late Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, Bart., parts 1-3: ... which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Evans, at His House, No. 93, Pall-Mall. (London: Printed by W. Nicol 1824).

2. Heber, Richard (1773-1833). Bibliotheca Heberiana. Catalogue of the library of ... R. Heber ... which will be sold by ... Messrs. Sotheby and Son [R.H. Evans and B. Wheatley] ... 1834[-1837]. [London]: [1834-1837], part 6, 23 March 1835.

3. Hone, Joseph. Alexander Pope in the Making (2023).

4. In The Library, 7th series, vol. 24, no. 3 (September 2023). p.352

5. We are extremely grateful to Joseph Hone for pointing this out to us and for numerous other valuable insights.

EIGHT

Two manuscript accounts books recording administration of poor law. [Weston & Wixhill, Shropshire. Circa 1676-1737]. Two volumes.

Manuscript Records by Overseers of the Poor. Circa 1676-1737. Small quarto (180 x 150 x 10 mm). 82 pages of accounts on 41 leaves. Vellum binding. Paper softened and fragile, frayed at edges, some leaves loose, and some presumably lost. Watermark: Pot (Haewood 3677-9, but with central letters NM).

Manuscript ledger recording debits and credits. Circa 1702-1721. Tabulated index on 12 leaves, approximately 75 pages of accounts (varying from sparse to full), plus numerous blanks leaves. Narrow folio (394 x 152 x 15 mm). Vellum binding retaining original ties. Unusually, all of the sheets have been arranged into a single gathering and stitched through the centre. Watermark: Coat of Arms (Haewood 456-73).

¶ The issue of ‘what to do with the poor’ has taxed rulers and governments for centuries. The origins of Poor Laws in England are generally traced back to the reign of Richard II in the late 14th century, but Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries (and the consequent confiscation of the assets from which they disbursed relief for the poor), and the expropriation of common land, or “enclosures” (which continued into the 19th century) compounded matters, leading to a series of parliamentary acts throughout the 16th century. The Poor Relief Act of 1597 created the role of Overseers of the Poor, appointed for every parish and supervised by a local Justice of the Peace, and a 1601 act formalised and refined previous measures, making assessment for the relief of the poor compulsory.

Acts and legislation came and went; meanwhile, this manuscript shows life at the sharp end, as the overseers in “Weston and Wixill” (some 14 miles north of Shrewsbury) assess local need, collect the poor rate from landowners, and distribute food or money as they deem appropriate. These accounts are kept by a series of overseers, beginning in 1676 with “Thomas Hoden”, who records amounts “Recd”, presumably from landowners, then lists disbursements to “widow Baly” (ranging from “00-0300” to “00-06-00”) and others. On the next page, his accounts are signed as “Seen & allowed” by two worthies – perhaps Justices of the Peace “Ch: Maynwaringe” and “Th: Hitt”. Subsequent entries follow

the same pattern over several decades, with overseers for the parish (including “Robert Longdon”, “Robert Peate”, and “Thomas Massey”) itemising their receipts and recording payouts and expenses, often with a specific purpose added “Rent”, “3 yards of peats”, “for a blankit”, “a paire of shooes tinkers Child”, “pd William Ridgway for 5 days and a halfe for thatching Thoms Gitttens house”, “Elizabeth: Haries when her husband was sick”).

The pages also disclose the unusual presence of a female overseer: “Elizabeth Berry”, who sets down her accounts for 56”. A late entry here concerns her payment to “Thomas Griffis for wrighting and going with me to gather some part of my Lowne”, followed by a separate payment for “puting them in the book”

The second book is a ledger recording debits and credits by individuals mostly in the same region (Hodnet, Whitchurch, Hawkestone, and so on), beginning in the late 1690s. A few of the names in the first book appear here (“Bayley”, “Fletcher”), and they are joined by the likes of “Sr Orlando Bridgman” for such things as “money lent in a Mortgage in Lands in Droit witch” and several amounts “Recd of Mr Fletcher”. The infamous Sir Orlando Bridgeman, 2nd Baronet (1678-1746) a British landowner and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1707 and 1738. In order to build an impressive mansion, he took on too much debt, and was pursued by creditors. He faked his own death in 1738 and went into hiding, but was soon caught and spent the rest of his life in prison.

Both manuscripts retain their original bindings, and, while the earlier of the two is in poor condition, it is an unusual survivor which provides rare first-hand evidence of the administration of poor law; of who decided who “deserved” financial assistance in small, rural communities of early modern England.

£2,000 Ref: 8216

NINE

[HARRISON, Susanna (d.1773) et al]. Small family archive of notebooks and related manuscripts. [Circa 1770-1810]. All items in original (some homemade) bindings and good original condition.

¶ The most well-defined figure in this archive is Susanna Harrison, whose notebook Her entries, as we shall see, represent the attempts of an intelligent woman from a clearly well do family to find an outlet for her energies – especially creative – in an existence constrained by the social conventions of her age.

The Harrisons seem to have lived in Lincolnshire in the north-east of England, to judge by the placenames sprinkled throughout the archive: “Owersby”, “Atterby”, “Snitterby”, “Heapham” and others. We can glean from these materials the names and dates of a few family members: Susanna Harrison (d.1775), subject of a note in item [1] (“my Sister Susannah departed this life in July 1775”); Thomas Harrison (1748-1804?), whose name appears on the back of a business card (“Tho Harrison of Rowlston Aged 54 the 15th April 1802 Old Stile”); Rachel Harrison (1748-?), also referenced on the business card (“Rachel Harrison Born the 15th of April 1748”); and Bridgit Harrison (d.1733) and Bridgit Harrison the younger (d.1737), mentioned in item [2] (“Bridgit Harrison dyed ye 8 day of June buried y day 1733 dyed Bridgit Harrison ye younger The 24th of july She dyed 1737” At some point, the Harrisons appear to have become closely linked with members of a family named Storey, through either marriage or friendship.

CONTENTS

[1]. 18th-century notebook. Octavo (152 x 92 x 15mm). Approximately 22 text pages and 20 pages of designs (three pencil; 17 in ink), on 103 leaves with four embroidery samples loosely inserted and piece of folded paper containing red pigment stashed into the pocket of the binding. Original vellum wallet-style stationer’s book. Slightly soiled but very good original condition with functioning clasp.

There are two ownership inscriptions, which together invite a gendered comparison: “Robert Harrison” is written vertically in a calligraphic hand that dominates the paste-down; and opposite, in a smaller, unassuming hand, Harrison Book / October the 29 – 1772”. Given this latter inscription, together with some of the notes in the text, we take the book – most of it, at least – to have been written by Susanna.

The topics covered are, indeed, largely consonant with what were considered ‘female pursuits’. The first section, comprising nine pages, gives a series of instructions for 25 dances ranging from -known (“Buttered Peas”, “The Hay Makers”, “Flowers of Edenborough”, “Hunting the Squeril”) to the more obscure and apparently hitherto lost (“Rolling on the Grass”, “The Ladies Setifficat Rant”, and “Wainfleet Boys” –probably a local dance, since Wainfleet is a Lincolnshire town). Another is entitled “Black Moll”, remembered now, if at all, as a character in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) and Henry Tom Jones (1749), but here a dance with instructions to “Set Cross partners and turn that a gain Cross over & Couple Lead up foot it Cast of setting proper Lead out of Sides and turn”.

After about seven blank leaves, there are some eight pages of religious verse, one of which is written in code, beginning: “Wh28 459 siv459C172 t4 th2 C94ss h3s B4dt sh4k2 18d th2 J2ws 1sk’d H37 3f h2 h1d G1t 18 1952 18dh2 18sw2g2d...”. The code is a simple one, suggesting that Susanna is indulging in a private game to entertain herself. Immediately after the last page of morally improving poetry, another, messier hand has recorded several family deaths, including that of “my our main scribe, we assume, for this volume.

At the rear of the volume, there are 20 pages of designs. Three are sketched in pencil and 17 are carefully drawn in ink. These bear extremely close resemblance to the original samples contained in the volume, so they are almost certainly designs for the lace.

Adding to the tactility of the volume and its contents is a sample of powdered red pigment, folded inside a scrap of paper tucked into another art form represented, and a neat expression of how the book’s principal scribe has felt obliged to store away her true

[2]. 18th-century receipt book. Octavo (153 x 95 x 2mm). Approximately 7 text pages on 5 leaves. Homemade notebook made from a few folded sheets of paper stitched into a crudely cut piece of vellum.

Receipts for land rentals e.g. “Nouember ye 20th 1735 ye 22 shillings Receiued of Richard Smith ye Sum of Ten Pounds of a House In attaerbe dew may Day Last”.

[3]. 18th-century manuscript terrier. Octavo (165 x 90 x 5mm). Approximately 35 text pages on 43 leaves. Some leaves excised, one cut with loss of upper half. Crudely made notebook of several quires stitched into vellum-covered paste-board. The first page is entitled: “A Terrier of the Carr meadows belonging to wadington Snitterby and atterby”. The text, which is mostly to the rectos, comprises names, quantities measured in “gads” and some notes to the versos most of which concern the sales by one “Mr Thomson”. The calculation for the “north Carr” is annotated “This meadows was set out by the Jury 23 october 1728 Mr Wright was foreman Richardson beginin to big stons septmber 30”. The terrier concludes “wartlets half belonging to wadington the other half to Snitterby and atterby Finis nov: the 1: 1728”.

[4]. Hellaby’s Town and Country Lady’s Repository; or, Memorandum Book for the Year 1807. Boston. Printed by and for J[ames]. Hellaby and sold by Lackington, Allen and Co. and Champante and Whitrow, London. [1807]. Octavo (165 x 90 x 5mm). Pagination 132 (lacking 90-91) with an engraved title page and folded frontispiece. Green wallet-style binding.

recorded in library collections. Pennsylvania State University Libraries have a similar [1806] which is included in a sammelband of five Georgian women’s pocketbooks.

The title page says the book includes “Select Poetry, Enigmas, &c. New Songs. Country Dances”, but despite our scribe’s ancestors showing a distinct interest in these activities there is only a short list in manuscript to the front endpaper, including items such as “4 New Night Gowns”, “4 pr new drawers”, “4 Vests” and very brief pencilled notes to the printed diary pages. These record such things as “Eggs 1s 6d”, on 9 January, an opaque reference to “White face” in a diary entry for 2 July, then almost nothing “brewed this day” on 31 July, listed under “Engagements”.

[5]. Advertisement for ‘Joseph Goodyger Weaver, Wheatley. Single sheet (205 x 170 mm). Folded, upper left corner torn. The advertisement continues: “Return his sincere thanks to his friends and the public, for the favors he has receoved from them, and respectfully informs them that he weaves damask table cloths and napkins, of any size, [...] Those persons who please to send their thread to him, may depend upon their orders being obeyed with the strictest attention”. Manuscript notes to upper margin (some loss from tear) “[S]toarey to Joseph Goodger Dr to 4 Napkings weaving [ torn 5d per Napking ... 0 6 0” with three more items and totalled at the end. Docketed on the reverse “Mr Storey of heapam Lincoln[shire].

[6]. Sundry items including a business card for “Clulow & Unett, Manufacturers of Eartheware”, printed (circa 1810) by “H. Mozley, Market-Place, Gainsbro’” and with sections left blank in printing that have been completed in manuscript. A note on the reverse records the names and dates of two members of the Harrison family. Among the other items are a bill (“1745 Tho maws bill”), a remedy dated 1808, a letter dated 1792 referring to their land at Atterby (recorded in the terrier), and a few letters from later in the 19th century. All items relate either to the Harrisons or the Storeys.

The supporting documents [6], with their comparatively pedestrian concerns, set Sarah Harrison’s notebook usefully in a context that allows her creative pursuits to stand out against their background. These sections, nevertheless, are unified by their prescriptiveness: they establish patterns terpsichorial, moral or lacy followed, echoing the confinement of expression so adroitly explored by the likes of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen that Georgian women had to live within.

£3,750 Ref: 8211

TEN

[LEE, Samuel (1743-1800)]. Original Documents investigating the Surgical Treatment of Patients at Greenwich Hospital, including a Report with Case Studies.

[Circa 1751-54]. 17 letters and documents (most between four and eight pages), with a 22-page medical report. The letters are all in good condition, but the report has mould spots and the pages are loose.

¶ With support by public subscription, Samuel Lee helped establish Greenwich Hospital, where he pioneered a treatment for hernia. Since his innovation proved especially useful for treating servicemen, subscriptions and support came from the Navy. However, despite apparent success in surgery, Lee’s new surgical methods for treating ruptures were questioned by some of his colleagues in the medical profession who accused him of quackery. Whether this was motivated by professional jealousy or genuine concern for patient practice, it gave rise to a pamphlet war in which he was accused of questionable practices and of bribing his patients to give false testimony.

As a result of these allegations an official inquiry was undertaken to assess the charges against him. One of the principal investigators was Admiral Samuel Barrington (1729-1800), and these papers offer a fascinating insight into his investigation on behalf of the Navy. They commence with his official appointment on 22 December 1752 “to take care of such Persons as may be afflicted with Ruptures in Greenwich Hospital, for one year only”. Nine documents relate to “Examinations” of Lee’s patients and reports about their conditions, as concerns about his practice evidently arose.

A lot of colourful detail is included as officials check Lee’s work: of “Richard Taylor, aged 75”, we read that “a Swelling as big as an Egg appears on the left side of his Groin. Had a Plaister on this Swelling, given by Mr Lee” (18 September 1752); in another case, “a man unknown to Lee’s Patients […] desir’d to examine George Dix, which he did, and squeezed his testicles so much, that the poor man was in great Pain for four Days after, however the Man gave Dix a shilling and went away immediately”. Three letters concern allegations that Lee bribed patients: “Mr Jarvis then asked if Lee had never given them money to bribe them – they answered no”.

Barrington’s 22-page report is in poor condition, but fascinating, and contains his amendments, annotations, and corrections. Originally, he seems to have judged Lee a fraud (“I concluded him to be one of those hardy & extravagant Projectors”) and “was confirmed in this opinion by Doctor Cockburne” (one of Lee’s accusers).

Nonetheless, Barrington was careful to trust evidence rather than any former prejudices, and soon reports that “I now began to think differently of Mr Lee & his Medicine & therefore requested & obtain’d leave to be present at the Chelsea Board”. He was scrupulous in his examination of the reports and obtained first-hand testimony from the patients, and in weighing the evidence he states: “I only mean to perpetuate my Testimony of what I saw & heard [...] From these Facts we must conclude First that Mr Lee can in some cases cure Ruptures [...] Secondly Mr Lee’s Methode affords Ease & Comfort in almost every Case, all his Greenwich Patients declaring themselves deliver’d from burthensome Encumbrance of a Rupture & the grievous . As a result, Barrington concluded that Lee should be reappointed.

One of the final items is a letter from Richard Horne at the Admiralty Office to Lord Barrington, affirming that, as a result of the investigation, Lee has been exonerated of wrongdoing and should be reappointed on 25 January 1753 “unless a future General Court shall find cause to shorten the time”.

Following his reappointment, Lee published a 75-page pamphlet: ‘A Proper Reply to the Serjeant Surgeons Defence of Their Conduct at Chelsea Hospital’ in 1754.

This group of letters and documents offers insights into some of the developments and innovations in medical practice, along with how they were assessed and by whom. The accusations against Lee seem to have been born of professional jealousy, and expose the cutthroat world of 18th-century surgery.

£1,250 Ref: 8243

ELEVEN

HOMER; CHAPMAN, George (1559?-1634, trans.) The whole works of Homer; prince of poetts in his Iliads, and Odysses. Translated according to the Greeke, by Geo: Chapman.

At London : printed [by Richard Field and William Jaggard] for Nathaniell Butter, [1616?]. FIRST EDITION.

Pagination [28], 341, [9]; [10], 193, [3], 195-349, 352-376, [4] p. [STC, 13624; Pforzheimer 169; 170].

Fine red morocco bindings, gilt tooled spines in panels, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, gilt binder’s stamp to front pastedown, “Bound by Ramage London”.

John Ramage was born in London in 1836. When he came out of his apprenticeship in 1856, he took the unusual step for an English binder of going to Paris and working under Lortic, one of the leading French binders of the day. In 1860 Ramage returned to Britain and purchased the Edinburgh business of Alexander Banks Jnr, stating in the 1861 census returns that he employed eight men, three boys, six women and one girl. Three years later he moved his business to London, where there was more work. He moved to larger premises in Warwick Lane in 1870, and from there he went to Warwick Square and in 1891 to Creed Lane. 1

The Whole Works of Homer comprises the first complete edition of the Iliads and the Odysses. For clarity, we include collations of the separate titles:

The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. Neuer before in any languag truly traanslated. With a Com[m]ent uppon some of his chiefe places; Donne according to the Greeke By Geo: Chapman.

At London: printed [by Richard Field and William Jaggard] for Nathaniell Butter. [c. 1611/2?]. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE.

