Harley MS 6057

A quarto verse miscellany in various hands. Compiled mainly by Thomas Crosse in the 1630s, whose name appears in a poem, ‘An Acrostick upon my name’, at f. 1r. Later additions at ff. 63r-65r are dated 1677-1681.

Contents include:

• f. 1*r: An acrostic poem on the name ‘Edward’ [deleted].
• f. 1r: ‘An Acrostick upon my name’. First line: ‘Those who in service to give full content’. By Thomas Crosse.
• ff. 2r-4r: ‘A Rapture’. First line: ‘I will enjoy thee now my Cælia come’. Subscribed ‘Th: Ca:’. By Thomas Carew.
• f. 4r: ‘Songe’. First line: ‘Love, love, nothing but love still more’. Subscribed ‘W: Sh:’. Attributed to William Shakespeare.
• f. 4v: ‘Songe’. First line: ‘Doe but looke on her eyes they doe delight’. Subscribed ‘B: J:’. By Ben Jonson.
• f. 4v: ‘Song on his Mrs Gloue’. First line: ‘Thou more then moste sweete gloue’. Subscribed ‘B: J:’. By Ben Jonson.
• ff. 5v-6v: ‘Uppon the fall of the Myter Taverne in Cambridge’. First line: ‘Lament lament you schollars all’. By Thomas Randolph.
• ff. 6v-7r: ‘The mournfull partinge of two Lovers Caused by the disproportion of estates’. First line: ‘My once deare love happlesse that I no more’. Subscribed ‘T: Car’. By Henry King.
• f. 7v: ‘A health to my Mistres’. First line: ‘To her whose beauty doth excell’. Subscribed ‘Th: Car’. By Thomas Carew.
• f. 8r: ‘To a Lady that had resemblance of my Mrs’. First line: ‘Faire coppy of my Cælia’s face’. By Thomas Carew.
• f. 8r-v: ‘On his mistres lookeinge in a glasse’. First line: ‘This flatteringe glasse whose smooth face weares’. Subscribed ‘Th: C:’. By Thomas Carew.
• f. 9r: First line: ‘Passions are likned unto floods & streames’. Subscribed ‘Th: C:’. Attributed to Sir Walter Ralegh or Sir Robert Ayton.
• f. 9r: ‘Vppon his Mistres’. First line: ‘Dearest thy tresses are not threads of gould’. Subscribed ‘T: C:’. By Thomas Carew.
• ff. 9v-10r: ‘Vpon blacke haire’. First line: ‘If shadows be a pictures excellence’. Subscribed ‘Ben Johnson’. Possibly attributed to Walton Poole.
• f. 10r: ‘A Charming Beauty’. First line: ‘Ile gaze noe more on thy bewitchinge face’. Subscribed ‘Th: C:’. By Thomas Carew.
• ff. 10v-11v:‘An old dittie of Sr Phillipp Sidneyes omitted in the printed Arcadia'. First line: ‘Philoclea and Pamela sweet’. Attributed to Sir Philip Sidney.
• ff. 11v-12v: ‘To his unconstant Mrs:’. First line: ‘But say you very woman why to mee’. Subscribed ‘Th: Ca.’. By Henry King.
• ff. 12v-13v: ‘Loues Complement’. First line: ‘O my deerest I shall grieve thee’. Subscribed ‘Th: Ca:’. By Thomas Carew.
• f. 14r-v: ‘A Good night to the world’. First line: ‘Farewell yee gilded follies, pleasing troubles’. Subscribed ‘H: Kinge’. Attributed to Sir Henry Wotton.
• f. 14v: ‘On the Misery of man’. First line: ‘Ill busied man why dost thou take such care’. Subscribed ‘H: Kinge’. By Henry King.
• f. 14v: ‘On the brevity of mans life’. First line: ‘What is our life the play of passion’. By Sir Walter Ralegh.
• f. 15v: ‘Vpon the Duke of Richmond’. First line: ‘Are all diseases dead; or will death say’. Possibly attributed to Francis Bacon.
• f. 17r-v: ‘On the misery of man’. First line: ‘The worlds a bubble, and the life of man’. By Francis Bacon.
• f. 18r: ‘An ode’. First line: ‘O when will Cupid shewe such arte’. By William Strode.
• f. 18r: ‘An ode’. First line: ‘Wrong not sweet Empresse of my heart’. Subscribed ‘Sr Walter Rawleigh’. Attributed to Sir Walter Ralegh or Sir Robert Ayton.
• ff. 18v-19r: ‘Mr: Johnson to Inigo Joanes Marques Wouldbe’. First line: ‘But cause thou hearst the mighty kinge of Spaine’. Subscribed ‘Ben: Johnson’. By Ben Jonson.
• f. 19r: ‘An Epigram upon him to his freind’. First line: ‘Sr: Inigo doth feare it as I heare’. Subscribed ‘Ben: Johnson’. By Ben Jonson.
• f. 19v: ‘Vpon kinge Charles his Birth daie’. First line: ‘This is Kinge Charles his day speake itt the Tower’. Subscribed ‘Ben Johnson’. By Ben Jonson.
• f. 19v: ‘On the birth daie of Prince Charles’. First line: ‘The Gods great issue, our Joves greate increase’. Subscribed ‘Ben Johnson’. By Thomas Freeman.
• f. 20r: ‘An Epigram on Sr: Kellum Digby to my Muse’. First line: ‘Thoughe happy muse thou knowe my Digby well’. Subscribed ‘Ben: Johnson’. By Ben Jonson.
