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William Scott, M. P.: ''The Modell of Poesye'', an essay in criticism, and a partial translation into English verse of Du Bartas''s La Sepmaine; circa 1598-1600. Imperfect. Fair copies in a scribal italic with occasional corrections, partly autograph, the prefaces signed ''Will: Scott''. The author (b.circa 1579, d.circa but after 1611), cadet of a Kentish family seated at Scott''s Hall, was the second son of Charles Scott (d. 1596) of Godmersham. Details of his education are unknown, but after a spell in the Ordnance he entered Parliament as junior member for New Woodstock in 1601, and is last heard of ten years later (The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P. W. Hasler, 1981, III, 358-9). Through his mother he was a great-grandson of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt and a relative of the courtier Sir Henry Lee, whose will he witnessed in 1609 and whose death he commemorated in a prose epitaph (see E. K. Chambers, Sir Henry Lee, Oxford, 1936, pp.304-5). The present, unpublished, works may have been composed or revised at the Inner Temple, to which Scott was admitted in May 1595. The ''Modell'' is dedicated to Lee and the Du Bartas to ''my very good Uncle'' George Wyatt of Boxley. They were formerly preserved (cf. Additional MS 41499) at Ditchley Park, seat of Lee''s collateral descendants, the Viscounts Dillon (Chambers, op. cit., pp. 268-269). Purchased through Messrs. Maggs, 2 March 2005. As follows:

1. ff. 1-50. ''The Modell of Poesye Or The Arte of Poesye drawen into a short or Summary Discourse''; circa 1598-1600. Imperfect through loss of one or more gatherings between ff. 6 and 7 and some mutilation of leaves. The title, partially obscured by mutilation of the preliminary leaf (f. 1) but supplied from the first page of the text (f. 3), is followed by an epigraph from the prologue to Terence''s Eunuchus and a punning motto in Greek, ''Εκ του Σκοτου ο σπινθηρ'' ''spark from darkness''. Internal references establish at least the lower limit for composition. Josuah Sylvester''s ''very well-labour''d & commendable translation of the seconde weeke of Bartas'' (f. 42v) was entered in the Stationers'' Register on 21 April 1598. The description of the Earl of Essex as ''that famous Generall of the Armye of the most famous Prince, of whome one sayes he is the true Image of the Achillean vertues'' (f. 31) alludes to the dedication of Chapman''s Seaven Bookes of the Iliades of Homer, entered on 10 April 1598, and may predate Essex''s fall in 1600/1. Scott''s treatise, described as the ''first fruits of my study'', belongs to the final decade of the sixteenth century. It represents a significant contribution to literary and prosodic theory at an important period in the development of English poetry and criticism. While taking account of the work of his continental predecessors Scaliger (1561) and Viperano (1579), and acknowledging Puttenham''s Art of English Poetry (1589), Scott pays particular attention to the Defence of Poesy (composed circa 1580; printed 1595) of Sir Philip Sidney, from whose Astrophel (1591) and Arcadia (edn. of 1593) he quotes. Discussion includes the Muiopotmos (1590) and Fairy Queen (1598) of ''mr Spenser'' and Rosamund (1592) and The first four books of the civil wars (1595) by ''our mr Daniel''. Though Shakespeare is nowhere named, the Rape of Lucrece (1594) and Richard II (1597) are cited and praised: see Stanley Wells, Times Literary Supplement, 26 Sept. 2003, pp. 14-15. Scott''s acquaintance with recent European literature extends beyond Tasso and Guarini to French drama, with Pierre Matthieu''s historical tragedy Vasthi (1589), from which he translates a passage. Parallels drawn from the visual arts bring in Lomazzo''s Trattato dell''arte de la Pittura (1584), quoted in the original Italian rather than the English translation by Richard Haydocke (1598).

Paper: ff. 50. 310 x 207mm. Thirteen gatherings: 1², 2-13⁴. Paper of mixed stock, part watermarked with a lion and, in the answering half-sheet, a crossbow. Pages ruled in pencil with two vertical margins for the text, which is copied in a calligraphic italic hand, with occasional corrections and revisions, several apparently autograph, and Greek phrases inserted in spaces left for the purpose. Catchwords, some added later in varying scripts, occur on all but the first page of the text (f. 3). Misalignment between ff. 6 and 7 of a wormhole that runs at the head of the leaves between f. 1 and 32 indicates the loss of one or more gatherings. Uniformity of sewing-holes shows that the ''Modell'' and the Du Bartas were at one time bound together, specimens of the original cotton thread being now preserved with the manuscript. Notes pencilled on the title-page in a modern hand mention Scott''s epitaph for Lee and his quotation from the Rape of Lucrece.

2. ff. 51-76. Translation into English hexameters of the First and part of the Second Day of La Sepmaine ou Crėation du monde by the Huguenot poet Guillaume de Saluste, seigneur du Bartas; circa 1598-1600. Fair copy, with corrections and revisions, both autograph and scribal. Imperfect through loss of leaves at the end and mutilation of the two last surviving gatherings (ff. 69-76). In the dedication to Wyatt (ff. 51, 51v) Scott writes of the work as belonging to ''my very yonge yeares'', in revising which ''I easely acknowledge my selfe faulty of much hast; (as onely hauinge one vacation to spend about it, and my discourse of the Arte of Poesy, as your selfe can best wittnesse)…''. ''The First daye of the first Weeke of William Sallust Lorde du bartas'' (ff. 53-64v) is complete and consists of 800 verses, beginning ''Thou y^t guidst y^e course of y^e flame-bearinge spheares''. All that survives of ''The Seconde daye'' (ff.66-75v) is 660 lines beginning ''Let best accomplisht witts in flattringe rymes declare'' and ending ''(Impatient of such durance) goes, turnes, runnes, all ore / His unacquainted'', which corresponds to ll.656/7 of the original (''Remplit son parc estroit; va, vient, suit, & resuit / La nouvelle''). The source of his translation was an edition later than the first (Paris: Gadoulleau, 1578).

Paper: ff. 26. 310 x 207mm. Seven gatherings: 1², 2-7⁴. Watermark a cockatrice with fleur-de-lys and house (similar in type to Heawood nos. 842, 845-6). Text copied in a bolder, more upright italic than that employed by the same scribe for the ''Modell'', with catchwords on all versos except at the end of the First Week (f. 64v). Double-ruled margins on the right of ff. 53-61 accommodate marginal notes marking the progress of the argument. Internal damage from damp repaired at the British Library.