Verse Attributed to Beaumont
Ad Comitissam Rutlandiae (‘Madam, so may my verses pleasing be’)
First published, as ‘An Elegie by F. B.’, in Certain Elegies, Done by Sundrie Excellent Wits (London, 1618). Dyce XI, 505-7.
BmF 1
Copy, untitled.
In: A folio volume of poems, in a single accomplished hand, 61 leaves (plus stubs of fifteen extracted leaves), imperfect, in quarter-vellum. Including 49 pems by Thomas Carew and one of doubtful authorship. c.1640s.
Later owned by F. Wyburd who, according to W.C. Hazlitt (1870, p. xv), ‘obtained it about three years ago of a dealer at Knightsbridge’. Owned c.1927 by P.J. Dobell, who sold it in 1936.
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Wyburd MS’: CwT Δ 3. Reduced facsimile in Poems 1640 (1969). Briefly discussed in Evelyn M. Simpson, ‘Two Manuscripts of Donne's Paradoxes and Problems’, RES, 3 (1927), 129-45 (pp. 131-3).
Facsimile of this MS in the Scolar Press facsimile of the 1640 edition of Thomas Carew, Poems (Menston, 1969).
BmF 2
Copy, untitled.
In: A verse miscellany, i + 25 leaves. c.1640.
Owned before 1959 by the Lingard-Guthrie family.
BmF 3
Copy in: A folio verse miscellany, entirely in the professional secretary hand of the ‘Feathery Scribe’, containing some 76 poems, including eleven by Donne, later inscribed (erroneously) ‘Sir John Haringtons Poems Written in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth’, 56 leaves, in contemporary vellum. c.1620s-33.
From the library of Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755), nonjuring bishop and topographer.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Rawlinson MS’: DnJ Δ 38. Also briefly described in Peter Beal, In Praise of Scribes: Manuscripts and their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998), p. 277 (No. 94), with facsimile examples on pp. 102-3.
BmF 3.5
Copy, untitled, on both sides of a single folio leaf, apparently enclosed originally with a letter by Sir Charles Cavendish to the Countess of Shrewsbury, from Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, 17 April 1614 (on f. 189: ‘...but mak som notes that may lye by yow and at your pleasure yow may pervse them...’). 1614.
In: A folio composite volume of original letters and documents.
Edited from this MS in Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, Biography, and Manners, 3 vols (London, 1791), III, 394-6.
The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle, Autograph Letters 1585-1617, f. 190r-v.
BmF 4
Copy, subscribed ‘ffra: Be:’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, almost entirely in a single neat secretary hand, the first page formally inscribed ‘To the righte honoble: the Lorde Thomas Darcy Viscount Colchester’ (c.1565-1640, Viscount Colchester from 1621 to 1626), 191 leaves, in modern half-morocco. Including 27 poems (and second copies of two poems) by Thomas Carew and three of doubtful authorship. c.1620s.
This MS largely transcribed in British Library, Add. MS 21433. The hand occurs also in British Library, Harley MS 3910, between ff. 112v and 120v, and is possibly associated with the Inns of Court.
Scribbled inscriptions including (f. 1r) ‘Mr John Bowyer’; (f. 2r) ‘Jeronomus ffox’; and (f. 3r) ‘William Ralph Baesh’.
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Colchester MS’: CwT Δ 13.
BmF 5
Copy, headed ‘A Letter to the Countesse of Rutland’, subscribed ‘F B’.
In: A folio composite volume of separate MSS of verse and some prose, in various secretary and italic hands, written over an extended period, with a table of contents (f. 3r-v), 186 leaves. Comprising papers of the Skipwith family of Cotes, Leicestershire, including 60 poems by John Donne (and one Problem), the text related in part to the ‘Edward Smyth MS’ (DnJ Δ 45); also 15 poems (and second copies of two) by Henry King; and 19 poems (and two of doubtful authorship) by Carew. c.1620-50.
Including poems ascribed to William Skipwith (? Sir William Skipwith, d.1610, or his grandson, William, or possibly a cousin, William Skipwith, of Ketsby, Lincolnshire, fl.1633); to Sir Henry Skipwith (fl.1609-52); and to Thomas Skipwith, and several poems by Donne's friend Sir Henry Goodyer (1571-1627), to whom a branch of the Skipwith family was related by marriage. Later owned by Robert Sherard (1719-99), fourth Earl of Harborough. Sotheby's, 10 June 1864, lot 605, to Boone.
This MS is the ‘curious folio volume’ lent to John Nichols (1745-1826) by ‘the late Lord Harborough’ and cited in Nichols's account of the Skipwith family in his History of Leicestershire, 4 vols (1795-1815), III, part i (1800), 367.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as the ‘Skipwith MS’: DnJ Δ 21; CwT Δ 14; KiH Δ 8. Also described in Mary Hobbs's thesis, pp. 119-29 (see KiH Δ 6). For Sir William Skipwith and his literary connections, see James Knowles, ‘Marston, Skipwith and The Entertainment at Ashby’, EMS, 3 (1992), 137-92 (esp.pp. 171-2).
Edited from this MS in Joshua Eckhardt, Manuscript Verse Collectors and the Politics of Anti-Courtly Love Poetry (Oxford, 2009), pp. 176-7.
BmF 6
Copy, untitled.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, including 18 poems by Donne, in several hands over a period (the predominant secretary hand on ff. 1r-35v, 45v-63r), written from both ends, 91 leaves, in later green morocco. c.1630s [-1777].
Inscribed (f. 1r) ‘E Libris Richardo Glovero pharmacopol. Londinense pertinantibus’, the date ‘1638’ possibly added in a different hand. The name ‘William Allen’ on f. 77v among scribbling. Inscribed (f. 1v) by a later owner, apparently for ‘Mr Thorpe’, ‘I was informed by the bookseller of whom I bought this book; that it belonged formerly to a literary gentleman who lived in Burton Crescent and who died about six months ago. 3rd Augt. 1835’.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Glover MS’: DnJ Δ 42.
BmF 7
Copy, untitled.
In: A folio composite volume of state and miscellaneous tracts and papers, in various hands, in modern red morocco gilt.
BmF 8
Copy, subscribed ‘ffr: B’.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, in several largely italic hands, closely written, 148 leaves (plus blanks), in modern quarter morocco gilt. Probably compiled by university or inns of court men. c.1620s-30s.
This MS collated in Dyce.
BmF 9
Copy, headed ‘To the countesse of Rutland’.
In: An independent quarto verse miscellany, including 47 poems by Donne, in two secretary hands. Constituting ff. 230r-99v in a quarto composite volume of verse and prose, in various hands, 308 leaves, in modern half green morocco gilt. c.1620-33.
Among the collections of Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford (1661-1724), and his son, Edward, second Earl of Oxford (1681-1741), and acquired in 1722 from the bookseller Nathaniel Noel (fl.1681-c.1753).
Cited in IELM I.i as the ‘Harley Noel MS’: DnJ Δ 2.
BmF 10
Copy, untitled, subscribed ‘F: B:’.
In: A large quarto volume of verse and prose, in several hands, a cursive mixed hand predominating on ff. 1r -51, 53r-8v, with a later addition dated 1694 on f. 78r, 82 leaves, in modern half green morocco. Mid-17th century.
BmF 11
Copy in: A quarto verse miscellany, including 50 poems by Donne, in a single neat secretary hand except for ff. 70r-2r, which are in another secretary hand. Comprising folios 57r-137v in a quarto composite volume of MSS, in various hands, 173 leaves, in 19th-century leather gilt. c.1620s.
Later owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Among the collections of William Petty (1737-1805), first Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Shelburne.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Lansdowne MS’: DnJ Δ 8). Recorded as item 133 among ‘Manuscripts in Quarto’ in the list at the end of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 85.
BmF 12
Copy, untitled.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, written in two styles of hand (A: ff. 2r, after first six lines, to 64v; B: ff. 2r, first six lines, 64v-91v, 92v-4r), possibly both in the same hand, with an Index (ff. 93r-4r), 94 leaves, in modern half-morocco. Including 22 poems (plus two of doubtful authorship) by Carew, 13 poems by King, and 24 poems (plus one of doubtful authorship) by Strode, and probably associated with Christ Church, Oxford. c.1633.
Inscribed names including (f. 93v, in court hand) ‘ffrancis Baskeruile’: i.e. probably the Francis Baskerville who married Margaret Glanvill in 1635 and was in 1640 MP for Marlborough, Wiltshire. Other scribbling including (f. 1r) accounts referring to Wanborough, Wiltshire; (f. 9v) ‘Elizabeth White’; (f. 54v) ‘William Walrond his booke 1663’; (f. 92r) accounts dated 1658; and (f. 94r) ‘John Wallrond’. Later owned by Sir Hans Sloane, Bt (1660-1753), physician and collector.
Recorded in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Baskerville MS’: CwT Δ 20, KiH Δ 10, StW Δ 13. Facsimile examples of ff. 55r and 68r in Mary Hobbs, Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany Manuscripts (Aldershot, 1992), Plate 6, after p. 86.
BmF 13
Copy, subscribed ‘F: B:’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, in one or more secretary hands, with (ff. 244r-54r) a first-line index, 254 leaves, in modern half-morocco, poems on ff. 34v and 242v dated 1637. Including 91 poems and some prose works by John Donne and fourteen poems by Thomas Carew. c.1637.
Among the collections of Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (1776-1839), first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, of Stowe House, near Buckingham, largely derived from the collection of the antiquary Thomas Astle (1735-1803), which in turn chiefly derived from Astle's father-in-law, the Essex historian Philip Morant (1700-70) (see DnJ Δ 15). Later owned by Bertram, fourth Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878).
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as ‘Stowe MS II’: DnJ Δ 44 and ‘Stowe MS’: CwT Δ 22.
BmF 14
Copy, untitled but superscribed ‘Francis Beaumont’.
In: A quarto miscellany of English and Latin verse and prose, largely in a neat secretary hand, 91 leaves, in limp vellum. Early 17th century.
Among the papers of the Gell family, of Hopton Hall, Derbyshire, including those of the Parliamentary commander and MP Sir John Gell, first Baronet (1593-1671). Formerly D258/60/26a.
BmF 15
Copy, headed ‘To ye Couns. of Rutlande’, subscribed ‘F. B.’
In: A folio composite miscellany of verse, prose, and dramatic works, in several hands, an independant unit on ff. 88r-111r, in a single hand, containing, inter alia, twenty poems by Donne, 117 leaves (plus seventeen blanks), in contemporary vellum, with remains of ties. c.1630.
Inscribed (f. 134v) ‘Anthony Methuen’. Later owned by members of the Wyndham family, including probably the Henry Penruddocke Wyndham (1736-1819), topographer. Sotheby's, 11 April 1872, lot 1331, to David Laing.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Laing MS’: DnJ Δ 47.
BmF 16
Copy, untitled, transcribed from BmF 26.
In: A folio volume of 143 poems by Donne, plus his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single neat hand, 270 pages (plus a three-page index), in contemporary calf. Transcribed from Trinity College, Dublin, MS 877, [Part I], pp. 13r-161v (‘Dublin MS I’: DnJ Δ 14) before the extraction from that MS of pages containing two poems by Donne but before the addition of the Hamilton elegy of 1625. c.1623-5.
