MS Bell/White 25
A quarto verse miscellany, including ten poems by Carew and one of doubtful authorship, in a single neat non-professional hand, 72 leaves (plus a later index). c.1643-50s.
Later owned by the Newcastle antiquarian collectors John Bell (1783-1864) and Robert White (1802-74).
Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the Bell-White MS, CwT Δ 30. Described, with facsimiles of ff. 30r and 56v, in T.G.S. Cain, ‘The Bell/White MS: Some Unpublished Poems’, ELR, 2 (1972), 260-70.
f. a4
• BuR 1.268: Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Extracts.
First published in Oxford, 1621. Edited by A.R. Shilleto (introduced by A.H. Bullen), 3 vols (London, 1893). Edited variously by Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling, Rhonda L. Blair, J.B. Bamborough, and Martin Dodsworth, 6 vols (Oxford, 1989-2000).
ff. a4r-a6r
• ToA 40: Aurelian Townshend, A Paradox (‘There is no Lover, hee or shee’)
Copy, headed ‘A Paradox that no lover can be false’.
First published in Chambers (1912), pp. 33-5. Brown, pp. 30-1.
ff. 1r-8r
• CoR 306: Richard Corbett, Iter Boreale (‘Foure Clerkes of Oxford, Doctours two, and two’)
Copy.
First published in Certain Elegant Poems (London, 1647). Bennett & Trevor-Roper, pp. 31-49.
ff. 8r-12v
• CoA 168: Abraham Cowley, A Satyre. The Puritan and the Papist (‘So two rude waves, by stormes together throwne’)
Copy, headed ‘A Satyr showing the difference yet coherence Betwixt the Tenents and actions of the Papists and Puritans’.
This MS recorded in Perkin, p. 29.
First published, anonymously, [Oxford], 1643. Ascribed to Cowley in Wit and Loyalty Reviv'd (London, 1682). Waller, II, 149-57. Sparrow, pp. 17-28. J.H.A. Sparrow, ‘The Text of Cowley's Satire The Puritan and the Papist’, Anglia, 58 (1934), 78-102.
f. 12r
• CoR 275: Richard Corbett, In Quendam Anniversariorum Scriptorem (‘Even soe dead Hector thrice was triumph'd on’)
Copy, headed ‘Docter Corbet against Prices Universary upon Prince Henry’.
First published in Certain Elegant Poems (London, 1647). Bennett & Trevor-Roper, pp. 8-9.
The poem is usually followed in MSS by Dr Daniel Price's ‘Answer’ (‘So to dead Hector boyes may doe disgrace’), and see also CoR 227-46.
f. 13r-v
• CoR 243: Richard Corbett, In Poetam Exauctoratum et Emeritum (‘Nor is it griev'd (graue youth) the memory’)
Copy, headed ‘An answere to Price’.
First published in Certain Elegant Poems (London, 1647). Bennett & Trevor-Roper, pp. 10-11.
For related poems see CoR 247-78.
ff. 13v-15r
• CoR 222: Richard Corbett, An Exhortation to Mr. John Hammon minister in the parish of Bewdly, for the battering downe of the Vanityes of the Gentiles, which are comprehended in a May-pole… (‘The mighty Zeale which thou hast new put on’)
Copy, headed ‘A goodly exhortation...’.
First published in Poëtica Stromata ([no place], 1648). Bennett & Trevor-Roper, pp. 52-6.
An exemplum of Poëtica Stromata at Christ Church, Oxford, has against this poem the MS marginal note ‘None of Dr Corbets’ and an attribution to John Harris of Christ Church.
ff. 15r-16r
• CoR 682: Richard Corbett, Upon An Unhandsome Gentlewoman, who made Love unto him (‘Have I renounc't my faith, or basely sold’)
Copy, headed ‘Of Mrs Mallet’.
First published in Certain Elegant Poems (London, 1647). Bennett & Trevor-Roper, pp. 6-7.
f. 16r-v
• RnT 570: Thomas Randolph, Upon the Burning of a School (‘What heat of learning kindled your desire’)
Copy, headed ‘The life and death of a Grammar scoole’.
