Add MS 73540

MISCELLANY OF RESTORATION POEMS AND VERSE-SATIRES; circa 1655-1679. Copies. The collection consists of forty-one satirical and lyric poems dating mostly from the 1670s, of which some twenty-six are of established authorship. The great majority are by or attributed to Andrew Marvell (d. 1678) and John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (d. 1680), being printed posthumously. The earliest datable piece is Edmund Waller's panegyric on Cromwell (ff. 43v-48), of 1655, and the latest 'The Character' (ff. 33-35v), beg. 'The Lords and Commons having had their doom', apparently of July 1679. The manuscript opens with 'The Last Instructions to a Painter' (ff. 1-26), dated from London, 4 Sept. 1667 and subscribed 'per Andrew Marvel', that was first printed in 1689. This is followed immediately by 'The Loyal Scot' (ff. 26v-32v) and later by 'The Chequer Inn' (ff. 50-54v) and 'The Statue in Stocks Market' (ff.57-58v). The last section of the manuscript (ff. 58v-89) is largely devoted to work from the Rochester canon, including 'Signior Dildo' (ff.58v-60), 'Upon Nothing' (ff.68v-69v), 'The Disabled Debauchee' (ff. 71-72), here entitled 'The Maymed Drunkard', 'A Letter from Artemiza in Towne to Chloe in the Country' (ff. 80v-86v) and a group of eight lyrics mostly attributed at the head to 'ER' (ff. 73v-79). The final passage of his 'An Epistolary Essay from M.G. to O.B. upon Their Mutual Poems', ll.89-100, occurs here under the heading 'Upon Common Fame' (f. 62). Also included are the verses 'On the Supposed Author of A Late Poem in Defence of Satyr', here headed 'My Lord Rochester on Sir C[arr] S[crope]', followed by 'His Answer' (ff. 79-80), and 'A Supplement to my Lord Rochesters Satyre against Man' (ff. 88-89), composed before March 1676 and here described as 'not Printed'. All these pieces were collected in Poems on Several Occasions By the Right Honourable, the E. of R---, 1680, along with some verses (ff. 78v, 79) composed by Rochester's future wife in reply to the complaint (ff. 78, 78v) that precedes them. Two further satires (ff. 48v, 49; 64-68v) were conjecturally attributed to him by Johannes Prinz, John Wilmot . . . his life and writings, Leipzig, 1927. The remaining poems of known authorship are 'Colon' (ff. 39-43) by Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and two lyrics (ff. 70, 70v) printed among the poems of Sedley (1671) and Etherege (1669). Purchased at Messrs. Christie's, 26 Nov. 1997, lot 75.

Paper: ff. ii+89. 142 x 92mm. 19th-century binding of red morocco, with gilt-tooled dentelles and gilt fore-edges. Spine of five raised bands with gilt legend 'manuscript poetry 17 century'. Red silk bookmark. Contemporary ink pagination from 1 to [172] accidentally reverts after p. 149 to p. 145 (ff. 75, 75v). Text transcribed in a single hand, with revisions, underlinings and some attributions in other inks and a few corrections in another hand. Near-contemporary note 'This Book is written by Brown' pencilled at foot of brief title-index at end (f. 89v). Owned, before 1852, by Edward Vernon Utterson, F.S.A., whose booklabel (f. i) is pasted inside front cover and Sotheby's sale-cat. 19 April 1852, lot 1318, and, after 1911, by Robert, Marquess of Crewe, whose armorial bookplate (f. ii) survives on the front flyleaf.