Pagination [28], 341, [9], p. In this state, teco running titles of the Iliad have “HOMERS” (roman). Signatures: pi² *⁶(-*1), A2F⁶ 2G8; (initial blank leaf present and genuine, lacks blank leaf 2G8). 190 leaves present. [STC, 13634; Pforzheimer 169].

Homer’s Odysses Translated according to ye Greeke By Geo: Chapman. Imprinted at London by Rich: Field, [and William Jaggard] for Nathaniell Butter. [1614/5?]. FIRST EDITION.

Pagination ; [10], 193, [3], 195-349, 352-376, [4], p. Signatures: A⁶, B-Q⁶ R⁸ S-2H⁶ 2I⁸. Leaves A1, R8, blank, (lacking final blank 2I8). Leaf A6 bears errata. The engraved title has been slightly trimmed and mounted on the original initial blank (A1). [STC, 13637; Pforzheimer 170].

This copy of The Whole Works of Homer retains the original engraved titles to the Iliads and Odysses, and includes the memorial engraving to Prince Henry, and the portrait of Chapman which is only found in some copies.1

POETIC ECHOES

¶ “It is a poet’s echo of a poet - loud and bold”, wrote one commentator of Chapman’s Iliads: “an Elizabethan Englishman calling across the centuries to ancient Greece”. original to this fêted Elizabethan translation contemporary, to Alexander Pope whose translation of Homer he edits.

Chapman’s Homer occupies a unique place in the history of English literature and of literary translation. In the words of the critic George Saintsbury, “For more than two centuries they were the resort of all who, unable to read Greek, wished to know what Greek was. Chapman is far nearer Homer than any modern translator in any modern language.” He was certainly “no straightforward translator”; Mark Thornton Burnett describes how “he personalized the epic, appropriating his source and making Homer a writer of the early modern moment”.3

George Chapman (1559/60-1634) achieved some renown as a poet and playwright, becoming one of the main dramatists for the Admiral’s Men, as well as for other companies including the Children of the Queen’s Revels. His dramatic output included Sir Giles Goosecap, The Gentleman Usher, and Bussy D’Ambois, becoming more politically charged over time, and reaction to this, along with a perennial lack of funds, led Chapman to withdraw from London life around 1612. In 1598, Chapman published Seaven Bookes of the Jliades which contained the “first, the second, and the seventh to eleventh books inclusive”.4 It was reprinted circa 1609 in Homer Prince of Poets. For the 1611/2 edition of the Iliads, Chapman made fresh translations of the first and second books and “the last twelve books appear for the first time”.5

Around the year 1616 The Whole Works of Homer appeared. It comprised unsold copies of the Iliads [c. 1611/2] with the recently [c. 1614/5], a general title page, an engraved memorial to Prince Henry, and in some copies, a portrait of Chapman. As noted above, this copy includes the Chapman portrait and retains the original engraved titles.

GIFTED POET

This is a rare first collected edition Chapman’s Homer, with several points of interest that make it still more compelling. Perhaps the most immediately obvious is the presence of the original title pages Odysses, which are often cancelled in favour of the general title page for the whole set (pagination above reflects this arrangement and includes the preliminary blank to the “Odyssey”). Also gracing this copy is an inscription to the front endpaper: “The Gift of George Steevens Esq. to Gilbert Wakefield June 28th. 1794” (the hand is Wakefield’s). Both Steevens and Wakefield were key, if controversial, cultural figures in the late 18th century.

The scholar George Steevens (1736-1800) was the first of the “three great eighteenth-century editors of Shakespeare” (ODNB), preceding Edmond Malone and Isaac Reed, and was a friend and collaborator of Samuel Johnson. He contributed notes to some of Johnson’s editions of the works of Shakespeare, and published his own edition (1766), but was inclined to antagonise his peers and, worse still, perpetrated a series of literary hoaxes that damaged his reputation.

Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801), although known chiefly as a biblical scholar (his translation of the New Testament (1792) went through several editions), was a prodigious – if not rigorous – writer and commentator on classical authors such as Horace, Virgil, the Greek tragedians, Lucretius, and Homer, the last of whom he treated in a 12volume, annotated edition of Alexander Pope’s translation (1796). Wakefield, too, was highly ranked as a British scholar, but “always worked in great haste, and rarely took time for revision”,

so that his output was “riddled with errors” and earned him a posthumous dismissal from the pantheon, despite the “considerable brilliance and an unusual awareness of continental advances in scholarship” evident in much of his work (ODNB).

Steevens and Wakefield are known to have corresponded frequently, and although we can only speculate as to Steevens’ motivations, it may well be that the former, knowing of the latter’s intention to edit , considered it a supportive gesture to send Wakefield the Chapman translation as a kind of benchmark for superior ‘doing into English’.

A note to the verso of the endpaper (also in Wakefield’s hand) widens the cultural circle still further: “See a copy of verses to Chapman in Fitz-geffrys’s Affaniæ. L. 2.” – a reference to the Cornish clergyman and poet Charles Fitz-Geffry (or Fitzgeoffrey) (1575?-1638), whose collection of light-hearted Latin epigrams, Caroli Fitzgeofridi affaniae: sive epigrammatum libri tres: ejusdem cenotaphia, was published in 1601. Fitzgeoffrey’s epigrams in “Affaniae” largely expressed friendship and esteem: besides acquaintances and neighbours in Cornwall and Oxford, he addresses or namechecks contemporary writers whose work he admired, among them Thomas Nashe, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, George Chapman, William Camden, John Marston, Mary Sidney and Thomas Campion. Wakefield’s note thus extends not only the network of references, but the theme of friendship that one infers from Steevens’ gift of these volumes to Wakefield.

Shortly after his death, Wakefield’s books were sold at auction; a perusal of the catalogue (A Catalogue of the Very Elegant Classical and Critical Library of the late Rev. Gilbert Wakefield) yields few details, but this book was probably lot number 648, “Homer, translated by Chapman”6 (no date of publication is given, perhaps because its complex publication history makes anything more than approximate dating a matter of conjecture). After that, the set seems to have continued its odyssey in private hands. During this period in “hiding”, the volumes were rebound by Ramage in fine red morocco with gilt tooling. In the intervening period, John Keats had further enshrined Chapman in the Romantic canon with his much-quoted poem “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816).

ECHOING

Chapman’s Homer exerted considerable influence on English literature. The rarity of this edition is only the beginning of its appeal: it traces the journey of a foundational text of European literature travelling through time and through the creative processes of later poets and scholars to find its place in another foundational text: Pope’s Homer and its inscription serves as a testament to a friendship between two major 18th-century literary figures. This is an exceptional copy of the first edition of Chapman’s Homer – a cornerstone work of the English Renaissance which calls back to ancient Greece, only to find further echoes in the closing decades of the early modern period.

This set also comes with a first edition, of Batrachomyomachia, a work once misattributed to Homer (perhaps owing to its parodic use of Homeric tropes). It was bound by Ramage to match the Iliads and Odysses and we include it here as an illustration of the role that watermarks can play in helping to establish (or disprove) provenance and date.

Batrachomyomachia (‘Battle of the Frogs and Mice’), an early instance of the genre of mock-heroic poetry, has only recently begun to accrue significant scholarly attention. Its considerable humour arises largely from the juxtaposition of epic themes with its cast of animals whose weapons and armour consist of needles, twigs, shells, vegetables, and the skin of a cat.

Some doubt remains as to when the volume was published: Pforzheimer’s entry for this edition cites a conjecture by Hazlitt that it was printed before 1614, “because a copy formerly in Heber’s library […] had a presentation inscription to Lord Russell who died in that year”, but he presents several objections to refute Hazlitt. Pforzheimer also observes that the Heber copy lacked its title page – as indeed our copy originally did, until a deft bit of copying engineered its ‘reappearance’.

The remarkably well rendered title page was almost certainly added during the binding of the volume in the late 19th century. To the hasty eye it appears genuinely of a piece with the rest of the book – until one spots the watermark: Michellet. This 19th century paper was manufactured in France, and could have been picked up by Ramage while he was working in Paris.

Speculation aside, it definitively ruling out the provenance as contemporary with the original 17th century printing.

And yet, far from being an attempt to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, we contend that the prominence of the watermark –placed on the long edge of the page and likely to catch the light as one turns it – signals it as a deliberate ‘warning’ that it is an expert facsimile rather than an act of Odyssean tricksterism.

£25,000 Ref: 8190

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationallibrarynz_commons/5352564383.

2. Whibley, Charles, in The Cambridge History of English Literature. Volume IV. (1909).

3. ODNB.

4. The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library of English Literature 1475-1700. (1997).

5. ibid.

6. A Catalogue of the Very Elegant Classical and Critical Library of the late Rev. Gilbert Wakefield ... Which will be sold by auction, by Leigh, Sotheby, & Son ... March 25, 1802, and six following days, Sunday excepted. [London]: Printed by T. Burton [1802].

TWELVE

[SEYMOUR, Anne (nee PORTMAN) (1610-1695)] Two autograph letters [Berry Pomeroy Castle, Devon. Circa 1671]. Two Autograph Letters signed to Sir Robert Clayton, banker and politician, together 2½ pages and address panels, folio, folds, slightly browned. Watermark: Post or Pillar (Haewood 3514, which he dates circa 1667).

¶ The three main characters involved in this pair of imploring letters are their author, Anne Seymour; their recipient, Sir Rob

1638) of Orchard Portman, Somerset. In 1630 she married Sir Edward Seymour, third baronet, cavalier and politician, of Berry Pomeroy Castle, Devon. Their eldest son, Sir Edward Seymour (1633 1708), fourth baronet and Speaker of the House of Commons, is mentioned prominently in his mother’s dispatches. Sir Edward married Margaret Wale, daughter of Sir William Wale (d. 1676) of North Lappenham in Rutland, an alderman of London and a Master of the Vintners’ Company – and the subject of Anne Seymour’s protestations to Sir Robert Clayton (1629-1707), a banker and politician who evidently has ties of some kind to Sir William.

The first letter, dated “Beripomeroy this 9th of July 1671”, begins in media res, with Anne’s opening “I have lived in hope to have receaved err this some Answare confirming the business I wrote to you which relates to Sir William Wale” – that is, her son Edward’s father-in-law. She reminds him that “above eaight years gonn” there was a “portion” of money presided over by Sir William that included “a Hundered and fifti pounds”, earmarked “to mee” by her son. She argues that “Sir Edward hath failed in nothing to Sir William Wale of his parformanceses, but hath rather exseeded” – implying an employment or servicerendering relationship not uncommon between son- and father-in-law.

Anne’s second letter, dated “this 8th of Agust 1671”, makes clear that Sir Robert’s reply has left her distressed “to have my demaunds now: to bee out of remembrance”. Undeterred, she writes: “I have sent you the true coppi of the originall account given in by my sonn”

Whatever the outcome of Anne’s apparent debt-chasing was (and one fears the worst, given the patriarchal odds stacked against her), her exasperation rings familiarly down the centuries to our own era.

£650 Ref: 8185

THIRTEEN

[TRUMBULL, Sir William (1639-1716); POPE, Alexander (1688-1744)]. Late 17th-century manuscript miscellany by William Trumbull which includes work by Alexander Pope.

[Easthampstead Park? Circa 1690-1705]. Octavo (146 x 100 x 10 mm). Pagination [1], 1-114, [115-7], (pp70-100 blank), pages numbered in manuscript . Ink on paper.

Contemporary gilt tooled black panelled morocco, rubbed, all edges gilt.

¶ The key draw of this manuscript, once thought lost, is a translation of a passage by Boethius that represents an exchange between two notable early modern figures – Alexander Pope and Sir William Trumbull. This is especially significant because, as Joseph Hone remarks “Pope’s poems appear in contemporaneous manuscript miscellanies surprisingly rarely, probably because of the strict controls he exerted over control of his holographs”. The inclusion of such an early example of Pope’s work in a manuscript miscellany, is perhaps explained by Hone’s point that scribal publications often helped to “crystallize [...] literary networks”.

WHO COMPILED IT?

At first glance, the prospects of determining the compiler of this anonymous notebook seem unpromising. But the presence of the Boethius translation, added at the end, enables us to establish our scribe’s identity by inference. The heading reads: “Mr Popes Transla[ti]on of Boetius in pag. Before: O qui perpetua &c” (the “Before” referring to the previous page, where “Boet. Lib. 3” is written out in the original Latin). Pope’s translation did not appear in print until the 20th century and only survives in two handwritten versions, of which this is one. Its presence here therefore suggests a social connection with Pope; and the figure who was known to have exchanged translations of this passage from Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae with Pope was Sir William Trumbull (1639-1716). A comparison of the hand in our manuscript with those by Trumbull at the Beinecke (Osborn b176; b177) shows a very close match, leading us to state with confidence that this volume was compiled by him.

Sir William Trumbull, a civil lawyer, diplomat and politician, was born in 1639 at Easthampstead Park, Berkshire, to William Trumbull (1604/5-1678), a government official, and Elizabeth (1619/20-1652), daughter of Georg Rudolph Weckherlin (1584-

1653), another government official and a poet who taught his grandson Latin and French. He matriculated at St John’s College, Oxford in 1655, was made a fellow of All Souls and joined the Middle Temple, both in 1657. He graduated in Civil Law in 1659, and after travelling in Europe in 1664-6, forsook academia to become a lawyer. In 1670, Trumbull married Katherine (d. 1704), daughter of Sir Charles Cotterell, who leveraged his position at the royal court to secure for his son-in-law the post of chancellor of the diocese of Rochester.

Trumbull’s reputation as a civil lawyer brought him into the orbits of the government and the court, but his subsequent career in government administration and diplomacy was not always a happy one: from 1683, when Lord Dartmouth appointed him to a key role in the evacuation of the British colony at Tangier, until 1697, when he retired from public life, he had a series of appointments including ambassador to France and Constantinople, treasury commissioner, secretary of state and MP for Oxford University. By his own account, Trumbull was unsuited to the machinations and intrigues of politics: besides a horror of public speaking, he confessed to an “insuperable bashfulness” which rendered him “very unfit to contend with men of sordid and corrupted tempers”.1

He performed well enough, however, to be given a knighthood, and his introvert nature found expression in his avid book collecting and a number of select friendships with figures such as Henry St John (later Viscount Bolingbroke), John Dryden, and the young Alexander Pope, who lived nearby in Easthampstead and “idolized him in some of his early verse as a paragon of virtuous ‘retirement’” 2 .

FRIENDSHIP WITH ALEXANDER POPE

In the twilight of Trumbull’s career, and around the time that he composed this notebook, he struck up a friendship with a writer whose own ascent was just beginning (B.S. Donaghey dates this to “1703 or early 1704” 3). Pope is said to have remarked that Trumbull “loved very much to read and talk of the classics in his retirement,” and that they “used to take a ride out together, three or four days in the week, and at last, almost every day” 4. Trumbull appears to have introduced Pope to the literary world and many of its figures; and Donaghey recounts that Trumbull began “suggesting ideas for verses and examining Pope’s work critically”, and that “Pope dedicated “Spring” from his Pastorals to Sir William” 5, although he subsequently turned away from Trumbull’s influence as his own reputation increased.

CONTENTS

The bulk of the material in this manuscript consists of prayers and meditations. Some appear to be original compositions, while others are extracts from printed texts: for example, “Prayer for Wisedom out of Dr Barrow” (Isaac Barrow (1630-77), theologian and mathematician); “Some Practicall Notes of ye H. Sacramt: out o[f] Taylr. H. Living” (Jeremy Taylor (1613-1677), cleric and author of liturgical works including The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living); “Oratio pro Beneplacito Dei Perficiendo. [Prayer for God’s favour] Tho: A Kemp” (Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471), priest and author of The Imitation of Christ); and a prayer copied “Out o[f] Hales Good Steward. P. 437” (Sir Matthew Hale (1607-1676), author of The Great Audit with the Account of the Good Steward).

Some of Trumbull’s selections and compositions invite one to speculate: did his bruising experiences in politics lead him to write “Seuerall Prayrs for Content Trust in God for all Outward concerns, Resigna[ti]on & Low Opinion of ye World &c”? Did he have frequent need to recite “A short Ejacula[ti]on, when any Losse or Disgrace &c is apprehended”? His retirement

hast comitted to my Trust”, forswearing thoughts of “ye time appointed for ye receiving o my Salary”, and instead thinking “wth Fear & Trembling […] how much nearer I am to my Latter End, & how I shall be able to make up my great Acct with thee in ye Last Day”. His piety seems to have intensified in retirement, judging by the inclusion of “Prayrs euery Morning att ye Begin[n] ing of Studdie” – indeed, the regular insertion of prayers for specific times seems almost monastic.

BOETHIUS-POPE-TRUMBULL

Donaghey remarks that the friendship between Trumbull and Pope “remains shadowy and undefined, owing to the paucity of documentation beyond a few letters passed between them, and some references by Pope and others” 6. Some of that scant documentation concerns a passage from Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae which became an item of exchange between the two men.

