[Belton MS]
A folio volume of 73 poems by Edmund Waller, in an accomplished professional mixed hand, a few songs, with music, added at the end probably partly in another hand, x + 124 leaves, in calf gilt.
Inscribed (f. 48r) ‘Robert Binnes’ and (on a rear flyleaf) ‘John Brownlowe’: i.e. very probably Sir John Brownlowe (1659-97), the builder of Belton House, the phrase ex dono deleted. The MS discovered by Dr Peter Hoare in the 1990s.
ff. 1r-4v
• WaE 258.5: Edmund Waller, Of the Danger His Majesty (being Prince) escaped in the Road at Saint Andrews (‘Now had his Highness bid farewell to Spain’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 1-7.
f. 4v-5v
• WaE 198.2: Edmund Waller, Of His Majesty's Receiving the News of the Duke of Buckingham's Death (‘So earnest with thy God! can no new care’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 11-12.
ff. 5v-6v
• WaE 611.2: Edmund Waller, To the King, on his Navy (‘Wher'er thy navy spreads her canvas wings’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 15-16.
See also WaE 765.
ff. 6v-8r
• WaE 679.5: Edmund Waller, Upon His Majesty's Repairing of Paul's (‘That shipwrecked vessel which the Apostle bore’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 16-18.
f. 8r-9r
• WaE 247.5: Edmund Waller, Of Salle (‘Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old’)
Copy, headed ‘Of the taking of Sally’.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 13-14.
ff. 9r-10v
• WaE 637.5: Edmund Waller, To the Queen, Occasioned upon Sight of Her Majesty's Picture (‘Well fare the hand! which to our humble sight’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 8-10.
ff. 10v-11r
• WaE 413.5: Edmund Waller, Puerperium (‘You gods that have the power’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 82.
ff. 11r-12r
• WaE 13.5: Edmund Waller, The Apology of Sleep (‘My charge it is those breaches to repair’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 80-1.
ff. 12r-13v
• WaE 304.5: Edmund Waller, Of the Queen (‘The lark, that shuns on lofty boughs to build’)
Copy, headed ‘Of, and to the Queen’.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 77-9.
f. 14r-v
• WaE 631.5: Edmund Waller, To the Queen Mother of France, upon her Landing (‘Great Queen of Europe! where thy offspring wears’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 35-6.
ff. 14v-16v
• WaE 46.5: Edmund Waller, The Countess of Carlisle in Mourning (‘When from black clouds no part of sky is clear’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 22-3.
ff. 15v-16v
• WaE 52.5: Edmund Waller, The Country to My Lady of Carlisle (‘Madam, of all the sacred Muse inspired’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 21.
ff. 16v-17r
• WaE 172.5: Edmund Waller, Of her Chamber (‘They taste of death that do at heaven arrive’)
Cp[y.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 26.
f. 17r-v
• WaE 96.5: Edmund Waller, In Answer to One who Writ against a Fair Lady (‘What fury has provoked thy wit to dare’)
Copy of a four-stanza version headed ‘In Answer to a libell against her’.
First published, in a four-stanza version headed ‘In Answer to a libell against her, &c’, in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 24-5.
ff. 17v-18v
• WaE 24.5: Edmund Waller, At Penshurst (‘While in the park I sing, the listening deer’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 64-5.
ff. 18v-19v
• WaE 18.2: Edmund Waller, At Penshurst (‘Had Sacharissa lived when mortals made’)
Copy, here beginning ‘Had Dorothea liu'd when Mortalls made’.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 46-7.
ff. 19v-20r
• WaE 329.5: Edmund Waller, On My Lady Dorothy Sidney's Picture (‘Such was Philoclea, such Musidorus' flame!’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 43.
f. 20r-v
• WaE 267.5: Edmund Waller, Of the Lady who can Sleep when she Pleases (‘No wonder sleep from careful lovers flies’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 49.
ff. 20v-1r
• WaE 294.5: Edmund Waller, Of the Misreport of her being Painted (‘As when a sort of wolves infest the night’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 50.
f. 21r-v
• WaE 187.5: Edmund Waller, Of her Passing through a Crowd of People (‘As in old chaos (heaven with earth confused)’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 51.
f. 21v-2v
• WaE 577.5: Edmund Waller, To My Lord of Leicester (‘Not that thy trees at Penshurst groan’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 47-8.
ff. 22v-3r
• WaE 512.5: Edmund Waller, To a very young Lady (‘Why came I so untimely forth’)
Copy, headed ‘To my Lady Lucy Sidney’.
First published, as ‘To my young Lady Lucy Sidney’, in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 57.
ff. 23r-4r
• WaE 645.5: Edmund Waller, To the Servant of a Fair Lady (‘Fair fellow-servant! may your gentle ear’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘To Mistris Braughton’, in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 55-6.
ff. 24r-5r
• WaE 563.5: Edmund Waller, To My Lord Northumberland, upon the Death of his Lady (‘To this great loss a sea of tears is due’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 31-2.
f. 25r-6v
• WaE 557.5: Edmund Waller, To my Lord Admiral, of his late Sickness and Recovery (‘With joy like ours, the Thracian youth invades’)
Copy.
