Abraham Cowley

1618/19?–1667

Introduction

Autograph Literary Manuscripts

A number of autograph literary manuscripts of Cowley have survived, several of them having come to light only in relatively recent years. The most important is the manuscript of Books I to III of The Civil War (*CoA 40). Probably written in 1643, this unfinished poem was mentioned by Cowley in the Preface to his Poems (London, 1656) as one of those he had cast away and burnt during the late troubles, being three Books of the Civil War it self, reaching as far as the first Battel of Newbury, where the succeeding misfortunes of the party stopt the work; for it is so uncustomary, as to become almost ridiculous, to make Lawrels for the Conquered. Evidently a few copies of the First Book alone were made (see CoA 43-4), one of which fell after Cowley's death into the hands of a printer, who published it in 1679. Nothing was known of the full surviving text until 1966, when the transcript of Cowley's own manuscript made for Dame Sarah Cowper (CoA 41) was discovered among the Panshanger manuscripts at Hertford and prepared for an edition by Allan Pritchard. It was only many months later that Cowley's original manuscript (*CoA 40) also came to light in the same collection and was consequently used as the basis for Pritchard's edition eventually published in 1973 (see Pritchard, Editing). Although it has been suggested that three or even four hands are to be found in the authorial manuscript, it is in fact in two hands: one, that of an amanuensis, responsible for copying Book I; the other, that of Cowley himself (his script varying occasionally in its rhythm and degree of formality), responsible for corrections in Book I and for the copying of all of Books II and III. The manuscript probably came into Dame Sarah Cowper's possession through a mutual friend of hers and Cowley's, Martin Clifford (d.1677), Master of the Charterhouse, to whom Cowley may have given it. The survival of both original manuscript and direct contemporary transcript of it also provides, as Pritchard has pointed out, a rare opportunity to take full cognizance of the kind of scribal errors and alterations that can contaminate the transmission of seventeenth-century texts even when derived directly from an autograph original.

Elsewhere an autograph manuscript was identified in 1976 for Cowley's notable elegy, written after 1649, On the Death of Mr. Crashaw (*CoA 127). An autograph presentation poem is inscribed in a volume of his Poems which he gave in 1656 to the Bodleian Library (*CoA 119). Another autograph presentation poem, in Latin, was found in 1929 inscribed in an exemplum of his Plantarum libri duo which he gave in 1662 to Sir Alexander Fraizer (*CoA 203). The original autograph manuscript of his epistolary essay The Garden, sent to John Evelyn in 1666, is likewise preserved (*CoA 206). Furthermore, it is now possible to identify an autograph notebook by Cowley on the medicinal properties of herbs (*CoA 209) — a compilation which is clearly related to his Plantarum (1662-8). This manuscript, among the Sloane manuscripts in the British Library, contains the name Abraham Cowley in an unknown hand, but the notes — probably entered in the late 1650s-60s, during the period of Cowley's retirement when he took up the study of medicine and botany — are in his own hand throughout. This notebook on plants is, moreover, a reminder that Cowley apparently transcribed the whole of the original manuscript of John Evelyn's Kalendarium hortense for his own use before its publication (see Evelyn's dedication to Cowley in the second edition of 1666), but no trace of that transcript is known today.

These various extant autograph manuscripts are written with differing degrees of formality, but they are alike in demonstrating Cowley's accomplished penmanship — being, incidentally, a reminder that he was, at least by some reports, the son of a London stationer. Most important, they show for the most part an almost pedantic concern with details of punctuation, orthography and layout, reflecting among other things his attempt to ensure the correct speaking of his lines, a concern which is similarly shown in his careful preparation of his works for the press.

Letters

Examples of Cowley's hand survive also in a relatively substantial number of original letters by him. Although not all recorded letters by Cowley can now be traced or, indeed, are known still to exist, there are probably more letters by him than his early biographers and commentators have generally been aware of. Apart from printed sources cited below, the most extensive listings hitherto have appeared in A.H. Nethercot, The Letters of Abraham Cowley, Modern Language Notes, 43 (1928), 369-75 (these letters also generally referred to in Nethercot's biography of 1931), and in Perkin, pp. 87-90. Although their whereabouts is not always known at present, a number of letters by Cowley recorded in modern times, written on his own behalf and, so far as is known, in his own hand, are given entries in CELM (CoA 213-251).

Besides his formal epistolary essays — such as The Garden (*CoA 206) — the texts of a further fifteen letters are known from eighteenth-century publications. All addressed to Henry Bennet, dating from 30 April 1650 to 13 September 1653, they are printed in Miscellanea Aulica (London, 1702), pp. 130-9, 141-50, 152-60. The letters are all reprinted from that source in Grosart, II, 345-52.

The number of letters that can be recorded is smaller for the elimination of certain blatant fabrications (including supposed remains of Sprat's collection) published in Thomas Brown's Works (1730) and Fraser's Magazine (1836). These are discussed in Nethercot's article cited, p. 370. By the same token, three cant letters of 1656, which are ascribed to Cowley (This is M^r. Cow letter to mee) in Bodleian, MS Clarendon 51, ff. 211r, 248r and 277r (see Nethercot (1931), pp. 312-13), are equally spurious.

Letters Written by Cowley as a Secretary

It would be possible, on the other hand, to extend the list of Cowley's letters by the inclusion of extant letters and documents which he wrote as secretary to Henry, Lord Jermyn, and to their mistress, Queen Henrietta Maria, during their exile in France between c.1644 and 1651. (Indeed some of the letters given entries in CELM might be construed as, in effect, written on Jermyn's behalf). While no doubt many more such letters will come to light, or be identified, in due course, currently known examples of letters written by Cowley in his secretarial office may be briefly listed or summarized as follows.

A number of them in the National Archives, Kew, include SP 106/10, items 2, 3, 5-12, 15 (1645-6), which are edited in Secret Writing in the Public Records, Henry VIII-George II, ed. Sheila R. Richards (London, 1974), Nos. 65, 66-74, 80, 85 and Plate IV, after p. 78. Further letters identified by Cowley's editor Thomas O. Calhoun are SP 16/510, items 16, 22, 33, 36-7, 51, 63, and 72 (1645). A letter by Jermyn in Cowley's hand, dated 7 August 1654, is also among the Evelyn papers in the British Library (Add. MS 78193).

Letters by Lord Jermyn recorded as wholly or partly written in Cowley's hand were sold at Sotheby's, 13 April 1905, lots 7 and 45 (22 February and 11 December 1649, to Sabin); lot 8 (23 February 1649, to Maggs); lot 42 (30 November 1649, to Clarke); and in Sotheby's sale on 26 July 1938, lot 425 (1649) to Maggs. Cowley's autograph copy of a letter from Lord Aitkin to Jermyn, from Stockholm, 1649, was offered in Maggs's sale catalogue No. 303 (1913), item 168. A warrant signed by Henrietta Maria for payment of 1,200 pistoles to Sir William Davenant, 20 June 1647, the text and a subjoined minute in Cowley's hand, was sold at Sotheby's, 22 June 1976, lot 105, and is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 3863). A photocopy is in the British Library (RP 780). What appears to be an autograph endorsement and signature cut from an indenture dated 29 December 1660 between Jermyn and Sir Kenelm Digby is also in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Misc. Eng.).

A particularly interesting set of Instructions for M^r. Denham, entirely in Cowley's hand and signed by Queen Henrietta Maria, 10 May 1649, has been identified in the British Library (Add. MS 19399, ff. 72r-3v) and is edited in Hilton Kelliher, John Denham: New Letters and Documents, British Library Journal, 12 (1986), 1-20 (pp. 18-19). A receipt by Cowley for 150 agates for the use of Jermyn is also recorded as being among the muniments of the Cottrell-Dormer family at Rousham, Oxfordshire (HMC, 2nd Report (1871), Appendix, p. 83).

These various examples must be a tiny portion of the number of letters and documents that Cowley actually wrote on official Royalist business. According to Sprat (in his Account of the Life…of…Cowley in Works (1668)), Cowley cypher'd and decypher'd with his own hand, the greatest part of all the Letters that passed between their Majesties, and managed a vast Intelligence in many other parts: which for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights every week. In his dedicatory epistle To the King in Poems and Translations (London, 1668), Sir John Denham recalled his own involvement in this clandestine correspondence with the King and his need to escape from London about nine months after being discovered by their knowledge of Mr. Cowleys hand.