The ninth poem in the third book, beginning “O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas”, is a key section of the Consolatio. It sits at “the very midpoint” of the work, when Philosophia has “succeeded in raising Boethius’s contemplation away from his own narrow circumstances and the vagaries of Fortune to the cosmos as a whole and its creator”. It was “frequently used as a school text and was often the subject of commentary” 7, and its appearance in early modern manuscripts, detached from the longer work, is not unusual.

The poem clearly had significance for both Trumbull and Pope. The Brotherton Library holds a copy, in Pope’s hand, of his translation of these lines, accompanied by a letter, dated 19 February 1704, on which Trumbull has used space to make his own attempt at rendering the passage. Joseph Hone speculates that Trumbull intended “to share this effort with his young neighbour”, and calls it “a closed, private act of scribal transmission” – certainly a plausible interpretation of this exchange between the introverted Trumbull and the young Pope who, as Hone adds, “did not circulate rough drafts” 8 .

Our manuscript provides a rare addition to the small crop of surviving documents that bear witness to this two-person network of exchange. On page 114, under the heading “Boet. Lib. 3”, Trumbull copies out the first and final lines of the 28line poem, which begins:

“O qui p[er]petua mundu[m] ra[ti]one gubernas Terrani Caliq Sator, Qui tempus ab a’vo Ire jubes, stabiliq manens das cuncta moveru, &c”.

The “&c” stands in for 18 lines, after which Trumbull ends with the final seven lines (“Da Pater, augustam Menti conscendere Sedem” to “Principium, Vector, Dux, Semita, Terminus idem.”). One assumes that he knew the work well enough only to require a prompt rather than a complete transcription. Puzzlingly, he then adds two further prayers (“Prayr euery Qr, att ye receiuing my Salarie, & no other Increases” and “Prayer for Wisedom out of Dr Barrow”) before he copies out “Mr Popes Transla[ti]on”. The reason for this separation is hard to guess at, but some time has probably elapsed between these two linked entries.

Our manuscript and the Brotherton copy are almost verbatim. However, there are a few minor variations in the use of commas for semi-colons, and they differ in one crucial respect: the use of the possessive adjective instead of the definite article. Line 9 of our translation reads “Oh teach my mind the Etherial Height to rise” but is rendered “Oh teach the Mind t’ Ætherial Height to rise”. And in line 14 our translation reads “Shine thro’ my Soul, & drive its Clouds away”, which is rendered “Shine thro’ the Soul; and drive its Clouds away;” in the Brotherton copy.

Given that Trumbull titles this “Mr Popes Transla[ti]on”, and we assume that Trumbull’s was a faithful rendering rather than his own “improvements”, these differences were by Pope, which may have been the result of the exchange of ideas between the two men.

LOST AND FOUND

More recently, Trumbull’s miscellany spent some 60 years hidden from view: it was known to Norman Ault, the principal editor of Volume 6 of the Twickenham Pope edition, who shortly before his death in 1950 transcribed a “manuscript version” of Pope’s Boethius translation. He copied down precisely the same title as that given by Trumbull (“Mr Popes Translaōn of Boetius, in pag. before: Ô qui perpetua &c”), but left no indication of the original’s whereabouts. When Volume 6 was first published in 1954 (having been completed by the Twickenham general editor John Butt, using Ault’s papers), it included Ault’s note: “Exact transcript Callaghan’s MS”. We have been unable to determine the identity of “Callaghan”, but their “MS” and our manuscript are clearly one and the same.

Volume 6 was reprinted in 1964, but the pages concerning the Boethius translation underwent a revision after a fresh discovery: Pope’s holograph manuscript, now at the Brotherton, had surfaced. All references to our manuscript were removed in order to make room for the new material without forcing costly changes to the plates, and “Callaghan’s MS” fell into obscurity. Various subsequent sales dispersed Trumbull’s papers still more widely – to the Beinecke Library at Yale and the British Library, for instance – but this manuscript was not among them, raising the possibility that it was separated from the rest of Trumbull’s papers at a relatively early stage 9

CONCLUSION

The happy reappearance of Trumbull’s manuscript not only restores to visibility the second of only two known manuscript drafts of Pope’s unpublished translation of Boethius; it nestles it in the context of Trumbull’s work and helps us to tease out the currents of influence in Pope’s early career, and shows that these currents were two-way: Trumbull wasn’t simply the hander-down of wisdom, but was inspired by his promising young friend to make an attempt on the same passage, and the resulting exchange of ideas between Pope and his early mentor may well have driven his own development.

£12,500 Ref: 8182

References:

1. Quoted in ODNB.

2. ODNB.

3. B.S. Donaghey, ‘Alexander Pope’s and Sir William Trumbull’s Translations of Boethius’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s.1 (1967), 71-82.

4. Quoted in Donaghey p72.

5. Donaghey p72.

6. Donaghey p71.

7. Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez, Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's Rime Petrose, University of California Press (1990).

8. Joseph Hone, Alexander Pope in the Making, Oxford University Press (2021)

FOURTEEN

[GLASSE, Hannah]. [The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy; which far exceeds any thing of the kind ever yet published. ... By a lady.] interleaved with contemporary manuscript recipes.

[London: Printed for the Author, 1747]. FIRST EDITION. In heavily used condition and lacking its title page Folio (300 x 180 x 29 mm). Pagination pp. [14] (of 16, i.e. lacking title page), 65, 68-135, 138-166, p. lacking title page, but text collated and complete (despite errors in pagination). Interleaved with blanks (some torn out with only blank stubs remaining), approximately 54 with annotations. The book has been renumbered in manuscript beginning at the recipes (i.e. p[3] of the printed text).

The binding is very heavily worn, boards detached, lacking spine and the pasteboards retain only a fragment of their original paper covering. However, because the binding has not been repaired and the stitching is intact, we can confidently assert tha the interleaves are contemporary with the original binding.

Interleaves are watermarked:

Coat of Arms with a GR countermark. This combination is similar to Haewood 441, 443 which he dates 1731 and 1735.

¶ When Hannah Glasse’s famous cookery book was first published in 1747, it claimed that it “far exceeds any Thing of the Kind ever yet Published”. It was sold “3s. stitch’d. and 5s. bound”, but the early owners of this copy have taken the unusual step of having the entire book interleaved around the time of publication and extended the number of recipes by over 140. This copy lacks its title page, but is nonetheless extremely interesting because at least two of its annotators appear to have been writing around the time of publication. The fact that the book was interleaved and annotated by more than one scribe leads us to speculate that from the outset the book was conceived as a repository for an entire household – a purpose reflected in its physical form.

In the following, we shall refer to the manuscript page numbers rather than the printed text.

Although the volume appears to have been intended as a shared household repository from its inception, one hand (hereafter Hand I) in particular has added over 70 recipes. This amounts to around half the total number of recipes, but owing to the size of the writing (a very small, neat, clear hand), they occupy a much smaller area of available paper. This scribe appears to have been the main protagonist and is probably responsible for its original form and content.

Our reasoning for this supposition is that, while many of the recipes bear only a passing relation to their printed counterparts on the facing leaves, those added by Hand I tend to follow the theme of their printed neighbours. For example, manuscript recipes for “Duck Stew’d the Dutch Way”, “Stew’d Duck, or Teal, with Horse-radish” and “Teal Ragous” are written opposite printed recipes for cooking Duck in various ways. Likewise, “Larks in Shells” and “Plovers Capucine or Larks” on p.97 are placed opposite Glasse’s recipes for wild birds; while her section “On Pies”, is extended by the annotator by another five recipes (including “Land Rayle Pye” and “lark or Sparrow Pye”). However, order is never completely maintained: a recipe for “Chocolate Almonds” appears opposite Glasse’s “Tansey” and “To make Hedge-Hog”.

Hand I mentions only one author, Stephen Hales on p.320, but not to ascribe a recipe: “Mr Stephen Hales in his Philosophical Experiments, says that He has found by experiments that Three Drops of Oil of Sulphur, will preserve A Quart of common Water from Putrifying for many Months”. Hales’s book was first published 1739, and it is interesting to note that the scribe’s interest is not in copying out verbatim, but in recording a scientific observation. This hand’s contributions, however, are predominantly culinary and include such recipes as “Shoulder or Leg of Mutton Stuff’d with Oysters” (p.48), “Partridge with Turnups” (p.93), “A Pillo of Pullets and Rice” (p.104), various kinds of “Soop” including, “Veal”, “Hodge-Podge” and “Vermy Jelly” (p.129), and several recipes for oysters (“Oyster Atlets with Sweet breads” and a “Pye” on p.179) as well as sea and freshwater fish including “Calver Salmon”, “Roast Salmon Whole”, “Broil’d Mackrel with Herbs” (p.180), “Fry’d Eels” (p.187), and “To Dress Fresh Sturgeon” or make a “Pye” with it (p.188) – and if you’re quick enough to catch a hare worth potting, “Bone your Hare half Lard it and season it well, then lay it in a deep Pan” (p.261).

Judging from the style, Hand II also seems to date from around the 1750s. Theirs is a less refined but still clear and legible hand, and the proximity of their recipes to those by Glasse often seems as much coincidence as intention: “Venison Pasty” and “Potted Beef” on p.3 are placed opposite the author’s preparations for veal, pork and lamb, but on the following page, “Clean mahogany or Wallnut” and “blacking for Stoves” are paired with printed instructions to “Roast Geese” and prepare sauces. A “Spunge Cake” ascribed to “Mrs Shepherd” is listed beside such things as “Plumb-Gruel” and “Hasty-Pudding”, which does not seem too out of place, but further on, “Potatoe Soup” appears next to Quaking, Cream, and Prune puddings (pp.226-7).

Order is restored when “Patigonian Cucumbers” and “Pickle” (“N.B. Mr Jacob puts one Gallon of Vinegar” and other ingredients such as “Jamaica Pepper”, “Mustard” and “Shallots”) are placed alongside Glasse’s pickles, and manuscript recipes for cakes appear with the printed counterparts, but then so does a recipe to “Pickle Oysters”!

These two scribes are joined by slightly later contributors, one of whom ascribes many of their recipes to one “Mrs Giraud”. They seem to have more interest in order, and sit “Mushroom Ketchup”, “Wallnut Ketchup” and “To pickle Codlins like Mangoe” among the printed recipes for preserves.

The two earlier hands have both occasionally annotated the printed text itself with interlinear additions (p.50 “Mutton or Veal”; a note to the end of “To pickle Onions”, “* a little cochineal, in ye pickell wll make them red*”; p.279 “N.B. ¾ pd butter ¾ pd sugar Alspice & Ginger of each ½ ounce”).

Hannah Glasse’s life was not characterised by the kind of order she imposed on the contents of her famous recipe book. The only surviving child of three born illegitimately to Isaac Allgood and his mistress, Hannah Reynolds, she was effectively disinherited when Isaac drunkenly signed a deed giving over most of his property in London to Reynolds. She married John Glasse, a sometime estate steward, in 1724, but by the mid-1740s money was severely lacking, prompting her to begin writing The Art of Cookery. She raised subscriptions to publish it herself in 1747, and with great success, but the death of her husband and a failed enterprise as a London costumier left Hannah bankrupt by 1754; that year, the copyright of The Art of Cookery was sold to a partnership of booksellers. Hannah’s fortunes continued to falter: in 1757 she was sent to Marshalsea debtor’s prison, after which traces of her in the records begin to fade (although she managed to publish another book, The Compleat Confectioner, around 1760).

The Art of Cookery achieved far greater longevity than its author, going through least 40 editions (not all of them authorised) and becoming a staple of late 18th- and early 19th-century kitchens. Nowadays, it’s remembered for the first inclusion of several dishes including (in later editions) trifle with jelly, hamburgers (or “Hamburgh sausages”), piccalilli, and one of the first recipes in English for an Indian-style curry – undoubtedly of historical significance, but of equal fascination is the evidence, offered in this interleaved and annotated copy, of how its first readers responded to it.

£5,000 Ref: 8239

FIFTEEN

THUCYDIDES; HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679, trans.) Eight bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre written by Thucydides the sonne of Olorus. Interpreted with faith and diligence immediately out of the Greeke by Thomas Hobbes secretary to ye late Earle of Deuonshire.

London: imprinted [at Eliot’s Court Press] for Hen: Seile, and are to be sold at the Tigres Head in Paules Churchyard. 1629.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE.

Pagination [34], 536 [i.e. 535], [13] p., [5] plates (3 folded) Pagination [34], 536 [i.e. 535], [13] p. collated and complete with 5 engraved plates (3 folded).

19th-century half calf, marbled boards, rebacked and recornered. Small, marginal tears, section torn from upper margin of title (presumably to remove inscription), paper flaw to (b2), scattered spotting and occasional light damp staining, closed tear to map, repaired to reverse.

¶ In this rare first edition, first issue of this classic work, two giants of European literature are brought together across two millennia: the founder of political realism, Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC), and one of its most famous adherents, Thomas Hobbes, who developed his arguments under the strong influence of his ancient Greek forerunner, whom he named as his favourite ancient historian.

Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651) and other political works were years away when he began translating Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War; and by his own account in the book’s preface, “After I had finished it, it lay long by me”. His hesitancy has been puzzled over, but when it finally appeared in 1629 as his first published book, it was recognised as a significant achievement: the first complete translation of Thucydides directly from the Greek (the only previous English edition of the History having been based on a French translation of a Latin translation – “traduced, rather than translated”, as Hobbes himself puts it). What drew him to the book appears to have been “the cool dissection of political motivation and the ‘realist’ approach to power, together with the peculiarly Thucydidean analysis of the role of rhetoric in political debate”; but regardless of his motivation, this translation established him “at a stroke as one of the leading Grecianists of his day” (ODNB).

Hobbes’ translation of Thucydides was, many scholars suggest, in tune with his age: the 16th-century insistence on reading ancient Greek and Roman works “for their ethical values” had worked against the popularity of a writer famous for his “reluctance to point a moral and his scepticism about the influence of ethical principles on human behavior”. By Hobbes’ time, “scepticism in the realm of faith and morals and a belief in self-interest as the dominant motive in human affairs were growing stronger” – a change in attitudes also detectable in the work of early Jacobean contemporaries such as Francis Bacon.1

Hobbes frames his rendering of Thucydides in four prefatory sections. The “Epistle Dedicatorie” consists of a eulogy of his late patron, the Earl of Devonshire, via an address to his son, whom he assures, using an apt metaphor, that “never was a man more exactly coppied out, then he in you” (that Hobbes was angling for a renewal of his employment with the Earl’s family is obvious, but in this he was unsuccessful). In an introduction entitled “To the Readers”, he turns his eulogising towards his ancient Greek model, of whom he writes: “as Plutarch saith, he maketh his Auditor a Spectator. For he settteh [sic] his Reader in the Assemblies of the People, and in the Senates, at their debating; in the Streets, at their Seditions; and in the Field at their Battels”.

Then, in an account “Of the Life and History of Thucydides”, Hobbes, after recounting what can be known or inferred about the ancient historian’s career and fate, commends his approach (he “wrote not his History to win present applause, as was the use of that Age, but for a Monument to instruct the Ages to come”), and defends his work against criticism, for example unfavourable comparisons with that of Herodotus. Finally, Hobbes diligently presents an index of the “names of the places of Greece occurring in Thucydides, or in the Mappe of Greece, briefly noted out of divers Authors, for the better manifesting of their scituation, and enlightning of the History”.

All this conscientious throat-clearing before the translated work itself is an effective bit of scene-setting for Hobbes’ first published book – a masterly act of cultural transmission that looks back to a key influence on his thought and forward to some of the ideas that became central to his later political philosophy.

£12,500 Ref: 8197

(https://www-jstor-org.bris.idm.oclc.org/stable/2707297?typeAccessWorkflow=login&seq=6)

350-362

1. Richard Schlatter, ‘Thomas Hobbes and Thucydides’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Jun., 1945), pp.

SIXTEEN

[WENTWORTH, Thomas, first earl of Strafford (1593-1641)]. Two contemporary scribal copies: the first headed ‘The Conclusion of the Lord Straffordes Defences Apr: 12 1641’, the second headed ‘his Ma[jes]ties speech in the Banquetting house in whitehall the 28th of Aprile 1641’ and in ‘the house of Peeres the 1 of May 1641.

[Circa 1640]. Folio, folds. Two scribal copies of speeches, each two pages, docketed. Watermarks: Pot (FC in centre); Pillars, helical columns, surmounted by a crown.

¶ News of great moment could travel swiftly in early modern England, especially when circulated in scribal manuscript. Accounts of the trial and execution of one of the most hated figures of the period, for example, small numbers could be quickly copied by professional scribes and disseminated with an immediacy difficult to match with a printing press.

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, was widely detested, both by the parliamentary opposition to the crown and to a much wider public. His actions, first as lord president of the north and then as lord deputy of Ireland, earned him a reputation for “ruthlessness and vindictiveness” (ODNB) and the nickname ‘Black Tom Tyrant’. Strafford advocated for compromise between the king and the people and was Charles I’s close ally and chief councillor, but proved unequal to the task of navigating the complexities of 17th-century English politics in the run-up to the civil war.