Acquired in 1895 from Bernard Quaritch by Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), American professor and art historian. Formerly MS Nor 4503.
Recorded in IELM as the Norton MS: DnJ Δ 9. Briefly discussed in C.E. Norton, ‘The Text of Donne's Poems’, [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 5 (1896), 1-22 (pp. 11-13). Cited as N by most modern editors and as H4 in Variorum.
BmF 17
Copy, headed ‘To the Countess of Rutland. ff. B.’
In: A small octavo miscellany of 76 poems by Donne, together with a few poems by others dating up to 1627, in a single italic hand, occasionally marking the end of poems with one or more quatrefoils, 102 leaves (foliation jumping from 55 to 57), gilt-edged, in 19th-century dark green leather gilt. c.late 1620s.
Inscriptions including (f. 6r) ‘Hannah Lewis Junr’; ‘Thomas Turner his Book’ (three times, ff. 8r, 14v, 48v, dated ‘1750’, ‘58’ and ‘1760’); (f. 12r) ‘Edmund Baxter att Mrs Nortons’; (ff. 20r, 59v) ‘John Jones’; (f. 40r) ‘Jon: Pryse 1729’; (f. 59v) ‘Robt. Was’[?]; and (f. 79r) ‘Edmund Baxter 1729’. Later owned by Edward Vernon Utterson (1776-1856), of Shanklin and Ryde, Isle of Wight, artist, literary antiquary and book collector. Sotheby's, 24 April 1852 (Utterson sale), lot 1317, sold to ‘Lelly’. Then owned by Sir John Simeon, third Baronet (1815-70), M.P. Sotheby's, 3 March 1871 (Simeon sale), lot 638, to Pickering. Quaritch's sale catalogue No. 436 (1930), item 576. Formerly MS Nor 4620.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Utterson MS’: DnJ Δ 51. Discussed in Sir John Simeon, ‘Unpublished Poems of Donne’, Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, 3 (London, 1856-7), No. 3. For an account of Utterson, see Raymond V. Turley, ‘Edward Vernon Utterson’, The Book Collector, 25 (1976), 21-44 (and plates after p. 48).
BmF 18
Copy, headed ‘fletcher: to ye Countes of Rutland’.
In: A folio verse miscellany, 206 pages (plus blanks), rebound in 1832 (by Charles Lewis) with an independent miscellany (Huntington, HM 198, Part II). Including 52 poems by Donne (many on pp. 64-109, 167-74 initialled ‘L.C.’ [? Lord Chancellor], as are some poems by others), 11 poems by Carew, ten poems by Corbett, and 11 poems by or attributed to Herrick, in a single neat hand throughout; the poems dating up to 1637. c.1637.
Later scribbling and inscriptions including the names ‘Edw Denny’ [presumably Edward Denny (1569-1637), Baron Denny of Waltham and first Earl of Norwich], ‘Charles Cocks’, ‘Edward Randolphe’ and (on p. 162) ‘Thomas Cassy’. Later owned by Joseph Haslewood (1769-1833), bibliographer and antiquary (sold in the Haslewood sale, London, 1833, lot 1329, to Thorpe); by Edward King (1795-1837), Viscount Kingsborough, antiquary (his sale in Dublin, 1 November 1841, item 624); and by Henry Huth (1815-78), book collector (his library catalogue, 1880, IV, pp. 1159-64), and sold at Sotheby's, 17 July 1917 (Huth sale), lot 5873.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as the ‘Haslewood Kingsborough MS (I)’: DnJ Δ 25, CwT Δ 28, CoR Δ 10, and HeR Δ 5. A complete microfilm is at the University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute (Mic S 15). Discussed in C.M. Armitage, ‘Donne's Poems in Huntington Manuscript 198: New Light on “The Funerall”’, SP, 63 (1966), 697-707. A facsimile of part of p. 63 in Marcy L. North, ‘Amateur Compilers, Scribal Labour, and the Contents of Early Modern Poetic Miscellanies’, EMS, 16 (2011), 82-111 (p. 101).
BmF 19
Copy, headed ‘To the Countesse of Rutland’.
In: A folio verse miscellany, 148 leaves (foliated 161-206), once bound (reversed) with an independent miscellany (Huntington, HM 198, Part I), rebound with this MS (in continuous form without inversion) in 1832 (by Charles Lewis). Including 59 poems by Donne (and second copies of six poems), in probably six professional secretary hands: A (ff. 1r-25v, 82r-129r); B (ff. 26r, 42v-7v, 49r-63r, 63v-79r, 130r-48r); C (ff. 27r-36v, 41r-2v; with occasional corrections possibly in hand B); D (ff. 37r-40v); E (ff. 63r-v); and F (f. 129v). c.1620-33.
Scribbling includes the name ‘Meriall Tracy’ (on f. 148v). Later owned by Joseph Haslewood (1769-1833), bibliographer and antiquary; by Edward King (1795-1837), Viscount Kingsborough, antiquary; and by Henry Huth (1815-78), book collector (his library, lot 624). Sotheby's, 17 July 1917 (Huth sale), lot 5873.
Recorded in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Haslewood-Kingsborough MS (II)’: DnJ Δ 26. Discussed in C.M. Armitage, ‘Donne's Poems in Huntington Manuscript 198: New Light on “The Funerall”’, SP, 63 (1966), 697-707.
A complete microfilm is at the University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute (Mic S 15). Betagraph of the watermark in f. 43 in Ted-Larry Pebworth, ‘Towards a Taxonomy of Watermarks’, in Puzzles in Paper: Concepts in Historical Watermarks, ed. Daniel W. Mosser, Michael Saffle and Ernest W. Sullivan, II (London, 2000), pp. 229-42 (p. 240).
BmF 20
Copy, untitled.
In: A folio volume of state letters and poems, 65 pages. c.1625-30s.
Once belonging to the Sotheby family of London and Ecton Hall, Northamptonshire.
BmF 21
Copy, untitled.
In: A folio verse miscellany, including 26 poems (plus two of doubtful authorship) by Thomas Carew and poems by Henry King, in several hands, 92 leaves, plus an inserted gathering of eleven leaves after f. 82v (ff. [82a-82k]), but including stubs of some extracted leaves (ff. 74-8, 94-5), in contemporary vellum. Inscribed ‘To my euer honored good Cosen Sr John Reresby Barronett these prsent’: i.e. presented to Sir John Reresby, first Baronet (1611-46), royalist, of Thribergh Hall. c.1630s.
Among the muniments of Lord Mexborough, descended from the Savile family formerly of Methley Hall, near Pontefract, West Yorkshire. Formerly MX 237.
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Mexborough MS’: CwT Δ 29.
BmF 22
Copy in: An oblong octavo verse miscellany, in a neat mixed hand up to p. 78, the remainder in later hands, 116 pages, in 19th-century half-leather marbled boards, with remains of crimson velvet. c.1630[-1700s].
Once owned by Elizabeth Herrick (1684-1745) and her brother William Herrick (1689-1773). Formerly among the papers of the Herrick family, of Beaumanor.
This MS discussed in J.A. Taylor, ‘Two Unpublished Poems on the Duke of Buckingham’, RES, NS 40 (May 1989), 232-40.
BmF 23
Copy, headed ‘To the Countess of Rutland:’, subscribed ‘ffinis: F: B:’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, including seventeen poems by Donne and fifteen by Strode, the main part in a single hand, 334 pages (but pp. 3-4 extracted, and including a later index). Possibly compiled by one ‘W: H:’: i.e. probably William Holgate (1618-46), of Queens' College, Cambridge, with late 17th-century additions apparently made by other members of the Holgate family, of Saffron Walden and Great Bardfield, Essex. c.1630s [-late 17th-century].
Owned in the early 18th century by John Wale, who supplied the index on pp. 330-3. Owned before 1927 by Col. W.G. Carwardine-Probert, of Bures, Suffolk (descendant of the Holgate family).
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Holgate MS’: DnJ Δ 58. Briefly discussed in W.G.P., ‘Verses by Francis Beaumont’, TLS (15 September 1921), p. 596, and in E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare, 2 vols (Oxford, 1930), II, 222-4. Also discussed, with facsimiles on pp. 68 and 70 of pp. 181 and 13, in Michael Roy Denbo, ‘Editing a Renaissance Commonplace Book: The Holgate Miscellany’, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, III, ed. W. Speed Hill (Tempe, AZ, 2004). pp. 65-73. For facsimile pages see DnJ 2931 and ShW 25. Complete microfilm in the Essex Record Office (T/A 98).
BmF 24
Copy in: A folio verse miscellany, containing 89 poems, including 43 by Donne, in several hands (ff. 21r-62r in a single accomplished secretary hand), 69 leaves, in paper wrappers. The text of the poems by Donne derived from the same source as the Lansdowne MS (British Library, Lansdowne MS 740) and related in part to the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS II (Huntington, HM 198, Part II). c.1620-5.
Formerly among the muniments of the Earl of Dalhousie (descendant of the Maule and Ramsay families), of Brechin Castle, on deposit in the Scottish Record Office [now National Archives of Scotland] (GD45/26/95/1). Sotheby's, 20 July 1981, lot 490.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the the ‘Dalhousie MS I’: DnJ Δ 11. Complete reduced facsimile and transcription in The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others: A Facsimile Edition, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Columbia, 1988). Also discussed by Ernest W. Sullivan, II in ‘Donne Manuscripts: Dalhousie I’, John Donne Journal, 3/2 (1984), 204-19; in ‘“And, having done that, Thou hast done”: Locating, Acquiring, and Studying the Dalhousie Manuscripts’, in The Donne Dalhousie Discovery: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Acquisition and Study of the John Donne and Joseph Conrad Collections at Texas Tech University, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan II and David J. Murrah (Lubbock, TX, 1987), pp. 1-10; and in ‘The Renaissance Manuscript Verse Miscellany: Private Party, Private Text’, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 289-97.
Facsimiles of f. 15v in DLB, vol. 121, Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1992), p. 13, and of f. 42r in Sotheby's sale catalogue and in Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000 (Oxford, 2008), p. 431, Illus. 91. A complete microfilm of the MS is in the National Archives of Scotland.
Sullivan suggests that the miscellany derives from sources preserved by members of the Earl of Essex's circle, their most likely ‘conduit’ to the Dalhousie family being John Ramsay (1580-1626), Viscount Haddington and Earl of Holderness.
BmF 25
Copy, probably transcribed from BmF 24.
In: A folio verse miscellany comprising 56 poems, including 29 by Donne, in several hands (two predominating), 34 leaves, mounted on guards, in modern cloth. Much of the volume (including 24 poems by Donne on ff. 15r-31v) evidently transcribed from the Dalhousie MS I (Texas Tech University, PR 1171 D14) and the text of some poems (including ff. 9r-11r) corrected from that MS. c.1622-9.