• f. 20v: ‘To William Earle of Newcastle’. First line: ‘They talke of fencinge and the use of armes’. Subscribed ‘Ben Johnson’. By Ben Jonson.
• ff. 20v-21r: ‘On the Auspicious birth of Prince Charles’. First line: ‘Another Poenix thoughe the first be dead’. Subscribed ‘Ben: Johnson’. By Ben Johnson.
• f. 21r: ‘A Parallel to the Kinge of the Prince’. First line: ‘Soe Peleus when he faire Thetis gott’. Subscribed ‘Ben Johnson’. Attributed to Thomas Freeman.
• ff. 21v-22v: ‘The Minde’. First line: ‘Painter, yare come but may be gon’. Subscribed ‘Ben Johnson’. By Ben Jonson.
• ff. 22v-23r: ‘Sr Walter Rawleighes Pilgrimage’. First line: ‘Give mee my Scallop shell of quiett’. Subscribed ‘Sr: Walter Rawleigh’.
• ff. 24r-25r: ‘To his ffather Mr: Beniamin Johnson upon his Adoption’. First line: ‘I was not borne to Hellicon nor dare’. Subscribed ‘Tho: Randolphe’. By Thomas Randolph.
• ff. 25r-27v: ‘An Eglouge To his worthy ffather Mr: Ben: Johnson under the Persons of Titerus and Damon’. First line: ‘Under this Beech why sitts thou here soe sadd’. Subscribed ‘Tho: Rand’. By Thomas Randolph.
• f. 27v: ‘On the refusall of a learned wife’. First line: ‘You wishe mee to a wife thats faire and younge’. By Sir John Harington.
• ff. 28v-29r: ‘A Songe’. First line: ‘Younge and tender though I am’. By Thomas Campion.
• f. 30r-v: To his false freind Mr: Ben Johnson’. First line: ‘Siz daies are done with endlesse hopes since I’. Subscribed ‘Inigo Jones’.
• f. 30v: ‘A Sonnet’. First line: ‘The Silken wreath that Circles in my Arme’. By Thomas Carew.
• f. 30v: ‘On Mrs. Bowlstred’. First line: ‘Wilt thou here what man can say’. Subscribed ‘Ben Johnson’. By Ben Jonson.
• ff. 31r-33r: ‘A Pastorall Courtshipp’. First line: ‘Beholde these woods and mark my sweete’. By Thomas Randolph.
• f. 33r: ‘on the death of mrs. Bowlstred’. First line: ‘Stay, view this stone: And, if thou beest not such’. By Ben Jonson.
• ff. 33v-34r: ‘A Hymne to Christ upon occasion of takeing ship from England’. First line: ‘In what torne shipp soever I embarke’. By John Donne.
• f. 34r: ‘A Sonnet’. First line: ‘Orpheus I am come from the darke shades below’. By Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• f. 34r-v: ‘A Sonnet’. First line: ‘Come sorrowe come bringe all thy cryes’. Subscribed ‘J. F’. By John Fletcher.
• f. 34v: ‘An ode’. First line: ‘Beauty cleare and faire’. By Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
• f. 35r: ‘On the death of Sr: Walter Rawleighe’. First line: ‘I will not weepe, for 'twere as great a sinne’. By Henry King.
• f. 35r-v: ‘On a faire Lady that wore in her brest a wounded hart carved in a pretious stone’. First line: ‘When on faire Cælia I did spye’. By Thomas Carew, also attributed to Henry Blount.
• f. 36v: ‘A Sonnet’. First line: ‘Take o take those lipps away’. Subscribed ‘W. S.’ Attributed to John Fletcher or William Shakespeare.
• ff. 36v-37v: ‘on a greate hollowe tree’. First line: ‘Prithee stand still a while and viewe this tree’. By William Strode.
• f. 38r-v: ‘On the death of his Mistres’. First line: ‘Is death soe greate a gamester that he throwes’. By William Browne of Tavistock.
• ff. 42r-43r: ‘A description: of a woman’. First line: ‘Whose head befringed with bescattered tresses’. Subscribed ‘R: W’. By Robert Herrick.
• ff. 43v-44r: ‘On an Empty Purse’. First line: ‘Purse, whoole not know you have a Poets beene’. Subscribed ‘Tho: Randall’. By Thomas Randolph.
• f. 44v: ‘A Songe’. First line: ‘Deare why doe you say you love’. By Sir Robert Ayton.
• f. 45r: ‘A Sonnet’. First line: ‘Love if a god thou art’. By Francis Davison.
• f. 45r: ‘A Ladies Prayer to Cupid’. First line: ‘Since I must needes into thy schoole returne’. By Thomas Carew.
• ff. 48r-v: ‘A Songe’. First line: ‘Nay pish, nay pue, nay faith and will you fye’. William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. Also attributed to John Donne and James Shirley.
• ff. 48v-49r: ‘Songe London Abusses Rainton Maior 1632’. First line: ‘O fortunate Citie reioyce in thy Fate’. By Thomas Randolph.
• ff. 60r-62v: ‘Lord Rochester’. First line: ‘Much wine had pas’t with grave discourse’. By John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester.