Harley MS 3991

A quarto verse miscellany in several hands, including poems, songs and extracts from plays by various authors, many anonymous. The volume was once owned by Thomas Rawlinson (1681-1725), and f. 1r contains an ownership inscription by Robert Harley: ‘Oxford. B. H. bought in the Rawlinsons sale’. Cited in the Index of English Literary Manuscripts as the 'Harley Rawlinson MS'.

Contents:

• ff. 3v-4r: ‘Dieing lover pro et contra’. First line: ‘Noe man love’s fiery passion can approve’. Attributed to Sir Robert Ayton.
• ff. 13v-15r: ‘St James’ Prisoners 1655’. First line: ‘Though the governinge partie cannot find in their hearte’. Attributed to Sir John Denham.
• ff. 22r-23v: ‘Cooke Lawrell’. First line: ‘Cook Lawrell would needs have ye devill his guest’. By Ben Jonson.
• ff. 32r-38v: A group of poems numbered 1-16, including:
• f. 32v: ‘2’. First line: ‘Fine young folly if you are’. By William Habington.
• f. 34v: ‘6’. First line: ‘Thou art not fair for all thy red and white’. By Thomas Campion.
• f. 35r: ‘7’. First line: ‘I am Confirm’d a woman can’. By John Suckling.
• f. 36r: ‘10’. First line: ‘Tis not how witty nor how free’. By Aurelian Townshend.
• f. 38r: ‘15’. First line: ‘Cloris farewell I now must go’. By Edmund Waller.
• f. 41r-v: ‘La Boivinette’. First line: ‘She's not the fairest of her name’. By Aurelian Townshend.
• f. 43r: First line: ‘Within the mirtles as I walkt’. By Robert Herrick.
• f. 44r: ‘The Countryman’s song in ye Spanish Curate’. First line: ‘Let the bells ring, and the boys sing’. Attributed to Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• ff. 44v-45r: ‘Upon S.r John Suckling's warlike preparation for ye Scottish war'. First line: ‘Sr John gott him on an ambling nag’. By John Suckling.
• f. 46r: ‘Song’. First line: ‘Doubt not deare love that I'll reveale’. By Thomas Carew.
• f. 48v: First line: ‘O Charon, gentle Charon lett mee woo thee’. By Robert Herrick.
• ff. 49v-51r: ‘The Quaker and the Mare’. First line: ‘All in the land of Essex’. By Sir John Denham.
• ff. 54r-55r: ‘Upon Sr John Suckling’s 100 horse’. First line: ‘I tell thee Jack thou gavest ye King’. By John Suckling.
• ff. 55r-56r: ‘The Answer’. First line: ‘I tell thee fool where'er thou be’. By John Suckling.
• ff. 60v-62v: ‘The Distracted Puritane’. First line: ‘Am I mad O noble Festus’. By Richard Corbett.
• f. 65r-v: ‘Song in Love and honour’. First line: ‘No morning red and blushing fair’. By Sir William Davenant.
• f. 66v: ‘First song in Law against lovers'. First line: ‘Wake all ye dead. What hoa! What hoa!’. By Sir William Davenant.
• ff. 66v-67r: ‘2 Song’. First line: ‘Our ruler has got the vertigo of state’. By Sir William Davenant.
• ff. 72r-75v: A group of songs numbered 2-9, including:
• ff. 73v-74r: ‘6 Song’. First line: ‘Bring back my comfort and returne’. By Charles Cotton.
• f. 74r-v: ‘7 Song’. First line: ‘Let not thy beautie make thee proud’. By Aurelian Townshend.
• ff. 74v-75r: ‘8 Song’. First line: ‘I preethee send mee back my hart’. Attributed to both John Suckling and Henry Hughes.
• f. 75r-v: ‘9 Song’. First line: ‘How prodigious is my fate’. By Katherine Philips.
• f. 78r-v: ‘To ye Witches tune in Mackbeth’. First line: ‘Phillis, though y[ou]r all powerfull charmes’. By Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset.
• ff. 78v-79v: ‘Shackley Hayes’. First line: ‘To all you ladies now at land’. By Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset.
• f. 81r: ‘Song in the Gratefull servant’. First line: ‘The Glories of our Birth and State’. By James Shirley.
• f. 81v: ‘Coridon and Phillida’. First line: ‘In ye merry month of May’. By Nicholas Breton.
• f. 82r-v: ‘Secret Love’. First line: ‘I feed a flame within’. By John Dryden.
• ff. 82v-83: ‘Song in the Rivalls’. First line: ‘My lodging it is on the Cold ground’. By Sir William Davenant.
• f. 83r: ‘In Brennoralt’. First line: ‘Thy Love is Chast thee tells thee so’. By John Suckling.
• ff. 83v-84r: ‘In the Tempest’. First line: ‘Where the Bee sucks there suck I’. By William Shakespeare.
• f. 84r-v: ‘Maid in the Mill’. First line: ‘How long shall I pine for love’. By Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• ff. 84v-85r: ‘In the Mad Lover’. First line: ‘Arm Arm Arme Arme ye scouts are all come in’. By Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• f. 85r-v: ‘The Spanish Curate’. First line: ‘Let the bells ring’. By Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• f. 86v: ‘The Pedlar’. First line: ‘From the fair Lavinian shore’. By Robert Davenant.
• f. 87r: ‘The Witches in Mackbeth’. First line: ‘Let's have a Dance upon the heath’. By Sir William Davenant.
• f. 87r-v: ‘In the unfortunate lovers’. First line: ‘You fiend and furies come along’. By Sir William Davenant.
• ff. 87v-88r: ‘The second Song in ye Mad Lover’. First line: ‘Charon O Charon’. By Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• ff. 89r-90r: ‘Dyalogue in Evening Love’. First line: ‘Celemena of my heart’. By John Dryden.
• f. 90r-v: ‘In the Villaine’. First line: ‘Amaryllis told her swain’. Thomas Porter.
• f. 91r: ‘In the Tempest’. First line: ‘Strait my Green Gown into breeches i'l make’. By Sir William Davenant.
• f. 91v: ‘Love in a Tub’. First line: ‘If she be not as kind as fair’. By Sir George Etherege.
• f. 91v: ‘She Would if she Could’. First line: ‘To Little or no purpose I spent many days’. By Sir George Etherege.
• f. 92r: ‘In the Widow’. First line: ‘I keep my horse I keep my Whore’. By Thomas Middleton.
• f. 92r-v: ‘Evening Love’. First line: ‘After the pains of a Desperate Lover’. By John Dryden.
• ff. 92v-93r: `A pastoral dialogue'. First line: ‘Strephon what envious cloud hath made’. By Sir Charles Sedley.