Published in Wit and Drollery (London, 1661), ascribed to ‘T. R.’. Usually anonymous in MS copies and the school variously identified as being in Castlethorpe or in Batley, Yorkshire, or in Lewes, Sussex, or elsewhere.
ff. 16v-18v
• CwT 639: Thomas Carew, A Rapture (‘I will enjoy thee now my Celia, come’)
Copy, headed ‘An Elisium or Rapture’.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, pp. 49-53.
f. 19r-v
• StW 296: William Strode, On a blisterd Lippe (‘Chide not thy sprowting lippe, nor kill’)
Copy, headed ‘On a Lady having a blistered Lip’.
First published in Parnassus Biceps (London, 1656). Dobell, pp. 28-9. Forey, pp. 92-3.
f. 20r
• DnJ 1214: John Donne, The Expiration (‘So, so, breake off this last lamenting kisse’)
Copy of the first stanza, headed ‘On two lovers parting’.
First published, in a musical setting, in Alfonso Ferrabosco, Ayres (London, 1609). Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 68. Gardner, Elegies, pp. 36-7. Shawcross, No. 75.
f. 20r
• StW 189: William Strode, In commendation of Musique (‘When whispering straines do softly steale’)
Copy, headed ‘His Mistris playing on a lute’ and here beginning ‘When whispering streines with creeping wind’.
First published in Parnassus Biceps (London, 1656). Dobell, pp. 2-3. Four Poems by William Strode (Flansham, Bognor Regis, 1934), pp. 1-2. Forey, pp. 196-7. The poem also discussed in C.F. Main, ‘Notes on some Poems attributed to William Strode’, PQ, 34 (1955), 444-8 (p. 445).
f. 20v
• CwT 432: Thomas Carew, Loves Courtship (‘Kisse lovely Celia and be kind’)
Copy, headed ‘He perswades his coy Mrs to yeild him’.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, pp. 107-8.
ff. 22r-3r
• HeR 327.7: Robert Herrick, ‘Hide not thy love and mine shall be’
Copy, headed ‘Upon a harmlesse payre of unskilfull lovers’.
First published in Aurelian Townshend's poems and Masks, ed. E. K. Chambers (Oxford, 1912), pp. 28-32. The Poems and Masques of Aurelian Townshend, ed. Cedric R. Brown (Reading, 1983), pp. 34-41 (Version One, First Part, pp. 35-7; Second Part pp. 35-7; Version Two, pp. 38-41). Ascribed to Herrick in several MSS.
f. 23v
• PeW 262: William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, A Paradox in praise of a painted Woman (‘Not kiss? by Love I must, and make impression’)
Copy of the short version, headed ‘On his Mrs Coynesse in the act of love’ and here beginning ‘Nay pish, nay leave, nay faith, but will you, fie’.
Poems (1660), pp. 93-5, superscribed ‘P.’. First published in Parnassus Biceps (London, 1656), p. 97. Listed in Krueger's Appendix I: ‘Spurious Poems in the 1660 Edition’ as possibly by William Baker. The Poems of John Donne, ed Herbert J.C. Grierson, 2 vols (Oxford, 1912), I, 456-9, as ‘A Paradox of a Painted Face’, among ‘Poems attributed to Donne in MSS’. Also ascribed to James Shirley.
A shorter version, beginning ‘Nay pish, nay pew, nay faith, and will you, fie’, was first published, as ‘A Maids Denyall’, in Richard Chamberlain, The Harmony of the Muses (London, 1654) [apparently unique exemplum in the Huntington, edited in facsimile by Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Aldershot, 1990), pp. 49-50].
f. 24v
• KiH 458: Henry King, My Midd-night Meditation (‘Ill busy'd Man! why should'st thou take such care’)
Copy, headed ‘Upon mans life’.