First published in Thomas Carew, Poems, 2nd edition (London, 1642). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 33-5. The Poems of Thomas Carew, ed. Rhodes Dunlap (Oxford, 1949), pp. 200-1.
ff. 26v-8r
• WaE 524.5: Edmund Waller, To Amoret (‘Fair! that you may truly know’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 58-60.
f. 28r
• WaE 518.5: Edmund Waller, To Amoret (‘Amoret! the Milky Way’)
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 83.
ff. 28v-9r
• WaE 351.5: Edmund Waller, On the friendship betwixt two Ladies (‘Tell me, lovely, loving pair!’)
Copy, headed ‘Of the freindship betwixtSacharissa and Amoret’.
First published, as ‘On the Friendship betwixt Sacharissa and Amoret’, in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 60-1.
f. 29r-v
• WaE 2.5: Edmund Waller, À la Malade (‘Ah, lovely Amoret! the care’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 85-6.
f. 30r-v
• WaE 569.5: Edmund Waller, To my Lord of Falkland (‘Brave Holland leads, and with him Falkland goes’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 75-6.
See also WaE 765.
ff. 31r-2r
• WaE 468.5: Edmund Waller, Thyrsis, Galatea (‘As lately I on silver Thames did ride’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 40-2.
f. 32r-v
• WaE 597.5: Edmund Waller, To Phyllis (‘Phyllis! why should we delay’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘The cunning Curtezan’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 84.
ff. 32v-3v
• WaE 591.5: Edmund Waller, To Phyllis (‘Phyllis! 'twas love that injured you’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 27-8.
ff. 33v-4v
• WaE 651.5: Edmund Waller, To Vandyck (‘Rare Artisan, whose pencil moves’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 44-5.
ff. 34v-5r
• WaE 70.5: Edmund Waller, Fabula Phoebi et Daphnes (‘Arcadiae juvenis Thyrsis, Phoebique sacerdos’)
Copy.
First published in Poems (London, 1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 53.
f. 35r-v
• WaE 458.5: Edmund Waller, The Story of Phoebus and Daphne, Applied (‘Thyrsis, a youth of the inspired train’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 52.
f. 35v
• WaE 223.5: Edmund Waller, Of Mrs. Arden (‘Behold, and listen, while the fair’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 91. A musical setting by Henry Lawes published in Select Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1669).
See also WaE 759.
f. 36r-v
• WaE 338.5: Edmund Waller, On the Discovery of a Lady's Painting (‘Pygmalion's fate reversed is mine’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘On a patch'd up Madam’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 99.
ff. 36v-7r
• WaE 479.5: Edmund Waller, To a Lady, from whom he received a Silver Pen (‘Madam! intending to have tried’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 109.
f. 37v
• WaE 312.5: Edmund Waller, On a Brede of Divers Colours, Woven by Four Ladies (‘Twice twenty slender virgin-fingers twine’)
Copy.
First published in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 121.
ff. 37v-8r
• WaE 360.5: Edmund Waller, On the Head of a Stag (‘So we some antique hero's strength’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 110.
f. 38r-v
• WaE 494.5: Edmund Waller, To a Lady in a Garden (‘Sees not my love how time resumes’)
Copy, headed ‘To a Lady in retirement’.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 113.
ff. 38v-9r
• WaE 116.5: Edmund Waller, The Miser's Speech. In a Masque (‘Balls of this metal slacked At'lanta's pace’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 111.
f. 39r-v
• WaE 217.5: Edmund Waller, Of Loving at First Sight (‘Not caring to observe the wind’)
Copy.
First published, headed ‘The Reply on the Contrary’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Ascribed to ‘Tho. Batt.’ in Francis Beaumont, Poems (London, 1653). Thorn-Drury, I, 100.
f. 40r-v
• WaE 418.5: Edmund Waller, The Self-Banished (‘It is not that I love you less’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘The Melancholy Lover’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 101. A musical setting by Henry Lawes published in Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1653).
ff. 40v-6r
• WaE 30.5: Edmund Waller, The Battle of the Summer Islands (‘Aid me, Bellona! while the dreadful fight’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 66-74.
ff. 46r-8r
• WaE 690.5: Edmund Waller, Upon the Death of my Lady Rich (‘May those already cursed Essexian plains’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 37-40.
ff. 48r-9r
• WaE 205.5: Edmund Waller, Of Love (‘Anger in hasty words or blows’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 87-8.
ff. 49r-50v
• WaE 624.5: Edmund Waller, To the Mutable Fair (‘Here Celia! for thy sake I part’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘The Reply’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 106-8.
f. 51r
• WaE 126.5: Edmund Waller, Of a Lady who writ in Praise of Mira (‘While she pretends to make the graces known’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, II, 2.
f. 51r
• WaE 583.5: Edmund Waller, To one Married to an old Man (‘Since thou wouldst needs (bewitched with some ill charms!)’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘To the wife being marryed to that old man’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, II, 2.
f. 51r-v
• WaE 77.5: Edmund Waller, For Drinking of Healths (‘And is antiquity of no more force!’)
