Add MS 78367

EVELYN PAPERS. Vols. CC. Treatise on religion, with a title-page by Evelyn, originally `THRĒ''SKEIA, or A Rationall Account of the True Religion Asserting the most Antient to be the Best: The Jewish why and how Changed? Why not Gentile? or Mahumetan, but the Christian? Why not any of the Christian Sects, but the Catholick Reform'd? Collected for the Settling and Establishment of my own Choice', preceded by the later title, `The History of Religion'; 1657-1704. Partly autograph fair copy, partly draft, with many later notes and interleaved additions. With the quasi-imprint on the title-page, `Begun in the yeare 1657 when the Church of England was in persecution'. Preceded by three separate notes concerning his later intentions to revise and perhaps publish it; one (f. 1v) is dated 2 Nov. 1704, another (f. 4v) includes the symbols used for cross-referencing to his commonplace notes, which also occur in the margins throughout. `A Rational Account of the True Religion . . . with a packet of notes belonging to it' is included in Evelyn's list of `Things I would write out faire and reform if I had Leasure'. With Evelyn's pagination i-vi, 1-723 (not including the interleaved pages); the first leaf after the preface is now misbound before the title-page. With a table of contents and alphabetical index at the end. Edited as The History of Reōōōligion by R. M. Evanson, 2 vols (1850), which does not distinguish between the original text and the later additions. Beal EvJ 165. Formerly Evelyn MS 37.

ff. ii + 371. On quarto gatherings, half bound in brown morocco, 19th cent. 210 x 165mm.