First published, as ‘Man's Miserie, by Dr. K’, in Richard Chamberlain, The Harmony of the Muses (London, 1654) [apparently unique exemplum in the Huntington, edited in facsimile by Ernest W. Sullivan (Aldershot, 1990), pp. 5-6]. Poems (1657). Crum, pp. 157-8.
f. 25v
• DaJ 53: Sir John Davies, A Lover out of Fashion (‘Faith (wench) I cannot court thy sprightly eyes’)
Copy, headed ‘The Country gentleman to his courtly Mistris’ and here beginning ‘Faire sweat, I cannot court thy sprightly eyes’.
First published in Epigrammes and Elegies (‘Middleborugh’ [i.e. London?] [1595-6?]). Krueger, p. 180.
ff. 25v-6r
• B&F 68: Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Love's Cure, III, ii, 118-225. Song (‘Turn, turn thy beauteous face away’)
Copy, headed ‘On his Mrs Eyes’.
First published in Comedies and Tragedies (London, 1647). Dyce, IX, 105-95 (p. 149). Bowers, III, 12-93, ed. George Walton Williams (p. 48). This setting first published in John Wilson, Cheerfull Ayres (Oxford, 1659).
f. 26r-v
• CwT 1108: Thomas Carew, To my Rivall (‘Hence vaine intruder, hast away’)
Copy, headed ‘How to court his Mrs’.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, p. 41.
ff. 26v-7r
• HeR 300: Robert Herrick, Advice to a Maid (‘Love in thy youth fayre Mayde bee wise’)
Copy, headed ‘To his yonger Mrs’.
This MS collated in part in T.G.S. Cain, ‘The Bell/White MS: Some Unpublished Poems’, ELR, 2 (1972), 260-70 (p. 265).
First published, in a musical setting, in Walter Porter, Madrigales and Airs (London, 1632). Martin, p. 443 (in his section ‘Not attributed to Herrick hitherto’). Not included in Patrick.
ff. 27r-8r
• DrM 28: Michael Drayton, The Cryer (‘Good Folke, for Gold or Hyre’)
Copy, headed ‘On a heart’.
First published, among Odes with Other Lyrick Poesies, in Poems (London, 1619). Hebel, II, 371.
ff. 27v-8r
• GrJ 66: John Grange, ‘Not that I wish my Mistris’
Copy.
First published in Wits Recreations Augmented (London, 1641), sig. V7v. John Playford, Select Ayres and Dialogues (1652), Part II, p. 28. Poems (1660), pp. 79-81, unattributed. Prince d'Amour (1660), p. 123, ascribed to ‘J.G.’. Listed in Krueger's Appendix I: ‘Spurious Poems in the 1660 Edition’ as by John Grange.
f. 29r-v
• CwT 666: Thomas Carew, The second Rapture (‘No worldling, no, tis not thy gold’)
Copy, headed ‘True happiness’.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, pp. 103-4.
ff. 29v-30r
• PeW 83: William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, Of Friendship (‘Friendship on Earth we may as easily find’)
Copy, headed ‘All loves Lost’.
Poems (1660), p. 48, but without attribution. Krueger, pp. 41-2, among ‘Pembroke's Poems’.
f. 30v
• RnT 489: Thomas Randolph, On Feild and Day standing for the Procteourshippe (‘Fortune contended whether she should yeeld’)
Copy, ascribed to ‘Mr Randell’.
First published in A Crew of Kind London Gossips (London, 1663).
ff. 30v-1v
• HeR 124: Robert Herrick, The fare-well to Sack (‘Farewell thou Thing, time-past so knowne, so deare’)
Copy.
First published in Recreations for Ingenious Head-peeces (London, 1645). Hesperides (London, 1648). Martin, pp. 45-6. Patrick, pp. 62-3.
ff. 31v-3
• HeR 281: Robert Herrick, The Welcome to Sack (‘So soft streams meet, so springs with gladder smiles’)
Copy, headed ‘His Return and Welcome to Sacke’.
