Oscott College, Sutton Coldfield

MS, shelf RZZ 3, case B. II

A quarto miscellany of religious verse and prose, dedicated to Thomas Knyvett, including (pp. 90-3 passim) thirteen sonnets by William Alabaster headed ‘Certaine of Arabasters his meditations. Anno 1597’, compiled by Peter Mowle, of Attleborough, Norfolk, 179 leaves, in contemporary calf stamped ‘P.M.’ c.1592-1606.

Inscribed ‘Peter Mowld Junior oweth this Booke Witnesse Edmond Mould Anno 1605’. Formerly MS E. 3. 11 (Shelf RNN3).

Described in McDonald, pp. 29-33. Discussed in Earle Havens, ‘Notes from a Literary Underground: Recusant Catholics, Jesuit Priests, and Scribal Publication in Elizabethan England’, PBSA, 99 (December 2005), 505-38 (p. 529 et seq.)

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 22: William Alabaster, Upon Christ's Saying to Mary ‘Why Weepest Thou?’ (‘I weep two deaths with one tears to lament’)

Sonnets, p. 11 (No. 21).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 34: William Alabaster, Of the Reed that the Jews Set in Our Saviour's Hand (1) (‘Conceive a Lamb that should a kingdom weigh’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 15 (No. 27).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 35: William Alabaster, Of the Former Argument (2) (‘Long time hath Christ, long time I must confess’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Guiney and in Sonnets.

First published, as ‘On the Reed of Our Lord's Passion’, in Louise Imogen Guiney, Recusant Poets: with a selection from their work, vol. 1 (1938), p. 348. Sonnets, p. 15 (No. 28).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 36: William Alabaster, The Spitting Upon Our Saviour (‘What art, what hand can draw the next disgrace’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 16 (No. 29).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 37: William Alabaster, Upon the Crucifix (1) (‘Before thy Cross, O Christ, I do present’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 16 (No. 30).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 38: William Alabaster, Upon St. Paul to the Corinthians (‘Behold a conduit that from heaven doth run’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 17 (No. 31).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 79: William Alabaster, To His Sad Friend (‘Can my restraint, which worketh me delight’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 28 (No. 50).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 80: William Alabaster, Captivity Great Liberty to the Servants of God (‘Unbalanced irresolution’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 29 (No. 51).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 114: William Alabaster, A Morning Meditation (1) (‘Mine eyes are open, yet perceive I nought’)

Copy.

This MS collated in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 38 (No. 68).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 117: William Alabaster, Of the Motions of the Fiend (‘With heat and cold I feel the spiteful fiend’)

Copy.

This MS collated in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 38 (No. 69).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 120: William Alabaster, A Morning Meditation (2) (‘The sun begins upon my heart to shine’)

Copy.

This MS collated in Sonnets.

First published in Bertram Dobell, ‘The Sonnets of William Alabaster’, Athenaeum, No. 3974 (26 December 1903), pp. 856-8. Sonnets, p. 39 (No. 70).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 123: William Alabaster, The Difference 'twixt Compunction and Cold Devotion in Beholding the Passion of Our Saviour (‘When without tears I look on Christ, I see’)

Copy.

This MS collated in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 39 (No. 71).

pp. 90-3 passim

AlW 131: William Alabaster, An Invective Against Calvin (‘Satan, the emperor of blind-born night’)

Copy.

Edited from this MS in Sonnets.

Sonnets, p. 42 (No. 76).

pp. 100-8

SoR 304: Robert Southwell, S.J., Catholic Saint, An Epistle unto his Father (22 October 1589)

Copy.

This MS collated in Trotman and in Brown, Two Letters.