Inscribed (f. 1r) with the date 28 September 1622 and, in possibly a child's hand (f. 1v), ‘Andrew Ramsey’. Formerly among the muniments of the Earl of Dalhousie (descendant of the Maule and Ramsay families), of Brechin Castle, on deposit in the Scottish Record Office (GD45/26/95/2). Sotheby's, 20 July 1981, lot 491, and 12 December1982, lot 49.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Dalhousie MS II’: DnJ Δ 12. Complete reduced facsimile and transcription in The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others: A Facsimile Edition, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Columbia, 1988). Also discussed in The Donne Dalhousie Discovery, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II and David J. Murrah (Lubbock, TX, 1987), and in ‘The Renaissance Manuscript Verse Miscellany: Private Party, Private Text’, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 289-97.
Facsimiles of f. 10v in Sotheby's sale catalogue, and of ff. 20v and 26r in DLB, vol. 121, Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1992), pp. 320-1. Complete microfilms of the MS are in the National Archives of Scotland and in the Brirish Library, RP 2441.
Facsimile of f. 26r also in Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester, DLB, 121 (Detroit, 1992), p. 320.
BmF 26
Copy, untitled.
In: A folio collection of verse containing 143 poems by Donne and his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single predominantly italic hand (except for two poems on f. 104r-v, added afterwards by two other italic and secretary hands), the main scribe also probably responsible for the ‘Puckering MS’ (DnJ Δ 13); this collection constituting ff. 13r-161v of a single folio volume containing also Part II, with an index on ff. 2r-11v (covering both Parts) in another hand, ii + 279 leaves in all, in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked). c.1623-5.
Old pressmark MS G. 2. 21.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (Part I): DnJ Δ 14.
The Author to the Reader (‘I sing the fortune of a luckless pair’)
See BmF 133, BmF 135-6.
An Elegy on the Death of the Virtuous Lady, Elizabeth Countess of Rutland (‘I may forget to eat, to drink, to sleep’)
First published in Sir Thomas Overbury, A Wife, 11th impression (London, 1622). Dyce, XI, 507-11.
BmF 27
Copy, headed ‘Vppon the Countesse of Rutlands death’.
In: An octavo verse miscellany compiled by an Oxford University man, i i + 37 leaves, in later half-calf. c.1630s.
Among the collections of Francis Douce (1757-1834), antiquary and collector.
BmF 28
Copy in: A miscellany of verse and prose, in a single hand, originally in two volumes, xxiii + 158 pages, in 19th-century green morocco gilt. c.1630s.
Once owned by one C. Agard and later by F.W. Cosens (1819-89), book collector. The original second volume here bought from Colbeck Radford, sale catalogue No. 24 (1932), item 157.
BmF 29
Copy, untitled and here ascribed to ‘J[ohn]: D[onne]:’.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, comprising c.128 items, including 94 poems by Donne plus his Paradoxes and Problems, compiled by Henry Champernowne (1600-56), of Dartington, Devon, 243 pages, dated on the first page 1623. 1623.
Afterwards owned by other members of the Champernowne family, by Sir Edward Seymour, Bart. (?the third Baronet, 1610-85). Thomas Thorpe, sale catalogue (1836), item 1030. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) (MS 9568). Sotheby's, 6 June 1898 (Phillipps sale), lot 749. Bookplate of C. S. Harris and bequeathed by him 1916.
Cited in IELM, I.i (190), as the ‘Phillipps MS’: DnJ Δ 20.
BmF 30
Copy, headed ‘An Elegye one the death of the Lady Rutland’, ascribed to ‘Mr Donne’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, in English and Latin, including 37 poems by Donne, in several hands, written from both ends, 279 leaves (including numerous blanks, mostly in ff. 42r-140r), with stubs of extracted leaves, in contemporary calf. Compiled in part by the Oxford printer Christopher Wase (1627-90), fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Mid-17th century.
Later owned by John Somers (1651-1716), Baron Somers, Lord Chancellor, and his brother-in-law Sir Joseph Jekyll (1662-1738), lawyer and politician.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Wase MS’: DnJ Δ 39.
BmF 31
Copy, subscribed ‘Fran: Beamaunt’.
In: A folio verse miscellany, including eleven poems by Carew, in a single professional secretary hand (adopting a different style on ff. 176r-8r), ii + 231 leaves (including numerous blanks), the date 1633 occurring on f. 55r. c.1630s.
The name Edward Michell inscribed later inside the rear cover. Afterwards owned by Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755).
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Michell MS’: CwT Δ 8. Briefly discussed (in connection with the poem ‘Shall I die?’ attributed to Shakespeare) by Gary Taylor in The Sunday Times (24 November 1985, pp. 1, 3, with a facsimile example) and by Peter Beal in TLS (3 January 1986, p. 13); and see also letters on 24 January 1986, pp. 87-8.
BmF 32
Copy, headed ‘An Epitaph on the Countess of Rutland’, subscribed ‘F. B.’
In: A folio miscellany of verse and some prose, 282 pages, in calf gilt. Entirely in the hand of John Hopkinson (1610-80), Yorkshire antiquary, of Lofthouse, near Leeds, and comprising Volume 34 of the Hopkinson MSS. Mid-late 17th century.
Signed bookplate of Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861), book collector, of Eshton Hall, West Yorkshire. Subsequently owned by her step-father Matthew Wilson.
Recorded in HMC, 3rd Report (1872), Appendix, p. 299.
BmF 33
Copy, in a predominantly italic hand, headed ‘An Elegie on the Death of the Countess of Rutland’, subscribed ‘F. B.’, on two folio leaves, imperfect.
In: A folio composite volume of miscellaneous papers in verse and prose, in various hands and paper sizes, 170 leaves, mounted on guards, in modern half-morocco. Including eleven poems by John Donne, three of them (ff. 10r-14v, 55r, 76r-7r) in the italic hand of his friend Sir Henry Goodyer (1571-1627); ff. 95r-8r in the same hand as the Leconfield MS (DnJ Δ 5) and constituting part of what was probably a quarto MS ‘book’ of Donne's satires; f. 132r-v constituting a set of six verse epistles by Donne, the text related to the Westmoreland MS (DnJ Δ 19). Early-mid-17th century.
From the ‘Conway Papers’ belonging chiefly to Sir Edward Conway, Baron Conway of Ragley, later Viscount Killultagh and Viscount Conway of Conway Castle (c.1564-1631), and to his son, Edward, second Viscount Conway (1594-1655). Later owned by John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), politician and writer, and presented 10 January 1860.
Cited in IELM, I.i, as the ‘Conway MS’: DnJ Δ 40. Cited as A23 by editors. Facsimile of f. 62r in Michael Roy Denbo, ‘Editing a Renaissance Commonplace Book: The Holgate Miscellany’, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, III, ed. W. Speed Hill (Tempe, AZ, 2004). pp. 65-73 (p. 71).
BmF 38
Cooy, headed ‘Vppon the death of the Countesse of Rutland’, subscribed ‘ffr. Beamond’.
In: the MS described under BmF 13. c.1637.
BmF 39
Copy, headed ‘An Elegy on the death of the Countesse of Rutland’.
In: A folio volume; ff. 5r-80v constituting a collection of 97 poems by Donne, in a neat mixed hand; the text possibly derived from the same source as Leconfield MS (DnJ Δ 5); ff. 81r-7r containing poems by various writers (including three by Donne) in two other 17th-century hands, 133 leaves in all, in contemporary calf gilt. c.1620-33.
The volume later used extensively as a notebook by Dr William Balam (1651-1726), of Ely, Cambridgeshire, filling up ff. 87v-134 (and compare Balam's annotated MSS DnJ Δ 16, DnJ Δ 57, and a miscellany of Robert Stonehouse, dated 10 March 1681/2: Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 5779).
Inscribed on the cover in a 17th-century hand ‘[Thes?] for [Mr Coote?] Att his legeinge in bow street next to bull Couent garden’. Donated to the library in 1916 by Geoffrey Keynes.
Cited in IELM as ‘Cambridge Balam MS’: DnJ Δ 4. Discussed in H.J.L. Robbie, ‘An Undescribed MS of Donne's Poems’, RES, 3 (1927), 415-19.
BmF 39.5
Copy, in a cursive secretary hand, untitled, subscribed ‘Byemonde vpon the deathe of the Countese of Rutland’, the last leaf misplaced after f. 15.
In: A double-folio-size volume of state papers, royal revenues, verses and other writings, partly relating to Flintshire, in various secretary hands, ix + 125 leaves (including blanks and a tipped-in bifolium), in modern vellum boards. Compiled, at least in part, by Robert Davies (1616-66), of Gwysaney, and his father. c.1630s.
BmF 40
Copy, on three pages of a pair of conjugate folio leaves; lacking a title and opening line.
In: A small collection of unbound MS verse and some prose, all in the secretary hand of Thomas Gell, MP (1595-1657), of the Inner Temple, all imperfect. c.1620s.
Among the papers of the Gell family, of Hopton Hall, Derbyshire, including those of the Parliamentary commander and MP Sir John Gell, first Baronet (1593-1671). Formerly D258/28/5i.
BmF 41
Copy, headed ‘An Elegye vpon the deathe of the Countesse of Rutlande’, subscribed ‘F B’.
In: the MS described under BmF 15. c.1630.
Edinburgh University Library, MS La. III. 493, ff. 109v-11r.
BmF 42
Copy, headed ‘On ye death of ye Lady of Rutland by Beaumont’.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, in several hands, written from both ends, 77 leaves (including blanks), in old calf gilt. c.1640.
Formerly MS 2073.3.
BmF 43
Copy, headed ‘On the death of the Lady of Rutland’, subscribed ‘Fran: Beamont’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, with later accounts on the last page dated June 1658, 1* + 238 pages (including stubs of extracted pages 191-6, plus numerous blanks), in old calf (rebacked). Including 11 poems by Carew and 14 poems by Randolph. c.1630s-40s.
Inscribed ‘Jane Wheeler’ and ‘Tho: Oliver Busfield’. Francis Quarles's poem (pp. 209-11) ‘To ye two partners of my heart Mr John Wheeler, and Mr Symon Tue’. Item 96 in an unidentified sale catalogue. Formerly Folger MS 2071.6.
A ‘Jo. Wheeler’ signed the Christ Church, Oxford, disbursement books for 1641-3 (xii, b.85 and 86).
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Wheeler MS’: CwT Δ 25 and RnT Δ 7.
BmF 44
Copy, untitled, subscribed ‘J. D.’
In: A folio volume of 69 poems by Donne, together with a few poems by others, in a single neat hand, 99 pages, in contemporary limp vellum. c.1620s-33.
Inscribed inside the rear cover ‘J. D. Dune Rainsford …Chiltearns’ probably by a member of the family of Sir Henry Goodyer's brother-in-law Sir Henry Rainsford (1575-1622), of Clifford Chambers, Stratford-upon-Avon. Later owned by J. Carnaby. Puttick and Simpson's, 25 November 1886, lot 334. Then owned by the Rev. T.R. O'Flahertie (d.1894), of Capel, near Dorking, Surrey, book collector, and by Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), American professor and art historian. Formerly MS Nor 4502.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Carnaby MS’: DnJ Δ 22. Briefly discussed in C.E. Norton, ‘The Text of Donne's Poems’, [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 5 (1896), 1-22 (pp. 10-11).
BmF 45
Copy, headed ‘On the Countesse of Rutland / Franc: Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 17. c.late 1620s.
BmF 46
Copy, headed ‘An elegie upon the death of the faire and vertuous E. late Countesse of Rutland’, subscribed ‘Franc: Beamount’.
In: the MS described under BmF 20. c.1625-30s.
BmF 47
Copy, headed ‘An: Elogie On the Countesse of Rutland’, subscribed ‘Fra: Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 21. c.1630s.
BmF 48
Copy, in an angular italic hand, headed ‘An Elegie made uppon the death of the Countes of Rutland’, subscribed ‘Pet ffra: Beaumont’, on a folio leaf probably once folded as a letter or packet. c.1615-22.
In: A folio guardbook of verse MSS, in various hands and paper sizes, including (ff. 1r-9r) a quarto booklet of sixteen poems by Donne in a single neat italic hand, 54 leaves, in modern brown morocco gilt. c.1620-33.
Among papers of the Herbert family, of Powis Castle, including particularly papers of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1582?-1648). Acquired in 1916.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Herbert MS’: DnJ Δ 56.
BmF 49
Copy of an anonymous untitled 18-line poem which uses the same opening line as Beaumont's poem, here ‘I may forgett to eate, to Sleepe, to Drinke’.
In: the MS described under BmF 23. c.1630s [-late 17th-century].
BmF 50
Second copy, headed ‘An Eligie on the Death of the Countess of Rutland’, subscribed ‘ffinis F: B:’.
In: the MS described under BmF 23. c.1630s [-late 17th-century].
BmF 51
Copy; imperfect, the ending on a leaf missing after f. 27.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, written over a period in three hands (A, in alternating secretary and italic, written c.1638: ff. 1-59v; B, written c.1645: ff. 60r-9r; C, written c.1649, ff. 69v-70r), 70 leaves, in old calf. Including thirteen poems by Strode and three of doubtful authorship. c.1638-45 [and addition c.1649].
Later sold by Thomas Thorpe (1836). Afterwards in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 9569. Bookplate of the Shakespearian Library of Marsden J. Perry (1850-1935), industrialist, banker, and art and book collector, of Providence, Rhode Island. American Art Association, New York, 11-12 March 1936 (Perry sale). A.S.W. Rosenbach's sale catalogue English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 193.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Rosenbach MS I’: CwT Δ 31 and StW Δ 23.
BmF 52
Copy in: An octavo verse miscellany, in a single small mixed hand throughout; 425 pages (plus an eight-page index), in contemporary calf. Including 45 poems (and a second copy of one) by Carew, 11 poems (plus one of doubtful authorship) by Corbett, and 25 poems (plus two of doubtful authorship) by Strode. c.1634.
The initials ‘T. C.’ stamped on the front cover. Sold by Thomas Thorpe (1836). Afterwards in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 9536, and by Marsden J. Perry (1850-1935), of Providence, Rhode Island, industrialist, banker, and art and books collector. A.S.W. Rosenbach's sale catalogue English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 189.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Rosenbach MS II’: CwT Δ 32, CoR Δ 12, and StW Δ 24. Discussed in Scott Nixon, ‘The Manuscript Sources of Thomas Carew's Poetry’, EMS, 8 (2000), 186-224 (pp. 193-5).
BmF 53
Copy, headed ‘On the death of the Countess of Rutland’, subscribed ‘Francis Beaumont’.
In: A folio verse miscellany, including 15 poems by Donne, f. 162r-v in a rounded italic hand, ff. 164r-74v in a slightly erratic italic hand, ff. 175r-279v in a neat formal italic hand (also responsible for the index on ff. 2r-11v), this miscellany constituting ff. 162r-279v of a single folio volume containing also Part I (DnJ Δ 15), ii + 279 leaves in all (lacking one or more leaves at the end), in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked). c.1630s.
Formerly MS G. 2.21.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (II): DnJ Δ 61.
BmF 54
Copy, untitled and subscribed ‘J: D: ffinis’.
In: An octavo volume of poems and some prose, including 96 poems by Donne plus his Paradoxes and Problems (many ascribed to ‘J. D’), in a single neat secretary hand, 150 pages, in 17th-century calf gilt. c.1622-33.
Later owned by Major J.B. Whitmore. Hodgson's, 20-21 November 1958, lot 571, with a facsimile page in the sale catalogue.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Osborn MS’: DnJ Δ 30. For a facsimile page see DnJ 728, DnJ 1205. Complete microfilm in British Library (M/569).
BmF 55
Copy, headed ‘An Elegie on the death of the Countesse of Rutland’ and subscribed ‘Francis Beaumont’.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, including 13 poems by or attributed to Herrick, almost entirely in a single small predominantly italic hand, 250 pages (plus numerous blanks), originally in contemporary calf, but now disbound. Inscribed four times on a flyleaf ‘Tobias Alston his booke’: i.e. probably Tobias Alston (1620-c.1639) of Sayham Hall, near Sudbury, Suffolk. His half-brother Edward (b.1598) was a contemporary of Herrick at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, while his cousin, Edward Alston, later President of the College of Physicians, was a contemporary of Herrick at St John's College, Cambridge, some of the other contents also relating to Cambridge, besides some relating to Suffolk. The date 1639 occurs on p. 241, and pp. 243-50 contains verses written in two later hands (to c.1728) and some prose pieces written from the reverse end. c.1639 [-c.1728].
Names inscribed on a flyleaf including Henry Glisson (later Fellow of the College of Physicians); Thomas Avral(?); Horace Norton; Henry Rich; and James Tavor (Registrar of Cambridge University). Later owned by one John Whitehead, and by Dr Mary Pickford. Sotheby's, 27 June 1972, lot 309.
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Alston MS’: HeR Δ 7. A complete set of photocopies of the MS is in the British Library, RP 772. Facsimile of pp. 6-7 in Sotheby's sale catalogue (see HeR 176, HeR 405) where the MS is described at some length. See also letters by Peter Beal and Donald W. Foster in TLS (24 January 1986), pp. 87-8.
An Elegy on the Lady Markham (‘As unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds’)
First published in Poems (London, 1640). Dyce, XI, 503-5.
BmF 56
Copy, headed ‘On his deseased Mrisan Inuictiue Eligie’.
In: A large folio composite verse miscellany, chiefly folio, partly quarto, 243 pages, in contemporary calf. Including 18 poems by Carew and two of doubtful authorship, compiled by Nicholas Burghe (d.1670), Royalist Captain during the Civil War and one of the poor Knights of Windsor in 1661 (references to ‘I Nicholas Burgh’ occurring on ff. 165r, with the date ‘3d of June 1638’, and 166r, and his name partly in cipher on other pages); predominantly in his hand, with some later additions in other hands. c.1638.
Afterwards owned by Elias Ashmole (1617-92), astrologer and antiquary.
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Burghe MS’: CwT Δ 1.
BmF 60
Copy in: the MS described under BmF 32. Mid-late 17th century.
BmF 61
Copy of lines 1-36, headed ‘An Eligie on the Death of the Lady Marcum’, imperfect, lacking the ending.
In: the MS described under BmF 33. Early-mid-17th century.
BmF 62
Copy, headed ‘An Elegye vppon the death of the Ladie Markham’, subscribed F B.
In: the MS described under BmF 5. c.1620-50.
BmF 63
Copy, headed ‘ffor Beamond on the Lady Mar:’.
In: A small octavo verse miscellany, written from both ends, predominantly in a single hand in variant styles (ff. 1v-79v, 80r, 88v-96v, 119r-117r rev.), with additions in later hands (ff. 97r-104v, 116v-106r rev.), 164 leaves, in modern half red morocco. Inscribed (f. 1v, in a court hand) ‘Daniell Leare his Booke’, ‘witnesse William Strode’, and (f. 164r) ‘Mr Daniell Leare eius Liber’: i.e. compiled chiefly by Daniel Leare, a distant cousin of the poet William Strode, probably at Christ Church, Oxford, before he entered the Middle Temple in 1633. c.1633 [-late 17th century].
This suggestion, by Mary Hobbs, is supported by entries in the Caution Book of 1625-41 at Christ Church, where Strode is found (p. 22) paying £10 as college security for Leare and where Leare signs (p. 23) on this sum's repayment by Dr Fell on 13 May 1633. Forey suggests (p. lxxix) that he was the Daniell Leare of St Andrews, Holburne, whose will was proved in 1652; but it is more likely that he was the Daniel Leare to whom Henry King, Dean of Rochester, leased property at Chatham on 19 July 1655 (National Archives, Kew, SP 18/99/61). Daniel Leare's wife, Dorothy, was a member of the Hubert family with whom King was associated by virtue of the marriage of his sister Dorothy.
The volume includes 12 poems by Donne; 15 poems (plus a second copy of one and three of doubtful authorship) by Carew; 20 poems (plus two of uncertain authorship) by Corbett; and 84 poems (plus second copies of eight poems, four poems of doubtful authorship and some apocryphal poems) by Strode, the texts being closely related to, and in part probably transcribed from, the ‘Corpus MS’ of Strode's poems (StW Δ 1).
Inscribed also ‘John Leare’ (probably Daniel's younger brother); (f. 1r) ‘Anthony Euans his booke’ (who married Daniel Leare's niece Dorothy Leare in 1663); (f. 1v) ‘Alexander Croke his Book 1773’; and (f. 164v) ‘John Scott’ (who matriculated at Christ Church in 1632). Rimell & Son, 9 November 1878.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), and II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Leare MS’: DnJ Δ 41, CwT Δ 15, CoR Δ 4, and StW Δ 10.
Discussed in Mary Hobbs, An Edition of the Stoughton Manuscript (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1973), pp. 185-90; in her ‘Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellanies and their Value for Textual Editors’, EMS, 1 (1989), 192-210 (pp. 189-90); and in her Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany Manuscripts (Aldershot, 1992), passim, with facsimile examples of ff. 79-80 facing p. 87.
BmF 64
Copy in: the MS described under BmF 6. c.1630s [-1777].
BmF 66
Copy, headed ‘A funeral Elegie vpon the Deathe of the Ladie Markham’, subscribed ‘Finis / A P’.
In: A small folio volume of 102 poems by Donne, together with a few poems by others, in a professional predominantly italic hand, the poems often subscribed with bunch-of-grapes decorations, 114 leaves (plus blanks), with an alphabetical ‘Table’ (ff. 112v-14r), in modern half-morocco on cloth boards gilt. c.1623-33.
Among the collections of Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776-1839), of Stowe House, near Buckingham, largely derived from the collections of the antiquary Thomas Astle (1735-1803), which in turn chiefly derived from Astle's father-in-law, the Essex historian Philip Morant (1700-71). Later owned by the fourth Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878).
Cited in IELM as ‘Stowe MS I’: DnJ Δ 15.
BmF 67
Copy, headed ‘On the death of the Lady Markham’, subscribed ‘F: Beamont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 13. c.1637.
BmF 68
Copy, headed ‘An Elegye vpon the death of the Ladye markham by ff. B.’
