Add MS 52585

Miscellany volume of verse and prose. Owned by Richard Waferer of Buckinghamshire. Includes verse and prose works by: Joseph Hall; Sir Walter Raleigh; William Shakespeare; Sir Edward Dyer; Robert Southwell, S.J.; Nicholas Breton; and Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex.

f. i r Remains of vellum front cover, inscribed ‘A booke of generall collections’.

f. i v Notes and biblical quotations.

f. ii v Remains of vellum back cover, inscribed ‘Marth: Waferer’ and ‘Walter Jesson’.

ff. 1r-2v Letters from ‘Flavia’ to ‘Lentulus’ and from ‘Terentia’ to Cicero. Latin. With aphorisms by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, written in the margins. From The Art of Divine Meditation (1606).

ff. 3r-3v Latin sentences, beginning ‘Est Pastoris bene pascere ones’. With aphorisms by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, written in the margins. From The Art of Divine Meditation (1606).

f. 3v ‘A prayse or disprayse of women’, beginning ‘Women are vertuous noble excellent’.

f. 3v ‘An anagrasing’, beginning ‘Fredricus 2 Rex Boheme 1619’.

ff. 4r-5v ‘King James his Answer unto the libell called the Commons Teares’, beginning ‘O stay your teares you whoe complayne’. With aphorisms by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, from The Art of Divine Meditation (1606) and Meditations and Vows (1605), written in the margins.

ff. 6r-6v Fragment of a torn page. With aphorisms by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, written in the margins. Fragment of a poem beginning ‘[If bleeding souls] dejected harts find grace’.

ff. 7r-18v Extracts and aphorisms from the works of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich.

f. 19r Letter said to be from George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, to King James I. Beginning ‘I have byn to long sylent, I am afraid by my sylenc I have neglected the duty’.

f. 19v Poem titled ‘Of the uncertaine joyes of this life’, beginning ‘What is all this worlde but vaine’.

f. 19v Poem titled ‘An other to the like purpose’, beginning ‘Like to the damaske rose you see’.

f. 20r Poem titled ‘An admonition to young men’, beginning ‘He that is endued with the art of loving’.

f. 20r Untitled poem beginning ‘Like to the seed put in the earthly womb’.

f. 20r Untitled Latin elegiac couplet beginning ‘Quod sibi quisquis serit presentis tempore vite’.

f. 20r Verses on a quotation from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (‘video meliora proboque deteriora sequor’).

ff. 20r-20v Extracts and aphorisms from Sir John Hayward and Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich.

ff. 21r-28r Medicinal recipes. With aphorisms by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, written in the margins (ff. 21v-22r).

f. 28v Poem titled ‘Verses From a lady unto her love’, beginning ‘Shall distance parte our love’.

ff. 29r-29v Latin notes, titled ‘Durissima Constructio’. Includes a Latin anagram on the name ‘William Picaring’.

f. 29v Sir John Hayward, verse translation of the Iliad, beginning ‘As dale of death’. English.

f. 29v Untitled poem beginning ‘Tyme past is forgotten or men be aware’.

ff. 30r-35v ‘Magna Dictata’: English prose passages followed by Latin translations.

f. 34r Poem titled ‘Englandes Knell 1607’, beginning ‘The Kinge is gon a huntinge’.

f. 34r Untitled couplet beginning ‘In England was never seen’.

f. 35v Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney, titled ‘In laudem Philipi Syndey militis’, beginning ‘Here underneathe these marble stones’.

f. 36r Poems by Thomas Twyne.

f. 36v ‘Sundry enditements Presentments and processes’: Legal precedents, 1588.

ff. 37r-39v Fragments.

ff. 40r-40v Notes on the medicinal properties of some herbs and plants, alphabetical. With a poem titled ‘Certaine necessarie observacions for health of men’, beginning ‘Eschewe lewde lust if thou be wise, hot spice and wines forbeare’

f. 41r ‘A note of all my bookes whatsoever’: list of books.

f. 41r ‘A generall and perpetuall Prediction or Prognostication grounded uppon the worde of God’.

f. 41v Notes on arithmetic. Latin.

f. 41v Couplet beginning ‘Of things most forbidden we alwayes are faine’.

