Add MS 8245

PRAYER BOOK; late 17th or early 18th cent. Russian Church Slavonic. Prayers, mostly by St. Ephraim, the Syrian, ‘for those who wish to take up arms against the self-will which originates in their passions and pleasures’. The headings are: ‘Lamentation for Tuesday evening’ (f. 2); ‘Lamentation for Wednesday evening’ (f. 25v); ‘Lamentation for Thursday evening’ (f. 37v); ‘Lamentation for Friday evening’ (f. 49); ‘Lamentation for Saturday evening’ (f. 60); ‘For the same day and the same hour’ (f. 73); ‘Lamentation for Sunday evening’ (f. 80). The manuscript is described in R. Cleminson, A Union Catalogue of Cyrillic Manuscripts in British and Irish Collections (1988), no. 52, pp. 66-7. Inscribed (f. 1) ‘John Meetchewrin / 1717 — / My Lord Apraxins Gift’ and (f. 87v, translated) ‘This book of Aleksandr Petrovich Apraksin / 14, in Muscovite writing’; ‘14’ may be the shelfmark given to the book by Apraksin, d. 1725. Michurin and Apraksin were both sent to study navigation, engineering and shipbuilding in England in the early 18th century as part of Peter the Great’s policy of training young men in Western Europe: see A. G. Cross, ‘By the Banks of the Thames.’ Russians in 18th Century Britain (Newtonville, 1980), pp. 147, 152-3. ‘D+’ in ink in upper left corner of back pastedown. Bookplate of Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, on front pastedown. ‘N.L./6/A’ in pencil in upper left corner of bookplate. ’292’ in pencil in top left corner of front pastedown. Purchased, together with Add. 8221, 8228 and 8237, from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 292 (part).

Paper; ff. 87. 156 x 95mm. Catchwords on the recto and verso of every leaf. Late 17th or early 18th cent. dark brown leather binding (rebacked), with gold saltire in the centre and blind-tooling in corners of both covers.