CELM: National Library of Ireland

MS 29

Copy, in several professional predominantly italic hands, 158 pages (plus numerous blanks), in contemporary vellum. Late 17th century.

ClE 36: Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon, A shorte view of the State and condicon of the kingdome of Ireland from the year 1640 to this tyme

Bookplate of John Perceval (1683-1748), first Earl of Egmont, dated 1736. Purchased in October 1924 from Fred Hanna.

First published in Dublin, 1719-20. Published in London, 1720. Incorporated into the 1816, 1826 and 1849 editions of The History of the Rebellion. Reprinted as Vol. II of A Collection of Several Valuable Pieces of Clarendon (2 vols, London, 1727).

MS 661

Copy, in a single professional secretary hand but for a title dated ‘An^o. Eliz. 39.’ [1596/7] (f. ii^r) in other hands, subscribed ‘finis 1597 :E: S:’, with addition ‘phaps Edmund Spenser’, iv + 100 quarto leaves, in contemporary limp vellum gilt. c.1597-1625.

SpE 60: Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland

Inscriptions including (f. ii^r) ‘Covel's writing’, (f. iv^r) ‘Bartho: ?Tanham’ or ‘?Canham’, ‘?J. C L’, and ‘? yesecyke Anno: Domine / 1625’. Later No. 74 in the library of the Rev. Dr Cox Macro (1683-1767), antiquary. Afterwards owned by John Henry Gurney, MP (1819-90), of Keswick Hall, Norfolk, banker, politician and ornithologist.

Recorded in HMC, 12th Report, Appendix IX (1891), p. 123. Collated in Variorum. Facsimile of the last page in Sotheby's sale catalogue, 31 March 1936, lot 200.

First published in Sir James Ware, The Historie of Ireland (Dublin, 1633). Variorum, Prose Works (ed. Rudolf Gottfried), pp. 39-231.

Spenser's authorship of this ‘View’ is generally accepted, especially in light of the comparable views about Ireland in The Faerie Queene. A cautionary note about authorship is sounded, however, in Jean R. Brink, ‘Constructing the View of the Present State of Ireland’, Spenser Studies, 11 (1994), 203-28; in her ‘Appropriating the Author of The Faerie Queene: The Attribution of the View of the Present State of Ireland and A Brief Note of Ireland to Edmund Spenser’, in Soundings of Things Done: Essays in Early Modern Literature in Honor of S.K. Heninger, Jr., ed. Peter E. Medine and Joseph Wittreich (Newark, Delaware, 1997), 93-136. See also, inter alia, Andrew Hadfield, ‘Certainties and Uncertainties: By Way of Response to Jean Brink’, Spenser Studies, 12 (1998), 197-202, and Jean R. Brink, ‘Spenser and the Irish Question: Reply to Andrew Hadfield’, Spenser Studies, 13 (1999), 265-6.

MS 2093

An octavo miscellany of chiefly satirical poems, including at least twelve by Rochester, in a single rounded hand but for an addition at the end (pp. 141-50) in a stylish italic hand, the greater part written along the length of the page with the spine uppermost, with an ‘Index’, xii + 150 pages (lacking pp. 135-40), in contemporary calf. Possibly associated with the court circle of James Butler (1610-88), first Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. c.1680s.

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Dublin MS: RoJ Δ 10.

pp. 1-8

• RoJ 80: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, An Epistolary Essay from M.G. to O.B. upon Their Mutual Poems (‘Dear friend, I hear this town does so abound’)

Copy, headed ‘An Epistolary Essay from J.N. to J.S. upon their mutuall poems. by. E. Rochest^r for liberty of writeing’.

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 144-7. Walker, pp. 107-9. Love, pp. 98-101.

pp. 9-24

• RoJ 292: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, A Satyr against Reason and Mankind (‘Were I (who to my cost already am)’)

Copy, headed ‘A Satyr against man’, lines 174-221 separately headed ‘A supplement to y^e satyr Against Man. by y^e E. of Rochest^r’.

First published (lines 1-173) as a broadside, A Satyr against Mankind [London, 1679]. Complete, with supplementary lines 174-221 (beginning ‘All this with indignation have I hurled’) in Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 94-101. Walker, pp. 91-7, as ‘Satyr’. Love, pp. 57-63.

