Add MS 78233

EVELYN PAPERS. Vols. LXVI (ff. 133). Miscellaneous English verse collected and partly copied by Browne and his father; circa 1590-circa 1700, n.d. English and Latin. Many of the verses, which are arranged largely in chronological order of composition, bear endorsements in Browne’s hand. Included are:-

1. ff. 1-3. Two poems by or attributed to Sir Walter Ralegh, viz: (a) ‘Goe soule the boddies guest’ (elsewhere entitled ‘The Lie’), with answer beg. ‘Courts scorne, states disgracinge’, headed in another hand ‘a new ballet entitled Sr Foole yow lye’; - (b) elegy on the death of Sir Francis Walsingham, beg. ‘Heere Hobbinoll lies our sheapherd while-ere’; circa late 16th cent.

2. ff. 7-12v. Poems and epigrams by Richard Corbett, Peter Heylyn and other Oxford men; circa 1613-1621. Copies, mostly in a single hand. Partly imperfect. Several of the pieces concern the performance of Barten Holiday’s comedy Technogamia at Christ Church, Oxford, on 26 Aug. 1621. A distich in Latin relates to the marriage of Frances Devereux with the Earl of Somerset, in 1613.

3. ff. 13-16. Verses copied by Christopher Browne, including: (a) ‘Cambridge Madrig[a]ll in answere to Oxforde ballat’ of Richard Corbett, beg. ‘A ballat late was made’; circa March 1615; - (b) Ballad ‘To the tune of Oh Bullen’, beg. ‘Gentlemen of England partly you may understande’, docketed by his son ‘Verses uppon the buildinge of Pauls Church’; circa 1620-1623.

4. ff. 17-22. Richard Corbett: (a) New Year’s gift of verses to the Duke of Buckingham, beg. ‘When I can pay my parents or my king’; 1 Jan. 1621/2; - (b) satirical verses addressed to John Hammon, curate of Ribbesford, regarding his prohibition of the maypole, beg. ‘The mighty zeal which thou hast new putt on’; circa 1620-1630; - (c) Verse-letter to the Duke of Buckingham on his absence in Spain with Prince Charles, beg. ‘I read of islands floating and removed’; 1622 (bef. Oct.). All were printed in Poetica stromata (1648).

5. ff. 23, 23v. King James I: Verses urging women to exchange the city for the country life, beg. ‘Ye women that do London love so well’; circa April 1623. Printed in The Poems of King James VI of Scotland, ed. James Craigie (Edinburgh, 1958), II, p.178.

6. ff. 32, 32v. Sir John Suckling: ‘The Witts’, beg. ‘A Sessions was held the other daye’; circa 1639-40. Copy. Printed in Suckling’s Fragmenta Aurea (1646).

7. ff. 51-53v. Sir Richard Fanshawe: translations into Latin of two poems attributed to Thomas Cary of the bedchamber; viz: (a) ‘Farewell faire Saint; lett not the Seas & Wind’; - (b) ‘Tell me Eutresia, since my Fate’, followed by a variant version of the English; circa 1648. Printed in The Pastor Fido (1648).

8. ff. 58-62. Four satires on Cromwell and his fellows, followed by four satirical pieces on his coaching accident in September 1655; circa July 1650-Sept.1655. Copies partly by Browne.

9. ff. 69-73. Katherine Philips: Two autograph poems, with a copy of a dramatic extract, beg. (a) ‘You Justly may forsake a Land which you’, Jan. 1660/1; - (b) ‘No, No, unfaithfull world thou hast’, 1663; - (c) ‘Caesar that enuious Fate which I can braue’, circa (but aft.) 1663, extracted from her translation of Corneille’s Pompey, Act III, sc. IV, ll.5-end.

10. ff. 81-96, 110-115v. Advice-to-a-Painter poems, etc.; 1666-1673. Included are: (a) ‘The S[econd Ad]uice to a Painter drawin[g] the[e] History of o^r Nauall Business Being the Last Worke of Sr Joh: Denham. London written for the Company of Poets’, beg. ‘Nay painter if thou dar’st designe that fight’; circa March-June 1666; - (b) ‘New Instructions to a Painter’ [i.e. The Fourth Advice], beg. ‘Draw England ruined by what was giu’en before’; Aug. 1667; - (c) ‘Further Advice to a Painter’, beg. ‘Painter once more thy Pencill reasume’, sometimes attributed to Andrew Marvell, in an untitled version of 52 verses; circa Jan.-Feb. 1670.

11. ff. 98-99. Prologue and epilogue to Henry Neville Payne’s The Fatal Jealousy, subscribed ‘For … Sr. Samuel Tuke from his humble servant, Matthew Medbourne’; Aug. 1672. Copies, signed, apparently in the hand of Medbourne, who acted in it. Viz: (a) ‘To you great sovereign wits that have such sway’, spoken by William Smith; - (b) ‘A tragedy and not heroic’, by Harry Harris. Partly imperfect. Printed in The Fatal Jealousie (1673).

12. ff. 118-123v. William Atwood: Verses by or addressed to him on the subject of Edmund Waller’s poetry, etc., viz.: (a) ‘On Mr: Atwoods Divine Love’, beg. ‘Immortal Bard! Whose chaster Muse does show’, subscribed ‘M. E.’ but not in the hand of Mary Evelyn; - (b) Atwood’s lines ‘To a Lady [i.e. Anne Wharton] who wth verses to himself sent him her answer to Mr Waller’, beg. ‘When that soft hand whence Waller has his dues’; circa 1681-1685; - (c) Bifolium comprising two sets of religious verses, viz.: (i) Translation of Psalm 103, beg. ‘Advance my soul and all your powers incline’; - (ii) Anne Wharton’s Answer to Atwood’s verses beg. ‘Small are the poor Returnes which you receive’, printed in Wharton’s The Idea of Christian Love (1688); circa 1683-1684.

13. ff. 124-127. Edmund Waller: ‘Of Divine Love’; 1685. Extracts.

14. ff. 128-130v. Anne Killigrew: Verses and epigrams; circa 1685. Possibly autograph. The calligraphically-written texts comprise: (a) ‘To the Queen [i.e. Mary of Modena]’, beg. ‘As those who pass the Alps do say’, in a version of 68 lines, as against 82 in the printed version; - (b) Four epigrams, viz: (i) ‘Wee deem them moderate but enough implore’; - (ii) ‘Wanton Mamurra [pr. Belinda] loudly does Complaine’; - (iii) ‘Posthumus boasts hee does not Thunder feare’; - (iv) ‘Now liquid Streames by the feirce cold doe grow’. Printed, with variants, in Killigrew’s Poems (1686).