Egerton MS 2875

"PIETAS JESUITICA," by Phineas Fletcher, preceded by an anonymous theological treatise, viz.:-

1. "Of the Fall and Restitution of Man": a treatise intended (f. 6) by the author (a Roman Catholic) as a summary of his former treatises "about prayer, divine inspirations or call, discretion, confession, behaviour in tyme of sicknesse, of vertues, as temperance, patience, etc.........to the which summarie as to two certaine principall heads, namelye Praire and Mortification, that is the exercise of all vertues, all y^e severall matters of those his wryteings are to be or may be referred or reduced." The present MS. is probably a transcript (in two hands, second beg. f. 71 b) of a printed book (perhaps printed at Louvain), as it has two imprimaturs (f. 151), one of [William] Rudesind Barlow [Professor of Theology at the College of St. Vedast, Douay] in the same hand as the latter half of the text. The original MS. was finished 14 Aug. 1635, and the imprimaturs are dated 4 Feb. 1636. f. 1.

2. "Pietas Jesuitica": autograph MS. of the Latin satirical poem by Phineas Fletcher entitled "Locustae vel Pietas Jesuitica," with dedicatory address to Henry, Prince of Wales. First printed in 1627, aud reprinted in 1908 by F. S. Boas, Poetical Works of Giles and Phineas Fletcher, p. 98. Other autograph copies, with different dedications, are in Sloane MS. 444 and Harley MS. 3196. For a full account of the relationship between these three MSS. and the printed ed. see Boas, op. cit., pp. x. sqq., where he proves that the present MS. comes second in the order of date, viz. between March, 1610[11], and 6 Nov. 1612, when Prince Henry died. The prologue addressed to him was afterwards adapted to his brother Charles (cf. Harl. MS. 3196, f. 4). It is printed, op. cit., p. 280, and a collation of the three MSS. with the printed text is given ib. pp. 279 sqq., with facsimiles at p. 96. The present MS. is designated M. Paper; ff. ii. + 179. Small octavo. A.D. 1611-12. Vellum cover. The latter. pages of art. 1 are somewhat disfigured by damp, and a later hand has retraced some of the words. On f. 152 b, the last flyleaf of art. 1, is the name "Tempest." On f. 179 b, the verso of the last page of art. 2, is the inscription "E libris J. Meriton. Meus est hie liber" [probably John Meriton, sizar of St. John's Coll., Cambridge, 1652, rector of St. Mary Bothaw, London, 1666- 1696]. The whole MS. belonged to Rev. A. B. Grosart, 1872-1899 (cf. Grosart, Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library, iii. p. 509), and at his death came into the hands of Bertram Dobell, the bookseller. From the Famborough Fund.