The text also briefly discussed in Kristoffer F. Paulson, ‘A Question of Copy-Text: Rochester's “A Satyr against Reason and Mankind”’, N&Q, 217 (May 1972), 177-8. Some texts followed by one or other of three different ‘Answer’ poems (two sometimes ascribed to Edward Pococke or Mr Griffith and Thomas Lessey: see Vieth, Attribution, pp. 178-9).

pp. 33-5

• RoJ 246: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, On the Supposed Author of a Late Poem in Defence of Satyr (‘To rack and torture thy unmeaning brain’)

Copy, headed ‘My L^d. Rochesters answ^r to y^e defence of satyr’.

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 132-3. Walker, pp. 114-15. Love, pp. 106-7. Texts are often followed by Sir Car Scroope's ‘Answer’ (‘Raile on poor feeble Scribbler, speake of me’: Walker, p. 115. Love, p. 107).

pp. 36-55

• DrJ 43.92: John Dryden, An Essay upon Satire (‘How dull and how insensible a beast’)

Copy, subscribed in different ink ‘Dryden’.

A satire written in 1675 by John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, but it was widely believed by contemporaries (including later Alexander Pope, who had access to Mulgrave's papers) that Dryden had a hand in it, a belief which led to the notorious assault on him in Rose Alley on 18 December 1679, at the reputed instigation of the Earl of Rochester and/or the Duchess of Portsmouth.

First published in London, 1689. POAS, I (1963), pp. 396-413.

The authorship discussed in Macdonald, pp. 217-19, and see John Burrows, ‘Mulgrave, Dryden, and An Essay upon Satire’, in Superior in His Profession: Essays in Memory of Harold Love, ed. Meredith Sherlock, Brian McMullin and Wallace Kirsop, Script & Print, 33 (2009), pp. 76-91, where is it concluded, from stylistic analysis, that ‘Mulgrave had by far the major hand’. Recorded in Hammond, V, 684, in an ‘Index of Poems Excluded from this Edition’.

pp. 56-69

• DrJ 96.5: John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe (‘All humane things are subject to decay’)

Copy, ascribed to ‘Dreyden’.

First published in London, 1682. Miscellany Poems (London, 1684). Kinsley, I, 265-71. California, II, 53-60. Hammond, I, 313-36.

The text also discussed extensively in G. Blakemore Evans, ‘The Text of Dryden's Mac Flecknoe: The Case for Authorial Revision’, Studies in Bibliography, 7 (1955), 85-102; in David M. Vieth, ‘Dryden's Mac Flecknoe’, Harvard Library Bulletin, 7 (1953), 32-54; and in Vinton A. Dearing, ‘Dryden's Mac Flecknoe: The Case Against Editorial Confusion’, Harvard Library Bulletin, 24 (1976), 204-45. See also David M. Vieth, ‘The Discovery of the Date of MacFlecknoe’ in Evidence in Literary Scholarship: Essays in Memory of James Marshall Osborn, ed. René Wellek and Alvaro Ribeiro (Oxford, 1979), pp. 71-86.

pp. 70-3

• EtG 8: Sir George Etherege, Ephelia to Bajazet (‘How far are they deceived who hope in vain’)

Copy, subscribed in a different ink ‘Rochester’.

First published in Female Poems On several Occasions: Written by Ephelia (London, 1679). Thorpe, pp. 9-10. Harold Love's edition of Rochester (1999), pp. 94-5.

pp. 74-7

• RoJ 610: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, A Very Heroical Epistle in Answer to Ephelia (‘Madam. / If you're deceived, it is not by my cheat’)

Copy, headed ‘An heroicall Epistle in answer to Ephelia’, subscribed in a different ink ‘Rochester’.

First published in the broadside A Very Heroical Epistle from My Lord All-Pride to Dol-Common (London, 1679). Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 113-15. Walker, pp. 112-14. Love, pp. 95-7.

p. 78

• RoJ 167.5: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, Lord Moulgrave's character. By Lord Rochester (‘With Equall grace and force he walks and writes’)

Copy, ascribed to Rochester.

