Royal MS 18 B XXIV

FOUR TREATISES in English bound together casually, but artt. 2, 3 are on similar paper and in the same hand. Contents:-

1. 'Of ye right preparation of ye soule by ye ghosple to receaue our eternall saluation and blessednes in Christe, ye second booke', by 'Leonellus Sharpe', i.e. Lionel Sharp or Sharpe (1559-1631), D.D., Archdeacon of Berks and chaplain to James I and Prince Henry. Preceded by ten Latin elegiac lines and Latin dedication to the King, in which he speaks of the work as an amplification of an earlier one in a single book which he had presented, and says that in the new form 'primus [liber] est de praeparatione legali . . . secundus de praeparatione euangelica', and that after receiving the King's criticism he proposes to print them. The title of bk. ii also refers to bk. i in similar terms as 'ye first part of God's husbandry in ye preparation of vs by ye law'. It does not appear that bk. i is extant or that either part was published, nor are they mentioned among Sharp's works in Dict. Nat. Biogr. From a reference on f. 20 b to 'ye booke of ye catholick diuin agaynst my l. chief iustice of ye common pleas', sc. Andreas Eudaemon-Joannes against Coke, 1610, it would appear to have been written between that date and 1613, when Coke was moved to the King's Bench. Probably autograph. Beg. 'The ghosple is ye power of God'. f. 1.

2. Roger Ascham's The Scholemaster : the first book only. Evidently a copy of the tract as originally begun (see the preface to the printed text) in Dec. 1563. It was not published till 1570, after Ascham's death, and then with many additions and omissions (cf. J. E. B. Mayor's reprint, 1884), but the MS. text includes references (e. g. at f. 73 to the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Lodge, 'even this last yere', viz. 1561-2) which agree with the date named, and this accords roughly with the water-mark of the paper (see Briquet, Les Filigranes, 1907, no. 2867). The title in a somewhat later hand is '[Asch]ams institution [to] hys chylde'. Beg. 'After the childe hath learnyd'. f. 47.

3. 'Thomas Norton, of Alchymy': the Ordinal of Alchemy, a poem in seven chapters, the first syllables of the proem and ch. i-vi giving the author's name as 'Tomas Norton of Bristow', and the last four lines of ch. vii giving the date as follows:-

'All that haue pleasure in this booke to reade, Pray for my soulle and for all quick and deade. In the yeare of Christe MCCCC seventy and seavyn This work began. Honor to God in heavene.' A Latin translation was printed in Michael Maier's Tripus Aureus, Frankfort, 1618, and the original by Elias Ashmole in his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, 1652. Prefixed to ch. i, iv, v in this and other MSS. (ff. 83, 103 b, 107) are notes on the illustrations contained in 'Norton's owne bok fownd in Bristowe'. These illustrations are engraved in Ashmole's book from a vellum MS. (lent him by 'a private gentleman') 'in an auntient sett hand . . . most neatly and exquisitely lym'd and better work then that which was Henry the seaventh's own booke, as I am informed by those that have seene both'. Neither of these MSS. seems now to be known and the numerous copies in the Sloane MSS. are all later than the middle of the 16th cent., but Harley MS. 853 (also late 16th cent.) has a rough attempt to copy one or two of the pictures. Ashmole's MS. had the arms of Neville in the ornament, but he can hardly be right in suggesting that it was written for George Neville, Archbishop of York, who died 8 June, 1476. The author is mentioned by Ascham in the second book of The Schoolmaster (ed. Mayor, 1884, p. 214) among creditable writers of English verse (see also Dict. Nat. Biogr.). Prefixed are eight Latin verses in praise of him by Walter Haddon, Master of Requests and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge (printed in his Poemata, 1567, p. 82), who is also a link connecting artt. 2, 3, see the preeface to The Schoolmaster. At the end is a table of authors cited in the Ordinal. f. 79. Beg.:-

'To the honoure of God, one in persons three, This bok is mad, yt lay men shuld it see.'

4. 'Considerations for the repressinge of the encrease of preests, Jesuits and recusants without drawinge of blood, written by Sr Robert Cotton, Kt and Barontt'; agreeing with the printed edition of 1641, but having, in addition, some marginal notes. Beg. 'I am not ignorant that this latter age'; ends 'to counsell grauelye. Finis'. f. 140.

Paper; ff. 162. Folio, 12 in. x 8 in. Circ. 1563 (artt. 2, 3) and temp. Jas. I. On the fly-leaf of art. 3 (f. 79) is a scrap of' paper inscribed 'Antonius V. N. T. R. Doctor'. Artt. 2, 3 belonged to [John, Lord] Lumley, but only the latter seems to be mentioned in the Lumley cat. f. 365; not in cat. of 1666 or CMA.