Verse
Verses Wrote on her Death-Bed at Bath, to her Husband, in London (‘Thou, who dost all my worldly thoughts employ’)
Twenty-two lines, first published, introduced ‘The following verses were wrote by her (as I am inform'd) on her death-bed at Bath, to her husband in London’, in George Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (Oxford, 1752), pp. 418-22.
MkM 1
Copy in: A quarto verse miscellany, 171 leaves, with an index, imperfect at the beginning, in contemporary calf (rebacked). Compiled by Colonel Gabriel Lepipre, being the ‘4th Vol’. of his compilations. c.1748-50s.
Donated in 1938 by F.F. Madan.
MkM 2
Copy in: A commonplace book of English and Latin verse, compiled by John Burn of St John's College, Oxford, later undermaster at Merchant Taylors School, London, some entries in another hand, begun 1722, viii + 368 pages, in contemporary vellum. Early 18th century.
Bought from Simmons & Waters's sale catalogue No. 213 (1907) by Falconer Madan (1851-1935), librarian and bibliographer, and donated by him in 1917.
MkM 3
Copy in: A tall folio composite volume of chiefly verse MSS, in various hands and paper sizes, 91 leaves, mounted on guards, in half red morocco.
At least some individual items here were later owned by Sir Thomas Osborne (1632-1712), first Earl of Danby, Marquess of Carmarthen and Duke of Leeds, politician. Sotheby's, 6-10 April 1869 (Leeds sale), including lot 725, item 10.
MkM 4
Copy in: A folio miscellany of chiefly verse, in a single hand, entitled The Famous Miscellany, 248 leaves, in 19th-century half-calf. Compiled by Ashley Cowper, Clerk of the Parliaments (signed, f. 1v, ‘Ashley Cowper 1747’). c.1747.
MkM 5
Copy in: A folio composite volume of verse and prose, i n various hands and paper sizes, 25 leaves, in modern half red calf.
MkM 6
Copy in: A folio composite volume of verse, in various hands, 73 leaves. Volume XXVII of the Brockman papers, of the Brockman family of Beachborough, Newington-next-Hythe, Kent. c.1733.
MkM 7
Copy in: A folio volume of antiquarian collections, including much verse, in a single neat hand, 238 leaves, in half-morocco. In the hand of the Rev. William Cole, FSA (1714-82), antiquary (Volume XXXI of the Cole Collection). Mid-18th century.
MkM 8
Copy, headed The following Verses were wrote by Mrs Monk on her death-bed at Bath to her husband at London, on a pair of conjugate quarto leaves. Early-mid-18th century.
In: An unbound collection of verse manuscripts, in various hands and paper sizes, 212 leaves. Volume CCCLV of the Evelyn Papers.
MkM 9
Copy, headed ‘Mrs Molesworth’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, in a single possibly female hand, 36 leaves, in modern half-morocco. Mid-18th century.
Inscribed (f. 36r) ‘M Lowthers Jun:’, by a member of the Lowther family, Baronets and later Earls of Lonsdale.
MkM 10
Copy in: A folio commonplace book of verse, in several hands, 102 leaves, in half-sheepskin. Early 19th century.
Once owned by ‘the master of the Europe, the ship that Byron was suposed to have traveled on when he went to Greace [sic]’.
MkM 11
Copy in: A large folio verse miscellany, headed (p. 1) ‘Poems on Severall Occasions’, 298 pages, in contemporary calf (rebacked). c.1735.
MkM 12
Copy in: A folio miscellany of poems chiefly on affairs of state, entitled A Collection of Poems, including 27 poems by Rochester (all ascribed to him), xii + 299 pages (plus a number of blanks), including a table of contents, in contemporary calf (rebacked). In a single professional hand but for a few later additions at the very end (pp. 295-8, with some pages tipped-in). c.1690s.
Recorded in IELM, II.ii as the Harvard MS: RoJ Δ 7.
MkM 13
Copy in: A folio commonplace book of chiefly Quaker authors, 49 leaves, in a paper wrapper. c.1745.
MkM 14
Copy, headed ‘From a lady extreamly ill at Bath to her husband’.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, in three hands, written from both ends, 342 pages (pp. 108-302 blanks), in contemporary boards. c.1730s.
Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection, MS Lt 9, p. 8.
MkM 15
Copy, headed ‘Mrs Molesworth, to her Husband, Capt Molesworth’, on a single leaf.
MkM 17
Copy 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.
MkM 18
Copy in: A folio verse miscellany, in a single hand, compiled by Nathaniel Hamby, of Wymondham, Norfolk, 648 pages, in morocco gilt. c.1729.
MkM 19
Copy, incomplete.
In: A quarto verse miscellany, compiled by John Freeman Milward Dovaston (1782-1854), 309 pages. Early 19th century.
MkM 20
Copy in: A folio verse miscellany, 317 pages. Owned and possibly compiled by Frances Boscawen (née Glanville, d.1805). Mid-18th century.
MkM 21
Copy in: One of a set of two commonplace books compiled by James Forbes (1749-1819), c.500 pages in all. 1766-1800.