First published in Hesperides (London, 1648). Martin, pp. 77-9. Patrick, pp. 110-12.
f. 33r
• DaW 25: Sir William Davenant, For the Lady, Olivia Porter. A present, upon a New-yeares day (‘Goe! hunt the whiter Ermine! and present’)
Copy, headed ‘William Davenants verses upon Mr Endymion Porters Wife for wch and other by-respects Mr Porter gave him a hundred pound. 1631’.
First published in Madagascar (London, 1638). Gibbs, p. 43.
f. 33r-v
• DaW 58: Sir William Davenant, To a Gentleman at his uprising (‘Soe phoebus rose, as if he had last night’)
Copy of lines 1-4, headed ‘To Mr Porter’.
First published in Herbert Berry, ‘Three New Poems by Davenant’, PQ, 31 (1952), 70-4. Gibbs, pp. 317-21.
f. 34r
• PeW 299: William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, A stragling Lover reclaim'd (‘Till now I never did believe’)
Copy.
First published, in a musical setting, in Henry Lawes, Ayres and Dialogues (1653), Part I, p. 16. John Cotgrave, Wits Interpreter (London, 1655), p. 45. Poems (1660), pp. 90-1, superscribed ‘P.’ Listed in Krueger's Appendix I: ‘Spurious Poems in the 1660 Edition’ as probably by Sir Thomas Neville.
ff. 34v-5r
• GrJ 5.5: John Grange, ‘A Lover once I did espy’
Copy.
First published, in a musical setting, in Playford, Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues (1652), I, 12. Poems (1660), pp. 86-7, beginning ‘A Restless Lover I espy'd’, superscribed ‘P.’. Listed in Krueger's Appendix I: ‘Spurious Poems in the 1660 Edition’, and in Krueger's Appendix II list of poems by John Grange.
f. 35r-v
• GrJ 37.7: John Grange, ‘Blind beauty! If it be a loss’
Copy.
First published in Poems (1660), pp. 67-9, headed ‘Sonnet. P.’. Listed in Krueger's Appendix I: ‘Spurious Poems in the 1660 Edition’ as probably by John Grange.
ff. 37v-8r
• PoW 71: Walton Poole, ‘If shadows be a picture's excellence’
Copy, headed ‘Upon a vertuous beautifull gentlewoman on the defence of black hayr and eyes’.
First published, as ‘In praise of black Women; by T.R.’, in Robert Chamberlain, The Harmony of the Muses (London, 1654), p. 15 [unique exemplum in Huntington, edited in facsimile by Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Aldershot, 1990)]; in Abraham Wright, Parnassus Biceps (London, 1656), pp. 75-7, as ‘On a black Gentlewoman’. Poems (1660), pp. 61-2, as ‘On black Hair and Eyes’ and superscribed ‘R’; in The Poems of John Donne, ed Herbert J.C. Grierson, 2 vols (Oxford, 1912), I, 460-1, as ‘on Black Hayre and Eyes’, among ‘Poems attributed to Donne in MSS’; and in The Poems of William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke, ed. Robert Krueger (B.Litt. thesis, Oxford, 1961: Bodleian, MS B. Litt. d. 871), p. 61.
f. 38r
• RaW 476: Sir Walter Ralegh, ‘Say not you love, unless you do’
Copy, headed ‘Doctor Dunns Answer to a ladie’.
First published in Inedited Poetical Miscellanies, 1584-1700, ed. W.C. Hazlitt ([London], 1870), p. [179]. Listed but not printed in Latham, p. 174. Rudick, No. 38, p. 106.
f. 40r
• HoJ 111: John Hoskyns, A Dreame (‘Me thought I walked in a dreame’)
Copy of the abbreviated version, headed ‘A gentlewoman for her husband in ye Tower to King James’ and here beginning ‘The most is told, the best is hid’.
Osborn, No. XXXIV (pp. 206-8). Whitlock, pp. 480-2.
A shortened version of the poem, of lines 43-68, beginning ‘the worst is tolld, the best is hidd’ and ending ‘he errd but once, once king forgiue’, was widely circulated.
f. 40r
• RnT 10: Thomas Randolph, Ad Amicam (‘Sweet, doe not thy beauty wrong’)
Copy, headed ‘An exhortation to marrie’ and here beginning ‘Dear do not thy fayr beauty wrong’.