In: A folio verse miscellany, including 35 poems by Donne, in several hands, written from both ends, 30 leaves (plus stubs of ten extracted leaves), damp-stained, in modern boards. The text related to the ‘Skipwith MS’ (DnJ Δ 21). c.1620-33.
Inscribed name (f. 8r) of ‘Edward Smyth’ and (along margin of f. 11v) ‘in Mr Templers’. Among the collections of John Patrick (1632-95), religious controversialist.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Edward Smyth MS’: DnJ Δ 45.
BmF 69
Copy in: the MS described under BmF 39. c.1620-33.
BmF 70
Copy, headed ‘Elegye on ye La: Mas: death’, subscribed ‘fra: B:’.
In: the MS described under BmF 15. c.1630.
BmF 70.5
Copy of lines 49-68, headed ‘On the Lady Markham’, here beginning ‘You wormes my riuals while shee was aliue’.
In: A quarto miscellany, in several hands, including a number of culinary receipts, 255 leaves (including over 65 blanks), written from both ends (Part I, in a rounded italic hand: ff. 1r-117r:; Part II: ff. 1*r-72r), in old calf. Inscribed (Part II, f. 1*r) ‘A booke of verses collected by mee RDungaruan’: i.e. Richard Boyle (1612-98), Viscount Dungarvon and later Earl of Burlington. c.1630s.
Also inscribed ‘Mary Helerd’. Subsequently owned by James Tyrrell (1642-1718), historical writer, and by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1782-1872), book and manuscript collector: Phillipps MS 15745. Formerly Folger MS 46. 2
BmF 71
Copy of lines 49-68, headed ‘Vpon a dead Mrs.’ and here beginning ‘Yee wormes my Riualls, whilst she was aliue’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, 170 leaves, paginated 1-8 (Latin text in a small secretary hand), then pp. 1-162 (in one or possibly two largely italic hands; pp. 108-57 blanks; pp. 158-62 containing later notes), in modern red morocco gilt. The pagination cited below relates to the second, main series of pagination. c.1640.
Inscribed on a flyleaf in red ink ‘Matheus Day me suum vvst’: i.e. Matthew Day (d.1661), five times Mayor of Windsor. Later owned by John Payne Collier (1789-1883), literary scholar, editor and forger. Collier's sale, 1884, lot 906. Formerly Folger MS 452.1.
BmF 72
Copy, headed ‘An Elegie on the deathe of the Ladie Markeham’, subscribed ‘J D.’
In: the MS described under BmF 44. c.1620s-33.
BmF 73
Copy, headed ‘Elegia vicesima Secunda. On the death of the Lady Markham’.
In: A quarto volume of 84 poems by Donne, plus some prose works by him, together with a few poems by others, in a single secretary hand, 343 pages, in later half purple morocco marbled boards, dated at the end (p. 343) ‘19th, Julij 1620’. 1620.
Bookplate of Thomas Stephens of the Inner Temple (perhaps the Thomas Stephens who was at the Inner Temple in 1717 or else his son, Thomas, who was there in 1725). Later owned by F.W. Cosens (1819-89), book collector; and purchased from Bernard Quaritch in 1896 by Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), American professor and art historian. Formerly MS Nor 4500.
Cited in IELM, I.i, as the ‘Stephens MS’: DnJ Δ 23. Used extensively in The Complete Poems of John Donne, D.D., ed. Alexander B. Grosart, 2 vols (privately printed, 1872-3). Briefly discussed in C. E. Norton, ‘The Text of Donne's Poems’, [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 5 (1896), 1-22 (pp. 6-10).
BmF 74
Copy, headed ‘Amor posthumus’, subscribed ‘francis Beeumond’.
In: the MS described under BmF 18. c.1637.
BmF 76
Copy, untitled, subscribed ‘ff B’, on both sides of a single folio leaf. c.1620s-30s.
In: A disbound collection of chiefly verse MSS, in several hands, largely folio.
Once belonging to the Newdegate family of Arbury Hall, Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Hodgson's, 20-21 November 1958, lot 572.
Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection, MS Lt. q. 11, No. 50.
BmF 77
Copy in: the MS described under BmF 22. c.1630[-1700s].
BmF 78
Copy, headed ‘Fr. Beaumont / On ye Death of ye L. M.’
In: A small quarto verse anthology, in a single minute hand (but for p. 206), arranged under genre headings (‘Epitaphs’, ‘Satyricall’, ‘Love Sonnets’, etc.), probably associated with Oxford University, possibly Christ Church, 382 pages (including numerous blanks), in contemporary calf gilt. Including 13 poems by Donne and 14 (plus one of uncertain authorship) by Corbett; the scribe is that mainly responsible also for the ‘Thomas Smyth MS’ (DnJ Δ 48). c.1630s.
Later owned and used extensively as a notebook by Dr William Balam (1651-1726), of Ely, Cambridgeshire, who also annotated Cambridge University Library MS Add. 5778 and Harvard fMS Eng 966.4. Bookplate of N. Micklethwait. Owned in 1931 by the Rev. F.W. Glass, of Taverham Hall, near Norwich (seat in the 17th century of the Sotherton family and later of the Branthwayt and Micklethwait families).
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as the ‘Welbeck MS’: DnJ Δ 57 and CoR Δ 11. Discussed in H. Harvey Wood, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Manuscript of Poems by Donne and Others’, Essays & Studies, 16 (1931), 179-90. For Taverham Hall, see Thomas B. Norgate, A History of Taverham from Early Times to 1969 (Aylsham, 1969).
BmF 79
Copy, headed ‘An Elegie on the death of the Lady Marcum’, subscribed ‘F: B:’.
In: the MS described under BmF 23. c.1630s [-late 17th-century].
BmF 80
Copy, headed ‘An Elegy vppon ye Lady, M.B.’
In: A quarto verse miscellany, including fifteen poems by Donne, with a title-page ‘Miscellanies Or A Collection of Diuers Witty and pleasant Epigrams, Adages, poems Epitaphes &c for the recreation of ye ouertravelled sences: 1630 Robert Bishop’, in a single mixed hand, probably associated with the University of Oxford, 306 pages, in old calf. c.1630.
Owned and probably compiled by Robert Bishop. Later owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 9549. A.S.W. Rosenbach's sale catalogue, English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 187.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) as the ‘Bishop MS’: DnJ Δ 59. Edited in David Coleman Redding, Robert Bishop's Commonplace-Book: An Edition of a Seventeenth Century Miscellany (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1960) [Mic 60-3608].
BmF 81
Copy, headed ‘An Eligie one ye Death of ye La: Markham’.
In: the MS described under BmF 54. c.1622-33.
BmF 83
Copy of lines 49-68, here beginning ‘You wormes (my riualls) whiles she was aliue’.
In: An unbound collection of MS poems. Described by Bright in 1877 as ‘A small packet of old discoloured papers’. Early 17th century.
Once owned by Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-65), natural philosopher and courtier. Later owned by Benjamin Heywood Bright (1787-1843), book collector. Bright's library was sold in five parts at Sotheby's, 3 and 18 June 1844, 3 March, 12 April and 7 July 1845.
The MS poems printed, with commentary by G.F. Warner, in Poems from Sir Kenelm Digby's Papers, in the possession of Henry A. Bright (Roxburghe Club, London, 1877).
Edited from this MS in Bright (1877), pp. 29-30.
The Examination of his Mistress's Perfections (‘Stand still, my happiness. and swelling heart’)
First published in Poems (London, 1653). Dyce, XI, 495-6.
BmF 84
Copy, untitled, here beginning ‘Stand styl my happyness and swell my harte’, and subscribed ‘T. Bea:’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, in several hands, ii + 318 pages (pp. 103-290 largely blank). Including many poems by Sidney Godolphin (1610-43), poet and courtier, and associated with the circle of Lucius Cary (1609/10-1643), second Viscount Falkland, politician and author, of Great Tew, Oxfordshire. c.late 1630s-early 1640s.
BmF 86
Copy, untitled.
In: A quarto miscellany of verse and some prose, predominantly in a single secretary hand, written from both ends, 179 leaves, in 19th-century half blue morocco gilt. c.1640s.
Inscribed (f. 179r) ‘This is Sr. Thomas Meres [or ? Maiors] Book’: i.e. probably Sir Thomas Meres (1634-1715), of Kirton, Lincolnshire. Later bookplate of the Rev. John Curtis. Purchased from Mrs Ann Austin Curtis 12 October 1889.
A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the Lady Penelope Clifton (‘Since thou art dead, Clifton, the world may see’)
First published in Poems (London, 1653). Dyce, XI, 511-13.
BmF 87
Copy, headed ‘An Elegey on the death of Penelope late Ladie Clifton’, subscribed ‘Finis Fra: Beo’.
In: A small quarto colume of state papers and verse, in a closely written hand, i + 170 pages, badly affected by ink seepage. c.1620s-37.
BmF 88
Copy of lines 1-38, headed ‘An Elegie on ye death of ye faire & verteous Lady Clyfton’,transcribed from BmF 89.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, largely in a single predominantly secretary hand, with some later additions and annotations, 188 leaves, in quarter-morocco. Transcribed from British Library Add. MS 25303 and perhaps associated likewise with the Inns of Court. Including 23 poems by Carew and three of doubtful authorship. c.1620s-30s.
Later owned by William Pickering (1796-1854), publisher. Sotheby's, 13 May 1856 (Pickering sale), lot 258.
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Pickering MS’: CwT Δ 11.
BmF 89
Copy of lines 1-38, headed ‘An Elegie on ye death of Penelope ye faire & virtuous Lady Clifton’, subscribed ‘fra: Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 4. c.1620s.
BmF 90
Copy, subscribed ‘Fr Beamont last’.
In: the MS described under BmF 8. c.1620s-30s.
This MS collated in Dyce.
BmF 91
Copy, headed ‘An Ellegie on the fayre and vertuouse La: Penelope, late La: Clyfton’, subscribed ‘Francis Beamont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 13. c.1637.
BmF 92
Copy, headed ‘A Funerall Ellegy on the Death of the faire verteous Penelope late Lady Clinton’, marked ‘L C’.
In: the MS described under BmF 18. c.1637.
BmF 94
Copy, in the hand of William Parkhurst, headed ‘Uppon the death of the Lady Penelope Clifton’.
In: A folio composite volume of state letters, tracts, and verse, collected by, and mostly in the hand of, William Parkhurst (fl.1604-67), Sir Henry Wotton's secretary in Venice and later Master of the Mint, including various works in verse and prose attributed to Donne, chiefly in a scribal hand, partly in Parkhurst's hand, 373 leaves (including blanks), in old calf.
Among the papers of the Finch family of Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland. Mistakenly reported by Grierson and Logan Pearsall Smith to have been destroyed in a fire at Burley c.1908.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Burley MS’: DnJ Δ 53. Recorded in HMC, 7th Report (1879), Appendix, p. 516. A complete microfilm of the MS is at the University of Sheffield, Microfilm 737.
A neat transcript of parts of the Burley MS (including principally poems on ff. 255r-v, 278v, [279r]-288v, 342v-3r, 294r-300r, 301r-8v), made before 1908, on 35 leaves, is in the Bodleian, MS Eng. poet. c. 80.