Strafford reluctantly obeyed the king’s summons to London in 1640, upon which his many enemies seized their opportunity to accuse him of high treason. He was arrested and sent to the Tower in November, and went to trial the following March, to face a long list of charges, mostly relating to his exploits in Ireland.

This contemporary scribal copy of his speech, entitled “The Conclusion of the Lord Straffords Defence Apr: 12: 1641”, shows Strafford summarising his arguments, which, as ODNB puts it, he had made with “enormous skill and great courage”. He “took apart most of the charges” by arguing that his opponents were attempting “to create a new, unprecedented kind of treason out of individual actions which in themselves were at most misdemeanours”. In Strafford’s own words, recorded here, “There remaineth another Treason, that I should be guiltie of, for endeavoring to subvert the fundamental lawes of this Land. That this should now be Treason togeather, that is no Treason in anie one part, a Treason Cumulative, that when one will not do it selfe alone woven up wth others it should do it”

The speech is complemented by copies of two speeches by Charles I: one “in the Banquetting house in whitehall the 28th of Aprile 1641”; the other in “the house of Peeres the 1 of May 1641”. The latter was an appeal to the Lords not to condemn his ally to death, but several miscalculations on the king’s part, including an attempt to use the army to release Strafford from the Tower, sealed his servant’s fate. In the face of implacable opposition, on 10 May Charles gave his assent to Stafford’s execution, and he was beheaded two days later.

£1,000 Ref: 8224

SEVENTEEN

PARKER, Robert (1703-1776). 18th-century manuscript notebook.

[Cambridge and Elwick.? Circa 1720-1775]. Quarto (200 x 155 x 20 mm). Approximately 188 text pages on 128 leaves (plus a few in an early 20th century hand). 19th century vellum. Binder’s stamp to rear paste-down: “C. & C. McLeish”.

Provenance: armorial bookplate of Henry Bell, Newcastle upon Tyne to front free endpaper; Ownership inscription to rear endpaper: “A.J. Ellison 18 Old Buildings Lincoln’s Inn 1904”; Bookplate to paste-down of W. A. Foyle, Beeleigh Abbey.

The sequence of materials in this manuscript traces the progression of their scribe from elementary to more advanced mathematics and indicate the uses to which this education was ultimately put. The topics covered here venture into some fairly advanced corners of mathematics, suggesting they date from Cambridge university studies (see below), before giving way to a miscellany, and a series of letter copies.

The letters, several of them inscribed with place and dated (e.g. “Elwick 2 Apl 1766 R. ]”), furnish us with his identity Robert Parker, a clergyman, was the fourth son of George Parker, of Park Hall, Staffordshire, and a younger brother of Sir Thomas Parker (c. 1695-1784), Chief Baron of the Exchequer (to whom several of the letters here are addressed “your very affectionate Brother”). After attending Charthouse School, he was

admitted to Queens’ College, Cambridge in 1721, and earned his BA in 1725/6, followed by an MA in 1729, by which time he had been ordained deacon at Lincoln. He then held a series of appointments in County Durham including vicar of Great Stambridge and Rector of Elwick, the latter of which post he held from 1741 until his death in 1776.

It seems clear that, despite the note by A.J. Ellison to the front free endpaper dating Parker’s composition of this manuscript as “1730 to 1768”, he must have begun the ciphering a decade or so earlier, probably soon after his arrival at Cambridge.

The manuscript begins with “De Arithmetica”. The opening lines are gnomic pronouncements such as “Ex Unitate quaslibet vices sibi ipsi addita, nascitur Numerus” (“From unity any number of times added to itself, number is born”), and this first section is decidedly entry-level compared with what comes later: after a couple of lines each explaining “Additio”, “Subtractio”, and so on.

The change from alphabetical to numerical pagination also signals a switch to English, and a progression to “Multiplication”, “Division”, and “Rule of Three”, with a greater number of related exercise problems to solve. After covering the likes of “The Rule of Three Inverse” and “The Doctrine of Fractions”, Parker moves on to “Algebra”, “Equations”, “Proportion”, and the deeper waters of “Quadratick Equations”, “The Invention of Theorems”, the “Pythagorick Theorem”, and “Incommensurables”. A section on trigonometry is followed by “Of Dialing” and “Usus rationem” (the use of accounts). As if to signal a maturation of topic, the hand becomes slightly neater than before.

The move away from ciphering is not heralded by a heading or similar division: Parker launches into his miscellany with “It is confidently reported that the High German Doctor hath resolved to set his Vice-Cryer on high, and hath provided for him the [ tual?] succession of a stall, which is to be painted yellow.” We can find no matching printed source for this, but “High German Doctor” was a common epithet for quacks and charlatans. The mocking tone continues with “The same celebrated Word-professor keeps by him ready prepared a Great Quantity of the best double refused Diction for the Quality. Flowers of most delicate hue and scent gathered at the foot of Parnassus”, in between longer passages from various works, some with attributions (such as the extract from “Rochester’s Letter to Chloe”, and two selections from “Butler’s Ghost” by Thomas D’Urfey).

After nearly 40 pages of miscellaneity (“From the Sole of the Foot even unto the head, there is a soundness in it; but Wounds, and Bruises, and putreifying Sores” alongside scriptural quotations and commentary), Parker’s volume culminates in a series of copy letters. Many are addressed to his brother, often concerning legal and financial issues – a will, money owed, investments, and so on. A letter to “Messrs Hoare” (i.e. his bank, C. Hoare & Co) concerns his “India Bonds”, he concludes with the instruction: “You may direct to me at Mr Bell’s House in the Bailey Durham”.

A barely begun index at the back appears to represent an attempted act of curation by a later owner (apparently A.J. Ellison), but its incompleteness somehow complements the fragmentary nature of some of Parker’s own entries. Part ciphering book, part miscellany, part letterbook, this artefact charts its owner’s journey from student to clergyman to India Bonds investor and reflects his quintessentially human qualities as a man of many parts.

£1,500 Ref: 8208

[CONWAY, Thomas Henry Somerset (d.1837)] Extracts from ‘General Orders, by His Excellency the Commander in Chief. Head Quarters, Choultry Plain’ with manuscript reports interleaved throughout.

[India, Madras (i.e. Chennai), Choultry Plain. Circa 1822-3].

Folio (325 x 220 x 30 mm). pp 6427-6623. Annotations to text, interleaved with over 40 leaves, most with manuscript notes and folded manuscript table at end “List of Officers [...] 1821/22”.

Contemporary calf, rubbed, neatly rebacked, text browned, edges frayed.

¶ Running an empire requires a vast amount of detailed record-keeping and internal communication. This folio of orders and reports from the Choultry Plain in what was then Madras represents a minuscule but highly illustrative example of the bureaucratic workings involved in the British military of India.

The volume was maintained by Thomas Henry Somerset Conway, who served as a Brigadier-General in the East India Company from 1793, arriving in Madras in 1795. During a busy career, he took part in expeditions (Ceylon, 1796; Manilla, 1797) and campaigns (Mysore, 1799; the Ceded Districts, 1801-2; Mahratta war, 1803-6; Pindari war, 1817-8), and became Adjutant-General of the Madras Army from 1809. After serving on a military mission to Bengal in 1828-30 and commanding the Hyderabad Subsidiary Force, he died of cholera in May 1837.1

Conway (or an assistant) has interleaved handwritten “Reports”, so that they usually precede the printed “General Orders”. The chronology is confirmed by several factors, such as the docketing at the end of each printed section: for example, one manuscript “Report”, dated “Adjt Genls Office Fort St. George 5th August 1822” and signed “T H Conway”, is followed by the printed “General Orders, Head Quarters: Choultry Plain, 8th August 1822”, which is docketed in manuscript “18 August

Elsewhere, all is not uniformly tickety-boo. Amidst the reports in the printed “Orders” of appointments, promotions and transfers, there are summaries of court martials, misdemeanours and “inattention to duty”. Such was the day-to-day reality of imperial bureaucracy, of which this volume is an illuminating example.

£1,500 Ref: 8176

References

1. Buckland, C. E. Dictionary of Indian Biography. (1906). <https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofindi00buckuoft> Penn, F. Fort St George, Madras: a short history of our first possession in India. (1900).

NINETEEN

[SCOTLAND. ACTS 1685-1698]. An alphabetical abridgement of the first Parliament of King James the VII. Held in the years 1685, and 1686. And of the Convention of Estates, begun March 14. 1689. And of the four first sessions of the first Parlaiment of King William and Queen Mary. And the other two sessions of King William, after the Queen’s death. Containing the sum of the saids acts, with some observations there-upon.

Edinburgh: printed by the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson, printer to the King’s most excellent Majesty, anno Dom. 1698. ONLY EDITION.

Duodecimo. Pagination 132 p. lacks front blank endpaper, text complete, annotations to lower margins of pp 18-19. 20 additional leaves bound in at end, with manuscript notes to eight of the pages. [Wing, A2898]. Contemporary panelled calf, rubbed and worn, edges chipped, title page dusty and additional end leaves frayed at edges.

ESTC records five locations (Advocates Library, BL, NLS, Bodleian, and two copies at Glasgow University). No copies recorded in the USA.

Provenance: inscription “Ex Lib Caroli Bon(? corner torn) 1698”, and later ink stamp of “Wnr Mill Junr” to upper margin of title page. Bookseller’s stamp to lower margin: “Sold by P. Wilson Arbroath”.

¶ This rare collection of legal abridgements spans the end of the Stuart dynasty and the beginning of the Hanoverian era, nicely evoking the strenuous attempts of parliament and lawmakers to establish a more stable framework for the British Isles after the cataclysms and tumult of civil war, Restoration and the continuing Jacobite movement.

Our scribe’s annotations include two significant additions at the end of the book: in a note dated “29 ffebry 1700”, they copy down the Oath of Allegiance (“to his majestie King William”) and “The Assurance”, which elaborates on the Oath with some carefully phrased ‘small print’ (“ye only lawful, undoubted soveraigne of this realme as weell de Jure, yt is, of right king, as de facto, yt is, in ye possession & exercise of the governmt”… etc). The manuscript addition of both the Oath and the Assurance in full suggest how important these statements were felt to be – to our scribe, at least.

Both of these manuscript additions begin “I A: B:”, so clearly this is a ‘boilerplate’ to be completed with the name or initials of the oath-taker replacing “A:B:”, rather than a personal declaration by the scribe. However, they also add an update on the verso: “June 4th 1702 renewed the allegiance & assurance to Queen Anne” – this time giving the impression that they themselves are announcing their restatement of loyalty. Six further manuscript notes include “In a competition of inhibiting adjudgers, & simple adjudgers” and a template for a “Warrant to Give up a principall”.

These abridgements, seen in one light, resemble a kind of talisman for those seeking a return to stability and the rule of law – especially in Scotland, where Jacobite sympathies still posed a particular threat – after the upsets of the second half of the 17th century.

£650 Ref: 8186

TWENTY

[THOMAS, William (d. 1554)] The Historye of Italye: a booke exceding profitable to be red, because it intreateth of the astate of many and dyvers common weales, how they have bene, and now be governed.

London: Thomas Marsh, (1561). This is the second issue of quire [2]A, with the catchword “enoughe” on [2]A1v. Quarto. Title within woodcut border [McKerrow & Ferguson 7].

[STC 24019].

Modern period-style calf, title page with small paper flaw and slight soiling, a few headlines slightly shaved at end, final leaf dust soiled and slightly frayed at corners, marginal notes (including a 3-line quote from Pomponius Mela and doodles of a bird and a man) and inscriptions in an Elizabethan hand on five

Provenance: From the Library of Clayre and Jay Michael Haft.

William Thomas’ The Historye of Italye was the first book in English devoted exclusively to that country and features one of the earliest applications of Niccolò Machiavelli’s political thought.

Thomas was a politician, clerk of the Privy Council under Edward VI and an influential member of the English court. He made, in the words of ODNB, “a significant contribution in popularizing the Italian language and Italy’s history and culture in England”. The bulk of his contribution, besides the first Italian dictionary and book of grammar published in English, consisted of ; the cause of his premature demise was largely his being “an impetuous man”, whose “rash actions, even though almost immediately regretted, ultimately cost him his life”.

Thomas published the book after spending several years in Italy during the 1540s. Besides being a guide for travellers, it “provided examples of both good and bad governance, and suggested ways to achieve the one and to avoid the other” (ODNB). After the accession of Queen Mary, his active participation in Wyatt’s rebellion led to his execution in 1554 and the burning of the first edition of his Historye. Only after Elizabeth acceded to the throne was the book republished (in 1561 and 1562).

Thomas’ approach owed a good deal to Machiavelli; indeed, he has been called “the first writer so far discovered, not merely in England but in Europe itself, to attempt topical political analysis on the basis of Machiavelli’s work” 1. Thomas confirms this influence, stating that, having come across the comprehensive overview of “the Florentine hystoryes” by “Nicolas Macchiauegli”, he resolved “to take him for mine onely auctour in that behalfe” (f. 140).

Thomas was a key figure in the early dissemination of English knowledge about Italy and his Historye of Italye has a prominent place in the history of European literature and thought.

TWENTY-ONE

[LEGAL NOTEBOOK] Early 18th-century manuscript accounts book.

[Ryther, Yorkshire 1706-1711]. Duodecimo (130 x 80 x 15 mm). Approximately 119 text pages on 60 leaves. Red ruled throughout. Ink on paper in a neat, legible hand. Contemporary vellum, wallet style binding. Very good original condition. ¶ Two things set this little volume apart from other legal notebooks: its unusually satisfying binding and the clear suggestion that the scribe’s wife played an active role in financial matters.

The binding is beautifully preserved and retains its original crude but functional clasp intact. It is of fairly basic but solid construction and was probably a stationer’s binding purchased from a local bookseller. The wallet-style vellum binding would have made it ideally suited as a pocketbook.

The volume evidently belonged to a landowner, and probably a substantial one. The transactions centre around the Ryther area of North Yorkshire, and a good deal of the income appears to be derived from rents (“Feb. 8. Mr Wright sent by ye Carryer wch he reced of Dr Watkinson 25. Guineas, and more for rents”; “March. 25th. [1709] Rd of Mr Westbury his half yeares rent due to me at Martinmas 1708} 106.3.0.”), as well as from commissary fees (“20.0.0. June 30. [1707] Rd of Dr Watkinson upon

Interestingly, several of these transactions record incoming rental being paid to his wife on the date they were collected. Most of these involve substantial sums: for instance, “Nov. 20. [1707] To my Wife} 50.0.0.”; “Sept. 29. [1708] To my Wife at seuerall times}

. Such transfers may have been some form of jointure, but according to these records she was receiving payments during his lifetime, so we are uncertain of their precise nature. What seems apparent is that these amounts would have made her a woman of considerable means.

Despite their evident standing within a relatively small area of North Yorkshire, we have been unable to identify this couple. There are hints as to their physical appearance – if one can infer anything from their adornments (“Ap. 24. [1707] A Wig 4.6.0”, “[May 1707] Paid my taylor Richd Simpson for my Cloth Sute 7.17.0”) and from their ailments (“To Mr Ben Wolmar for bleeding me” and “Dr Prescott for blooding me} 0.5.0.”). Some promising clues to their identity lie in their interactions: for example, “[June 9. 1707] pd to Tho. and Mary Dalgarno 6.o m interest of 570l due June 11. 1707.” Thomas Dalgarno (d.1717) was vicar of Lund, East Riding of Yorkshire from 1706 to 1717. He matriculated at St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1698, and graduated B.A. 1701/2; Mary Dalgarno died 1716. Further interactions circle round deaths (“Oct. 8. [1711] Paid to Wm Hopwood for ye use of Richd Town & Tho. Rigg Executors of Wi Lodge deced”) and their famous partner in inevitability, taxes (“Glasse Window tax due Last Michas} 0.5.0”, “Nov. 9. [1708] paid the Queens Assessmt for ye third second quarter due Sept. 29. 1708 for my House} 0.17.0”).

The strongest clue, however, comes from the abovementioned “Dr Watkinson” who occurs several times. This is presumably the Henry Watkinson, Doctor of Law, recorded in Dugdale’s Visitation of Yorkshire as “now residing in Yorke, cet. 38 an. 20 Martij 1665”. He was educated at Ilkley by a Mr Coates, matriculated at St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1645, and received a B.A. 1648/9 and LL.D. 1659 (incorporated from Padua, Italy). Venn also ventures that he was “Perhaps adm. at Leyden, [Holland], 1650”. Watkinson married Elizabeth Jennings of Ripon, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was Chancellor of York 1673-1712, and held the office of commissary to the Dean and Chapter of York, which neatly ties in with the frequent references to payments “Rd of Dr Watkinson upon Acct for Com[m]issary ffees”

This may lead us back to our scribe and his apparently financially independent wife – both of whom resist identification in surviving records. It is as though they have effaced themselves in the process of recording their transactions with some of their more easily traceable neighbours, plotting coordinates in their social network without leaving a firm impression of their own identities.