Thomas Sprat

Although rarely personal in nature, Cowley's letters are of more than passing interest if one heeds the opinion of Cowley's Royal Society colleague and biographer Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), Bishop of Rochester, who wrote that one kind of Prose wherein Cowley was excellent…[was] his letters to his private Friends (An Account of the Life and Writings of M^r Abraham Cowley in Cowley's Works (London, 1668)). Since Sprat believed, however, that Letters that pass between particular Friends, if they are written as they ought to be, can scarce ever be fit to see the light and so should not go abroad into the Streets, he declined to publish what appears to have been the major collection of letters by Cowley: i.e. those belonging to himself and to his friend Martin Clifford (…I think, Sir, you and I have the greatest Collection of this sort…). Indeed, only five letters in the entries in CELM (*CoA 239, *CoA 242, *CoA 243, *CoA 248, and *CoA 250) appear to derive from this correspondence. It is possible too that all five were addressed to Clifford rather than to Sprat since all were preserved among the family papers of Dame Sarah Cowper who, as noted above, was a friend of Clifford's. One possible addition to this group is Cowley's epistolary essay The danger of Procrastination (Waller, II, 452-5), which is subtitled A Letter to Mr. S. L. Nethercot (Modern Language Notes, 43 (1928), 373) has argued that S.L. might conceivably represent Sprat of Lincoln since Sprat was the Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral; but this is a matter of speculation.

Thomas Sprat was, moreover, Cowley's literary executor and the chief custodian of his remaining literary manuscripts and library. In his will of 18 September 1665 (Nethercot, pp. 296-7), Cowley desired Sprat to trouble himselfe w^th y^e Collection and Revision of all such writings of mine (whether printed before or not) as hee shall think fit to bee publish'd…And in consideration of this vnpleasant task I desire him to accept of my Study of Books, while Sprat himself mentioned, in his Account of the …Life …of …Cowley, the poet's desire for him to collect those Papers which he had design'd for the Press (Waller, I, v). Sprat dutifully reviewed Cowley's papers and included in the Works of 1668, which he edited, all that [he] could find in his Closet, which he had brought to any manner of perfection. These included such previously unpublished compositions as Several Discourses by way of Essays in Verse and Prose. He also published separately, in 1668, Cowley's Poemata latina. The author's papers themselves were allegedly used as printer's copy (according to the title-page, at any rate, the Works were Now Published out of the Authors Original Copies) and so have disappeared. Sprat's papers in general passed after his death to his wife and then to his son, after whom no trace of them is known. Of the Study of Books that Cowley left him, an early reference to only one volume can be recorded at present. An exemplum of the Opera of Sextus Empiricus (Paris, 1621) inscribed The Legacy of M^r. A. Cowley was offered for sale in the catalogue of the library of Dr John Friend (1675-1728) auctioned at John Cooper's house in Covent Garden on 2 January 1729, 7th day, lot 1218 (exemplum of this catalogue in the British Library, S.C. 432 (1)).

John Evelyn

Another notable friend and correspondent of Cowley's later years, who is also thinly represented in the letters recorded in CELM, is John Evelyn. Four informative letters from Cowley to Evelyn are recorded (*CoA 245, *CoA 246, *CoA 249, *CoA 251), one of them originally accompanying the surviving autograph manuscript of his epistolary essay The Garden (*CoA 206). An unspecified letter from Cowley to Evelyn, which may or may not be one of those already recorded, was in a now untraced collection of about 335 holograph letters, etc., of the Poets of Great Britain and a few of America (2 vols, folio, bound in red morocco) which was offered for sale by J. Pearson of London in his catalogue of A most important collection of holograph MSS [n.d.], item 201 (exemplum of this catalogue in the British Library). No letters of Cowley are preserved among the Evelyn papers now removed from Christ Church, Oxford, to the British Library. However, what is described as an autograph literary manuscript by Cowley in prose, on two quarto leaves, is now preserved in another privately owned section of Evelyn family papers which is not at present accessible to scholars.

Two poems on Cowley which Evelyn himself wrote are also now in the British Library and were first recorded in Pritchard, Editing. One was written to Cowley in direct response to receiving his essay The Garden in 1666: viz. To Abraham Cowley sending me his poeme— The Garden (see *EvJ 6). The other (British Library Add. MS 78357, pp. 59-60) is a lengthy Elegie (beginning Greate Cowley dead!) written sometime after Cowley's death on 28 July 1667 and is edited in full in Pritchard's Editing, pp. 70-4. Copies of four letters from Evelyn to Cowley, written between 20 March 1662/3 and 12 March 1666/7, chiefly on the subject of Evelyn's cousin Sir Samuel Tuke (d.1674) and Tuke's play The Adventures of Five Hours, are in one of Evelyn's letterbooks owned by Lord Camoys of Stonor Park, Oxfordshire (a microfilm is in the Bodleian, MS Film 743, letters clxxxxix, ccl, ccv, and cclxxxv). Evelyn's own exempla of Cowley's Poemata latina (2nd edition, 1678); Works (1668); and A Vision concerning his late pretended Highnesse Cromwell, the Wicked (1661) appeared in the Evelyn sale at Christie's on, respectively, 23 June 1977, lot 424 (to Francis Edwards) and lot 425 (to Quaritch), and on 13 July 1978, lot 1628 (also to Quaritch). The first of these volumes appeared again in Quaritch's sale catalogue for summer 2010, item 14. The second of these items is now in the British Library (Eve. b. 28).

Books from Cowley's Library

Other notable examples of Cowley's handwriting take the form of inscriptions in a few of his surviving printed books. Besides the inscribed presentation exempla of Plantarum (*CoA 203) and Poems (*CoA 119), a currently untraced volume of his Poems (1656) was inscribed by him to Lady Hanmer. This was offered in Pickering & Chatto's sale catalogue of 1899, item 1873; was then in the Newberry Library, Chicago; and was sold at Sotheby's, 8 November 1965, lot 77, to Seven Gables Bookshop, New York. A facsimile of the inscribed flyleaf appears in the Sotheby's sale catalogue. A presentation exemplum of Plantarum libri duo (1662) probably accompanied Cowley's letter to Dr Busby (*CoA 244) but is no longer known. What are apparently two other presentation exempla of this edition are preserved: one in the Huntington (RB 102357), bearing on a pasted-down slip of paper Cowley's autograph inscription For M^r. Keck from His most humble servant the Author; the other in the Bodleian (8° A. 13 Med BS), bearing no trace of Cowley's own hand but the inscription by a contemporary librarian ex dono Authoris. An exemplum of Verses written upon Several Occasions (London, 1663) with, allegedly, the Author's signature on the title (a volume owned later in 1772 by E.T. Bridges) was offered for sale in A.S.W. Rosenbach's catalogue [No. 45], English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 212. Item 243 in the same catalogue was an exemplum of the first quarto edition of Davenant's Gondibert (1651) described as formerly owned by Cowley. although no evidence of association is given other than the appearance of Cowley's initials on the title-page.

Apart from the volume of Sextus Empiricus sold in 1729 and noted above, only one other printed book appears to have been associated with Cowley in recent times, but it is almost certainly spurious. A late-sixteenth-century edition of the works of Ovid printed in Frankfurt for Johann Wechel, bearing, among other manuscript additions and verses, the inscription Abraham Cowley His Book, was sold at Sotheby's, 22 July 1985, lot 15, to Laurence Heyworth. As is noted in the sale catalogue, however, the inscription appears to be in an immature hand of the seventeenth or early-eighteenth century which bears no resemblance to the known signature of the poet.