First published, in a version beginning ‘Deare, doe not your fair beauty wrong’, in Thomas May, The Old Couple (London, 1658), p. 25. Attributed to Randolph in Parry (1917), p. 224. Thorn-Drury, p. 168.
f. 40v
• StW 821: William Strode, Song (‘I saw faire Cloris walke alone’)
Copy, headed ‘Upon a fair Gentlewoman walking in the feilds to meet her lover. The heavens snowing upon her. His verses upon her’.
First published in Walter Porter, Madrigales and Ayres (London, 1632). Dobell, p. 41. Forey, pp. 76-7. The poem also discussed in C.F. Main, ‘Notes on some Poems attributed to William Strode’, PQ, 34 (1955), 444-8 (pp. 445-6), and see Mary Hobbs, ‘Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellanies and Their Value for Textual Editors’, EMS, 1 (1989), 182-210 (pp. 199, 209).
ff. 40v-1r
• HrJ 202: Sir John Harington, Of a pregnant pure sister (‘I learned a tale more fitt to be forgotten’)
Copy of a ten-line version, headed ‘Upon a Puritan mayde’ and here beginning ‘A puritan mayde by one of her society’.
First published (13-line version) in The Epigrams of Sir John Harington, ed. N.E. McClure (Philadelphia, 1926), but see HrJ 197. McClure (1930), No. 413, p. 315. Kilroy, Book IV, No. 80, p. 239.
f. 41r
• BrW 218: William Browne of Tavistock, On the Countess Dowager of Pembroke (‘Underneath this sable herse’)
Copy, headed ‘A Epitaph Vpon the Countesse of Pembrock’, here beginning ‘Intomb'd within this sable hearse’.
First published in William Camden, Remaines (London, 1623), p. 340. Brydges (1815), p. 5. Goodwin, II, 294. Browne's authorship supported in C.F. Main, ‘Two Items in the Jonson Apocrypha’, N&Q, 199 (June 1954), 243-5.
f. 41r
• HoJ 18: John Hoskyns, ‘A zealous Lock-Smith dy'd of late’
Copy of a version headed ‘Upon a lock-smith’ and beginning ‘There was a lock-smith died of late’.
Whitlock, p. 108.
f. 42v
• HrJ 88: Sir John Harington, In Romam (‘Hate, and debate, Rome through the world hath spread’)
Copy, headed ‘Of Rome’.
First published in 1618, Book IV, No. 92. McClure No. 346, p. 286. Authorship uncertain.
f. 42v
• JnB 440: Ben Jonson, Song. That Women are bvt Mens shaddowes (‘Follow a shaddow, it still flies you’)
Copy, headed ‘A Woman’.
First published in The Forrest (vii) in Workes (London, 1616). Herford & Simpson, VIII, 104.
ff. 42v-3r
• CwT 692: Thomas Carew, Secresie protested (‘Feare not (deare Love) that I'le reveale’)
Copy.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, p. 11. Musical setting by Henry Lawes published in The Second Book of Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1655).
See also Introduction.
ff. 43r-4r
• ClJ 139: John Cleveland, Upon an Hermophrodite (‘Sir, or Madame, chuse you whether’)
Copy.
First published in Character (1647). Morris & Withington, pp. 10-11.
f. 44r-v
• CwT 1252: Thomas Carew, A Louers passion (‘Is shee not wondrous fayre? but oh I see’)
Copy.
First published, as ‘The Rapture, by J.D.’, in Robert Chamberlain, The Harmony of the Muses (London, 1654), pp. 3-4 [unique exemplum in the Huntington edited in facsimile by Ernest W. Sullivan (Aldershot, 1990)]. Cupids Master-Piece (London, [?1656]). Dunlap, p. 192.
f. 44v
• HrJ 117: Sir John Harington, Of a Lady that giues the cheek (‘Is't for a grace, or is't for some disleeke’)
Copy, headed ‘A woman giving her cheek to be Kissed’.