£950 Ref: 8173

TWENTY-TWO

[HOUSEHOLD MSS] Late-18th-century culinary and household remedies.

[Circa 1795]. Octavo (180 x 110 x 10 mm). 124 numbered pages on 62 leaves. The text is arranged tête-bêche with culinary recipes at one end and remedies at the other. Contemporary limp calf, rubbed and worn, text block detached from binding. Watermark: “J Whatman 1794”.

This collection dates from the tail end of that convention: our anonymous scribe has arranged over 100 recipes at the front, then flipped the book to begin the remedies tête-bêche from the back – that, at least, is what we infer from the page numbering, which begins at the culinary end and runs all the way through at the upper outer corner, despite the volume being flipped. The menu dwells largely on desserts, starting with a strong brace of puddings including “Custard Pudding”, “A malbrough Pudding”, “a rich plumb Pudding” (“makes a pretty siz’d pudding”), “A Chipman Pudding” (“Take a pint of old Milk ...”), “A Sippet Pudding”, and “A Vermicella Pudding”. Cheesecakes, custards and similar are represented by the likes of “Lemon Mince Pies”, “Almond Custards”, “A Lemon Syllabub”, and “Yellow Flummery”.

There follows a hearty selection of cakes and biscuits, including “Shrewsbury Cakes”, “Rout Cakes”, “a Plumb Cake” and, along with several gingerbread recipes, “Ginger Bread Nuts” (with a handy hint to “make your Nuts the bigness of a Nutmeg bake them on tun in a slack oven”). A few recipes have been given addenda; for example, “To make Wigs” (a kind of leavened teacake), adds “you may add a little grated Ginger if you please in place of Mace & Lemon Peels”. It may be pure coincidence “Certain Cure for the Tooth Ach”.

There are over a dozen wines included: “Ginger Wine” is popular enough to account for three recipes, while “Lemon Wine” and

“To make Cowslip Wine” – which would probably have involved foraging for the main ingredient – may indicate a rural rather than an urban household.

The handful of attributions seem mostly to refer to acquaintances rather than published sources: one of the ginger wine recipes is credited to “Mrs ^Bacon Mann”, and another to “Mrs Bingley”; but one of several pickling recipes, “Lemon Pickle”, is the exception since it is attributed to “Mr John Farley” – and closely reproduces the “Lemon pickle” recipe from Farley’s The London Art of Cookery (various editions, 1783-1811; our scribe seems to have consulted an earlier edition, since their use of “a Pewter=Dish” is superseded by that of an “earthen dish” in later editions of Farley).

The 28 or so remedies, meanwhile, feature some familiar concoctions such as “Daphies Elixir” and “Stoughton Drops”(usually known as Stoughton’s Elixir). An inscription at the beginning of the section of remedies invokes a general authority: “Keep the head cool the feet warm the body open and bid defiance to the Physician, the celebrated Dr. G”. This little-known epigram seems to have originated with the Dutch physician Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738). Although the syntax implies that “Dr. G” is the target of this prescribed “defiance”, it seems more likely to be an attribution – one of several in this manuscript that form points in a social network of exchange, and which may well reward further investigation.

The advice of “Dr. G” may have had the desired effect, but the inclusion of several remedies “For a Pain in the Bowels Colick and Indigestion”, “For a pain at the Stomach”, “For a weak Inside” and “For the Piles”, lead one to wonder whether the preponderance of cakes, desserts and wines in the culinary section has had repercussions for the household’s digestion.

£950 Ref: 8168

TWENTY-THREE

[PARKER, Samuel (b. 1688)] An Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1746. Being the Second after Bissextile or Leap Year. Wherein is contained the Lunations, Eclipses, the Rising Southing & Setting of ye Fixed Stars, the Suns Dedication Sun rising, Sun Setting, the daily motion of the Sun and Moon, also Usefull Tables for finding the moveable Feast &c.

[Circa 1746]. Octavo (158 x 97 x 5 mm). Title and 50 text pages on 32 leaves (original blank leaves at both ends. Modern full calf.

Watermark: Pro Patria (mostly hidden in upper margins, but upper section of Maid of Dort and the letters ATRIA discernible).

¶ This beautifully produced manuscript almanac clearly required an investment of time, thought and energy – and consequently presents a puzzle as to its purpose, since printed almanacs of the time were cheap and readily available.

The manuscript contains information from various sources, along with diagrams and annotations that seem to be the author’s own – or at least their own selection and arrangement. The neat hand and layout, calligraphic initials and detailed astronomical diagrams are impressively rendered, prompting one to wonder why such effort was devoted to a handmade object which, because of the time-sensitive nature of the almanac’s information, had a usefulness limited to the year 1746.

One possibility is that the attention lavished upon it indicates a gift, although the lack of dedication or other supporting evidence makes this unlikely (and why would one make a gift of such a commonplace ‘technical’ document?).

We therefore assume that the author created the almanac for their own use. That author’s identity is unclear, beyond their name: the nominal inscription (“Samuel Parker”) on the title page is in the style of an engrossing hand of one of the central law courts, which may indicate some legal training; however there is no record of anyone so named at the courts. The name recurs by the entry for 6 August alongside a date of birth (“Samuel Parker Born Anno 1688”), which would make our scribe 58 years old at the time they composed this manuscript. The closest result from a search of baptisms on Ancestry.com offers one “Samuell Parker son of Georg Parker” of who was baptised 23August 1688 at St Mary, Tetbury, Gloucestershire. This would entail a 17-day delay to the baptism – not outside the realm of possibility but not in itself a strong reason to consider this our author.

Regardless of who our Samuel Parker may have been, the puzzle remains: why expend so much effort on creating this manuscript, given the ready availability of its contents by much less laborious means? A potential clue lies in the personalisation of the content: our author has curated and supplemented the source material to an extent that suggests a level of intellectual engagement beyond the referential, utilitarian use commonly made of an almanac. Perhaps, then, the utility is in the process of creation itself, and the synthesis of information itself serves an instructive purpose: Samuel Parker may have hit upon a process of deepening his knowledge by combining textual, diagrammatic and numerical information from multiple sources.

For example, the entry “Of Eclipses for this present Year 1746”, consists of six pages of detailed calculations and notes, including: “The Second is of the [sun] on the 11th Day of March about -oo(?), in the morning therefore Invisible to us in England”; “The Calculation [...] deduced from Shakerlys Tables Commonly called the Brittish Tables” (i.e. Jeremy Shakerley’s Tabulae Britannicae : The British tables (1653)); and “by Mr Leadbetters Calculation”. This entry is supplemented by three finely drawn illustrations not found in the works referred to, indicating a genuine interest in supplementing the information for this personal almanac. Other entries that accompanied by possibly original illustrations include: “The Demonstration of the Parallaxes [sun], [moon] and [stars]” (1 page); and “The true place [sun] & [saturn] for the 1st Day of January 1746. By Astronomia Carolina” (2 pages). Although all the illustrations are typical of the kind found in 18th-century astronomy books (e.g. Wells, Keill, Leadbetter), they do not appear to have been directly copied from any of these, and thus may represent the author’s own synthesis of the range of information available to him.

An almanac, of course, is itself a synthesis of knowledge, and during the early-modern period they tellingly present the ‘new’ scientific approach as of a piece with the ‘old’ pseudoscientific or plain superstitious worldview. This manuscript, as was typical for almanacs at the time, includes a plurality of entries, often tabulated with mathematical details, that mingle the rigorous with the apocryphal: “A Table of Interest at 5 per Cent” and “Remarkable Days with the rising, southing & seting of the fixed [stars]” (arranged in tables from January to December, 24 pages) coexist with “The Dominion in Man’s Body passing under the 12 signs”; and astronomical calculations “Of the Revolutions of the Planets” is followed by astrological prognostications “The Weather each Planet causeth”.

Undoubtedly, modern almanacs contain information or lines of thought which will not survive the further passage of time, since an almanac can be considered as a kind of snapshot of contemporary knowledge and attitudes. Similarly, this customised almanac provides an account of its author’s understanding of, and keen engagement with, the world and attempts to synthesise its concerns, contradictions, and conundrums.

£2,750 Ref: 8232

TWENTY-FOUR

[CURTIS, Margaret; TOPPER, Anne] Three English manuscripts containing culinary recipes and household remedies.

[England, Norfolk. Circa 1732-1820].

[CURTIS, Margaret] 18th-century manuscript book of culinary

[England, Norfolk. Circa 1732-86].

Octavo (183 x 120 x 33 mm). Text to both ends: [1], 5, index], approximately 190 culinary recipes (and some remedies) on 157 pages; 20 remedies on 14 pages. plus loose leaf approximately half of the volume is blank. Contemporary panelled calf, rubbed and worn, lacking front board.

Provenance: Inscriptions to first leaf of the earlier manuscript: Curtis Receipt Book Pretium 3d” and three others by Margaret Curtis, one dated 1732 and another dated 1741. Mostly by Curtis, but a few recipes in other hands. Loose-leaf recipe addressed “Mr Robt Curtis”.

MS 2. [TOPPER, Anne] Late 18th – early 19th century manuscript book of recipes and remedies.

[England, Norfolk. Circa 1790-1820].

Quarto (193 x 160 x 20 mm). [21 (tabulated index)], text numbered to 247, but lacking at least 10 leaves. Contemporary vellum-backed boards, worn and broken, spine mostly lacking.

Provenance: Inscription to paste-down of MS 2: “Mrs Topper Watlington”.

MS 3. [HORT, Miss] Early 19th century manuscript book of recipes and

[Circa 1800].

Quarto (193 x 160 x 20 mm). 41 pages of ciphering notes, 124 pages of page index at end. Contemporary vellum, soiled and slightly rubbed. Provenance: faded inscription to front board: “Miss Holt”.

Also included is a small booklet and several loose-leaf recipes circa 1750-1820. A loose-leaf note in a 20th century hand begins “3 books handwritten left to June Collette by Peter’s Aunt who lived in Terrington St. Clement in Norfolk. At a guess they were bought at some time at an auction, - no knowledge of their existence till after Auntie’s death”

¶ These three culinary manuscripts were sold together by a family, the later members of whom seem to have had no notion of a possible shared history, beyond the fact that the volumes were clearly created for active use rather than display or careful archiving. However, several references in two of the manuscripts are suggestive of a common provenance.

MS 1: MARGARET CURTIS

The owner and chief scribe of the earlier manuscript, the industrious “Margaret Curtis”, gives several East Anglian placenames (“The Holkham Biscuits”, “Norwich Mercury”, “Mrs Cooke of Suffolk”), and has added a goodly number of attributions that trace some possible outlines in her social circle: for example, a cluster of 10 recipes copied from “Mrs Bunn”, including “To make Lemon Cakes” and “To rague a breast of Veal” – but sadly not “To make Bath Bunns”, which is one of some 15 attributed to “Mrs Clarke”

A few give further details: “Veal Oleo or Orice” comes from “Mattw Raven, drawer at the Fleece in Wells, Mar 27: 1761” (one assumes this is Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk); and “To make Maccuroons: Alderson” is scrupulously ascribed to “Mrs Buckley Feb. 18. 1768 / W. Aldersons Grandmother”.

Occasionally, we get a glimpse of a recipe’s onward journey: for example, the instructions “To make french Apple pey” are annotated “this rect was wrote out for Mrs Browne of Rotterdam Sept 22d 1768. P. W:H:”, and “To make white currant Wine” by “Mrs Coble” has been adapted on a loose-leaf recipe addressed to “Mr Robt. Curtis” (likely a relative)

Some brief instructions are given: “To Make Mushroom powder” prescribes “as much beaten peper as will lay upon a half Crown”; “To toss up cold Veal” directs the use of “a piece of butter as big as a walnutt”; and “To stew pigeons” instructs somewhat vaguely “let them stew till they are enough”; while “Mrs Warner’s Gingerbread Cakes – Mrs Clarke” is more specifically annotated: “Mrs Clarke always rubs Mangoes and all green pickles with bay salt beat fine” and “Capt Horubys Bramble Wine” suggests that “you may put in a few Sloes to give it a Rough Taste”

Who was Margaret Curtis, and what were her circumstances? We have not found a record of a marriage between Margaret and Robert. But a “Mrs Margaret Curtis / single woman” (widowed, we presume) was buried in Wells-next-the-Sea in July 1786 –the same year that the last entry here was made. Wells is some 30 miles from Watlington, but this could be our scribe if, for instance, she had family there.

Margaret’s household was, apparently, one that baked its own bread rather than bought from the local bake: “To make Cracknels” instructs: “put ym on paper & set them in an oven after ye Household bread is Drawn” (and a similar direction appears in “To make Portugal Cakes”). This could be a family watching its pennies, or one engaged in service of some kind (a possibility supported by the entry entitled “Aprill ye 30 1781 how I pickled up Mr Sareys 2 hams he bought”). Or it could simply be that Margaret enjoyed making, baking and sharing.

Some annotations abandon the utilitarian tone to indulge in brief digressions: “A lombo de Porco” (ascribed to “Mrs Tidd”) ends in a note: “Q? what is a fore Loyn? should it not be the fore part of the Loyn?” Meanwhile, “Westphalia method to pickle Hams” (“N.B. the Garlick is by no means to be omitted – Norwich Mercury; Saturday, December 2d 1769. No 1024”) concludes with “Q? shou’d not we read Welsh instead of Westphalia?”. Less querying and almost playful is the recipe for “Capt Horubys Bramble Wine”, which claims to be “for blowing up French Privateers”.

MS 2: ANNE TOPPER

The second manuscript dates from the late 18th century, judging by the predominant hand and the paper; additions have been made in a 19th-century hand in the gaps on various pages. Unlike MS 1, there is a tabulated index at the front. Ascriptions are not quite so common, but among those acknowledged for their contributions are White (“To Make Yeast”), “Mrs Paul”

Of note in this volume is what appears to be a running order for a personage with the title of “his grace” courses and dishes, from “Fricasee” in three columns. It is hard to tell whether the scribe was a guest, a caterer, or an outsider pressing their nose up against the window.

MS 3: MISS HORT

The third volume appears to have begun as a school book around 1800, but after 41 pages of ciphering notes, it has been repurposed as a recipe book. A good deal of the recipes are ascribed: “Mrs R. Hankinson” (or “Mrs R. H.”) is credited with many including “White Marmalade” and “To rub Mahogany”; “Miss Kirk” contributes the likes of “Lemon Pickle” and “Ground Rice Pudding”; and Dillingham” is acknowledged for several recipes including “Almond Cake” “Lemon Pudding” – although the latter is followed by “Another way” of making this, ascribed to “My Mother”, whose alternative method, one suspects, may have won out.

We have been unable to establish any connection between this and the two previous volumes; nonetheless, we include it here because it at least has some more recent shared history.

CONNECTIONS

In MS 1, inserted among a group of copied-down recipes credited to “Mrs Pratt / June 7th 1755” (“To stew pigeons”, “To make Gooseberry Pudding”, “To make Manteloons”, etc) is “Revd Mr Jermyn Pratts receipt to cure ye Cholic” – giving us a 1791) graduated BA from Caius College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1746, after which he served as a deacon in Norwich, rector of Marlingford, Norfolk from 1750 to 1791, and rector of Watlington, Norfolk, from 1767 to 1791. The inscription “Watlington” , and the inclusion there of recipes for “a Brides Cake” by a “Mrs Pratt”, invite further research to confirm whether these volumes are

Both manuscripts bear the marks of heavy employment, and are frequently appended “Probatum Est” (or, more often, the no-nonsense “P:E:”).

Other annotations and comments, especially to the entries in , attest the book’s role in a lively, two-way culture of

worn recipe book generally signifies frequent and enthusiastic use, as these battle-scarred volumes evocatively demonstrate. The exact nature of their relationship with one another, while compelling, remains to be fully

£2,500 Ref: 8234

[Henry Saint-John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)] Autograph letter, signed with initials, to George Lyttelton condemning Sir Robert Walpole.

[Argeville, 6 May 1740]. Quarto. Four pages.

Some light spotting, browned along fold lines.Provenance:

George, first Baron Lyttelton (1709-1773), thence by descent; The Lyttelton Papers: The Property of the Viscount Cobham, Sotheby's, London, 12 December 1978, lot 90.

¶ Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was a leader of the Tory opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. He was also the author of philosophical essays much praised by Pope, and his articulate, thoughtful style is evident in this fine autograph letter to George Lyttelton. By the time of its composition, he was living in retirement in France and observing from afar the slow collapse of Walpole’s government.

Bolingbroke writes following the happy arrival at “Argeville” of “three of my friends”, and observes of one, “Sr Wm Wyndham”, that his health seems “extremely broken”, and that another, “Marchmont”, though in good health, “feels […] the misfortune of being gagged and bound” when “the State of Britain” requires every patriot to “exert his whole strength in her cause.” He goes on to make further expressions of urgent concern over his beloved homeland.