Edited from this MS in Love.

Love, pp. 92-3.

pp. 79-90

• RoJ 477: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, Timon (‘What, Timon! does old age begin t'approach’)

Copy, headed ‘A Satyr’, the subscription ‘Rochester’ crossed out and ‘S^r Ch: Sidley’ written above in faint ink.

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 65-72. Walker, pp. 78-82, as ‘Satyr. [Timon]’. Harold Love, ‘The Text of “Timon. A Satyr”’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 6 (1982), 113-40. Love, pp. 258-63, as Satyr. [Timon], among Disputed Works.

pp. 91-108

• RoJ 142: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, A Letter from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country (‘Chloe, In verse by your command I write’)

Copy, headed ‘Artemiza to Chloe’, subscribed ‘Rochester’.

First published, as a broadside, in London, 1679. Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 104-12. Walker, pp. 83-90. Love, pp. 63-70.

pp. 109-11

• RoJ 240.8: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, On the Lady Mary Stewart who Eateing a honeycomb a Bee flew out and stung her neck (‘This Bee alone of all his race’)

Copy, in double columns, subscribed ‘Rochester’ (and indexed as ‘by L^d Ro.’).

Edited from this MS in Love.

First published in Love (1999), pp. 282-4.

pp. 117-19

• DoC 279: Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset, To Mr. Edward Howard, on his Incomparable, Incomprehensible Poem Called ‘The British Princes’ (‘Come on, ye critics! Find one fault who dare’)

Copy, untitled, subscribed ‘S^r Char: Sidley’.

First published in Poems on Several Occasions, By the Right Honourable, the E. of R[ochester] (‘Antwerpen’ [i.e. London], 1680). POAS, I (1963), 338-9. Harris, pp. 7-9.

pp. 120-8

• RoJ 16: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, An Allusion to Horace, the Tenth Satyr of the First Book (‘Well, sir, 'tis granted I said Dryden's rhymes’)

Copy, subscribed ‘Rochester’.

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 120-6. Walker, pp. 99-102. Love, pp. 71-4.

pp. 129-30

• RoJ 52: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, The Disabled Debauchee (‘As some brave admiral, in former war’)

Copy, in double columns, here beginning ‘As some old Admirall in former war’, subscribed ‘Rochester’.

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (‘Antwerp’, 1680). Vieth, pp. 116-17. Walker, pp. 97-9. Love, pp. 44-5.

pp. 130-1

• RoJ 8: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, Against Marriage (‘Out of mere love and arrant devotion’)

Copy, headed ‘Of Marriage’, here beginning ‘Out of stark Love and arrant Devotion’, subscribed ‘R.’

First published in Vieth (1968), p. 159. Walker, pp. 130-1, among ‘Poems Possibly by Rochester’. Love, pp. 40-1, as Of Marriage and beginning Out of Stark Love, and arrant Devotion.

MS 2326, p. 249, No. 1457

Autograph letter signed by Denham, to Sir George Lane, 24 July 1662. 1662.

*DeJ 134: Sir John Denham, Letter(s)

Summarized in HMC, 36, Ormonde NS III (1904), pp. 19-20.

MS 2454, ff. 263r-4r, 267r

Autograph letter signed by Shadwell, to James Butler, second Duke of Ormonde, 5 November 1688. 1688.

*SdT 48: Thomas Shadwell, Letter(s)

Recorded in HMC, Ormonde, NS, Vol. VIII (1920), p. 8. Edited in Summers, I, ccvi., and V, 402.

MS 2582

Copy, in a rounded italic hand, unascribed, 34 sextodecimo leaves, in old calf. c.1608/9.

BcF 134: Francis Bacon, Certain Considerations touching the Plantation in Ireland

First published in Resuscitatio, ed. W. Rawley (London, 1657). Spedding, XI, 116-26.

MS 7899

A quarto volume of state tracts and papers, in a single professional cursive hand, 304 pages (plus numerous blanks), in contemporary vellum boards. Late 17th century.

Sotheby's, March 1956.

pp. 1-263

• ClE 37: Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon, A shorte view of the State and condicon of the kingdome of Ireland from the year 1640 to this tyme

Copy.