Copy.
First published, in an 18-line version beginning at line 7, ‘Let Bruits, and Vegetals that cannot think’, in Workes (1645). A 34-line version first published in Thorn-Drury (1893), pp. 89-90. Thorn-Drury (1904), I, 89-90.
ff. 51v-2r
• WaE 235.5: Edmund Waller, Of My Lady Isabella, Playing on the Lute (‘Such moving sounds from such a careless touch!’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 90.
f. 52r-v
• WaE 72.5: Edmund Waller, The Fall (‘See! how the willing earth gave way’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘The Reply’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 96.
ff. 52v-3r
• WaE 252.5: Edmund Waller, Of Sylvia (‘Our sighs are heard. just Heaven declares’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 97.
f. 53r-v
• WaE 39.5: Edmund Waller, The Bud (‘Lately on yonder swelling bush’)
Copy.
First published in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 98. A musical setting by Henry Lawes published in Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1653).
f. 54r-v
• WaE 444.5: Edmund Waller, Song (‘Say, lovely dream! where couldst thou find’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 53-4.
ff. 54v-5r
• WaE 35.5: Edmund Waller, Behold the Brand of Beauty Tossed. A Song (‘Behold the brand of beauty tossed!’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 126.
f. 55v-6r
• WaE 83.2: Edmund Waller, ‘Go, lovely Rose’
Copy, headed ‘A Song’.
First published, as ‘On the Rose’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 128. Setting by Henry Lawes published in The Second Book of Ayres, and Dialogues (London, 1655).
f. 55v-r
• WaE 439.5: Edmund Waller, Song (‘Peace, babbling Muse!’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 124.
f. 56r-v
• WaE 734.5: Edmund Waller, ‘While I listen to thy voice’
Copy, headed ‘Song’.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 127. A musical setting by Henry Lawes published in Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1653).
f. 56v
• WaE 451.5: Edmund Waller, Song (‘Stay, Phoebus! stay’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 123.
f. 57r
• WaE 537.5: Edmund Waller, To Flavia. A Song (‘'Tis not your beauty can engage’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 125.
f. 57v
• WaE 502.5: Edmund Waller, To a Lady Singing a Song of his Composing (‘Chloris! yourself you so excel’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 105. A musical setting by Henry Lawes published, as ‘To the same Lady singing the former Song’, in Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1653).
ff. 57v-8v
• WaE 290.5: Edmund Waller, Of the Marriage of the Dwarfs (‘Design, or chance, makes others wive’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘On the two Dwarfs that were marryed at Court, not long before Shrovetide’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 92.
ff. 58v-9r
• WaE 674.5: Edmund Waller, Upon Ben Jonson (‘Mirror of poets! mirror of our age!’)
Copy.
First published in Jonsonus Virbius (London, 1638). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 29-30.
f. 59r-v
• WaE 544.5: Edmund Waller, To Mr. George Sandys, on his Translation of some parts of the Bible (‘How bold a work attempts that pen’)
Copy.
First published in George Sandys, Paraphrase upon the Divine Poems (London, 1638). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 28-9.
f. 60r-v
• WaE 42.5: Edmund Waller, Chloris and Hylas (‘Hylas, oh Hylas! why sit we mute’)
First published, as ‘On the approaching Spring’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 114-15.
f. 60v
• WaE 667.5: Edmund Waller, Under a Lady's Picture (‘Some ages hence, for it must not decay’)
Copy.
First published, in a six-line version headed ‘To be ingraven under the Queen's Picture’ and beginning at line 3 (‘Such Helen was! and who can blame the boy’), in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). An eight-line version first published in Thorn-Drury (1893), p. 129. Thorn-Drury (1904), II, 1.
ff. 60v-2v
• WaE 93.5: Edmund Waller, In Answer to Sir John Suckling's Verses (‘Stay here, fond youth! and ask no more. be wise’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 116-19. The Works of Sir John Suckling: The Non-Dramatic Works, ed. Thomas Clayton (Oxford, 1971), pp. 181-3.
See also SuJ 5-10.
ff. 62v-3r
• WaE 475.5: Edmund Waller, To a Friend, of the different Success of their Loves (‘Thrice happy pair! of whom we cannot know’)
Copy, headed ‘To A. H. of the different succese of their Loues’.
First published, as ‘The Variable Lover. or a Reply to the Melancholy Lover’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 102-3.
ff. 63v-4r
• WaE 8.5: Edmund Waller, An Apology for having Loved before (‘They that never had the use’)
Copy.
First published in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 120-1.
ff. 64r-5r
• WaE 658.5: Edmund Waller, To Zelinda (‘Fairest piece of well-formed earth!’)
Copy, headed ‘Palamede to Zelinde’.
First published, as ‘The Ladyes Slave to his Mistresse’, in Wits Recreations (London, 1645). as ‘Palamede to Zelinde. Ariana, lib. 6’ in Workes (1645). Thorn-Drury, I, 103-4.