BmF 95
Copy, headed ‘An elegy upon the death of Penelope the late Lady Clifton’ and subscribed ‘Fra: Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 55. c.1639 [-c.1728].
The Glance (‘Cold Virtue, guard me, or I shall endure’)
First published in Poems (London, 1640). Dyce, XI, 489-90.
BmF 96
Copy, headed ‘On a Ladies Tempting Eye’, subscribed ‘John: Rutter’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, including 33 poems by Thomas Carew and sixteen by Henry King, in a single small hand, with (ff. 1r-2v) an alphabetical Index, 105 leaves, in modern half-morocco gilt. Compiled by Peter Calfe (1610-67), son of a Dutch merchant in London. c.1641-9.
Later owned by John, Baron Somers (1651-1716), Lord Chancellor, and afterwards by Edward Harley (1689-1741), second Earl of Oxford.
Cited in IELM II.i-ii (1987-93), together with British Library, Harley MS 6918 with which it was once bound, as the ‘Calfe MS’: CwT Δ 18; KiH Δ 9; RnT Δ 4. Described in Mary Hobbs's thesis, pp 129-35, 444-5 (see KiH Δ 6).
The Indifferent (‘Never more will I protest’)
First published in Poems (London, 1640). Dyce, XI, 492.
BmF 97
Copy, untitled.
In: A quarto composite volume of four MSS, in English and Latin, iii + 187 leaves, in vellum boards. Part B (ff. 16d-86v): A quarto miscellany of poems and letters, in several hands, compiled by William Elyott (a nephew of Sir Simonds D'Ewes). c.1640-55.
Part C (ff. 86 bis-120r): A quarto verse miscellany compiled by Thomas Axton, M.A. (b.1699/1700), of Trinity College, Cambridge. c.1718-22.
Part C sold at the Thomas Rawlinson sale in March 1733/4, lot 289.
BmF 98
Copy in: A quarto verse miscellany, including (ff. 113r-15r) copies of, or brief extracts from, 30 poems by Donne (plus two apocryphal poems), in a single hand, transcribed from the 1635 or 1639 edition of Donne's Poems, headed ‘Donnes quaintest conceits’ in several hands, 156 leaves (plus blanks), in modern black morocco gilt. Late 17th century.
Once owned by Thomas Rawlinson (1681-1725) and afterwards among the collections of Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford (1689-1741).
Cited in IELM I.i (1980) as the ‘Harley Rawlinson MS’: DnJ Δ 64.
BmF 99
Copy, in a musical setting.
In: A folio music book, containing 327 songs, in three largely secretary hands, with a ‘Cattalogue’ of contents, 229 leaves. Owned (in 1659) and partly compiled by the composer John Gamble (d.1687), with some misnumbering. c.1630s-50s.
Later owned by Edward Francis Rimbault (1816-76), organist and author. Acquired in 1888.
A complete facsimile is in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 10 (New York & London, 1987). Discussed in Charles W. Hughes, ‘John Gamble's Commonplace Book’, M&L, 26 (1945), 215-29.
New York Public Library, Music Division, Drexel MS 4257, No. 36.
BmF 99.5
Copy in: An octavo verse miscellany, in various hands, including seventeen poems by Carew, a title-page inscribed ‘A book of Verses / Seria mixta Jocis’, c.260 pages, in calf blind-stamped ‘V/I F 1667’. References to ‘Westminster Drollerie’ (which was not published until 1671) added on pp. 1 and 242. c.1667-8.
Inscribed on the title-page ‘Frendraught Legi’: i.e. by James Crichton (d.1674/5), second Viscount Frendraught. Bookplate of Thomas Fraser Duff (1830-77), of Woodcote, Oxfordshire. Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 9 April 1987, lot 272 (with a facsimile of p. 131 in the sale catalogue), sold to Quaritch.
‘Like a ring without a finger’
See RaW 428-33.
Master Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben Jonson (‘The sun which doth the greatest comfort bring’)
First published in ‘An addition of some excellent Poems...By other Gentlemen’ in Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare Gent. (London, 1640). Dyce, XI, 500-3. Ben Jonson, ed. C.H. Herford and Percy and Evelyn Simpson, XI (Oxford, 1952), 374-7.
Nearly all recorded MS texts of this poem are discussed and collated, with an edited text (pp. 170-4), in Mark Bland, ‘Francis Beaumont's Verse Letters to Ben Jonson and “The Mermaid Club”’, EMS, 12 (2005), 139-79.
BmF 100
Copy in: A quarto verse miscellany of c.150 poems, in several hands; associated with Oxford, probably Christ Church, 279 pages (plus index and blanks). Including twelve poems (plus one of uncertain authorship) by Corbett and 32 poems (plus four of doubtful authorship) by Strode. c.1630s-40s.
Thomas Thorpe's sale catalogue (1836), item 1044. Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 9561. Sotheby's, 19 June 1893 (Phillipps sale), lot 628, and 21 March 1895, lot 903. Hodgson's, 23 April 1959, lot 528.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘English Poetry MS’: CoR Δ 3 and StW Δ 6.
BmF 101
Copy, headed ‘To Ben: Johnson’ and subscribed ‘ff: Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 84. c.late 1630s-early 1640s.
BmF 102
Copy, headed ‘B. To his frinde. B. J.’
In: the MS described under BmF 63. c.1633 [-late 17th century].
This MS collated in Herford & Simpson.
BmF 103
Copy of a 31-line version, headed ‘A Letter from Sr francis Beamont to Dr Donne’.
In: A duodecimo verse miscellany in several hands, written from both ends, 46 leaves, in contemporary calf. Mid-17th century.
Inscribed names (on front paste-down and f. 1r) of ‘Fra: Norreys’ (? Sir Francis Norris (1609-69)) and ‘Hen. Balle’. Purchased from J. Harvey 8 December 1877.
This MS collated in Herford & Simpson.
BmF 104
Copy in: An octavo verse miscellany, written predominantly in a single italic hand (on ff. 2r-19v, 20v-134v, 139r-43r); another hand on ff. 20r-v, 135v, 136v, 137v, 138v, with verbal alterations in yet another hand and scribbling elsewhere; f. 137v (rev.) containing a receipt of one Richard Bull signed by one Thomas Johnson and dated 1676; 143 leaves. Including 14 poems (plus one of doubtful authorship) by Carew, 22 poems by Corbett and 36 poems (plus three of doubtful authorship) by Strode. c.early 1630s.
Inscribed (f. 1r) by one ‘I A’ of Christ Church, Oxford, and also ‘Robert Killigrew his booke witnes by his Maiesties ape Gorge Harison’. Later owned by Sir Hans Sloane, Bt (1660-1753), physician and collector.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Killigrew MS’: CwT Δ 21; CoR Δ 6; StW Δ 14. Facsimile example of f. 2v in Mary Hobbs, Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany Manuscripts (Aldershot, 1992), Plate 7, after p. 86.
This MS collated in Herford & Simpson.
BmF 105
Copy, untitled.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, largely in a predominantly secretary hand, another hand on ff. 85r-7v, 95v-6r, xiii pages + 104 leaves (including blanks, but lacking ff. 7-9, 54-5, 95), with a table of contents (pp. 1-6), in modern calf, gilt-edged. Compiled by University or Inns of Court men. c.1630s.
The extracted fols 7, 8 and 54 are now Chetham's Library Halliwell-Phillipps No. 2757, Chetham's Library Halliwell-Phillipps No. 2216, and Chetham's Library Halliwell-Phillipps No. 2217 respectively. The extracted fol. 9 is now Folger MS V.a.505, p. 27.
Inscribed (f. [104v] ‘Thomas White His Book May ye 20 Anno Domine 1691’. Later owned by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps and in his library at Warwick Castle. Formerly Folger MS 1.21.
BmF 106
Copy, headed ‘F: B. to B: J.’
In: A quarto verse miscellany, pp. 13-244 in a single largely roman hand, the remainder in varying styles in one or more other hands (up to c.1655), probably associated with Oxford University, 541 pages (of which pp. 1-12, 87-8 have been extracted and pp. 251-68, 334, 400, 410-540 are blank, with stubs of other extracted leaves at the end), in contemporary brown calf. Including 15 poems (plus one of uncertain authorship) by Corbett and 57 poems (plus a second copy of one poem and four poems of doubtful authorship) by Strode. c.1630s[-55].
Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: possibly his MS 18123. Owned c.1903 by Bertram Dobell (1842-1914), literary scholar and bookseller. Formerly MS 646.4.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Dobell MS’: CoR Δ 8 and StW Δ 18A. Discussed in Bertram Dobell in The Athenaeum, No. 4475 (2 August 1913), p. 112. A complete microfilm is at the University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute (Mic S 23).
This MS probably the Bertram Dobell MS collated in Herford & Simpson.
BmF 107
Copy, untitled.
In: A folio verse miscellany, in a single probably professional rounded hand (except for a poem on f. 81r and later scribbling); ii + 81 leaves, in contemporary calf gilt. Including 16 poems by or attributed to Herrick and 24 poems by Randolph (plus two of doubtful authorship). This MS related to HeR Δ 2 and to RnT Δ 1. c. late 1630s.
Inscriptions including (on a flyleaf) ‘Anthony St John/ Ann: St John/ 1640 Bletso’: i.e. Anthony St John (1618-73), of Christ's College, Cambridge, fourth son of Oliver, fourth Baron St John and first Earl of Bolingbroke (c.1584-1646), of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, and Anthony's wife, Ann Kensham (married 1639); (flyleaf) ‘Oliver Beeesfor[d]’; and (f. 81v) ‘John Watts’. Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 13187. Sotheby's, 6 June 1910, lot 672, to Quaritch. Item 1415 in an unidentified sale.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘St John MS’: HeR Δ 4 and RnT Δ 8. Complete microfilm at the University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute (Mic S 72).
BmF 108
Copy, untitled.
In: the MS described under BmF 16. c.1623-5.
Edited from this MS in C.E. Norton, ‘Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben Jonson’, Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 5 (Harvard University, 1896), 19-22. Collated in Herford & Simpson.
BmF 109
Copy, untitled.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, written in alternating secretary and italic scripts, probably in a single hand; foliated in ink 1-32 and paginated in pencil 33-96, 32 leaves (lacking final leaf). Including nine poems by Randolph, plus two of doubtful authorship. c.1630s.
Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 10110. Bookplate of Robert Hoe (1839-1909), New York businessman and book collector.
Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the ‘Huntington MS’: RnT Δ 9. Complete microfilm at the Shakespeare Institute, Birmingham (Mic S 15).
BmF 111
Copy, headed ‘To his friend B. J.’.
In: the MS described under BmF 19. c.1620-33.
Edited from this MS in Bland, pp. 170-2.
BmF 111.5
Copy, headed ‘Fran: Beamont to Ben: Johnson’, imperfect, lacking the last ten lines.
In: A duodecimo verse miscellany, including 24 poems by Strode, in a single mixed hand, associated with Oxford, 56 leaves (out of an original eight gatherings), in contemporary calf. c.1630s.