First published in 1615. 1618, Book III, No. 3. McClure No. 201, p. 230. Kilroy, Book IV, No. 84, p. 201.
f. 45r
• RnT 366: Thomas Randolph, Upon his Picture (‘When age hath made me what I am not now’)
Copy, headed ‘Mr Randolf vpon his picture’.
First published in Poems (1638). Thorn-Drury, p. 79.
f. 45r-v
• HrJ 154: Sir John Harington, Of a Lady that left open her Cabbinett (‘A vertuose Lady sitting in a muse’)
Copy, headed ‘Upon a Vertuous Lady’.
First published in ‘Epigrammes’ appended to J[ohn] C[lapham], Alcilia, Philoparthens Louing Folly (London, 1613). McClure No. 404, p. 312. Kilroy, Book IV, No. 57, p. 231.
ff. 45v-7r
• RnT 39: Thomas Randolph, The Character of a perfect Woman (‘Apelles curious eye must gaze upon’)
Copy.
First published in Parry (1917), pp. 220-3. Thorn-Drury, pp. 165-7.
f. 47r-v
• CwT 734: Thomas Carew, A Song (‘Aske me no more whether doth stray’)
Copy, headed ‘To his Mrs’.
First published in a five-stanza version beginning ‘Aske me no more where Iove bestowes’ in Poems (1640) and in Poems: by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent. (London, 1640), and edited in this version in Dunlap, pp. 102-3. Musical setting by John Wilson published in Cheerful Ayres or Ballads (Oxford, 1659). All MS versions recorded in CELM, except where otherwise stated, begin with the second stanza of the published version (viz. ‘Aske me no more whether doth stray’).
For a plausible argument that this poem was actually written by William Strode, see Margaret Forey, ‘Manuscript Evidence and the Author of “Aske me no more”: William Strode, not Thomas Carew’, EMS, 12 (2005), 180-200. See also Scott Nixon, ‘“Aske me no more” and the Manuscript Verse Miscellany’, ELR, 29/1 (Winter 1999), 97-130, which edits and discusses MSS of this poem and also suggests that it may have been written by Strode.
f. 48r-9r
• RnT 468: Thomas Randolph, The Combat of the Cocks (‘Go, you tame gallants, you that have the name’)
Copy, headed ‘A terible true tragicall, troublesome relation of a duell fought at Wisbich. June the 17. i637.’
(Sometimes called A terible true Tragicall relacon of a duell fought at Wisbich June the 17th: 1637.) Published, and attributed to Randolph, in Hazlitt, I, xviii. II, 667-70. By Robert Wild.
ff. 49v-50v
• ClJ 143: John Cleveland, Upon Phillis walking in a morning before Sun-rising (‘The sluggish morne, as yet undrest’)
Copy, headed ‘On a gentlewoman walking betymes in ye morning’.
First published in Character (1647). Morris & Withington, pp. 14-15.
ff. 51v-2r
• CwT 254: Thomas Carew, A flye that flew into my Mistris her eye (‘When this Flye liv'd, she us'd to play’)
Copy, headed ‘Upon a Fly’.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, pp. 37-9. Musical setting by Henry Lawes published in The Treasury of Musick, Book 2 (London, 1669).
f. 52v
• CwT 1048: Thomas Carew, To her in absence. A Ship (‘Tost in a troubled sea of griefes, I floate’)
Copy, headed ‘To his Mrs in absence’.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, p. 23.
ff. 52v-3r
• CwT 214: Thomas Carew, An Excuse of absence (‘You'le aske perhaps wherefore I stay’)
Copy.
First published in Hazlitt (1870), p. 28. Dunlap. p. 131.
f. 53r
• ClJ 47: John Cleveland, A Faire Nimph scorning a Black Boy Courting her (‘Stand off, and let me take the aire’)
Copy, headed ‘The fair wench scorning ye black boy that courts her’.