Manuscript Copies of Cowley's Poems

Among the surviving manuscript copies of works by Cowley which are not in his own hand, relatively few may be said to have clearly definable authority. Certainly Dame Sarah Cowper's transcript of The Civil War (CoA 41) would be invaluable had the author's own manuscript not come to light. Valuable too is her copy of Cowley's posthumously published poem To the Duke of Buckingham (CoA 191), which, marked M C, could well have been transcribed from a copy of the original autograph presentation manuscript made by Martin Clifford, who was for a time Buckingham's secretary. Three of Cowley's occasional juvenile compositions are preserved only in copies because they were entered by the appointed scribe in an extant volume of verse presented by Westminster School to Charles I in 1633 (CoA 36, CoA 123, CoA 173).

With these and a few other exceptions indicated elsewhere, most of Cowley's works were printed under his personal supervision and modern editors would generally be justified in using those editions as their copy-texts. At the same time, Cowley's works evidently had some circulation in manuscript — in academic circles, among Royalist exiles in Paris in the 1640s and 50s, among Cowley's personal friends, and elsewhere. Circulation was sufficient for manuscripts of a number of his poems to fall into the hands of publishers and be printed by them without his consent. In the Preface To the Reader in the first edition of The Mistresse (1647), for instance, Humphrey Moseley alleged: A Correct Copy of these verses (as I am told) written by the Authour himselfe, falling into my hands, I thought fit to send them to the Presse; cheifely because I heare that the same is like to be don from a more imperfect one (Waller, I, 456). In the Preface to Poems (1656), Cowley himself complained of various other unauthorized and spurious publications in which his works were mangled and imperfect, including The Guardian, the Copy of which he claimed to have lost (Waller, I, 4-5). Verses, Lately Written upon Several Occasions (1663) was also first printed at Dublin without [Cowley's] consent or knowledge, as the publisher Henry Herringman observes in the first London edition of the same year. Indeed, no exemplum of this pirated Dublin edition — Poems, by Several Persons (Dublin, printed by John Crooke…for Samuel Dancer, 1663) — was known to editors until what may be the only extant example came to light at the Folger (C6681.5).

Yet other poems were allegedly printed by stationers from manuscript copies that happened to come to hand: for instance, The Garden in Poems upon divers occasions in 1667 (This following Poem coming by chance to my hands, I took the double boldness to Print it…: Perkin, p. 83) and A Poem on the late Civil War [i.e. The First Book] in 1679 (Meeting accidentally with this Poem in Manuscript…I thought it unjust to hide such a Treasure from the World…: Waller, II, 466, and see CoA 40-4). It is clear, in any event, that Cowley chose not to acknowledge, or to print himself, various of his poems. In the Preface to Poems (1656) he claimed I have supprest and cast away more then I publish and (of his Miscellanies) I know not by what chance I have kept Copies of them; for they are but a very few in comparison of those which I have lost (Waller, I, 6 and 9). Poems in whose fate Cowley apparently took little concern but which were nevertheless preserved and circulated in manuscript copies would presumably include his Sors Virgiliana (CoA 174-80); his elegy on the death of his friend William Harvey (CoA 130-1) and the occasional Prologue and Epilogue to The Guardian written for Charles I's visit to Cambridge in March 1641/2 (CoA 136.5-52, CoA 68-81). One of the copies of Sors Virgiliana (CoA 176) was made by John Aubrey who comments in the same context M^r. Geo: Ent (who lived in his [Cowley's] house at Chertsey in the great plague 1665.) shewed me M^r Cowleys owne hand writing (British Library, Lansdowne MS 231, ff. 155r, 158r).

The majority of extant manuscript texts of Cowley's poems are likely, nevertheless, to derive from printed sources. Indeed, in this respect Cowley is unusual among the poets of his time. The number of copies of his poems in extant seventeenth- and eighteenth-century miscellanies is such as to indicate clearly that he was one of the most popular and most frequently transcribed poets of his century, but this evidence of transmission is quite different from that of so widely transcribed a poet as, say, John Donne. Cowley's admirers had a steady stream of published editions of his works from which to copy out selections of their own choice. If there be any further motive behind the widespread transcribing of his works it may perhaps be that at times the demand for printed editions exceeded the supply, a possibility suggested by The Book-sellers (i.e. Charles Harper and Jacob Tonson) in The second part of the works of Mr. Abraham Cowley…The fourth edition (London, 1681), where it is observed of the first three editions of Poetical Blossomes (1633-7) that they were much enquired after, and very scarce (the Town hardly affording one Book, though it had been thrice Printed) (Waller, II, 487).

Other Manuscript Copies

Granted that near-contemporary manuscript copies even of printed texts have value in indicating the taste and reception of early readers, the entries in CELM do not record every known copy of each of Cowley's poems. Instead, the following policy (the reverse of that normally followed here) has been adopted. Those manuscripts containing ten or more of Cowley's poems are described hereafter as collective units, included under a category of Extracts from Works by Cowley and Collections of Manuscript Copies, and are not given a separate entry for each individual text they contain. Separate entries are, however, given to manuscript copies of poems, or extracts from poems, when fewer than ten poems appear in the manuscript volume.

For convenient reference, those manuscripts containing ten or more poems by Cowley may be listed as follows:

1. Bodleian, MS Rawl. poet. 90. Includes (on ff. 56v-9v, 85v-97, 122, 162r-v) 15 poems (and a second copy of one poem) by Cowley.
2. Bodleian, MS Rawl. poet. 173. Includes (on ff. 26r-7v, 32v-3r, 35r-40r, 53v-6r 58v-9r, 79r-81v, 96v-7r, 98r-v, 140v-1r 159r-60v, 168v, 169v-70v) 27 poems by Cowley.
3. Bodleian, MS Rawl. poet. 213. Includes (on front paste-down and ff. 2r, 4r-5v, 30r, 47v-50r, 66v) portions of 17 poems by Cowley.
4. British Library, Add. MS 11492. Includes (on ff. 117v-31v, versos only) 12 poems by Cowley.
5. British Library, Add. MS 29921. Includes (on ff. 113r-v, 124r-9v) 10 poems by Cowley.
6. British Library, Egerton MS 2326. Large collection of Cowley's poems.
7. University of Chicago, MS 553. Includes (on pp. 2, 4, 44, 47-9, 196, 206, 222, 225-6, 229, 242, 253, 255, 264, 270, 273-5, 280, 282, 286, 350-4) portions of some 29 poems by Cowley.
8. Harvard, MS Eng 631. Includes (numbered 146-58, on 26 unnumbered pages) 13 poems by Cowley.
9. Rosenbach Museum & Library, MS 239/16. Includes (on pp. 8, 23, 29-35, 43, 160-1) 11 poems by Cowley.
10. Yale, Osborn MS b 118. Includes (on pp. 1-40) 24 poems by Cowley.
11. English College, Rome, Scritture 35: 3. Includes extracts or more from c.57 poems by Cowley.

A few untraced manuscripts that appear to have included copies of, or extracts from, poems by Cowley, not given entries in CELM, may be listed briefly in the hope that some will eventually resurface:

A miscellany compiled by Frances Fitzherbert, sold at Sotheby's, 9 April 1963, Lot 494, to Blackwell.
A duodecimo commonplace book compiled c.1665-90, the later entries by John Adamson, rector of Burton-Coggles, Lincolnshire, in 1693.
A manuscript comprising 67 leaves plus 67 blanks in Maggs's sale catalogues No. 536 (1930), item 1310, and No. 550 (1931), item 948.
An exemplum of Cowley's Poems (1656) at Yale (Z77.037) includes a cutting from an unspecified sale catalogue describing (as item 334) another (untraced) exemplum of that edition which contains on four preliminary pages manuscript texts of the pindaric Ode. Mr. Cowley's Book presenting itself to the University Library of Oxford and of On the Death of Mr. William Hervey.
An unidentified manuscript of a poem by Cowley is described in an old unspecified catalogue as: Cowley (Abraham). Manuscript Poem and cipher. Oblong folio strip. (Cowley was cipher Secretary to Queen Henrietta Maria, circa 1647).

Exempla of the second and third editions of Poeticall Blossomes (1636-7) in the Bodleian also contain manuscript notes explaining the subject of An Elegie on the Death of John Littleton Esquire. They are discussed in Margaret Duncan, Cowley's Elegy on John Littleton, N&Q, 205 (November 1960), 205-6.

