Autograph manuscript of a collection of didactic material. The manuscript begins with specimens of calligraphy, labeled Courte hande, Chancerie hande, Secretarie hande, cloven hande, curled hand, chayned hand, and Roman hande, as well as examples of writing in reverse and recipes for making ink, red wax, and white letters on black paper. This section is followed by arithmetic tables; measurements and conversions for dry goods as well as salmon, eels, wine, and oil; a sample genealogical chart drawn as a tree; instructions on how to use counters for counting; and a chart of the names of English kings and the years of their reigns up to James I, dated 1607. The bulk of the collection, however, consists of several hundred Latin proverbs on such topics as error, excellence, faith, honor, and ingratitude, followed by English proverbs and admonitions, and then several English proverbs translated into Latin. This section includes excerpts from King James' Basilikon Doron and How to live and that well by William Perkins. These proverbs are followed by "prettie and necessary rules for such as use to deale in merchandize, easy to be had in memorye," and, at the end of the manuscript, genealogical information for the Hill family, beginning in 1568.
Description:
Imperfect: some pages mutilated with loss of text.
Subject (Name):
Hill family, James I, King of England, 1566-1625, and Perkins, William, 1558-1602
Subject (Topic):
Arithmetic--Handbooks, manuals, etc, Calligraphy --England, Children--Conduct of life, English poetry --17th century, Genealogy--England, Proverbs, English, Proverbs, Latin, Recipes--Great Britain, and Weights and measures--England
Manuscript on paper, in a single hand, containing about 43 entries including religious meditations; Biblical notes; religious poems and verse paraphrases on Biblical subjects; sermon extracts; a play titled "The Tragedye of Jepthas daughter;" a treatise on dueling "according to the unjustifiable Custome of this age by a true Lover of honnour;" and a collection of medicinal recipes. Elsewhere, a brief description of "the nature of the irish, who are cal'd naturall Irishe, out of Campion's History" is annotated, "This being a booke of Commmon place this comes not out of order." The volume begins with a letter addressed to the author's son, in which the author describes the contents of this manuscript as "the fruits of my solitude whilst under restraint" as a royalist prisoner at Exeter, ca. 1651-53.
Description:
Binding: full sheep., For information on the source of acquisition, consult the appropriate curator., In English., Pasted into front cover: newspaper clipping which describes the manuscript., and Phillipps MS 18904.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain--Politics and government--1642-1660 and Great Britain--Religious life and customs--17th century
Subject (Name):
Campion, Edmund,--Saint,--1540-1581
Subject (Topic):
Dueling--Great Britain, English drama--17th century, English poetry--17th century, Medicine, Popular, Medicine--15th-18th cent, Meditations (Religious), Religious poetry, English, and Sermons, English--17th century