Add MS 72611

TRUMBULL PAPERS. Vol. CCCLXX. Contemporary manuscript copies of 'The Character of a Trimmer', by George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax; [1680s-1690s] . This work was originally written in 1684, circulated anonymously in manuscript, and first published in a pirated edition in 1688. For the status of these copies, two of twenty-one now extant, see English Literary Manuscripts, ed. P. Beal, II, pt 1, pp. 510, 513-515, and Mark N. Brown, 'Sir William Trumbull and the Marquis of Halifax', British Library Journal, 19 (1993), pp. 142-145; the text of the first is printed, with variant readings from the second, in The Works of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, ed. Mark N. Brown (Oxford, 1989), I, pp. 178-243; see also pp. 343-344.

1. Copy in a contemporary clerical hand; [1680s?]. Paginated 1-68 in a contemporary hand. On the front wrapper is the title, 'Character of a Trimmer Written Ao. 1684', in Trumbull's hand. Formerly Add. 80.

2. Copy in the hand of Halifax's domestic chaplain and personal amanuensis, Alexander Sion; 1690s. Formerly Add. 81.

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax: Alexander Sion, chaplain to George, Marquess of Halifax: Manuscripts of Halifax's `Character of a Trimmer' , one copied by Alexander Sion: 1680s-1690s: Copies, late 17th cent.