The Canon

The canon of Cowley's verse and prose, in English and Latin, has been largely established in Grosart, Waller and Perkin. A very few areas remain open to clarification. Two notable poems — both anti-Puritan satires by A.C., never acknowledged by Cowley — which have tended to hover uncertainly on the perimeters of the canon are The Puritan and the Papist (CoA 161-70) and A Satyre against Separatists (CoA 158-60); the first almost certainly by Cowley (see Perkin, pp. 29-30), the second arguably his (see Perkin, pp. 25-6), and both included in the entries in CELM. It is likely, on internal evidence, that Cowley was the author of a hitherto unpublished Latin poem ascribed to A. C. by his Trinity contemporary William Lynnet and discovered by Hilton Kelliher (see CoA 204-5). Also ascribed to Abr. Cowley is a six-line verse headed In Petrum negantem (Art thou, y^e only Rock, w^ch X^t did find) which was apparently found in 1682 in the study of the archivist William Petyt (CoA 99.8). This text and ascription are perhaps a little too far removed from the author himself to be accepted without question, although Cowley's authorship does not seem inherently improbable. Yet another poem, comprising some twenty lines beginning Happy the man whom all his dayes, copied out in the 17th century on a single folio leaf at present in private ownership, is endorsed Cowley, verse and annotated in a more recent hand 1671 or 2 Cowley. It too is written in his style.

The authorship of some other poems that have been occasionally attributed to Cowley is much more doubtful. They may be mentioned here briefly. A somewhat corrupted text of a twenty-line poem on the death of William Creswell of Magdalen College, Oxford (beginning A morninge fayre, as the first lookes of May) appears ascribed to Abraham Cowley in Christopher Wase's miscellany in the Bodleian (MS Rawl. poet. 117, f. 169v). The poem is not in Cowley's style, although it may have some indirect connection with him since his chamber fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, was Robert Creswell, who was perhaps William Creswell's brother. Verses upon a Punch Bowl (Capacious goblet, stor'd with all delight) appears in an early 18th-century miscellany in the Bodleian (MS Rawl. poet. 173, f. 141r), where an ascription to Cowley may, perhaps, have been made from confusion with his Anacreontics on Drinking (The thirsty Earth soaks up the Rain) or on The Epicure (Fill the Bowl with rosie Wine). A poem beginning Set to the sun a dial which doth pass is ascribed to Cowley in Bodleian, MS Rawl. poet. 84, f. 122v rev., but is not in his style. It appears anonymously elsewhere, including British Library, Add. MS 11608, ff. 12v-13r; British Library, Egerton MS 2725, f. 104; Leeds Archives, MS 237, f. 24v; London Metropolitan Archives, ACC/1360/528, f. [10v rev.]; and Yale, Osborn MS b 104, p. 90. An undistinguished poem headed The well wish of A: C: to his Soueraigne King Charles (Greate King whose pen y^e Angells guide, whose minde) is found in several manuscripts recorded in CELM (CoA 200-200.9) and could conceivably be by Cowley, though again his authorship seems unlikely. A lengthy and anonymous late-17th-century poem entitled The Comparison (While some to Baths renewing springs repair), preserved in a contemporary twelve-page manuscript at Yale (Osborn MSS File 3782, p. [1]), was attributed to Cowley in a 1951 sale catalogue but plainly has nothing to do with him. Neither has the satirical poem The Eccho (Now echo on what's religion grounded? Roundhead) which happened to be printed with Cowley's Prologue and Epilogue to The Guardian in 1642 and is found in a number of manuscript copies. Other poems have been implausibly attributed to Cowley on the basis of now lost manuscripts — for instance, verses beginning Throw an apple up a hill and She that can sit three sermons in a day, both published by Dr Johnson (see Waller, II, 485), and Beyond the art of any care, published by Isaac Bickerstaffe in The Tatler of 6-9 January 1710. Moreover, the occasional ascription to Cowley is found in manuscripts of poems demonstrably by other authors: for example, Carew's Rapture (CwT 626.5-655.5); Peter Hausted's Ad Populum (Ye dull Idolaters have you not bent) (in Rosenbach Museum & Library, MS 239/18, pp. 64-8); and a poem, also ascribed to Henry Noel, to Dr [Richard] Love (Bodleian, MS Lat. misc. c. 19, p. 422), to M^r Crooke vpon M T (British Library, Egerton MS 2725, f. 123v), and in the William Strode dubia, the widely-copied (in at least 24 manuscripts) Gaze not on swans. This is ascribed to Cowley only in British Library, Add. MS 28839, f. 80v. Further examples of this kind might well be found.

Adaptations etc.

Some of Cowley's poems are occasionally represented in manuscript sources in the form of translations, adaptations, imitations or answers. His popular Anacreontic on Drinking, for instance, inspired several Latin versions in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One ascribed to M^r Town of X^ts Coll appears in John Patrickes Book (Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 84, f. 28v), dated May 21 1650 (six years before the first publication of Cowley's poem in 1656). Another, ascribed to D^r: Oldish, is in a miscellany among the collections of The Marquess of Bath, Longleat House (Portland Papers, Vol. XVII, f. 103r). Yet another, by Thomas Hearne, is in the Bodleian (MS Rawl. D. 260, f. 37r), as well as an anonymous version (Bodleian, MS Tanner 306/1, f. 14r2) and an anonymous English Answer to the poem (Chetham's Library, Mun. A.4.14, f. 32r-v).

Other Latin versions of poems from The Mistresse appear in British Library, Add. MS 29241. An anonymous adaptation of the First Book of The Civil War as published in 1679, comprising 500 lines beginning Long had Britannia's sons, in wealth, & ease, with a prose preface beginning Though I never had the vanity to think my self a Poet and a supplementary list of alterations made by another writer, is preserved in a nineteen-page folio manuscript at Yale (in Osborn Files/Cowley).

A lengthy imitation of Cowley's four-book epic Davideis by the Quaker Thomas Ellwood (1639-1713), entitled Davideis; or, the history of David…A sacred poem, in 12 books is preserved in the Newberry Library, Chicago (MS Y 185. E 49). This version was published in London in 1712. An exemplum of this edition with an extensively revised version of it written on interleaves throughout by the Wiltshire Quaker John Fry (1701-75), is in the Library of the Society of Friends, London. Another quite independent revised version of Ellwood's poem is copied in a later hand in three manuscript texts in two volumes lent to the Society of Friends c.1959 by Ewart Steevens, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. These last few texts are briefly dicussed in Andrew and Helen Brink, Ellwood's Davideis: a newly discovered version?, Journal of the Friends' Historical Society, 49 (1959-61), 31-3.

Yet another, independent, imitation, entitled The Troubles of Joseph related in Scripture translated into English verse in imitation of M^r Abraham Cowleys Davideis, and dated 9 February 1680/1, is preserved, in what is apparently the anonymous author's partly autograph manuscript, in the Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt. 51). A facsimile example of the first page is in Sotheby's sale catalogue, 14 December 1976, lot 192. An interesting and previously little-known verse tribute to Cowley's Davideis (beginning When to the World thy Muse thou first did'st show) — a poem which prompted Cowley's answer Be gon (said I) Ingrateful Muse, and see (CoA 122) — was written by Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery (1621-79), who was himself subsequently influenced by the poem in his own work (see OrR 6-7).

Miscellaneous

Various other documents of biographical relevance to Cowley, including academic records, may be found in the National Archives, Kew; the Bodleian Library; the British Library; Cambridge University Archives; Trinity College, Cambridge; and elsewhere.

The original draft of John Aubrey's life of Cowley, in his Brief Lives (1679-80), is in the Bodleian (MS Aubrey 6, ff. 113v-40).

Cowley's will, made 18 September 1665, is preserved in the original, drawn up in the poet's own hand (*CoA 255).

Late-seventeenth-century copies of the Latin inscription on the poet's tomb in Westminster Abbey, attributed to the Duke of Buckingham, include those in the British Library (Sloane MS 1030, f. 59v); in King's College, Cambridge (Hayward Collection, H. 11. 13, f. [22v]); in Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 87, f. 20v); and on pp. 42-4 in a folio volume of poems by Spencer Cowper sold at Sotheby's, 15 December 1999 (Easton Neston sale), lot 291, to Maggs. The text is given in Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, ed. Robert D. Hume and Harold Love, 2 vols (Oxford, 2007), II, 7-8, with (p. 9) an illustration of the original tomb.