ff. 41v-42r Letter from Sir Walter Raleigh to King James I. Beginning ‘The life which I had most mighty Prince’. 21 January 1603/4.f. 42v Letter from Cicero to ‘Terentia’. Latin.

f. 42v Couplets beginning ‘He that in youth no vertue will use’, ‘he that will not when he may’, and ‘Provide for coulde in Sommers warme’, subscribed ‘Cape tempus dum datum. 1607’.

f. 42v Lines titled ‘Bishop King his last speech was’, i.e. Henry King, Bishop of Chichester. In Latin and English. Beginning ‘Oh yet if when I am dead, the Church may live and flourish’.

f. 43r Untitled poem beginning ‘As any had on Lande’.

f. 43r Untitled poem beginning ‘I had and I lent unto’.

f. 43r Poem titled ‘Verses of a redemption by Christ’, beginning ‘Christ liveth yet and shall doe still’.

f. 43r Signature of ‘R. Waferer’.

f. 43v Notes on the senses.

f. 43v Untitled Latin poem and English translation, beginning ‘Count nothing thine which thou mayst leese’.

f. 44r Untitled poem beginning ‘Take yee thought as little as yee can’.

f. 44r Untitled poem beginning ‘The golden chaynes so much did eat’.

f. 44r Untitled poem beginning ‘Who leaves the Rocke and buyldes his howse uppon uncertayne sande’.

ff. 44v-53r ‘Sir Gouldsmith his Exercise at the salting of his Fresh men at Trinitie Colledg in Cambridg’. c. March 1600-July 1603. A speech in Latin prose, followed by Latin and English verse, and satirical English verses. Including two Latin elegiac poems, one hexameter poem and a translation. With a list of names associated with the performance, including Mr Willowby, Mr Durfette and Mr Gargraves. Includes extracts from ‘Tom Tyro’s Roaring Meg’ (1598).

f. 44v Aphorisms by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, written in the margin.

f. 45r Untitled poem beginning ‘Englande Netherlande the heavens and the Artes’.

f. 45v ‘ticket of which the gent had in his Hatt which killed the Duke of Buck’, i.e. John Felton. Beginning ‘That man is cowwardly base and deserves’.

ff. 46r-57r Sentences from Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, and from Leonard Wright, ‘The Pilgrimage to Paradise’, written in the margin.

f. 53r Poem labelled ‘Pawlett his Posy of his love’ beginning ‘Thy state divyne by mortall tonge cannot expressed bee’.

f. 53v Poem titled ‘Verses upon the passion of Christ’, beginning ‘O blessed sheepe, o shepheard great’.

f. 53r Recipe to cure ‘windcolick’.

f. 53r Note: ‘and here follow in the 4 leaves ensewinge divers ditties to be sung and plaid uppon Instruments’.

f. 53v Sir Edward Dyer, untitled poem beginning ‘The lowest trees have tops, the Ante her gale [gall]’.

ff. 53v-54r Untitled poem beginning ‘This proverbe olde full longe agoe’.

ff. 54r-54v Nicholas Breton, ‘Come solem muse, and helpe me sing’.

ff. 54v-55r Extract from William Shakespeare, ‘The Rape of Lucrece’. Lines 869-882 and 897-924, beginning ‘Unruly beastes [blasts] waite on the tender Springe’. Subscribed ‘Finis quod mr Shakespeare’.

f. 55r-55v Robert Southwell, S.J., ‘Upon the Image of death’. Untitled copy beginning ‘Before my face thy picture hangs’.

ff. 56r-56v Poem beginning ‘Repent oh Englande nowe repent’. Subscribed ‘Finis quod Tho: Churchman’, with the note ‘To the tewne of oh plomer Plomer’.

f. 56v Untitled poem, beginning ‘Layde in my restles bedd’.

f. 56v Sir Walter Raleigh ‘Even such is time which takes in trust’. Titled ‘Sir Walter Rawley his Epitaph’.

f. 57r Nicholas Breton, ‘The Plowmans Song’. Untitled copy beginning ‘In the merrye month of maye’.

ff. 57r-63r Notes on the medicinal properties of some herbs and plants, alphabetical; medicinal recipes.

ff. 63v Sir Walter Raleigh, ‘The Nimphs reply to the Sheepheard’, untitled copy of lines 1-4 beginning ‘Yf all the worlde and love were younge’.