Inscriptions inside the covers including the name ‘Phil. Mu’ (or ‘Mer.’). Later in the library of John Sparrow (1906-92), literary scholar and book collector. Acquired in 1969 by Dr Bent Juel-Jensen (1922-2006), Oxford physician and book collector.
Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993) as the ‘Sparrow MS’: StW Δ 31.
BmF 112
Copy, headed ‘ffr. Beaumont to B. Johnson at London’.
In: A quarto miscellany of epitaphs and poems, in several hands, the main collection of verse (ff. 46-147) in a single hand and including 54 poems by Donne (all subscribed ‘J. D.’) and fourteen poems by or attributed to Herrick, 158 pages (plus index). c.1630s.
Once owned by the Sir Henry Spelman (1563/4-1641), historian and antiquary, and later by Dawson Turner (1775-1858), banker, botanist, and antiquary. Puttick & Simpson's, 6 June 1859 (Turner sale), lot 164. Afterwards owned by Sir George Grey (1812-98), Governor of Australia, New Zealand and Cape Colony. Formerly MS Grey 2 a 11.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as the ‘Grey MS’: DnJ Δ 60 and HeR Δ 6. Facsimile of p. 119r (HeR 355) in L.F. Casson, ‘The Manuscripts of the Grey Collection in Cape Town’, The Book Collector, 10 (Spring 1961), 147-55 (facing p. 153).
National Library of South Africa, Cape Town, MS Grey 7 a 29, pp. 137-9.
BmF 113
Copy, headed ‘F Beamond to his friend B Johnson’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, including ten poems by Thomas Carew, probably in a single accomplished hand (changing to two styles of italic on ff. 42v-4v, 5r-60r, 76r-v), i + 89 leaves (including blanks, stubs of two or three excised leaves, and an index), in contemporary limp vellum. c.1630s-40s.
Later notes and scribbling including the names ‘John Nutting’ (ff. 26r, 56r) and ‘John M.’ and ‘John Susan’ (rear paste-down). The last leaf also containing a list of the titles of 65 poems by Carew together with the number of lines in each poem, this list unrelated to the contents of the rest of the MS.
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Nutting MS’: CwT Δ 35. The list of poems, probably relating to another MS, is edited, with facsimiles, in Scott Nixon, ‘The Manuscript Sources of Thomas Carew's Poetry’, EMS, 8 (2000), 186-224 (pp. 198-9, 217-19).
St John's College, Cambridge, MS S. 23 (James 416), ff. 48r-9v.
BmF 114
Copy, untitled.
In: the MS described under BmF 26. c.1623-5.
Edited from this MS in Herford & Simpson.
BmF 115
Copy, untitled, subscribed ‘Fr: Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 53. c.1630s.
This MS recorded in Herford & Simpson.
BmF 116
Copy, headed ‘Fran: Beomont to Ben: Jonson’.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, comprising c.118 items, including thirteen poems by Donne, twenty poems by Corbett, and twelve poems (plus one of doubtful authorship) by Strode, written in several hands over an extended period, associated with Christ Church, Oxford, 99 leaves. c.1620-40s.
Owned and probably compiled in part, in his Oxford days, by George Morley (1598-1684), Bishop of Winchester.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Morley MS’: DnJ Δ 62, CoR Δ 13, and StW Δ 27. This MS apparently transcribed in part in the ‘Killigrew MS’ (British Library, Sloane MS 1792).
Facsimile of f. 49r in William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, ed. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (Oxford, 1987), p. 24.
On Madam Fowler desiring a sonnet to be writ on her (‘Good Madam Fowler, do not trouble me’)
First published in Alexander B. Grosart, ‘Literary Finds in Trinity College, Dublin, and Elsewhere’, ES, 26 (1899), 1-19 (p. 8).
BmF 120
Copy, headed ‘On Mrs. Fowler’.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, in a single neat predominantly italic hand, 72 leaves, in old leather. Probably compiled by one ‘H.S.’, a Cambridge man. c.1640s-50s.
Later owned by the Rev. Philip Bliss (1787-1857), antiquary and book collector, with his bookplate and inscription ‘1806 Purchased of Lansdown of Bristol’. Bliss sale, 21 August 1858, lot 192.
BmF 121
Copy, headed ‘To Madam ffowler desiring to have a Sonnett written on her (by him)’, subscribed ‘ffran. Beaumont’.
In: A folio verse miscellany, in a single professional secretary hand associated with the playhouse and possibly inns of court (also responsible for ChG 12.5, HyT 5, and MiT 6), 97 leaves, with a first-line ‘Index’ at the end, in contemporary vellum boards. Including fourteen poems by James Shirley, generally ascribed to him, and eleven poems by Strode (and two of doubtful authorship). c.1636.
Inscribed (on the front paste-down) ‘My cousin chute gaue me this book out of his father study at the vine Hampshire’ (following the same statement in French), indicating that the MS was owned by, and possibly originally compiled for, the family of Chaloner Chute, MP (c.1595-1659), Speaker of the house of Commons, who acquired The Vyne, near Basingstoke, Hampshire, in 1653. Later owned by Sir William Tite (1798-1873), architect. Sotheby's, 30 May 1874, lot 2343. Bookplate of William Horatio Crawford, of Lakelands, Cork, book collector. Sotheby's, 21 March 1891 (Crawford sale), lot 2493.
Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the ‘Chute MS’: ShJ Δ 2 and StW Δ 11. Briefly discussed, with a facsimile of f. 34v (see ShJ 96 and ShJ 100) in Mary Hobbs, ‘Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellanies and their Value for Textual Editors’, EMS, 1 (1989), 192-210 (pp. 200-1, 209-10 n. 40). Discussed, with facsimiles of ff. 53r and 80r, in Arthur F. Marotti, ‘Chaloner Chute's Poetical Anthology (British Library, Additional MS 33998) as a Cosmopolitan Collection’, EMS, 16 (2011), 82-111 (p. 99).
BmF 122
Copy, untitled and subscribed ‘F. Beo:’.
In: A folio volume of of tracts and papers chiefly on state matters, largely in one hand, 72 leaves (plus blanks). c.1635.
Inscribed (f. 10r) with names of Stephen Foster of Wrexham, Buckinghamshire (possibly the principal compiler) and Robert Drake of Topsham, Devon. Bookplate (f. 11r) of Berkeley Seymour of Queens's College, Cambridge. Purchased from the Rev. John C. Jackson 8 December 1866.
BmF 125
Copy, headed ‘On Madam Fowler desiring to haue a sonnet written on her’, subscribed ‘Francis Beaumont’.
In: An octavo miscellany of chiefly verse, in at least two cursive italic hands, with religious verse and prose at the reverse end in another hand, 111 leaves (plus blanks), in old calf gilt. Including nineteen poems by Corbett and 29 poems (plus one of doubtful authorship) by Strode, the date 1634 occurring on f. 78v. c.1635.
Inscribed on f. 111v rev. ‘Thursday next at Capricks for Mr Pitt’. Later among the collections of Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford (1661-1724), and his son Edward, second Earl (1689-1741).
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the ‘Harley MS’: CoR Δ 5.
BmF 128
Copy, headed ‘An Eppigram of an vgly creature, that desired to haue a Sonnett wright of her’ and ascribed to ‘Francis Beaumont’.
In: An oblong quarto verse miscellany, in a single neat hand, written with the volume tilted with the spine to the top, 167 pages (plus blanks), in elaborately tooled green morocco gilt. Including ten poems by Carew and twelve poems by Strode (and two poems of doubtful authorship). c.1634.
The initials ‘M W’ stamped on each cover: i.e. M[aidstone] and W[inchilsea]. Evidently compiled by or for Sir Thomas Finch, Viscount Maidstone and Earl of Winchilsea (who succeeded to the peerage in 1633 and died in 1634). A.S.W. Rosenbach's sale catalogue English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 190.
The MS came to Rosenbach with a printed exemplum of William Wishcart, An Exposition of the Lord's Prayer (London, 1633), and the two clearly share the same provenance. The printed volume is similarly bound, with the initials ‘M W’; it is inscribed ‘Lord Winchilsea for Mr Locker 1634’; it bears the late 17th-century signatures of Stephen Locker and Alexander Campbell, and the bookplates of Captain William Locker (1731-1800) and Edward Hawke Locker (1777-1849).
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Winchelsea MS’: CwT Δ 33 and StW Δ 25.
BmF 130
Copy, ascribed to ‘Francis Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 53. c.1630s.
Printed from this MS in Grosart.
BmF 132
Copy, headed ‘On Madame ffowler desyring to have Sonnet Written on her’ and subscribed ‘ffrancis Beaumont’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, in several hands (one predominating up to p. 167), probably associated with Oxford, 436 pages (pp. 198-9 and 269-70 skipped in the pagination, and including many blanks and an index) and numerous further blank leaves at the end, in modern black morocco gilt. Including 14 poems by Carew, 13 poems by Corbett and 25 poems (plus one poem of doubtful authorship) by Strode. c.1650.
Scribbling on the first page including the words ‘Peyton Chester…’.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Osborn MS I’: CwT Δ 38; CoR Δ 14; StW Δ 29.
Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (‘My wanton lines do treat of amorous love’)
First published (anonymously) London, 1602. Poems (London, 1640). Dyce, XI, 441-71. Elizabethan Minor Epics, ed. Elizabeth Story Donno (London, 1963), pp. 281-304. Elizabethan Narrative Verse, ed. Niel Alexander (London, 1967), pp. 168-91. Beaumont's authorship discussed by Philip J. Finkelpearl in N&Q, 214 (October 1969), 367-8, and by Roger Sell in N&Q, 217 (January 1972), 10-14.
BmF 133
Copy, complete with the prefatory poems To the true Patroness of all Poetry, Calliope (‘It is a statute in deep wisdom's lore’) and The Author to the Reader (‘I sing the fortune of a luckless pair’), the last leaf in another hand (possibly replacing a lost original leaf) and subscribed ‘Finis/ Francis Beaumont/ 1634’. c.1634.
In: A quarto composite volume of four verse MSS, in different hands, ii + 152 leaves.
This MS recorded in Sell.
BmF 134
Copy, headed ‘Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, a Poem written by ffrancis Beaumont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 121. c.1636.
BmF 135
Copy, on 26 folio leaves (including two blanks), in half-calf on marbled boards. Complete with the four prefatory poems To the true Patroness of all Poetry, Calliope (ff. 3r-4r, three of them subscribed ‘W: B.’, ‘J: B:’, and ‘A: F’ respectively) and The Author to the Reader (f. 4v, beginning ‘I singe the fortune of a lucklesse paire’). Early 17th century.
BmF 136
Copy, complete with the prefatory poems To the true Patroness of all Poetry, Calliope and The Author to the Reader, in a professional cursive italic hand, ii + 28 + iii folio pages, subscribed ‘Finis / Francis Beamont’, unbound. Early 17th century.
Among papers of Sir John Marsham, first Baronet (1602-85), of Whornes Place, Cuxton, Kent, Clerk in Chancery and antiquary, and his successors, later Earls of Romney.
To Mr B.J: (‘Neither to follow fashion nor to showe’)
First published (complete) in Sir E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare (Oxford, 1930), II, 222-5. Reprinted from Chambers in Ben Jonson, ed. C.H. Herford and Percy and Evelyn Simpson, XI (Oxford, 1952), 377-9.