Abbreviations

Collected Works: The Collected Works of Abraham Cowley, Volumes 1 and 2 Part 1, ed. Thomas O. Calhoun, Laurence Heyworth, Allan Pritchard and J. Robert King (Newark, London & Toronto, 1989-93). [The edition discontinued after the death of Thomas Calhoun].
Grosart: The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Abraham Cowley, ed. Alexander B. Grosart, 2 vols, Chertsey Worthies Library ([Edinburgh], 1881).
Miscellanea Aulica: Thomas Brown of Shifnal, Miscellanea Aulica: or, A Collection of State-Treatises, never before publish'd (London, 1702).
Nethercot: Arthur H. Nethercot, Abraham Cowley: The Muse's Hannibal (London, 1931; reprinted with addenda and errata, New York, 1967).
Perkin: M.R. Perkin, Abraham Cowley: A Bibliography (Folkestone, 1977).
Pritchard, Editing: Allan Pritchard, Editing from Manuscript: Cowley and the Cowper Papers in Editing Poetry from Spenser to Dryden, ed. A.H. De Quehen (New York and London, 1981), pp. 46-76.
Sparrow: The Mistress and other Select Poems of Abraham Cowley, ed. John Sparrow (London, 1926).
Waller: The English Writings of Abraham Cowley, ed. A.R. Waller: Volume I: Poems (Cambridge, 1905); Volume II: Essays, Plays and sundry Verses (Cambridge, 1906).

Verse

English Poems

'A morninge fayre, as the first lookes of Maye'

'A vail of thickned Air around them cast'

First published, in the essay Of Obscurity, among Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose in Works (London, 1668). Waller, II, 298.

CoA 1

A folio miscellany of poems on affairs of state, in several hands, one professional stylish hand predominating, with (ff. 1r, 2r) a Table of contents, 213 leaves, in contemporary blind-stamped calf.

Including 29 poems by Rochester (plus a second copy of one) and Sodom, as well as apocryphal items.

c.1680s

Once owned by Thomas Fermor (1698-1753), first Earl of Pomfret, of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire. Also used by one James Parks.

Recorded in Vieth, Gyldenstolpe, and selectively collated in Walker.

University of Nottingham (Pw V 40 f. 212v)

Against Hope ('Hope, whose weak Being ruin'd is')

A pair of poems comprising Against Hope by Cowley and the answer For Hope (Dear hope! earth's dowry, & heaun's debt!) by Richard Crashaw, both first published as On Hope, By way of Question and Answer, betweene A. Cowley, and R. Crashaw in Crashaw, Steps to the Temple (London, 1646). Published separately as Hope and M. Crashaws Answer For Hope in Crashaw, Carmen Deo Nostro (Paris, 1652). The Poems…of Richard Crashaw, ed. L. C. Martin, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1957), pp. 143-5 and 344-6.

Cowley's poem only also published separately in The Mistresse (London, 1647). Waller, I, 109-10. Sparrow, pp. 107-8. Collected Works, II, No. 3, pp. 23-5. See also Clarence H. Miller, The Order of Stanzas in Cowley and Crashaw's On Hope, SP, 61 (1964), 64-73.

CoA 2

Copy of the two poems.

A quarto verse miscellany entitled A Collection of Verses Fancyes and Poems, Morrall and Devine, in a single hand, i + 180 leaves, (including index), in contemporary calf.

Including 15 poems (and a second copy of one poem) by Cowley and 15 poems by Katherine Philips transcribed from a edited source.

Early 18th century

Later owned by Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755).

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as Rawlinson MS II: PsK Δ 7.

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 50 through 99 (MS Rawl. poet. 90 ff. 108r-10v)

CoA 3

Copy of the two poems, headed respectively Hope. Nichols Trin. Coll. and Answer. Crashaw. Pe. house Camb..

A quarto miscellany of verse and prose, in English, Latin and Greek, largely in one secretary hand, written from both ends, with indexes (ff. 2r-3r, 168r-v), 168 leaves, in contemporary limp vellum.

Compiled by Sir John Perceval, Bt (1629-65), probably while at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Volume CXCII of the papers of the Perceval family, Earls of Egmont, and the allied Southwell family.

c.1646-9

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 45000 through 49999 (Add. MS 47111 ff. 68r-9r)

CoA 4

Copy of the two poems, headed respectively Upon Hope, subscribed Ab: Cowley (f. 80r-v), and The Answer, subscribed Rich: Crashaw (ff. 80v-1v).

This MS collated in Martin.

A quarto verse miscellany, in three hands, including eight poems by Randolph (one twice), 102 leaves, in modern half-morocco gilt.

Fols 1r-93v, 95r-100v in the hand of Peter Calfe (1610-67), son of a Dutch merchant in London (whose name is inscribed on a flyleaf: f. 1*); f. 94r-v in an unidentified hand, and ff. 101v-2r in that of Peter Calfe's son, Peter Calfe the Younger (d.1693).

c.1650-9

Later owned by John, Baron Somers (1651-1716), Lord Chancellor, and afterwards by Edward Harley (1689-1741), second Earl of Oxford. Inscribed (f. 1r) Janu. 6. 1738/9.

Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), together with British Library, Harley MS 6917 with which it was once bound, as the Calfe MS: CwT Δ 18; KiH Δ 9; RnT Δ 4.

The British Library: Harley Collection, numbers 6000 through 6999 (Harley MS 6918 ff. 80r-1v)

CoA 5

Extracts from the two poems, comprising lines 51-8, 72, 76, 3-4, here beginning Faire Hop's our earlyer heaven hereby.

A verse miscellany, much of it in shorthand, almost entirely closely written in a small cursive mixed hand, written from both ends, in contemporary calf with initials E H in gilt.

16°, 87 leaves (plus two paste-downs); miscellany, including portions of some 42 identifiable English poems by Crashaw, many of the lines here re-arranged in a garbled fashion; compiled by a Cambridge man, possibly a member of Christ's College; probably in a single hand throughout, with variations of style, written from both ends, about thirty pages in shorthand.

c.1650s

Later owned by Edward Hailstone (1818-90) of Walton Hall, near Wakefield, botanist and book collector. Sotheby's 23 April 1891 (Hailstone sale), probably lot 439, to Dobell). Bertram Dobell's sale catalogue No. 103 (June 1902), item 373. Formerly Folger MS 267.1.

Cited in IELM, I.ii, as the Hailstone MS: CrR Δ 6. Crashaw's work selectively collated (cited as Dobell) in Martin and discussed p. lxxxi. Facsimile of f. 22 in Dobell catalogue. The MS discussed by Dobell, in other connections, in Some Unpublished Epigrams by Thomas Fuller, The Athenaeum (27 April 1901), p. 532, and in An Early Variant of a Shakespeare Sonnet, The Athenaeum (2 August 1913), p. 112. Compare CrR Δ 8.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.series, 100 through 199 (MS V.a.148 f. 32v)

CoA 6

Copy of Cowley's poem only.

A quarto miscellany of verse and some prose, in English and Latin, in various hands, 136 pages (plus blanks), in contemporary calf.

c.1660

Inscribed at front and back with the name Edw: Rawstorne.

Yale, Osborn MS b 200 through end (Osborn MS b 209 pp. 85-6)

'Ah, happy Isle, how art thou chang'd and curst'

First published in The Visions and Prophecies concerning England, Scotland, and Ireland, of Ezekiel Grebner (London, 1661 [i.e. 1660]). Waller, II, 343-5.

CoA 7

Copy, in a musical setting.

A folio volume of music compiled by Cesare Morelli for Samuel Pepys, 135 leaves, in contemporary calf.

c.late 1670s

Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys Library (MS 2804 p. 199)

CoA 7.5

Copy, in a musical setting by Morelli.