Although he reserves much of his venom for his arch-enemy Walpole (a man of “ignorance & incapacity” whose “administration is one continued Scene of corruption trick, and banter”, with “no glimpse no appearance of great tallents”), he also denounces the “dull obstinacy of the Torys” and shares Lyttelton’s despondency over the impossibility of a coalition of the parties, which would be “the only means of restoring a wise & honest administration”.

£1,500 Ref: 8219

[Henry Saint-John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)] Autograph letter to George Lyttelton. [4 November 1741]. Quarto. Four pages, later pencil markings, browned along fold lines.

Provenance: George, first Baron Lyttelton (1709-1773); thence by descent; The Lyttelton Papers: The Property of the Viscount Cobham, Sotheby's, London, 12 December 1978, lot 92.

TWENTY-SIX

¶ A major 18th-century politician bitterly defeated and disheartened could still be fully engaged in his nation’s affairs and make penetrating and prescient observations, as this letter demonstrates.

Bolingbroke was a leader of the Tory opposition to Walpole and one of the most articulate politicians of his generation, but retired to France after Walpole’s re-election in 1735 left that opposition in tatters. Here he pours out to his correspondent, George Lyttelton, “the overflowings of an heart full of unaffected & disinterested concern for our unhappy country”.

Bolingbroke takes aim at the Hanoverian monarchy, whose accession he blames for “…two principal and fatal errors”: firstly, “the foreign interests of Britain must be conducted in a certain Subordination to those of Hanover”, and secondly, “the domestick interest must be submitted to those of a party, even when it dwindles, and degenerates, as we have seen it do, into a ministerial faction”. The latter has given rise to the formation of “a Jacobite party, strong enough, or rather mad enough, to rebel six & twenty years ago”, which still stokes “dissatisfaction […] tho the embers of jacobitism are scarce alive in any corner of the Nation…”.

Bolingbroke’s condemnation of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion as “mad” is significant, since he himself had been implicated in that uprising; and despite his dismissive assessment of popular support for the Stuarts in Britain, his remarks in this letter about widespread discontent with the Hanoverian settlement foreshadow the final Jacobite rising in 1745, just four years later.

£1,200 Ref: 8220

TWENTY SEVEN

[LEWIS, M. and LEWIS, Caroline Amelia (owners)]. ‘Literary Present’.

[England. Circa 1785]. Each card measures approximately 126 x 80 mm. 12 cards, printed to one side only. Contained in, what appears to be the original slip case, with engraved label (cut from larger title piece), pasted to one side, early repairs.

Provenance: Each card is inscribed to the blank side “M Lewis” the slip case is inscribed

“Lewis / Caroline Amelia Lewis”

This unrecorded collection of cards contains a range of morally and philosophically instructive information, including ‘On Cruelty to Animals’, ‘Benevolence and Humility’, and ‘On Negroes’, presented across a range of neat, parsimoniously printed cards in their original slipcase. This is apparently the sole surviving set, and it raises many questions, several of which remain unanswered.

The card form presents information in ‘bitesize’ chunks, which, along with the instructional tone of the material, might suggest a pedagogical function, perhaps directed towards a younger audience; however, other factors may confute this reading.

The notion of a younger intended audience is at first glance borne out by the choice of material, which includes three entries from Thomas Percival’s A Father's Instructions to his Children (1775): ‘The Folly and Odiousness of Affectation’; ‘Tenderness to Mothers’; ‘A Generous Return for an Injury’. But a further examination of the range of content reveals a syllabus of relative intellectual maturity somewhat less congruent with the theory that children were the prime target.

For example, questions of moral philosophy are addressed in four extracts from Blair’s Sermons (1777): ‘Temperance in Pleasure Recommended’; ‘Benevolence and Humanity’, which declares ‘a great part of your happiness is to depend on the connections which you form with others’; ‘Religion not to be treated with Levity’, with its pronouncement that ‘The spirit of true Religion breathes gentleness and affability’; and ‘Content’, which advises the reader that ‘the principle materials of our comforts, or uneasiness, lie within ourselves’.

Further philosophical discourse can be found in ‘Sensibility’, drawn from Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey (1768), in which he claims ‘Sensibility! Source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!’; as well as in ‘The Character of a True Friend’, from William Enfield’s The Speaker (1774); and in ‘Creation’, from Goethe’s ‘Sorrows of Werter’ (1779), which adopts a more poetic style of contemplation with remarks such as ‘I was lost in the idea of infinity’, and ‘Weak mortal! all things appear little to thee for thou art little thyself’.

Moreover, one can infer a relatively progressive attitude from two particular entries: ‘On Negroes’, from Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, which is the ‘tender tale’ mentioned by Sterne in his correspondence with Ignatius Sancho; and ‘On Cruelty to Animals’, from Soame Jenyns’s Disquisitions on several subjects. The latter example provides an impassioned defence of animal rights in a way that attributes personhood: ‘the majestic bull is tortured by every mode which malice can invent for no offence, but that he is unwilling to assail his diabolical tormentors’; and it argues for their intrinsic right to life, since ‘We are unable to give life, and therefore ought not wantonly to take it away’.

As these quotations indicate, the content of the cards is pitched at a relatively sophisticated level. The excerpts are well-chosen exemplars of moral arguments and amount to a kind of ‘cheat sheet’ for moral philosophy that could give the reader an overview of a particular argument or debate without needing to read the whole text, thus enabling them to make an intelligent contribution to discourse within a social setting. But who is our budding moral philosopher? All 12 cards have been inscribed “M Lewis” on the back. The repetition of the nominal inscription to each card suggests a concern that these may be lost or mixed with others in the course of a social event – one during which other similar cards may have circulated. They have also inscribed the slipcase, and beneath is a slightly later inscription of “Caroline Amelia Lewis” This may well be one Caroline Amelia Lewis, whose baptism is listed on ancestry.com as being in Manchester on the 8th of April 1810 – and whose parents’ names are Mary and Maurice, so either of these could be our “M Lewis”. This doubly tantalising lead may well point to the cards’ original owners.

The question of who published the cards remains unanswered, but the source material for the cards all derives from a handful of 18th-century publishers. J. Johnson was responsible for The Speaker and A Father’s Instructions to his Children; Dodsley published the Sorrows of Werter, Disquisitions on several subjects, and Tristram Shandy – for which he was joined by T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt for Vol. 4.; they in turn published Sterne’s Sentimental Journey; and a syndicate of William Creech, W. Strahan, and T. Cadell produced Blair’s Sermons. Given the close typographical match of the printed cards to their original sources, and that, as noted above, all these texts appeared in the 1770s, it could plausibly have been any of them. Such a card set would have been cheap and simple for any of these publishers to manufacture, generating a potentially lucrative product from already available material; or the cards may have been ‘pirated’ and their printer concealed by anonymity.

Regardless of which publisher it was, they would have been confident, given the recent proven track record of the texts in book form, that the cards would find a readership with an appetite for these progressive ideas and their dissemination in social spaces of Georgian Britain. As such, these thrifty cards offer insights into the intellectual and social concerns of their 18th-century owner, although a more detailed study of those concerns requires the resolution of questions around the identity of both publisher and reader.

£2,750 Ref: 8238

TWENTY-EIGHT

[SYMONS, John] 18th-century manuscript ciphering book.

[Circa 1772-1773]. Quarto (200 x 160 x 20 mm). Pagination [1, blank], [3, text and frontispiece], 240 (but lacking 12 pages).

Full vellum stationer’s binding, inscription to front board, “John Symons, His Book, Bought Dec 4 1772(?).”

Lacking rear endpaper. Some closed tears and various damages. Text block detached; binding worn and broken with various damages.

Watermark: ProPatria.

¶ A inventive flair characterises this otherwise elementary “Arithmetic Book”, which opens with a decorated title page, and is littered with illustrations of flowers, birds, boats and intricate geometric designs - perhaps an opportunity to make the otherwise arduous practise of “Addition”, “Subtraction”, and “Multiplication” more entertaining! The book’s lively personality also comes through in the choice of calculations. From imaginative examples of various bills (“A Mercer’s Bill”: “10 Yards of Satten”); to weights (“Apothecaries Weights”); measures (“Winchester Measure [...] for Beer & Ale”); and exercises of “Long Measure” calculating “How many Barley corns will reach round the Globe of the Earth, which is 360 Degrees, and each Degree 69 miles 8 ½?” While such elementary studies might delimit pupil’s prospects to certain trades (“if 80 Taylors in a Hundred Days Make 4000 suits of Clothes…”), this student seems to display creative potential.

£350 Ref: 8175

TWENTY-NINE

[BEALE, Richard] 18th-century manuscript ciphering book.

[Circa 1759]. Quarto (198 x 160 x 20 mm). Approximately 193 pages of text and calculations (inconsistently numbered mostly to rectos) on 132 leaves. Full vellum stationer’s binding with inscription to front board, “Richd. Beale. His summing Book. May ye 9. 1759.” Some spotting and minor marks; vertical tear to rear board with approximate loss of 2cm strip of vellum. Watermark: ProPatria.

¶ The mathematical rules in this volume are mostly elementary and range from “Compound Multiplication”, “Decimals” and “Division”, to “Interest” and “Tare and Trett”. However, the book also explores “Brokage”, “Barter” and “Exchange… betwixt any two countries” with “Agents beyond the Sea”. Details of foreign currencies include “Spain” (“In Madrid, Seville &c. they keep their accompts in vials and mervadies, and exchange by pieces of eight.”), France (“Paris, Lyon, Rouen &c.”), and “Antwerp, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, & all parts of the Spanish & United Provinces”- before it returns to common subjects like “Vulgar Fractions”. The rudimentary mathematics, with their limited practical applications seem intended to equip a student for a circumscribed future as a tradesperson (“finding Customers, and selling to them the Goods of other Men, whether Strangers or Natives”), but do at least expand their horizons to a few of their European trading partners.

£350 Ref: 8198

THIRTY

[HIGGINS, John (active 1570-1602)] A mirour for magistrates: being a true chronicle historie of the vntimely falles of such vnfortunate princes and men of note, as haue happened since the first entrance of Brute into this iland, vntill this our latter age

At London: imprinted by Felix Kyngston, 1610-09. Quarto. Pagination [20], 875, [1] p. Woodcut head-pieces, initials, and portraits within text. Collated and complete. Two verse dedications (Oo4 to Charles Howard, and Eee3) present, leaf Eee3 (Variant 3: cancel leaf signed “Nicols”), misbound after A4. [STC 13446; Pforzheimer 738].

Bound in later (probably 20th-century) panelled calf, first few leaves with small hole to blank inner margin, minor worming to first few gatherings, a few times touching text, a few closed tears, but without loss, some light damp staining and softening of blank margins of later leaves (Aaa-Lll6), with small loss to blank sections only.

Three of the four titles have their 1610 date neatly amended to “1616” in early ink manuscript (the 1609 date to ‘The Variable Fortvne’ has not been amended). We have not ascertained the reason for this. There was no 1616 edition of A Mirror for Magistrates, but the date coincides with the death of one of the book’s editors, Richard Niccols (1584-1616), and of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). 17th-century ownership inscription and purchase price to title page; “Ma: Weld pre 6d.8a.”

¶ A Mirour for magistrates, was an influential sourcebook for Elizabethan dramatists, including Shakespeare, who “was familiar with it and used the story of Queen Cordelia for some points in ‘King Lear’”. Also, to be found here is the story of Locrine, “which was used in the anonymous play of that name wrongly attributed to Shakespeare in the Third Folio”.1 The book is “a collaborative collection of poems in which the ghosts of eminent statesmen recount their downfalls in first-person narratives called ‘tragedies’ or ‘complaints’ as an example for magistrates and others in positions of power”.2

This is a complete copy of the first complete edition. Itcollects all three earlier parts of Mirrour for Magistrates and adds ‘A Winter Nights Vision’ and ‘England’s Eliza’ (an account of the reign of Elizabeth I), written by Richard Niccols. Our copy is notable for having its cancel leaves present. According to Pforzheimer, “The general-title in all copies examined is a cancel, for what reason cannot even be conjectured. Originally A Winter Nights Vision had a dedication to Prince Henry, Sig [Oo4], but upon the death of that youthful patron of the arts that leaf was cancelled and a new one containing a dedication to the Earl of Nottingham inserted in its place. Evidently the substitution was delayed for most copies occur without any dedication.”3

£9,500 Ref: 8153

1. Bartlett, Henrietta Collins. Mr. William Shakespeare, original and early editions of his quartos and folios; his source books and those containing contemporary notices, 1922. 277

2. <https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-mirror-for-magistrates-1574>

3. Jackson, William A.; Emma Va Unger. The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library: English literature, 1475- 1700. 1997. 738.

THIRTY-ONE

BETHAM, Mary Matilda (1776-1852). Elegies, and Other Smaller Poems.

Ipswich: Printed by W. Burrell, and sold by Longman, Paternoster-Row, and Jermyn and Forster, Ipswich. Price 3s. 6d. [1797]. ONLY EDITION.

Octavo. Pagination xii, [1], 128, errata present, but lacking half-title and final advert leaf.

Contemporary half calf, spine richly gilt and with red leather label, little worming to foot of upper joint, corners worn, rubbed, text lightly foxed, some staining.

Provenance: Early ownership inscription to foot of title page: “W.H. to M.A. Smart” and inscription to paste-down: “M. F. Burell 1856” possibly a relative of the publisher, but we have been unable to confirm as there is very little information about either.

¶ This is a rare first edition of the first book by Mary Matilda Betham (1776-1852), an English poet, diarist, and portrait miniature painter whose unconventional outlook exacted a heavy price on her livelihood and mental health. After moving to London, she struck up friendships with members of the Romantic movement including the Lambs, Southey, Wordsworth and Coleridge, the latter of whom praised this collection and wrote ‘To Matilda from a stranger’ (1802), in which he compares her to Sappho and urges her to continue writing poetry. Her early work drew scant attention, but Lay of Marie (1816) – her homage to the thirteenth-century poet Marie de France – garnered much praise, not least from Charles Lamb, Southey and Allan Cunningham, and “effectively challenges comparison with Walter Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel” (ODNB).

She championed women’s rights, calling for the greater participation of women in parliamentary affairs and writing Challenge to Women (1821), a tract in defence of Queen Caroline during her acrimonious marriage to King George IV. Poverty and troubled relations with her family exacerbated her mental health, leading to her incarceration in an asylum, but by the 1830s she returned to writing poetry, and in her old age became a popular figure with both her peers and the upcoming literary generation.

£1,750 Ref: 8229

THIRTY-TWO

BLOUNT, Thomas (1618-1679) Fragmenta antiquitatis. Antient tenures of land, and jocular customs of some mannors· Made publick for the diversion of some, and instruction of others. By T.B. of the Inner-Temple Esquire.

London : printed by the assigns of Richard and Edward Atkins, Esquires. For Abel Roper, at the Sun, Tho. Basset, at the George, and Christopher Wilkinson, at the Black-Boy, all in Fleetstreet, 1679. FIRST EDITION. Octavo. Pagination [10], 175, [1, blank], [14, index]. Collated and complete with the errata (which has been bound after the imprimatur leaf). [Wing, B3333].

Contemporary full calf, very worn, covers detached.

¶ Annotations in a 17th century hand to over 65 pages (including front and rare pastedowns), ranging from a few notes in the margins to some pages in which manuscript notes are crammed in to all available space around the text and printed endpapers entirely filled notes. Topics include such things as “warth silver or Wharf-money Sr W. Dudale takes to have been at first, a custom payment for service of ye Kg’s Castles in ye County of Warwick for anciently(?) it is written Ward penny”, “The Oath administered at Dunmow”, and “N.B. The following service was perfected(?torn) by the Lady Townsend who was Lad of ye Mannor of Hilton as was testified in 1680 to Dr Plot”.

£750 Ref: 8180

THIRTY-THREE

[RADCLYFFE, James (3rd Earl of Derwentwater, 1689-1716) Early 18th 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”) undertook 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 “7 plain 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”. An 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 brewing Tubbs”), followed by the “Cellars” (“9 Empty Casks, 2 Thralls”), 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 end (“22:19:0”, 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 pounds” – which is paltry by contemporary standards but explicable by the Crown’s seizure of most of his possessions.

£950 Ref: 8178

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

THRITY-FOUR

KILNER, Mary Ann (née Maze; 1753-1831); MORE, Hannah (1745-1833), et al. A late 18th-century sammelband of 30 rare chapbooks.

[Circa 1795-8]. Octavo. Contemporary calf, rebacked, corners rubbed.

All but three of these rare chapbooks, several of which are known by only one or two recorded copies, were part of a series issued by the publisher John Marshall (d. 1824) after his acrimonious split with Hannah More. Marshall chose to continue producing chapbooks in more or less the same “morally improving” vein as the Cheap Repository Tracts that he published during his association with More.