All recorded MS texts of this poem are discussed and collated, with an edited text (pp. 174-6), in Mark Bland, ‘Francis Beaumont's Verse Letters to Ben Jonson and “The Mermaid Club”’, EMS, 12 (2005), 139-79.
BmF 137
Copy, headed ‘To Ben Jonson. T. B.’
In: the MS described under BmF 63. c.1633 [-late 17th century].
This MS collated in Chambers.
BmF 138
Copy, headed ‘To Mr: Ben: Ionson’, subscribed ‘Mr Fran: Beamont’.
In: the MS described under BmF 105. c.1630s.
BmF 139
Copy, headed ‘To Mr B. J.’
In: the MS described under BmF 19. c.1620-33.
Edited from this MS, with a facsimile, in Bland, pp. 174-5.
BmF 140
Copy, subscribed ‘ffinis: F B:’.
In: the MS described under BmF 23. c.1630s [-late 17th-century].
Part of the poem printed from this MS in W.G. P., ‘Verses by Francis Beaumont’, TLS (15 September 1921), p. 596. Edited from this MS in Chambers.
To the Countess of Rutland (‘Madam, so may my verses pleasing be’)
See BmF 1-26.
To the true Patroness of all Poetry, Calliope (‘It is a statute in deep wisdom's lore’)
See BmF 133, BmF 135-136.
True Beauty (‘May I find a woman fair’)
First published in Poems (London, 1640). Dyce, XI, 491.
BmF 141
Copy in: the MS described under BmF 98. Late 17th century.
BmF 142
Copy, untitled.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, in several hands, a neat mixed hand predominating up to f. 55r, 151 leaves (including a few blanks), in contemporary calf. c.1730.
Inscribed (in another hand) on the front pastedown ‘Thomas Boydell’. Formerly Folger MS 4108.
BmF 143
Copy, in a musical setting.
In: the MS described under BmF 99. c.1630s-50s.
New York Public Library, Music Division, Drexel MS 4257, No. 195.
‘Why should not pilgrims to thy body come’
First published in John Wardroper, Love and Drollery (London, 1969), No. 213.
BmF 146
Copy, subscribed ‘J D’.
In: the MS described under BmF 5. c.1620-50.
Edited partly from this MS in Wardroper.
BmF 147
Copy, headed ‘In ebrium mortuum’, subscribed ‘F. B.’.
In: the MS described under BmF 17. c.late 1620s.
BmF 149
Copy, headed ‘On the death of a deboist young fellow’.
In: the MS described under BmF 53. c.1630s.
Verse Doubtfully Attributed to Beaumont
A Charm (‘Sleep, old man, let silence charm thee’)
Rejected from the canon in Dyce, XI, 442, and attributed to Henry Harrington.
BmF 150.1
Copy in: A folio verse miscellany, comprising nearly 250 poems, in five hands, vii + 135 leaves (with a modern index), in contemporary calf gilt (rebacked), with remains of clasps. Including 16 poems (plus second copies of two) by Carew, 19 poems by or attributed to Herrick (and second copies of six of them), 23 poems (plus second copies of two and four of doubtful authorship) by Randolph, 18 poems (plus two of doubtful authorship) by Strode, and eleven poems by Waller. c.1630s-40s.
Inscribed on a flyleaf ‘Peeter Daniell’ and his initials stamped on both covers. Later scribbling including the names ‘Thomas Gardinor’, ‘James Leigh’ and ‘Pettrus Romell’. Owned in 1780 by one ‘A. B.’ when it was given to Thomas Percy (1768-1808), later Bishop of Dromore. Sotheby's, 29 April 1884 (Percy sale), lot 1. Acquired from Quaritch, 1957.
Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the ‘Daniell MS’: CwT Δ 5, HeR Δ 2, RnT Δ 1, StW Δ 5, WaE Δ 9. Briefly discussed in Margaret Crum, ‘An Unpublished Fragment of Verse by Herrick’, RES, NS 11 (1960), 186-9. A facsimile of f. 22v in Marcy L. North, ‘Amateur Compilers, Scribal Labour, and the Contents of Early Modern Poetic Miscellanies’, EMS, 16 (2011), 82-111 (p. 106). Betagraphs of the watermark in f. 65 in Ted-Larry Pebworth, ‘Towards a Taxonomy of Watermarks’, in Puzzles in Paper: Concepts in Historical Watermarks, ed. Daniel W. Mosser, Michael Saffle and Ernest W. Sullivan, II (London, 2000), pp. 229-42 (p. 241).
BmF 150.2
Copy, headed ‘A charme ffran: Beaumont’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, largely in a single mixed hand, with additions in other hands, associated with Oxford University, possibly Christ Church, 315 pages (plus blanks), in modern black morocco gilt. Including 11 poems by Donne, and 15 poems (plus one of uncertain authorship) by Corbett. c.1630s.
Later owned by Edward Jeremiah Curteis, M.P., of Windmill Hill, Sussex. Puttick & Simpson's, 30 June 1884 (Curteis sale), lot 175, to Pearson of Pall Mall for James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89). Formerly Folger MS 452.5.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), and II.i (1987), as the ‘Curteis MS’: DnJ Δ 50 and CoR Δ 9. Discussed, with a facsimile example, in Arthur F. Marotti, ‘Folger MSS V.a.89 and V.a.345: Reading Lyric Poetry in Manuscript’, in The Reader Revealed, ed. Sabrina Alcorn Baron, et al. (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 44-57. A facsimile of p. 36 is in Chris R. Kyle and Jason Peacey, Breaking News: Renaissance Journalism and the Birth of the Newspaper (Washington, DC, 2008), p. 32.
BmF 150.3
Copy, in an italic hand. c.1630s-40s.
In: A folio composite volume of verse, prose and dramatic works, in various hands, written over a period from both ends, 543 pages (including blanks), in contemporary panelled calf with remains of metal clasps. Compiled by members of the Salusbury family of Llewenni, Denbighshire, including works by Sir Thomas Salusbury, second Baronet (1612-43), poet and politician. Early-mid 17th century.
Later owned by J. Baskerville-Glegg, of Withington Hall, Chelford. Sotheby's, 14-16 March 1921, lot 421.
BmF 150.4
Attributed to Beaumont and Henry Harington.
In: the MS described under BmF 99. c.1630s-50s.
See The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Alexander Dyce, 11 vols (London, 1843-6), XI, p. 442.
New York Public Library, Music Division, Drexel MS 4257, No. 26.
BmF 150.5
Copy in: An octavo verse miscellany, in a single predominantly italic hand, 152 leaves (paginated 1-34, thereafter foliated 35-169), plus index, in modern red leather. Including 85 poems (and second copies of two) by Thomas Carew. c.1638-42.
Inscriptions including ‘Horatio Carey 1642 te deus pardamus’ [viz. Horatio Carey (1619-ante 1677), eldest son of Sir Richard Carey (1583-1630) and great-grandson of Sir Henry Carey (1524?-96), first Baron Hunsdon ], ‘Thomas Arding’, ‘Thomas Arden’, ‘William Harrington’, ‘Thomas John’, ‘John Anthehope’ and ‘Clement Poxall’. Later owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 8270. Bookplates of John William Cole and of the Shakespearian Library of Marsden J. Perry (1850-1935), industrialist, banker, art and book collector, of Providence, Rhode Island. American Art Association, New York, 11-12 March 1936 (Perry sale). A.S.W. Rosenbach's sale catalogue English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 194.
Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the ‘Carey MS’: CwT Δ 34. Briefly discussed in Gary Taylor, ‘Some Manuscripts of Shakespeare's Sonnets’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 68 (1985), 210-46 (pp. 220-4). Discussed, with facsimile pages, in Scott Nixon, ‘The Manuscript Sources of Thomas Carew's Poetry’, EMS, 8 (2000), 186-224 (pp. 188, 191-2).
‘Eyes look off there's no beholding’
Unpublished?
BmF 150.7
Copy in: A composite volume of transcripts of ballads made, from various printed and manuscript sources, by and for Robert Jamieson (1780?-1844) for his edition of Popular Ballads and Songs (Edinburgh, 1806). c.1800.
Owned in 1921 by George Neilson, then by Charles R. Cowie, and now in the John Cowie Collection.
Discussed in G. Neilson, ‘A Bundle of Ballads’, E&S, 7 (1921), 108-42.
Love's Freedom (‘Why should man be only tied’)
Rejected by Dyce, XI, 442, and attributed to Henry Harrington.
BmF 150.8
Copy in: the MS described under BmF 98. Late 17th century.
BmF 150.83
Copy in: An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, closely written in probably a single secretary hand, ii + 393 pages, in old calf. c.1620.
Inscribed (p. [i]) ‘This curious Manuscript was bought by me of Mr Muskett the Bookseller. Norwich - J. P. B.’ Unidentified Dobell sale catalogue, item 182.
A Song in the Praise of Sack (‘Listen all I you pray’)
Unpublished?
BmF 150.92
Anonymous.
In: A duodecimo notebook of verse and prose, comprising 131 interleaves in a printed exemplum of John Sansbury's Ilium in Italiam (Oxford, 1608), in contemporary calf (rebacked), blind-stamped ‘S. S.’ on the upper cover. Owned in 1619, and probably compiled, by Simon Sloper (b.1596/7), of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. c.1620s-30s.
Bought from Parker, of Oxford, 2 April 1889, by Percy Manning and bequeathed by him in 1917.
BmF 150.93
Copy in: A quarto composite volume of verse MSS, in several hands and paper sizes, 129 leaves, in 19th-century half-morocco. Collected by Peter Le Neve (1661-1729), Norroy King of Arms, antiquary, his brother Oliver, and (in 1714) by Thomas Martin (1697-1771), of Palgrave, Suffolk, antiquary and collector. c.mid 17th century.
Later owned by Sir John Fenn (1739-94), antiquary. Puttick & Simpson's, 16-18 July 1866 (Fenn sale), lots 420-22.
Prose
The Grammar Lecture
A mock-lecture, beginning ‘Gramaticæ quatuor sunt partes (sayth Lyly) orthographia, which is thus orthographia...’, delivered at Christmas revels of the Inner Temple. First published in Mark Eccles, ‘Francis Beaumont's Grammar Lecture’, RES, 16 (1940), 402-16. Recorded in Edward Scott, ‘An Unknown Work of Francis Beaumont’, The Athenaeum (27 January 1894), p. 115.
BmF 151
Copy, in a predominantly secretary hand, subscribed ‘Francis Beamount’, following (ff. 2r-12r) an ‘Arithmetique Lecture by Sr Hennage ffynch’ in the same hand. Early 17th century.
In: A folio composite volume of state and miscellaneous papers, in prose and verse, in various hands, 303 leaves, in modern half crushed morocco gilt.
Edited from this MS in Eccles. Recorded in Scott.
Documents
Document(s)
*BmF 152
Beaumont's early signature, written at the time of his matriculation, 4 February 1596/7. 1597.
In: Subscription Register. 1581-1615.
Dramatic Works
See BmF 151 and B&F 1-211.