A folio volume of music compiled by Cesare Morelli for the use of Samuel Pepys, 169 leaves, in contemporary black morocco gilt.

c.1680-93

Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys Library (MS 2591 ff. 53r-6r)

Anacreontiques. I. Love ('I'll sing of Heroes, and of Kings')

First published, among Miscellanies, in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 50. Sparrow, p. 49.

Musical setting by Pietro Reggio published in Songs [London, 1680].

CoA 8

Copy, in a musical setting by Pietro Reggio, untitled.

A folio volume of vocal music, probably in a single cursive hand, 190 leaves, in remains of vellum boards within modern half red morocco.

c.1682

Inscribed (f. 1*^r) P. Fussell Winton, Liber Caroli Morgan e Coll Magd Dec^mo: 6^to Die 7^bris: Anno Domini 1682, and Vincent Novello [(1781-1861), music publisher] The gift of his kind friend W^m Patten.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 33234 f. 19r-v)

CoA 9

Copy in a musical setting by Pietro Reggio, untitled.

A tall folio songbook, in two or more cursive hands, written from both ends, with (f. iii^r) an index, iv + 99 leaves (including indexes), in 19th-century half green morocco gilt on marbled boards.

A formal compilation, ff. 2r-44v in the hand of Henry Bowman (fl.1674-80), composer and copyist; ff. 44v-53v in a second hand; ff. 54r-65r in a third hand; with additions in one or more hands on ff. 99v-66v rev.

Late 17th century

Booklabel of William Hayman Cummings, FSA (1831-1915), singer and musical antiquary. Sotheby's, 17-24 May 1917 (Cummings sale), lot 487.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Egerton MS 2960 f. 53r-v)

CoA 9.5

Copy, in a musical setting.

A folio songbook compiled by Cesare Morelli for the use of Samuel Pepys, 113 leaves, in contemporary calf.

c.1680-93

Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys Library (MS 2803 ff. 27r-8v)

CoA 10

Copy, in a musical setting by Pietro Reggio transposed by Morelli.

A folio volume of music compiled by Cesare Morelli for Samuel Pepys, 135 leaves, in contemporary calf.

c.late 1670s

Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys Library (MS 2804 ff. 59r-60v)

Anacreontiques. II. Drinking ('The thirsty Earth soaks up the Rain')

First published in Wits Interpreter (London, 1655). Among Miscellanies in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 51. Sparrow, p. 50.

Musical setting by Silas Taylor published in Catch that Catch Can: or the Musical Companion (London, 1667). Setting by Roger Hill published in Select Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1669).

CoA 11

Copy, headed Drinking. Out of M^r Cowley's Anacreontiques, on a pair of conjugate quarto leaves.

A booklet of six folio leaves.

Late 17th century

Among papers of the Earls de Grey, of Wrest Park, Bedfordshire.

Bedfordshire Record Office (L 31/340 [no item number])

CoA 11.5

Copy, in a musical setting by Sylvanus Taylor.

The lyrics edited from this MS in Charteris, p. 273.

A folio composite music book, comprising (A) three printed works by Henry Lawes and others (1655-9), with MS additions, together with (B) 32 MS leaves of vocal music (plus stubs of eight excised leaves), in a single hand, bound together in brown leather.

Owned by, and the MS pages in the hand of, the Rev. John Patrick (1632-95), religious controversialist.

c.1660s

Bookplate of Charles Barlow (fl.1720s-30s), of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Leo Liepmannssohn's sale catalogue 183 (1913), item 183 (possibly from MSS purchased in 1907 by James E. Matthew). Library stamp of the Königliche Bibliothek (now Preussische Staatsbibliothek), Berlin. Moved to Kraków in 1946.

Discussed, with various facsimile examples, in H. Diack Johnstone, Ayres and Arias: A Hitherto Unknown Seventeenth-Century English Songbook, Early Music History, 16 (1997), 167-201, and in Richard Charteris, A Newly Discovered Songbook in Poland with Works by Henry Lawes and his Contemporaries, EMS, 8 (2000), 225-79.

Biblioteka Jagiellońska (Mus. ant. pract. P 970 B. pp. 42-3)

CoA 12

Copy in a musical setting by Charles Coleman, headed A.2 voc: Translate: Anacrons Greek Ode.

This MS collated in John P. Cutts, Seventeenth-Century Songs and Lyrics in Paris Conservatoire MS. Rés. 2489, MD, 23 (1969), 117-39 (pp. 130-1).

Portion of a folio songbook compiled by John Playford (1623-86?).

c.1660

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Département de la Musique (MS Conservatoire Rés. 2489 p. 310 [f. 31r])

CoA 13

Copy, headed An Anacriontick Ode paraphrasticaly Englished by M^r A Cowley.

This MS recorded in Jean Loiseau, Abraham Cowley's Reputation in England (Paris, 1931), p. 27, n. 18.

A duodecimo verse miscellany, in English and Latin, in several hands, ii + 53 leaves (plus numerous blanks), in contemporary calf.

c.1690

J. Salkeld, sale catalogue No. 222 (17 June 1885), item 273.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Add. B. 106 f. 9v)

CoA 13.5

Copy of a Latin version of Cowley's verses, headed Cowley's paraphrase on Anacreons poem of drinking, turn'd into Latin verse, beginning Jellas Epotal silibundis faucib Imbrem.

An octavo composite miscellany, with extracts in verse and prose, in various hands, 213 leaves, in quarter-vellum boards.

Late 17th century

A flyleaf inscribed Tho: Hearne. Sept. 1^o. M: DCC: IX: i.e. Collected by 1709 by Thomas Hearne (1678-1735), Oxford antiquary.

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, other shelfmarks (MS Rawl. D. 260 f. 37r)

CoA 14

Copy, headed A Song by A Cowley.

This MS (erroneously cited as Rawl. Poet. MS. 4) recorded in Sparrow, p. 203.

A quarto verse miscellany and masque, in at least three hands, written from both ends, i + 123 leaves, in contemporary calf.

Mid-late 17th century

Including (f. 1r) an anagram on Frances Pawlett. Inscribed in red ink (f. 123v) Egigius Frampton hunc librum jure tenet non est mortale quod opto: 1659: i.e. by Giles Frampton, who is perhaps responsible for some of the later poems. Also inscribed [?]R. N. 1663. Some later notes in the hand of Richard Rawlinson.

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 50 through 99 (MS Rawl. poet. 84 ff. 106r-105v rev.)

CoA 15

Copy, in a musical setting by Charles Coleman, untitled and here beginning The parcht Earth drinkes the Raine.

A folio songbook, in two or more predominantly italic hands, written from both ends, 87 leaves, in remains of contemporary vellum within modern half red morocco.

Possibly compiled in part by one T. C.

c.1641-59

Inscribed (f. 1v) R. Guise [of Abbey] Feb: 12. 1760. Purchased from Thomas Thorpe, bookseller, 17 June 1839.

A complete facsimile of this volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 4 (New York & London, 1986).

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 11608 f. 51v)

CoA 16

Copy, headed Paraphras'd by A Cowley and here beginning The thirsty Earth drinkes up the rain.

An octavo miscellany of English and Latin verse and some prose, largely in one mixed hand, 123 leaves, with (ff. 2r-4r) an index, in calf gilt.

Compiled by John Watson (d. c.1707), of Queens' College, Cambridge, vicar of Mildenhall, Suffolk.

c.1667-73

Inscribed (f. 1r) Ex dono D^rs Barb: Rhodes ...M^ri Joan: Rhodes Decemb: 5 1667; Janawary y^e 2 day 1726; W^m faildham London to y^e Land of maderah & from thence to Jamaca. Purchased from Lilly, 13 July 1850.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 18000 through 19999 (Add. MS 18220 f. 59r)

CoA 17

Copy, in a musical setting by Roger Hill and Edward Lowe, superscribed This songe was giuen M^r Houghton, by M^r Caue: it was to bee sunge by a Single Base. Except y^e Chorus for two parts. I sett an vpper part to it the 27^th of Janu. 16[ ] and here beginning The thirsty Earth sucks up y^e rayne.

A folio songbook, almost entirely in a single rounded italic hand, with (ff. 3r-7v) a table of contents, 113 leaves, in 19th-century half dark red morocco.