First published in Character (1647). Morris & Withington, pp. 22-3.
f. 53v
• KiH 81: Henry King, The Boy's answere to the Blackmore (‘Black Mayd, complayne not that I fly’)
Copy, headed ‘Boys answere’.
First published in The Academy of Complements (London, 1646). Poems (1657). Crum, p. 151. The text almost invariably preceded, in both printed and MS versions, by (variously headed) ‘A Blackmore Mayd wooing a faire Boy: sent to the Author by Mr. Hen. Rainolds’ (‘Stay, lovely Boy, why fly'st thou mee’). Musical settings by John Wilson in Henry Lawes, Select Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1669).
ff. 54v-5r
• DnJ 1512: John Donne, His parting from her (‘Since she must go, and I must mourn, come Night’)
Copy of a 42-line version, headed ‘Upon the departure of his Mrs’ and here beginning ‘Since thou art gone, & I must mourn, come night’.
First published, in a 42-line version as ‘Elegie XIIII’, in Poems (London, 1635). Published complete (104 lines) in Poems (London, 1669). Grierson, I, 100-4 (as ‘Elegie XII’). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 96-100 (among her ‘Dubia’). Shawcross, No. 21. Variorum, 2 (2000), pp. 332-4 (with versions printed in 1635 and 1669 on pp. 335-6 and 336-8 respectively).
ff. 55v-6r
• CwT 469: Thomas Carew, My mistris commanding me to returne her letters (‘So grieves th'adventrous Merchant, when he throwes’)
Copy, headed ‘To a Gentlewoman Commanding her Letters againe’.
First published in Poems (1640). Dunlap, pp. 9-11.
f. 56r
• SuJ 107: John Suckling, The guiltless Inconstant (‘My first Love whom all beauty did adorn’)
Copy, headed ‘To a scornfull Mistresse’.
First published in Thomas Carew, Poems (London, 1640). Last Remains (London, 1659). Clayton, pp. 90-1.
Probably written by Walton Poole.
ff. 56v-7r
• HeR 320: Robert Herrick, Herracke on a Kisse to his Mrs (‘Why what are lips but earth burnt read’)
Copy.
Edited from this MS, with a facsimile of f. 56v, in Cain.
First published, and attributed to Herrick, in T.G.S. Cain, ‘The Bell/White MS: Some Unpublished Poems’, ELR, 2 (1972), 260-70 (pp. 261-3).
ff. 57r-8r
• ClJ 157: John Cleveland, A young Man to an old Woman Courting him (‘Peace Beldam Eve: surcease thy suit’)
Copy, headed ‘A yong man to an old woman courting him’.
First published in Character (1647). Morris & Withington, pp. 18-20.
ff. 58r-60r
• ClJ 132: John Cleveland, Upon a Miser that made a great Feast, and the next day dyed for griefe (‘Nor 'scapes he so: our dinner was so good’)
Copy.
First published in Character (1647). Morris & Withington, pp. 15-18.
f. 60v
• LoT 1: Thomas Lodge, ‘First shall the heauens want starrie light’
Copy, headed ‘A Sonet of Constant assurance to his Mrs’.
First published in Rosalynde. Euphues golden legacie (London, 1590). Gosse, I (Rosalynde, p. 38).
MS Bell/White 42
A music book for the lyra-viol. c.1690s.
Later owned by John Leyden (1775-1811).
Discussed in Christopher Hunt, ‘Scottish ballads and music in the Robert White Collection in the University Library, Newcastle upon Tyne’, The Bibliotheck, 5 (1968), 138-41. A transcript of the MS made in 1844 by George Farquhar Graham is in the National Library of Scotland, Adv. MS. 5. 2. 19.
f. [60r]
• HeR 247: Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to make much of Time (‘Gather ye Rose-budd while ye may’)
Copy of the incipit, in a musical setting.
First published in The Academy of Complements (London, 1646). Hesperides (London, 1648). Martin, p. 84. Patrick, pp. 117-18. Musical setting by William Lawes published in John Playford, Select Musicall Ayres, and Dialogues (London, 1652).