ff. 63v Untitled poem beginning ‘But faith of lawe must needes be kept and what last will doth say’.

f. 63v Extract of a letter, titled ‘Certaine notes of a conceipted letter’, beginning ‘The many pawnes and sundry pledges of your kinde frendship’.

f. 63v ‘A charme For the Tooth ach’ and instructions ‘To wright by figures’.

f. 63v George Turberville, ‘When that the restles sune westward his course dothe runne’. Titled ‘Verses importinge sonndry points of wisdome’.

ff. 64r-65r Latin notes on rhetoric.

ff. 65r-66r Poem titled ‘A pleasant dialogue betwene a newe marryed man and his wife’, beginning ‘Howe like you marriage gentle wyfe’.f. 65r Poem titled ‘An admonition for a Mayden over pressed with many suyters’, beginning ‘Yf for to love doe joye thee then’.

f. 65r Untitled poem, beginning ‘Labour in youth whilst strength doth last’.

f. 66r Untitled couplet, beginning ‘He that will no eavill doe’.

f. 66r Untitled poem, beginning ‘Whoe stryves with i wyfe’.

ff. 66r-67v Two love letters of ‘Tho. B’ to his mistresses ‘S’ and ‘J’, partly or mainly fictitious. 6 August 1597.

f. 66r Poem titled ‘Verses uppon the myracles of Egypte. per D. Musculus. A Huytaine’. Beginning ‘The water tourneth into blood’.

f. 67r Extracts and aphorisms from the works of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, written in the margin.

f. 67v Poem titled ‘Verses upon the Pope of Roome’, beginning ‘If Caput come of Capio, which signifieth to take’.

f. 67v Poem titled ‘Verses upon Rome it self’, beginning ‘The plague of god upon thee ones shall fall’.

ff. 68r-71r Fragments of pages, torn. Mainly Latin.

ff. 72r-73v Untitled Latin prose and classical verse.

f. 72r Sir John Hayward, ‘As dale of death so doe I hate that kinde’.

f. 72v Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, ‘I am not as I seeme, I seeme and am the same’. Subscribed ‘finis quod Rob: Essex Comes’.

f. 73v Poem titled ‘of Time’, beginning ‘Time past is forgotten or men be aware’.

f. 73v Letter from Francis Tresham to William Parker, fifth Baron Mounteagle, warning him of the Gunpowder Plot. 26 October 1605.

f. 74r Sir Edward Dyer, ‘My mynde to me a kingdome is’. Titled ‘A true Ensample of a Contented mynd’.

f. 74r ‘An effectuall good prayer to cure a lame man or woman’.

f. 74v Poem titled ‘A perfect discription of a discontended mynde’, beginning ‘I seeke for rest yet still unrest I fynde’.

f. 74v Untitled poem, beginning ‘Pacyenc is a greate vertue if menn can it use’.

f. 75r ‘A note of all my bookes whatsoever’: list of books, dated 1604.

f. 75r ‘A prettie Jest of one that lost his Cloke sleeves goinge into a playe’. Beginning ‘It was my chance the other daie three men for to espie’. Attributed to Thomas Gayton. With a couplet beginning ‘Sometime suche jestes will hap I saye’.

f. 75v Acrostic poem on the name ‘Helen Docwra’, titled ‘Ubi amor ibi animus’, beginning ‘Heaven be thy blyss com then sweet Nymph and revive me’.

f. 75v Untitled poem beginning ‘Feare not my byrth o wight of gentle kinde’.

f. 75v Untitled poem beginning ‘If ought herein offensive bee’.

f. 75v Untitled poem beginning ‘Regard not worldly wealth, In Christ repose thy trust’.

f. 76r Poem titled ‘Amator Amatori’, beginning ‘Be constant nowe therefore, and faythfull to the ende’.

f. 76r Poem titled ‘A conceyted ryme of a Taylor and a Lowse’, beginning ‘A lowse without lycence a Taylor did molest’.

f. 76v Richard Waferer, poem beginning ‘I chardg thee pen and eke my joyes expresse’. Subscribed ‘Finis quod Richard Waferer in prayse of Habell Spencer’.

f. 76v Untitled couplet, beginning ‘As verses are of somme a perfect sounding prayse’.

f. 77r Fragments of a page. Latin.