Compiled by Edward Lowe (c.1610-82), organist and composer (his signature f. 2v).

c.1654-70s

Arms of Eleanor Bursh on a seal affixed to f. 56r. Later owned and annotated in pencil by Thomas Oliphant (1799-1873), music editor and cataloguer.

A complete facsimile of this volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 5 (New York & London, 1986).

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 29396 ff. 99v-100r)

CoA 17.5

Copy.

A folio composite volume of verse MSS and miscellaneous papers, in various hands, 248 leaves, in 19th-century half green morocco.

Presented by Mrs Jervis, 13 May 1876.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 30000 through 34999 (Add. MS 30012 ff. 104r)

CoA 18

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Bowman, untitled.

A folio music book of vocal compositions, the lyrics in English and Latin almost entirely in a single italic hand, with a contemporary index (f. 93r), 94 leaves, in 19th-century half red leather.

Compiled by the composer Henry Bowman, those songs set by himself listed by him on f. 93r.

c.1678-80s

Bookplate of Katherine Sedley (1657-1717), daughter of Sir Charles Sedley and later Countess of Dorchester, of Southfleet, Kent. Inscribed (f. 93r) John James. Purchased from J. Harvey, 13 July 1877.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 30382 ff. 33-4v)

CoA 19

Copy, headed fourth Song.

A quarto verse miscellany, including (ff. 113r-15r) copies of, or brief extracts from, 30 poems by Donne (plus two apocryphal poems), in a single hand, transcribed from the 1635 or 1639 edition of Donne's Poems, headed Donnes quaintest conceits in several hands, 156 leaves (plus blanks), in modern black morocco gilt.

Late 17th century

Once owned by Thomas Rawlinson (1681-1725) and afterwards among the collections of Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford (1689-1741).

Cited in IELM I.i (1980) as the Harley Rawlinson MS: DnJ Δ 64.

The British Library: Harley Collection, numbers 3000 through 3999 (Harley MS 3991 f. 130r-v)

CoA 19.5

Copy, headed An Anacreontique in Drinking, by M^r Cowley.

A large folio composite miscellany of poems generally on affairs of state, in one or more professional hands, 289 leaves, in half crushed morocco on marbled boards.

c.1730

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 852 f. 238v)

CoA 20

Copy, untitled.

A quarto composite miscellany of poems and songs, the greater part in a single cursive hand, 35 leaves, in modern cloth.

c.1692

Cambridge University Library, Additional MSS 7000 through end (MS Add. 7112 f. 24r)

CoA 21

Second copy, also untitled.

A quarto composite miscellany of poems and songs, the greater part in a single cursive hand, 35 leaves, in modern cloth.

c.1692

Cambridge University Library, Additional MSS 7000 through end (MS Add. 7112 f. 35r)

CoA 22

Copy, headed A Health and here beginning The parch'd earth drinkes y^e raine.

A quarto verse miscellany, in a single cursive hand, 30 leaves (plus blanks), in modern half-calf.

Compiled by a royalist.

Mid-late 17th century

Inscribed (f. 1r) W^m Godolphin Serv^t to M^r Savile and Hen: Savile Serv^t: to M^r Godolphin.

Cambridge University Library, shelfmarks A through D (MS Dd. 6. 43 f. 21r-v)

CoA 23

Copy, untitled.

A quarto miscellany principally of English and Latin verse, drama, and jests, perhaps largely in a single hand, written from both ends, iv + 181 pages, in contemporary calf.

Inscribed by, and the MS most likely compiled by, the Rev. Henry Newcome (1650-1713), of St Edmund's Hall, Oxford, in 1669, rector at Middleton, Manchester.

c.1669

A pencil note (f. [i^v]) refers to Original MSS otherwise from Hockwold Hall.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.series, 200 through 299 (MS V.a.232 Part I, pp. 37-8)

CoA 24

Copies, in a musical setting by Capt: Silas Taylor.

A set of four oblong duodecimo music part books, (i) Cantus Primus, (ii) Cantus Secundus, (iii) Bassus and (iv) Basso Continuo, each written from both ends, compiled by John Playford (1623-86?), 50, 36, 48, and 35 leaves respectively, each volume in limp vellum lettered I. P..

Leaves excised from these volumes are in the Folger, MS V.a.411 (five leaves) and (nine leaves) at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (Halliwell-Phillipps, Shakespearean scrapbooks).

c.1660

A flyleaf in the Cantus Secundus part book inscribed Decemb. 30. 1674. Note that I Thomas Clifford bought this sett of Musick Books of Mr Richard Price's widow M^rs Dorothy Price for --7^s--6^d.

University of Glasgow (MS Euing R.d.58-61 (i) f. 32r; (iii) f. 31v)

CoA 24.2

Copy, in a neat rounded hand, headed Cowleys translation of Anacreon on Drink, followed by Ane Imitation of the above Poem by the E- M- (beginning The greedy Corporations drain), on a single folio leaf.

Late 17th century

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (LO 10486)

CoA 24.5

Copy, headed Drinking, subscribed Anacreon .31. Decemb^r. 1740, followed (f. 28v rev.) by an anonymous The Answer (beginning The thirsty Earth, wⁿ one would think).

An octavo verse miscellany, predominantly in a single hand, written from both ends, the contents collected over a period but not entered in chronological order, 171 leaves, in contemporary panelled calf.

Inscribed (f. 1r) Benj: Coles At Great Forster's. near Egham. In Surrey. owns this book MDCCXXXII and the miscellany evidently compiled by Coles. A similar inscription on f. 31r rev. dated 3^d. Jan^y 1740/1.

c.1729-41

Inscribed (f. ii^v) purchased by R Brown, for a valuable consideration of Benjamin Coles Anno 1754. August 8^th. Later owned by James Langlands and, in 1965, by Mrs V.J. Dawson, of Southan, Gloucestershire.

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 24 f. 28r rev.)

CoA 24.8

Copy of an abbreviated version, untitled.

A quarto commonplace book, written from both ends, unnumbered pages, in contemporary vellum rebound in modern vellum.

Compiled by members of the Deynes family and others.

Mid-late 17th century

Inscribed names of Charles Deynes, Grey Bryan (in pencil), and (in pencil) Alex Robertson, Invercargill, New Zealand. Purchased from P.J. and A.E. Dobell 30 November 1924.

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 114 f. 1r)

CoA 25

Copy, in an italic hand, untitled, on the first page of an unbound pair of quarto conjugate leaves.

c.1700s

University of Nottingham (Pw V 945)

CoA 26

Copy, headed A Song Apologetique for drinking and inscribed This I had from Jack Chaytor.

A quarto miscellany of verse and some prose, in probably two or more secretary hands, 108 pages, in half brown morocco.

Mid-17th century

Later owned by F.W. Cosens (1819-89). Bookplate of James W. Ellsworth.

The Rosenbach Museum & Library, numbers 1 through 239 (MS 239/18 p. 104)

CoA 27

Copy, headed An Apologie for drinking, here beginning The fruitfull earth doth drink the rain and ascribed to Robert Wisedome in a verse miscellany appended to a MS volume of poems by John Donne.

A folio verse miscellany, including 15 poems by Donne, f. 162r-v in a rounded italic hand, ff. 164r-74v in a slightly erratic italic hand, ff. 175r-279v in a neat formal italic hand (also responsible for the index on ff. 2r-11v), this miscellany constituting ff. 162r-279v of a single folio volume containing also Part I (DnJ Δ 15), ii + 279 leaves in all (lacking one or more leaves at the end), in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked).

c.1630s

Formerly MS G. 2.21.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (II): DnJ Δ 61.

Trinity College, Dublin, numbers 800 through end (MS 877, [Part II] f. 263v)

CoA 28

Copy, headed in the margin A songe of drincke, here beginning The Thirsty Earth drinckes in y^e Raine.

A quarto miscellany of religious and political prose and verse, in English and Latin, in several secretary, italic and mixed hands, 318 leaves (including blanks, foliated on versos), in contemporary vellum boards.

Compiled over a period (entries dated between 1621 and 1667) by members of the family of Sir Marmaduke Rawdon (1583-1646), merchant, shipowner and royalist soldier.