ff. 94r-112r: Poems in French, including: epigrams and poems by Théophile de Viau (f. 100r and following). [ff. 94r-99v are reversed and inscribed upside down.]

ff. 113r-115r: ‘Donne’s quaintest conceits’. Short extracts from 30 poems by Donne, including: ‘Womans Constancy’, ‘The triple foole’, ‘Twickman garden’, ‘A Valediction of weeping’, ‘The Curse’, ‘The Dampe’, ‘Love’s Diett’, ‘Hero & Leander’, ‘Pyramus & Thisbe’, ‘A Burnt Ship’, ‘A Lame Begger’, ‘A Selfe accuser’, ‘A Licentious person’, ‘Antiquary’, ‘Disinherited’, ‘A Coquette’, ‘An obscure writer’, ‘Sharpe Equinoq:’, ‘Witty Epigram’, ‘The Parfame’, ‘Elegie 6th’, ‘Elegie 7th’, ‘The Autumnall’, ‘The Dreame’, ‘Upon ye losse of his Mist: &c:’, ‘A Tale of a Citizen and his wife’, ‘Satyre 6th’, ‘A funerall Elegie’, ‘Ibidem’, ‘The 2d Anniversary’, ‘The pgresse of ye soule’, ‘Litanie The Martyrs’.

