Add MS 73544

'TANACEI LIBELLUS ELEGIACUS AD JUSTUM': Love-elegies, etc., in Latin; n.d., circa mid-late 17th cent. Copy. Imperfect. The work, which is probably of Italian origin, consists mainly of a sequence of four elegies composed after the manner of Ovid, celebrating the love of 'Tanaceus' for a young man to whom he gives the pseudonym 'Chelintus' (f. 4v). These are preceded by an exchange of poems in which the writer confides his passion to his friend 'Justus', who counsels him to give way to his desire and urges him 'ad canenda Heroica Elegia'. Despite the heading 'Chelintiades Elegiae Qinque' on the preliminary leaf, the manuscript concludes 'Pars Quinta deest', the first four elegies alone being allocated titles in the headnote (f. 5v) to the sequence. Purchased at Christie's, 26 Nov. 1997, as part of lot 84.

Paper: ff. 11+41. 142 x 98mm. 19th-century binding of brown morocco, covers blind-stamped with double panels. Gilt legend, as title above, on spine. Binder's stamp on verso of front flyleaf (f. iiv) of 'white relieur. 24 Pall Mall. 1850'. Red silk bookmarker. Text (ff. 2-37v) transcribed in a single italic hand, omissions at various points being signalled by dots, with occasional corrections made partly in a darker ink or red pencil. Red ink guide-rule at outer edge of rectos, and contemporary ink pagination from 1 to 37 (with omission in error of p. 13). Purchased by Richard Monckton Milnes at the sale of Thomas Rodd’s manuscripts; see Sotheby’s sale-cat., 4 Feb. 1850, lot 732. Gilt garb crest of Milnes-Crewe family on front cover, with armorial bookplate (f. i) of Robert, Marquess of Crewe pasted inside.