Of particular note among these 24 tracts – some of which appear in parts, making total of 30 books – are several by Mary Ann Kilner, a prolific writer of children’s books, most famously The Adventures of a Pincushion (c.1780). Mary and her childhood friend (and later sister-in-law), Dorothy Kilner, between them published dozens of books, often featuring anthropomorphised objects and animals that anticipated (and probably influenced) the work of Beatrix Potter. Three chapbooks here are credited to her frequent nom de plume, “S. S.” (signifying her home in London’s Spital Square), but involve human rather than animal protagonists [check: is this true of ‘Bean-feast’?’].

The three chapbooks not published by Marshall, but by John Evans under a new arrangement with More, include the latter’s Tis all for the best (1799), as well as the anonymous The black prince, a true story; being an account of the life and death of Naimbanna, an African king’s son – a pious tale concerning the short but exalted life of “a king who was not a Christian, but who was a better man (to their shame be it spoken) than many who call themselves Christians”. The narrative sends Naimbanna to England, where he is introduced to the Bible, learns humility, and even attends “the House of Commons during a debate on the slave trade”, where his rage at remarks “very degrading to the characters of his countrymen” is extinguished by passages from “the Scripture”.

[1-4]. [S.S. i.e. KILNER, Mary Ann (née Maze; 1753-1831)]. Satan’s Device; or, the Devil no changeling. Being the history of Jack Flint the soldier. In four parts. [London, 1798]. Parts I-IV, complete. Pagination 8; 7, [1]; 7, [1]; 8.

[ESTC: T165594; T165592; T165593; T165594].

All parts are rare. ESTC locates:

Part I: 3 copies in the UK (BL, Cambridge, NLS) and 1 in Canada (McMaster);

Part II: 2 copies in the UK (BL, Cambridge);

Part III: 2 copies in the UK (BL, Cambridge);

Part IV: 2 copies in the UK (BL, Cambridge).

[5-6]. [W.]. Domestic Contrasts; or, the Different Fortunes of Nancy and Lucy. [London, 1799]. Parts I and II (only of IV). Pagination 16; 15, [1].

[ESTC: N504789; T165008].

All parts are rare. ESTC locates:

Part I: 1 copy in the UK (Bristol) and 1 in the USA (UCLA);

Part II: 6 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, Bristol, BL, Edinburgh, NLS, V&A) and 1 in the USA (UCLA).

[7]. [Anon]. Richard and Rebecca; or, A receipt for domestic happiness.. [London, 1797]. Pagination 7, [1].

[ESTC: T44936].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL) and 1 in the USA (Syracuse).

[8]. [A.R.]. The history of Jonathan Griffin and William Peterson. Pointing out an asylum to the destitute. [London, 1797]. Pagination 15, [1].

[ESTC: T36404].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL) and 1 in the USA (UCLA).

[9]. [F.]. The sorrows of Hannah: a ballad, (to the tune of the Lamentation of Mary Queen of Scots) addressed to her husband, then under sentence of transportation for a first act of dishonesty, to which he had been tempted by extreme indigence. [London, 1799]. Pagination 8.

[ESTC: T49534].

ESTC locates 1 copy in the UK (BL).

[10]. [S.S.]. The bean-feast. [London, 1799]. Pagination 8.

[ESTC: N504343].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Bristol, V&A) and 3 in the USA (Harvard, Princeton, UCLA).

[11]. [Anon]. The gravestone; being an account (supposed to be written on a gravestone,) of a wife who buried both her children on one day, and who, from that time, became a very devout Christian. With a suitable address to those who may be attending a funeral. [London, 1798]. Pagination 7, [1].

[ESTC: N505685].

ESTC locates 1 copy in the UK (Bristol). ESTC locates another issue also only recording 1 copy (Princeton). [12]. [Anon]. The parish nurse. [London, not before 1798]. Pagination 16.

[ESTC: N509013].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Bristol, V&A). ESTC locates another issue of which 3 are in the UK and 2 in the USA. [13]. [Anon]. A Dream. [London, 1799]. Pagination 7, [1].

[ESTC: T161280].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL) and 2 in the USA (Harvard, Princeton). [14]. [Anon]. Jeremiah Wilkins; or, The error repaired. [London, 1798]. Pagination 16.

[ESTC: T300743].

ESTC locates 5 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, Bath, Bristol, Oxford, V&A) and 3 in the USA (Princeton, and 2 at the Newberry).

[15-16]. [L.]. The history of Fanny Mills; or, No one too young to do good. Parts I and II, complete. [London, 1799]. Pagination 16; 15, [1].

[ESTC: N505381; T36374].

Part I: 1 copy in the UK (Aberdeen) and 1 in the USA (UCLA);

Part II: 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL).

[17]. [M.]. The baker’s dream; or, Death no bad change to the poor and good. [London, 1799]. Pagination 14, [2]. [ESTC: T48878].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL).

[18]. [M.]. The honest publican, or; The power of perseverance in a good cause. [London, 1798]. Pagination 15, [1]. [ESTC: T36611].

ESTC locates 4 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL, Oxford, V&A) and 2 in the USA (both at the Newberry). [19]. [KILNER, Mary Ann (1753-1831)]. The patient father; or, The young sailor’s return. [London, 1799]. Pagination 8. [ESTC: T43769].

ESTC locates 3 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL, V&A) and 1 in the USA (UCLA).

[20]. [Anon]. The black prince, a true story; being an account of the life and death of Naimbanna, an African king’s son, who arrived in England in the year 1791, and set sail on his return in June 1793. [London, Evans. Between 1799 and 1801?]. Pagination 16.

[ESTC: N15313].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the USA (Huntington, Princeton). Another edition circa 1798 (1 copy at Bristol) and a Philadelphia edition (4 copes in the USA).

[21]. [Anon]. Delays are dangerous; or, The return of John Atkins. [London, 1797]. Pagination 16.

[ESTC: T300740].

ESTC locates 4 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, Bristol, Oxford, V&A) and 2 in the USA (both at the Newberry). [22]. [Anon]. Old Tom Parr. A true story. Shewing, that he was a labouring man, and the wonder of his time; and how he was brought up to London by the Earl of Arundel, 1635, in which year he died, aged 152, according to some historians, others say in his hundred and sixtieth year; but all agree that he had lived during the reign of ten different sovereigns. [London, 1799]. Pagination 8. [ESTC: T42184].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL) and 2 in the USA (both at the Harvard).

[23]. [W.]. The murder in the wood. [London, 1798]. Pagination 16. [ESTC: T41616].

ESTC locates 5 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL, V&A, and 2 at the Bodleian) and 4 in the USA (UCLA, Kansas, and 2 at the Newberry).

[24]. [MORE, Hannah (1745-1833)]. ‘Tis all for the best. [London, 1799]. Pagination 16. [ESTC: N13630].

ESTC locates 1 copy in the UK (Cambridge) and 3 in the USA (Harvard, NYPL, UCLA). ESTC records two other editions, both published at Dublin (UCLA have one of each, and there is 1 at Boston). [25]. [Anon]. The deceitfulness of pleasure; or, Some account of my Lady Blithe. [London, 1799]. Pagination 15, [1]. [ESTC: T153358]. ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL) and 2 in the USA (Harvard, Princeton).

[26]. [Anon]. The wife reformed. [London, between 1795 and 1798]. Pagination 16. [ESTC: T300707].

ESTC locates 1 copy in the UK (Bodleian). ESTC records 2 copies (BL, Kansas) of a 1797 edition and an edition published 1800 attributed to Hannah More.

[27]. [Anon]. Never fly from your duty; or, The history of, James Brown and John Simpson. [London, 1798]. Pagination 15, [1]. [ESTC: T300745].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Bodleian, V&A) and 2 in the USA (both at the Newberry). [28]. [Anon]. The mistaken evil. A true story. [London, 1798]. Pagination 8. [ESTC: T300759].

ESTC locates 3 copies in the UK (Bath, Bodleian, V&A) and 1 in the USA (Newberry). Another edition (3 copies UK; 4 USA). [29]. [Anon]. The happiness of Britain. [London, 1799]. Pagination 7, [1]. [ESTC: T35973].

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK (Aberdeen, BL).

[30]. [Anon]. The wanderer. A fable. [London, 1797]. Pagination 7, [1]. [ESTC: T52181].

ESTC locates 1 copy in the UK (BL).

£1,250 Ref: 8177

THIRTY-FIVE

DONNE, John (1572-1631). Letters to severall persons of honour: written by John Donne sometime Deane of St Pauls London. Published by John Donne Dr. of the Civill Law London, printed by J. Flesher, for Richard Marriot, and are to be sold at his shop in St Dunstans Church-yard under the Dyall. 1651, First edition, first issue.

Small quarto. Pagination [8], 318, [2] p., lacking first and final blanks (A1 and Ss4), collated and complete with the engraved portrait frontispiece by Pieter Lombart. [Keynes 55; Pforzheimer 295; Wing D1864].

some spotting to title and frontispiece, bookplate of Herbert S. Squance, all edges gilt, early 20th-century polished calf gilt by Heyday & Mansell, slightly rubbed.

Some 20 years after John Donne’s death, his son (also named John Donne) compiled and edited this collection of 129 of his father’s letters, 116 of which had not previously appeared in print. Very few – possibly only one – of these letters still exists in manuscript. Many of the letters are undated, and some lack the name of their recipient, prompting Edmund Gosse to call the collection “tantalising” and to produce his own “improved” edition in 1899, with mixed results.

This first edition remains an important source for biographical and literary material on Donne: for instance, he writes notes of varying length to various acquaintances to accompany a manuscript of his book Biathanatos, explaining to one correspondent (“Sr Robert Carre”) that it was “written by me many years since”, but never published, “because it is upon a misinterpretable subject” – namely, suicide. He asks Carre to “Reserve it for me, if I live, and if I die, I only forbid it the Presse, and the Fire” (a vain entreaty, since Biathanatos was published posthumously, just a few years before this volume). Elsewhere he expounds on his metaphysics, recounts incidents at both the English and French courts, and comments often on his declining health (“I shall die reading, since my book and a grave are so near”).

£2,000 Ref: 8183

THIRTY-SIX

[GEORGIAN ETIQUETTE]. Early 19th-century game of manners.

[England? Circa 1820]. 50 Cards (each 92 x 60 mm). Equal numbers of blue and cream-coloured cards. Each blue question card bears a manuscript letter in ink on the reverse, which matches that on a cream answer card.

¶ In an analogy reminiscent of the metaphysical poets, “real Love” is here likened to “the small Pox” – an exception to the fairly restrained tone of these cards, which mostly forgo the light-hearted coquetry of many such sets in favour of manners and polite behaviour. This question-and-answer pair (“Are you apt to fall in love once a month or so?”, and its reply “No: - in my Idea real Love like the small Pox can only be caught once”), with its flippant treatment of what was once a serious scourge, suggests that the set dates from the era after Jenner’s experiments with inoculation and the consequent beginning of smallpox vaccination.

Another card asks: “What pray is your opinion of Red Coats?”, again placing this set in the late 18th or early 19th century, when the term was current (The answer “That generally they are Coxcombs, trivial as their feathers, and valuable as their stations” is an interesting, if fleeting, piece of social commentary). Some cards adopt a high moral tone (“What do you feel when performing the request of those whom you regard?” / “Gratitude:- since they but confer favours by asking them”), and a handful draw on passages from the decidedly uncoquettish Hannah More (1745-1833) (“Who are in general Subjects of the safest Counsellors?” / “Books:- for they advise without flattery, self sufficiency, Envy or reward”; and the slightly more playful “Are you fond of a dish of chat?” / “As of other dishes, if I am helped to what I like, and not cloyed with too much of it”).

Also included are a few examples of the familiar ‘riddle’ card (“What is it which all bring into the World but few carry out?” / “Innocence: alike unsuspicious and unsuspected”), and even the odd bit of wordplay (“Do you ever draw?” / “Yes: all such inferences as my Capacity allows me”). These contribute to the set’s evocation of a social world concerned with maintaining moral standards, but comfortable with joking politely about soldiers and smallpox.

£500 Ref: 8170

- THIRTY-SEVEN

[JEROME, Stephen (c.1588-c.1650)]. The arraignement of the vvhole creature, at the barre of religion, reason, and experience Occasioned vpon an inditement preferred by the soule of man against the prodigals vanity and vaine prodigality.

Printed by B. Alsop and Tho: Favvcet, 1631 [?i.e. 1632]. First edition. Small quarto. Pagination [26], 335, [1], complete with the pictorial title by Martin Droeshout. [STC 13538.5]. Contemporary limp vellum, lacking ties, soiled, text block nearly detached from binding. Rodent damage to A1-H3, since trimmed resulting in loss of text to lower corners (6cm to A1, diminishing by leaf H3).

¶ The writer and protestant minister Stephen Jerome was a “paradoxical puritan”, whose “association with godly clergy marked him out as a rising young puritan preacher” (ODNB), until in 1622 he was caught in a decidedly impure act with a parishioner’s

wife and fled to Ireland. After serving as a minister and publishing Ireland’s Jubilee (1624), he returned to England and took up a post in Cheshire, before an accusation of rape by his maidservant sent him back to Ireland, where his experience of the 1641 rising informed Treason in Ireland. Surviving records lose track of him after the publication in 1650 of his book A Minister’s Mite, a ‘self-help’ book on improving one’s memory.

The arraignement – anonymous, but confidently attributed to Jerome – announces its argument in the second chapter: “the whole lustre and glory of the world […] with which the heart of man hath beene bewitched […] are not all of them, of any validity, or sufficiency, to give any true […] satisfaction to the heart and soule, and spirit of a man, till […] hee truely turne and convert unto GOD […] as this Prodigall heere, to his Fathers house”.

It’s unclear whether Jerome was writing in a hypocritical or penitential frame of mind (as “this Prodigall heere”) after his earlier, unsavoury transgressions, but the early annotator of this damaged copy, one “James Rudyerd” (name inscribed at the head of B1), seems to have taken him at his word. Rudyerd has annotated over 100 pages with notes ranging from single words (“Drinkinge”, “Beautye”) to longer glosses (“ye toyle of pleasure”, “Dantes Excluded from a feast for meane cloathes”). He seems especially interested in the use of similes and often marks these “Simile *” or with remarks such as “Simile of man in pleasures not Contented wth any any while”.

£750 Ref: 8230

THIRTY-EIGHT

BLATHWAYT, William (bap. 1650-1717). Autograph letter signed “Wm Blathwayt”. [London. Circa 1698]. Bifolium. (228 x 180 mm folded). Ink on paper. Text to 2 sides. “Whitehall ye: 4th Jan 1697” (1698).

¶ In this memorable illustration of a famous catastrophe interrupting ‘business as usual’, “Wm Blathwayt”, who held many posts under Charles II, James II and William III, and at the time of this letter was, among other things, acting secretary of state to William – writes to a correspondent he addresses only as “Sr” , to assure him “that the Point of Mr Van Ellemeet’s Interest will be duly laid before ye king tomorrow […] for his orders which you may expect by the next post either from my L d Ranelagh or myself”. After dealing with a couple more affairs of state, he concludes his two-page letter with the alarming postscript: “Whitehall is just now on fire by an accidt and most of it is like to be burnt down. We are safe towards ye Park” Whitehall Palace, a magnificent structure made largely of timber, burned to the ground on the afternoon of 4th January 1698 after a maidservant left drying linen sheets on a charcoal brazier in a bedchamber. “Pumps and buckets were used to pour water on the burning palace, with little effect”, and gunpowder was deployed to create firebreaks, “but this made things worse as chunks burning timber fell on other buildings and set them alight”.1 Only the Banqueting House was saved.

£600 Ref: 7993

1. www.hrp.org.uk/banqueting-house/history-and-stories/the-whitehall-fire-of-1698/

THIRTY-NINE

[PALMER, Samuel] Early 19th century manuscript ciphering, scrap and gardening notebook.

[Cira 1800-20]. Contemporary green vellum. Quarto (195 x 160 x 25 mm). 170 leaves (of which approximately 40 pages are in manuscript text or calculations and 68 pages of printed scraps), a few leaves excised.

Watermark: Britannia, letters MB beneath.

Inscription to pastedown reds “Samuel Palmer His Book”

¶ This Georgian green vellum stationer’s notebook began as the schoolboy Samuel Palmer’s ciphering book, around the beginning of the 19th century. Palmer seems to have decided he no longer needed these notes and has repurposed the volume into a scrapbook and horticultural notebook.

Many of the scraps have been pasted directly over the earlier mathematical exercises, showing eloquently how Palmer’s requirements and concerns may have altered with maturity. They have been cut from printed texts, including journals and newspapers. Clippings include articles on fashion (“Female Fashions for April”), reports of crime (John Kent was tried of assaulting, with intent to kill”, “A most barefaced robbery”, “Human Flesh-market”, “A Bailiff Outwitted”), auctions (“Dr Parr We have authority to state that there is no truth in the report, of the valuable Library of this celebrated man being shortly brought to the hammer”), the arts (“Chatham Garden Theatre, This evening, Dec 10, will be presented the Comedy of The Wonder”, “New Opera called the Saw Mill”), sport (“Warwick Races”), travel (“Margate-Eclipse steam Packet”) and other newsworthy events (“Death of Lindley Murray, the Grammarian”, “Remarkable Capture of a Hare”, “Defeat of the Royalists in Peru by Bolivar”).