• f. 115r-v: ‘The burning of the free schoole at Lewis in Sussex’. First line: ‘What heat of learning kindled your desire’. By Thomas Randolph.
• ff. 115v-118r: ‘Canto in praise of sacke’. First line: ‘Listen all I you pray’. Subscribed ‘Francis Beaumont’.
• f. 118r-119r: ‘The Vertue of sack’. First line: ‘Fetch me Ben Jonson's skull to fill with sack’. Subscribed ‘Francis Beaumont’.
• ff. 120v-121v: ‘The Dying Louer’. First line: ‘Some powers Regard me or my hart will burne’. Subscribed ‘J. H.’. By John Hoskyns.
• f. 124r-v: ‘Upon the late storme And of the Death of his Highnesse Ensueing the same. By Mr Waller’. First line: ‘We must resign! Heaven his great soul does claim’. By Edmund Waller.
• f. 126r: ‘On the Arcadian Countess of Pembroke’. First line: ‘Underneath this sable Herse’. By William Browne of Tavistock.
• f. 127r-v: ‘To the Queen's Majesty in her Late Sicknesse’. First line: ‘The publiq joy wch is to vs restor'd’. By Katherine Philips.
• f. 128r-v: ‘To Her Excellence the Marchioness of Newcastle after the Reading of her Incomparable Poems’. First line: ‘Madam with so much wonder we are struck’. By Sir George Etherege.

ff. 129r-140v: A group of songs numbered 1-32, including:

• ff. 129v-130: ‘third song’. First line: ‘Tell me, gentle Strephon, why’. By Sir George Etherege.
• f. 130r-v: ‘fourth song’. First line: ‘The thirsty Earth drinks up ye Rain’. By Abraham Cowley.
• f. 131v: ‘sixth song’. First line: ‘Never more will I protest’. By Francis Beaumont.
• ff. 131v-132r: ‘seaventh song’. First line: ‘Cloris it is not in your power’. By Sir George Etherege.
• f. 133v: ‘12th song’. First line: ‘Ladies though to y[ou]r Conquering Eyes’. By Sir George Etherege.
• f. 134r-v: ‘14 song’. First line: ‘Give me more Love or more Disdaine’. By Thomas Carew.
• ff. 134v-135r: ‘15 song’. First line: ‘Preethee tell me faithless Swaine’. By Sir Charles Sedley.
• f. 135r: ‘16 song’. First line: ‘Tell me no more you love in vain’. By Sir George Etherege.
• f. 135v: ‘17 song’. First line: ‘Why should man be only tied’. By Francis Beaumont.
• ff. 136v-137r: ‘22th song’. First line: ‘Take oh take those Lips away’. Attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher.
• f. 138r: ‘25th song’. First line: ‘May I find a woman fair’. By Francis Beaumont.
• f. 138r-v: ‘26 song’. First line: ‘When Orpheus sweetly did complain’. By William Strode.
• f. 138v: ‘27 song’. First line: ‘Goe happy heart for thou shalt lye’. By Francis Beaumont.
• f. 139v: ‘29 song’. First line: ‘Gaze not on thy Beauties pride’. By Thomas Carew.
• ff. 139v-140r: ‘30 song’. First line: ‘By heaven I'le tell her boldly yt tis she’. By Abraham Cowley.
• f. 141r: ‘Song in the Cardinal’. First line: ‘Come my Daphne come away’. By James Shirley.
• f. 141v: ‘In Beggars Bush’. First line: ‘Cast yo[u]r Caps and cares away’. By Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• ff. 142r-143v: ‘The New Exchange’. First line: ‘I'll go no more to the Old Exchange’. By Richard Brome.
• f. 145r-v: ‘In the Joviall Crew’. First line: ‘From hunger and cold who lives more free’. By Richard Brome.
• ff. 145v-146r: ‘Loose No time’. First line: ‘Gather your Rose buds while oue may’. By Robert Herrick.
• ff. 149r-150: ‘In Evening Love’. First line: ‘Calme was the Evening & and clear was ye skye’. By John Dryden.

[There are blank folios between ff. 112 and 113, and ff. 128 and 129.]