Epistle, beginning ‘In children of former ages it hath been thought so behooveful a point of duty...’. First published as ‘An Epistle of a Religious Priest unto his Father’ in A Short Rule of Good Life ([London?, 1596-7?]). Trotman, pp. 36-64. Brown, Two Letters, pp. 1-20.

pp. 109-24

SoR 267.91: Robert Southwell, S.J., Catholic Saint, A Foure-fold Meditation: of the foure last things (‘O wretched man, which louest earthlie thinges’)

Copy, headed ‘Sartaine moste holsome & necessarie considerations, or meditations verye meete and convenyent (for all degrees) and att all tymes to be duelye considered of and had in Rememberance To wthdrawe our affections from this vaine & wicked worlde, to ye desire of Heauen and heauenlye thinges...’.

This MS discussed, with a facsimile of p. 110, in Nancy Pollard Brown, ‘Paperchase: The Dissemination of Catholic Texts in Elizabethan England’, EMS, 1 (1989), 120-43 (pp. 125-70.

First published, as ‘By R: S. The author of S. Peters complaint’, in London, 1606. The poem is more commonly ascribed to Philip Howard (1557-95), first Earl of Arundel, Catholic Saint, with whom Southwell was acquainted (see McDonald, pp. 6-7, 121-2). EV17760.

pp. 138-56

SoR 198: Robert Southwell, S.J., Catholic Saint, Saint Peters Complaint (‘Launche foorth my Soul into a maine of teares’)

Copy, complete with ‘The Author to the Reader’.

This MS collated in Brown.

First published London, 1595. Brown, pp. 75-100.

[unspecified shelfmark]

A printed exemplum of St Augustine, De civilitate Dei, ed. J.L. Vives (Basle, 1512 [i.e. 1522]), with MS poems by More. Mid-16th century.

Formerly in the Sacristy Library of the Catholic Church of SS Peter and Paul, Lower Brailes, Warwickshire. Inscribed ‘J. Ball’, ‘Thomas Brudenell est possessor’ [i.e. probably Thomas Brudenell (1578-1663, first Earl of Cardigan] and ‘George Brudenell’ [i.e probably George Brudenell (1685-1732), third Earl of Cardigan].

This volume recorded in Yale, Volume 3, Part II, p. 67.

a rear flyleaf

MrT 13.4: Sir Thomas More, Epigrammata. 278 [addendum]. Aliud eiusdem Distichon eodem conscriptum tempore (‘Qui memor es Mori, longæ tibi tempora vitæ’)

Copy, in an italic hand.

Facsimile in Yale, Volume 3, Part II, after p. 303.

More's epitaph for his own tomb, an addendum to Epigrammata. 278. Yale, Volume III, Part 2, pp. 302-3, with English translation.

a rear flyleaf

MrT 12.9: Sir Thomas More, Epigrammata. 278. Tetrastichon ab ipso conscriptum triennio antequam mortem oppeteret (‘Moraris, si sit spes hic tibi longa morandi’)

Copy, in an italic hand.

Facsimile in Yale, Volume 3, Part II, after p. 303.

More's verses punning on his own name. First published in Doctissima D. Thomæ Mori...Epistola (Louvain, 1568). Yale, Vol. 3, Part II, pp. 302-3, with English translation.

a rear flyleaf

MrT 13.9: Sir Thomas More, Epigrammata. 280 (‘Misisti mihi quae legenda legi’)

Copy, in an italic hand.

Facsimile in Yale, Volume 3, Part II, after p. 303.

Yale, Volume III, pp. 304-5, with English translation.

a rear endleaf

MrT 5.2: Sir Thomas More, Lewes ye Loste Lover (‘Ey flatteringe fortune, looke thow neuer so faire’)

Copy, in a secretary hand.

Facsimile in Yale, Volume 3, Part II, after p. 303.

First published in Workes (London, 1557), p. 1432. Yale, Vol. 1, p. 45.

These verses also appear in most of the manuscripts of William Roper's Life of More: see MrT 87 and the note on them in Yale, Vol. 1, pp. xcvii-cxix.

a rear flyleaf

MrT 1.5: Sir Thomas More, Davy the Diser (‘Longe was I ladye lucke your seruynge man’)

Copy, in a secretary hand.

Facsimile in Yale, Volume 3, Part II, after p. 303.

First published in Workes (London, 1557), p. 1433. Yale, Vol. 1, p. 46.