Palmer has flipped the volume to incorporate manuscript recipes (“Receipt for the White Scale”, “A Method of Raising Mushrooms”, “Receipt for growing Potatoes in Winter”) and notes on horticulture, including lists of plants (“List of Vines”, “List of the Bulbs sent from Town”) memoranda on work carried out (“Shifted Pines Succession 26 February 1821 [...] cut cucumbers, Planted out Melons”) and descriptions of varieties of pine trees (“the Silver Striped Pine”, “the Queen Pine”).

£450 Ref: 8123

FORTY

ROWLANDS, Samuel (1570?-1630?). Two editions of ‘The Famous History of Guy Earl of Warwick. Written by Samuel Rowland’. London: printed for G. Conyers, at the Gold-Ring in Little-Britain, [1680?]; London: printed for G. Conyers, at the Golden-Ring in Little-Britain, [1701?].

Octavo. Pagination 79, [1, adverts] (woodcut vignette to title page and 8 woodcuts in text); 30, [2, adverts] (woodcut vignette to title page and 7 woodcut vignettes in text). [ESTC, R218418 and T184950]. ESTC note to the latter: “NUC suggests [1690?].

G. Conyers active 1686-1712.” However, the advertisements include 19 books, some of which do not appear to be listed in ESTC, but those that do date to circa 1700-5 which supports the slightly later date.

18th-century half calf, marbled boards, rubbed and worn but sound. Title page to the 1680 edition torn at fore-edge with loss of

a triangular section approximately 50 mm vertically diminishing to 25 mm into the woodcut image and a small hole (10 x 5 mm) to the upper section of the woodcut.

Provenance: inscription to verso of the 1701 edition: “Richd Paly his Book Stall not this Book for ffeear of Shame Over this there is my Name Mdcclviii”. The woodcut image has been crudely copied through in ink wash, probably by Paly.

Ownership bland-stamp to first text leaf of Francis Henry Cripps-Day (1864-c.1945), antiquary, lawyer, and author of books on armour and pageantry.

Page from an old bookseller’s catalogue pasted to rear endpaper: “66. Great Russell St., London, W.C. 1 Facing the British Museum” – probably that of James Tregaskis, who was, according to the British Museum website, a “Major London book dealer (1850-1926)” who “worked as printer in London until 1889 when he went to work in the bookshop of his wife, Mary Lee Bennett (1854?-1900) at 232 High Holborn, or “Caxton Head”, which became ‘J & M.L. Tregaskis’. In 1915 the Caxton Head moved to Great Russell St. […] His son from his second marriage to Eveline Belwood Davis (1877-1948), Hugh Frederick Beresford (1905-1983) helped run the firm with his father and it became ‘James Tregaskis & Son’”.

The catalogue clipping includes a reference to the similarly titled The heroick history of Guy Earl of Warwick. Written by Humphrey Crouch. ESTC records four editions of that work and observes that “The woodcuts are the same as those used in the 1635 edition of “The famous historie of Guy earle of Warwick” by Samuel Rowlands (a different work)”.

All editions are extremely rare: ESTC records 16 between 1609 and 1701, mostly only one or two copies of each (the two exceptions being the 1667 and 1689 editions which are represented by three copies each). Indeed, the two editions bound together here are no exception: ESTC locates 2 copies of the 1680 edition (British Library and Columbia University) and 2 of the 1701 edition (National Library of Scotland and the Bodleian).

¶ Two extremely rare editions of Rowlands’ poem The Famous History of Guy Earl of Warwick are here bound in one volume – a curious choice with no evident motivation. This was one of many renditions of the Guy of Warwick legend, so rooted in English folklore that the figure of Colbrand the giant, whom Guy slays in the narrative, is mentioned in two of Shakespeare’s plays (Henry VIII and King John).

The poem is also a notable sidenote to the vogue for ‘Turk plays’ largely launched by Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine – a wave of dramatic renditions that included the anonymous The Tragical History, Admirable Atchievments and various events of Guy earl of Warwick. In these works, as in Rowlands’ verse retelling of the legend, as Annaliese Connolly remarks, “English conceptions of Anglo-Ottoman relations in the sixteenth century are superimposed on the medieval depiction of English or European crusaders and their Saracen enemies” 1 .

Samuel Rowlands was chiefly known as a satirist, and his earliest work in this vein became a succès de scandale after copies of his first two satires were publicly burned. He also published a handful of pious works, including The betraying of Christ (1598) (described by ODNB as “a somewhat sententious biblical paraphrase”); and The Famous History, which was entered in the Stationer’s Register in 1608 and went through a number of editions during the 17th century, all of which are rare.

£2,750 Ref: 8149

1. ‘Guy of Warwick, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Elizabethan Repertory’, Early Theatre. Vol. 12, No. 2 (2009), pp. 207-222

FORTY-ONE

[SOARE, John, annotator]. A copy of a poll of the burgesses and freeholders of the town and county of the town of Nottingham, for electing two burgesses to serve in Parliament for the said town; taken in the Town-Hall in the market-place, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the 18th, 19th and 20th days of April, 1754; (in the exact order they voted) before John Fellows and Thomas Sands, gentlemen, sheriffs. Candidates, the Right Hon. George Augustus Lord Viscount Howe, Sir Wilughby Aston, bart. John Plymptre, Esq; with an alpabetical index, for the readier finding any person’s name.

Nottingham: Printed by Tho. Collyer, and sold by R. Ware on Ludgate-Hill, London; S. Fox, J. Roe, and S. Trimer in Derby, S. Simmons in Sheffield, and E. Monk in Mansfield, M.CC.LIV. [1754]. Only edition. Octavo. Pagination [1], 76, p, interleaved with blanks, eight pages of which are annotated with a 33-stanza poem in manuscript, contemporary calf boards, rebacked and repaired, inner-margins reinforced.

Provenance: manuscript note to front free endpaper: “John Soare. Nottingham. 1766” ; ownership inscription to pastedown: “John Walker. 1807. January 1st Bottle Lane, Nottongham”; armorial bookplate to pastedown of Frederic Arthur Wadsworth (1871-1943), Nottingham historian and book collector.

A rare book, ESTC locates three copies: British Library, Nottingham University Library, Nottinghamshire County Library.

¶ The 1754 General Election returned the Duke of Newcastle’s government to office, and the polling results for each constituency were duly published; this volume represents Nottingham, where (as the title page announces) the candidates were “The Right Hon. George Augustus, Lord Viscount Howe”, Sir Wilughby Aston, Bart.”; and “John Plumptre, Esq”.

Howe won, and our scribe has exercised his bragging rights by adding alternate blank leaves throughout and using both sides of the first four to write out what appears to be an original poem running to 33 stanzas: “The Tories Lamentation”, which was “Composed at the Close of the General Election 1754, and calculated for the meridian of Nottingham / being an humble Imitation of Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins […] By J:D: of Leicester”. The “Imitation” seems mostly to lie in the pseudo-psalmic title and the use of ‘common metre’ that Sternhold and Hopkins employed in their translations of the Psalms.

The book’s first owner appears to be “John Soare”, of “Nottingham 1766” whose name occurs in the poll (on p.17, with his trade given as “Taylor”). A later annotator has added “1806” beneath Soare’s 176 date and calculated “60”, which perhaps refers to the date of Soare’s death as, in 1807 the book’s new owner “John Walker” has inscribed his name to the pastedown.

The manuscript poem replays the Nottingham outcome in verse, in the voice of a downcast Tory but clearly written by a Whig supporter (although the distinction between the two had become almost non-existent by this time, and Plumptre himself was a self-described Whig). The poet, having promised “A doleful tale”, describes the Tories searching in vain for an ideal candidate, until they settle on “a Plumtree Stump / But of a doubtful root / Because it sprung out of the Rump” – a reference to Plumptre’s whiggishness. A few gloating pages later, the final verse concludes: “We thought t’have pulled the Whigs down all, / But they’ve prov’d quite too strong!”

The satire in “The Tories Lamentation” is broad and the crowing far from admirable; but this book and its manuscript ‘commentary’ capture some of the localised political discourse shortly before both Whigs and Tories began to splinter into factions, with chaotic results.

£650 Ref: 8200

FORTY-TWO

PHILIPS, Katherine (1631-1664) Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda. To which is added Monsieur Corneille’s Pompey & Horace, tragedies. With several other translations out of French.

London: printed by T[homas]. N[ewcomb]. for Henry Herringman at the sign of the Blew Anchor in the lower walk of the New Exchange, 1678. Fourth edition.

Folio. Pagination pp. [36], 198, [8], 124, [2], collated and complete with the engraved portrait frontispiece and the final blank. Contemporary full calf, rubbed, corners worn, some marks, a few closed tears, leaf Mm2 with segment cut from margin resulting the loss of two words of text. [Wing, P2035].

Provenance: several inscriptions of “Sir Robert Lauder” to front and rear endpapers, one of which adds “aught this Book”. Bookplate to paste-down of Robert Gathorne-Hardy FLS (1902-1973) prose writer, poet, botanist, and horticulturalist.

Sir Robert Lauder of Beilmouth, Knt., (d. 1709) was a lawyer and Clerk of Exchequer in Scotland. In 1683 he was made a Justice of the Peace for Haddingtonshire. His father, also Robert, had been on a Commission to try witches in 1661 and 1662, and the son continued in pursuit of witches: Lord Fountainhall relates that “Mr. Robert Lauder, and some other gentlemen at Dunbar, by commission from the Privy Council of Scotland, upon some presumptions, condemned ane old woman for a witch. She was brought before the Councill, and they enclined to assolzie her, and sent her back to prison; for the main thing proven, was her threatening such as refused to give her money, and some evil accidents befalling them shortlie thereafter. But, on 12 July 1688, being brought again before the Councill, she was remitted back to Dunbar, to be burnt there, if her Judges pleased, because she had confessed once, though she retracted”.

¶ Katherine Philips was one the most celebrated poets of the 17th century and a contemporary of Aphra Behn, Margaret Cavendish and other women writers and poets who flourished after the English Civil War. Born into a largely puritan family but developing royalist sympathies for a time, she married James Philips (c.1624-1674), a supporter of parliament who served as MP under both Cromwell and Charles II; some of her poetry shows her navigating the tricky terrain between their contrasting (albeit both moderate) political outlooks, sometimes defending her husband against his critics and distinguishing “her own ‘follies’ and ‘errours’ in loyalty to the dead monarch [Charles I] from her husband's views” (ODNB).

Philips is perhaps best known for her poems celebrating friendship – an interest she also pursued by establishing a close literary circle of associates, to whom she assigned coterie names (she herself famously took the name ‘Orinda’). Her reputation has survived into the 21st century, with renewed interest thanks to feminist scholarship.

A collection 74 of her poems first appeared in 1664, which she suppressed. Posthumous editions, containing 121 poems followed in 1667, 1669, 1678, and 1710. Along with her poetry and translations, the book included fulsome tributes (“the honour of her Sex, the emulation of ours, and the admiration of both”) that nevertheless betrayed the patronising tone characteristic of the age: her close friend and frequent correspondent Charles Cotterell (whom she gave the coterie name ‘Poliarchus’) wrote of her poems that “there are none that may not pass with favour, when it is remembered that they fell hastily from the pen but of a Woman”.

£1,250 Ref: 8226

FORTY-THREE

[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 twenty-four. 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”, “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

FORTY-FOUR

JUVENAL; STAPYLTON, Sir Robert (c. 1607-69) Mores Hominum. The manners of men, described in sixteen satyrs, by Juvenal: as he is published in his most authentick copy, lately printed by command of the King of France. Whereunto is added the invention of seventeen designes in picture: with arguments to the satyrs..

London: Printed by R. Hodgkinsonne, in the Year 1660. First complete edition.

Pagination [20], 270, 277-522, [28] p., lacking final blank, text collated and complete with the 18 leaves of plates and accompanying verses on separate sheets. [Wing, J1280; Pforzheimer, 568]. 19th century panelled calf, rubbed, front board neardetached. Small stain to border of frontispiece, title slightly dusty, but generally clean and crisp.

Provenance: Armorial bookplate of George Savile, with the motto “Be fast”; gilt leather bookplate of Edward Hailstone (18181890), Yorkshire solicitor, churchwarden and book collector.

¶ Sir Robert Stapylton’s The first six satyrs of Juvenal (1644) was “the first published English translation of Juvenal” (ODNB); he followed it in 1647 with a complete translation of the satires and, in 1660, with a revised edition entitled Mores Hominum, of which Pforzheimer writes that “the translation, as well as the notes, are entirely revised so that it presents not so much a new edition as a new version”.

Stapylton navigated the shifting political and religious landscapes of 17th-century England better than many, thanks to a combination of prudence and good fortune. Born in Yorkshire to a devoutly Catholic family and ultimately forsaking membership of the Douai Benedictines in favour of the established church in England, he drew on the rigorous grounding in the classics he received at Douai to publish a series of translations from the Latin of Virgil, Ovid, Pliny and Juvenal. He was residing in Oxford when the city surrendered to Fairfax in 1645, but left the next year, after which he “lived quietly as a gentleman scholar, and did not attract the attention of the authorities” (ODNB). In the same year as our edition of Juvenal was published, Charles II appointed Stapylton as a gentleman usher to the privy chamber.

The 1660, first complete edition of Stapylton’s Mores Hominum, represents a milestone in the dissemination of the classics in English – a major achievement by a talented translator.

£750 Ref: 8217

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 seven 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 front free endpaper, 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 later (or, rather, contemporaneous) transgression. Indeed, it is partly the “blank space” to which so many early-modern women’s 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, none of which 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 undetected.

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 “Baloils” (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” (ie 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 (eg “Glo: Coll: B.30. P.22. 65”) and the Harleian Manuscripts are frequently mentioned.

THE MALEFACTOR’S 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 timespan 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.

£1,750 Ref: 8129

FORTY-SIX

[JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS]. Three manuscript volumes: ‘An Alphabetical Kallender of the Journals of the House of Lords from the Restauration of His Majesty King Charles the Second 1660 to the Year 1723 inclusive’ [in two volumes; together with] ‘A Calendar of the Journals of the House of Lords from the Year 1723 to the Year 1732’.

[Circa 1732]. Folio (each volume measures approximately 355 x 225 x 50 mm). Pagination [24], 619; [620], 621-1240; [2], 543, numbered pages. Contemporary full calf, rubbed, joints cracked, some damp staining. Provenance: armorial bookplate to paste-down of each volume of Sir Lucius Henry O’Brien.

¶ The Irish politician Sir Lucius Henry O’Brien, third baronet (1733-1795), was born in Dromoland, County Clare, Ireland. He was the eldest son of Sir Edward O’Brien, second baronet (d. 1765), who represented County Clare in the Irish House of Commons for 30 years, and his wife Mary, née Hickman. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1752 and, after entering the Middle Temple the following year, was called to the Irish bar in 1758.

O’Brien became MP for Ennis borough in 1763 and made an immediate impression with a lengthy speech analysing Ireland’s condition. He quickly became “a prominent member of the parliamentary opposition” (ODNB). His career was marked by an independence of mind and a well-informed approach, but an underwhelming personal presence and a quality described by one commentator as “whimsical”. He campaigned on issues such as removing restrictions on trade with England and asserting Irish legislative independence, and, though hardly a firebrand, was well respected for his diligence. He seems also to have had an interest in antiquarianism: ODNB recounts that “Arthur Young acknowledged his indebtedness to O’Brien, at whose house he stayed, and who was indefatigable in procuring materials for Young’s Tour in Ireland”.

These three volumes may represent a synthesis of O’Brien’s interests – professional and amateur – since they combine the political with the historical. The first two volumes are entitled “An Alphabetical Kallender of the Journals of the House of Lords from the Restauration of His Majesty King Charles the Second 1660 to the Year 1723 Inclusive” (the second volume’s spine gives the end date as “1721”, but this must have been an error at the binding stage); the third volume is similarly titled but covers 1723 to 1738 (and not “1732”, as given on the manuscript’s title page; this time it’s the spine text that is correct).

The timespan covered here ends 25 years before the beginning of O’Brien’s political career. It may be that there were further volumes bringing his material closer to contemporary, but these three are impressive enough, running to over 1,700 pages in total. The entries are alphabetised under topic (“Navy”, “Ordinance”, “Yarmouth”, and so on), and O’Brien (or a secretary) has conscientiously added three indexes at the beginning of the first volume and another at the end of the third. O’Brien’s intention was probably to equip himself with an unusually comprehensive ready reference for his work, but the level of detail and the reaching back to 1660 also suggests a keen interest in his country’s history.

These impressive volumes demonstrate the sheer industry involved in a prominent 18th-century Irish politician’s commitment to his career, and hints at the concern with historical detail that would have inclined him to antiquarianism – a pursuit entirely consonant with the makeup of an Irish patriot.

£1,250 Ref: 8223

Dean Cooke Rare Books Ltd

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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.