Add MS 78328-78331

EVELYN PAPERS. Vols. CLXI-CLIV. `Loci communes': a series of three volumes, with a separate index volume; [circa 1649-1680s?]. Begun in Hoare's hand and continued by Evelyn, they contain `extracts of his reading . . . sorted by subject according to the whole gamut of knowledge, human, natural and divine', so that they comprise `one of the most elaborate commonplace books to survive for the period' (Hunter, op. cit., p. 74). Evelyn was proud of his method, sending his brother in 1658 `the frame or Idea of my Adversaria which after many tryals and reformations I find most advantagious' (ibid.). The volumes described below show signs of these `tryals and reformations'. At first extracts were sorted and arranged by subject before they were entered, as shown in Add MS 78330 below, which was actually the first volume to be compiled, although Evelyn later made it `tomus tertius' in the series. Thereafter extracts from a particular book were entered together, and the resulting entries sorted by means of key-words entered in the margins of the volume; these key-words were then entered in the separate index volume or `universal table' (Add. MS 78331). In the process of this change of method, the physical make-up of the volumes was affected, some leaves or gatherings being excised and inserted elsewhere. Borders ruled in pencil and pagination added in ink by Evelyn. Beal EvJ 170.

Four volumes.