Massachusetts Historical Society

Ms. N-1325

A folio volume of proceedings in Parliament in 1628, in a professional secretary hand, 283 leaves, in blind-stamped calf. c.1630.

A flyleaf inscribed ‘Thomas Wallcut bought at the sale of the Library of the late D Byles Novemr 1790’ and also ‘Thomas Wallcutt April 9. 1791’: i.e. once owned by Mather Byles (1706-88), Boston loyalist clergyman, and bought in 1790 by Thomas Wallcut (1758-1840), Boston antiquary.

Recorded in Yale 1628, I, 5 (as ‘MS. 3’).

ff. 13v-14r

RuB 23: Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Speech in the House of Commons, c.20-22 March 1627/8

Copy, headed in the margin Sr Beniamin Rudyer, here beginning ‘This is the crisis of Pliamtes we shall knoue by this If pliamtes liue or die...’.

Speech. Yale 1628, II, 58-60, two parallel versions: (1) beginning ‘This is the crisis of parliaments...’; (2) beginning ‘It is the goodness of God and the favour of the King...’; II, 68, third version, beginning ‘If we be thankful, all is well. By this we shall know whether parliaments will live or die...’; II, 73, fourth, brief reported version, beginning ‘We are not now upon the bene esse of our kingdom but the esse...’.

f. 55r-v

RuB 49: Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Speech in the House of Commons, c.2-9 April 1628

Copy, headed in the margin ‘Sr Beniamin Rudyer’ and here beginning ‘The best thankes we canne Render to his Matie is to mak towards such a way as may secure his Matie and our selues...’.

Speech beginning ‘The best thanks we can return his Matie for his gracious and religious answer...’.

ff. 68v-9r

RuB 55: Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Speech in the House of Commons, ?4 April 1628

Copy, headed in the margin (slightly cropped) ‘S[r] Beniamin Rudyer’.

Speech beginning ‘We have received many gracious messages from His Majesty. It is now high time to give thanks...’. Yale 1628, II, 297 and 317; variant versions II, 303, 309, 313-14.

ff. 133r-4r

RuB 73: Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Speech in the House of Commons, 28 April 1628

Copy, headed in the margin ‘Sr Ben: Rudye[cropped]’.

Speech beginning ‘We are here upon a great business...’. Yale 1628, III, 127-9 and 133-4. Variants: III, 138-9, 141, 143, and 161. Variant version in Manning, pp. 126-8.

f. 219r-v

RuB 105: Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Speech in the House of Commons, 6 June 1628

A brief summary, headed ‘Sr Ben: Rudyer’.

An eight-line speech beginning ‘This day is appointed for the consideration of his Majesty's answer to our petition...’.

Ms S-173

An octavo verse miscellany, in a single neat cursive hand, 18 leaves, in paper wrappers. Mid-18th century.

f. [14v]

DrJ 393: John Dryden, Extracts

Extract, ten lines beginning ‘the first physicians by debauch were made’, subscribed ‘Dryden’.

Ms. S-368

Copy, headed ‘Absalom & Achitophel, a Poem by Mr Dryden’, with marginal glosses in another hand, on 37 quarto pages, followed by seven pages of speeches by Lord Cowper after the 1715 rebellion in a later hand, in stiff paper wrappers. Late 17th-18th century.

DrJ 2: John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (‘In pious times, e'r Priest-craft did begin’)

A flyleaf inscribed ‘Saml: Curwen Esqr. to W: Pynchon June 7. 1785 -- upon Mr. Curwens departure for -- London’: i.e. by Samuel Curwen (1715-1802), of Salem, Massachusetts.

Formerly ‘Dryden’.

This MS discussed in Arthur J. Weitzman, ‘An Overlooked Manuscript of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel’, PBSA, 72 (1978), 338-44.

First published in London, 1681. Kinsley, I, 215-43. California, II, 2-36. Hammond, I, 450-532.

Ms SBd-69

A duodecimo pocket commonplace book of chiefly religious verse and prose, in English and Latin, in a single minute hand, 238 pages, in contemporary calf with traces of metal clasps. Inscribed on the first page ‘Thomas Weld his Book. An. dom. 1669’: i.e. owned and compiled, perhaps partly while at Harvard University, by the Rev. Thomas Weld (1653-1702), first minister of the First Church of Dunstable, Massachusetts. c.1669-95.

Later inscription (p. 45) ‘Stephen Pearse's Book July 30th 1794’.

p. 163

StW 332.5: William Strode, On a Butcher marrying a Tanners daughter (‘A fitter Match hath never bin’)

Copy, headed ‘A Butcher marrying a tanners daughter’ and here beginning ‘A fitter match then ys could —r have been’.

First published in William Camden, Remaines (London, 1636). Dobell, p. 119. Forey, p. 18.

pp. 166-8

GrJ 60: John Grange, ‘Not that I wish my Mistris’

Copy, headed ‘Choice of a Mistriss’.

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.

pp. 169-70

RaW 431.5: Sir Walter Ralegh, ‘Like to a Ring without a finger’

Copy of a sixteen-line version, headed ‘Canto’.

First published in Latham (1951), pp. 165-7, as ‘A poem doubtfully ascribed to Ralegh’. Since, in fact, it is a parody of a poem by Francis Quarles printed in 1629 it cannot be by Ralegh.

Misc. Bd. 1670? [i]

Copy, in a probably professional hand, headed ‘New instruccons for a Painter’, on three folio pages. Late 17th century.

MaA 411: Andrew Marvell, The Fourth Advice to a Painter (‘Draw England ruin'd by what was giv'n before’)

First published in Directions to a Painter…Of Sir Iohn Denham ([London], 1667). POAS, I, 140-6, as anonymous. Recorded in Osborne, pp. 33-5, as anonymous. Regarded as anonymous in Margoliouth, I, 348-50.

Misc. d. 1670? [ii]

Copy of lines 1-58, in a probably professional hand, untitled, subscribed ‘Ne plus ultra’, on two folio pages. Late 17th century.

MaA 488: Andrew Marvell, Further Advice to a Painter (‘Painter once more thy Pencell reassume’)

First published in Poems on Affairs of State (London, 1697). Margoliouth, I, 176-7. POAS, I, 163-7. Recorded in Osborne, pp. 38-9. Rejected from the canon by Lord and the authorship considered doubtful by Chernaik, pp. 211-12.

Ms. S-747

MS copy of John Cotton's ‘An Abstract of the laws of New England’, made by William Grays. 1767.

[unspecified page numbers]

MnJ 41.5: John Milton, Sonnet XVII. To Sr Henry Vane the younger (‘Vane, young in yeares, but in sage counsell old’)

Copy by William Grays.

First published, and dated 3 July 1652, in G. Sikes, The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane (1662). Edited, ss ‘To Sir Henry Vane’, at the end of Edward Phillips's life of Milton prefixed to Letters of State, written by Mr. John Milton (London, 1694). Columbia, I, 65-6. Darbishire, II, 154. Carey & Fowler, pp. 327-9.

[no shelfmark]

An ‘Abstract’ of ‘Wotton on Education’. 1706.

WoH 295.5: Sir Henry Wotton, Philosophical Survey of Education

First published in Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651), pp. 309-35.