Mid-17th century

Inscribed (f. 278r) Mary Elliston october the 27 1763 and Mary Elliston Collchester. Later owned by Edward Hailstone (1818-90), of Walton Hall, Wakefield, botanist and book collector.

York Minster (MS Add. 122 f. 82r)

CoA 28.2

Copy, here beginning The thirsty Earth drincks in the raine.

A quarto notebook and miscellany, largely in two hands, one of them that of Charles Deynes (1681-1756), of Roydon, near Diss, Norfolk, c.250 pages, in contemporary vellum (rebacked).

Late 17th-early-18th century

Later owned by the Rev. Guy Bryon, of Malden, Essex, and by Alex Robertson, of Inverscargill, New Zealand, who acquired it in 1924 from Dobell. Roy Davids's sale catalogue No.VI (1999), item 32.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Deynes MS] [unspecified page numbers])

Anacreontiques. III. Beauty

First published in Wits Interpreter (London, 1655). Among Miscellanies in Poems (London, 1656).

CoA 28.5

Extract.

Series of verse translations, in a single hand, written as annotations to Octavius, or a dialogue betwixt a Christian and an Infidel. From the original of M. Minutius Felix [...] by William Cooke MA, Vicar of Enford in Wiltshire and Rector of Oldbury and Dedmarton in Gloucestershire.

c.1750

Inscribed name of William Cooke.

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 95 f. 42v)

Anacreontiques. V. Age ('Oft am I by the Women told')

First published, among Miscellanies, in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 53. Sparrow, pp. 52-3.

CoA 29

Copy, headed Age.

A folio miscellany of poems on affairs of state, in several hands, one professional stylish hand predominating, with (ff. 1r, 2r) a Table of contents, 213 leaves, in contemporary blind-stamped calf.

Including 29 poems by Rochester (plus a second copy of one) and Sodom, as well as apocryphal items.

c.1680s

Once owned by Thomas Fermor (1698-1753), first Earl of Pomfret, of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire. Also used by one James Parks.

Recorded in Vieth, Gyldenstolpe, and selectively collated in Walker.

University of Nottingham (Pw V 40 f. 213v)

CoA 29.5

Copy.

A quarto miscellany of chiefly amatory verse, in several hands, i + 132 leaves.

Partly in Scottish dialect, one poem by mr. W. Turner.

Early 18th century

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 150 through 199 (MS Rawl. poet. 196 f. 37r)

Anacreontiques. VII. Gold ('A Mighty pain to Love it is')

First published, among Miscellanies, in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 55. Sparrow, pp. 54-5.

Musical setting by Pietro Reggio published in Songs [London, 1680].

CoA 30

Copy, in a musical setting by Pietro Reggio.

A folio music book, in a single cursive hand, written from both ends, 74 leaves (including c.35 blanks), in contemporary calf.

c.1700

Christ Church, Oxford (MS Mus. 46 ff. 71v-70r rev.)

CoA 30.5

Copy, headed Gold.

A quarto verse miscellany, comprising principally translations or imitations of classical authors, chiefly in a single cursive hand, a later hand writing over a number of pages, entitled A Choice Collection of Miscellany Poems Upon severall Subjects. Gathered out of severall Authors, by W^m. Gordon…In the Year, M.DCC,XI, c.260 pages (plus blanks), all independently paginated in separate sections, in half-morocco.

1711-12

Edinburgh University Library, Laing Collection (MS La. III. 798 p. 34)

Anacreontiques. IX. Another ('Underneath this Myrtle shade')

First published, among Miscellanies, in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 56. Sparrow, p. 56.

Musical setting by Henry Purcell published in The Banquet of Musick (London, 1692). Works of Henry Purcell, XXII (London, 1922), pp. 100-3.

CoA 31

Copy, untitled, subscribed M^r Tho Head.

An octavo miscellany of drama and amatory songs, in at least three hands, written from both ends, in contemporary panelled calf (rebacked).

Mid-late 17th century

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 200 through end (MS Rawl. poet. 214 f. 66r-v)

CoA 32

Copy, in a musical setting by Pietro Reggio, untitled.

A folio volume of vocal music, probably in a single cursive hand, 190 leaves, in remains of vellum boards within modern half red morocco.

c.1682

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 33234 ff. 6v-7)

CoA 33

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell.

This MS recorded in Purcell Society edition (1922).

Purcell's predominantly autograph folio Score Booke Containing Severall Anthems w^th. Sy[m]phonies.

c.1690

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (R.M. 20. h. 8 ff. 213v-212v rev.)

CoA 34

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell, headed The Epicure by M^r Cowley, subscribed M^r Purcell, on all four pages of two conjugate folio leaves.

Late 17th century

Library of Congress, Music Division (ML 96 .P89)

'Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise'

First published, in the epistolary essay The danger of Procrastination, among Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose in Works (London, 1668). Waller, II, 454.

CoA 35

Copy, untitled.

A folio miscellany of poems on affairs of state, in several hands, one professional stylish hand predominating, with (ff. 1r, 2r) a Table of contents, 213 leaves, in contemporary blind-stamped calf.

Including 29 poems by Rochester (plus a second copy of one) and Sodom, as well as apocryphal items.

c.1680s

Once owned by Thomas Fermor (1698-1753), first Earl of Pomfret, of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire. Also used by one James Parks.

Recorded in Vieth, Gyldenstolpe, and selectively collated in Walker.

University of Nottingham (Pw V 40 f. 212v)

'Behould the silent night with happy birth'

First published in John Sargeaunt, Annals of Westminster School (London, 1898), p. 282. Reprinted in Jean Loiseau, Abraham Cowley: Sa Vie, Son Oeuvre (Paris, 1931), pp. 648-9.

CoA 36

Copy of Cowley's juvenile composition.

Edited from this MS in Sargeaunt.

A formal presentation volume of poems, entitled Genethliaca Ducis Eboracensis, composed by boys of Westminster School to celebrate the birth of James, Duke of York, in a single calligraphic hand, on eleven quarto leaves.

1633

The British Library: Royal MSS (Royal MS 12 A. XIII ff. 2v-3r)

CoA 36.2

Copy, headed Christ's passion. Taken out of a Greek ode written by m^r masters of new College in oxford, on two conjugate octavo leaves.

An octavo bundle of unbound verse and miscellaneous MSS, largely in one hand.

Early-mid-18th century

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 67 ff. 54r-5v)

The Change ('Love in her Sunny Eyes does basking play')

First published in The Mistresse (London, 1647). Collected Works, II, Part 1, No. 9, pp. 32-3.

CoA 36.5

Copy, in a musical setting, headed Glee for 4 Voices/ The Poetry from Cowley/ R J Thoms 1780 Lambeth/ 1821 Revised.

An oblong folio volume of part-songs, madrigals, glees, etc., the second in a set of three part books, in a single hand, 214 leaves, in 19th-century half-morocco.

c.1780-1833

Bookplate of Julian Marshall (1836-1903), music and print collector and writer.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 31810 ff. 3r-6r)

Christs Passion, Taken out of a Greek Ode, written by Mr. Masters of New College in Oxford ('Enough, my Muse, of Earthly things')

First published in Poems, by Several Persons (Dublin, 1663). Verses, Lately Written upon several Occasions (London, 1663). Waller, I, 402-4.

Musical setting by Henry Bowman published in Songs for i 2 & 3 Voyces Composed by Henry Bowman (Oxford, 1679).

CoA 37

Copy, in a musical setting by John Blow, headed Song.

This MS discussed in Wyn K. Ford, The Chapel Royal at the Restoration, MMR, 90 (1960), 99-106 (p. 100), and in Bruce Wood, A Note on Two Cambridge Manuscripts and their Copyists, M&L, 56 (1975), 308-12.

A tall folio music book, in probably several hands, written from both ends, 414 pages (including numerous blanks), in old half-calf marbled boards.

c.1680-1700s

Booklabel of Io: Walter An^o 1650. An affixed label inscribed Jo: Walter: His Book Anno Domino 1680: i.e. John Walter, organist at Eton College (in 1681-1704) and possibly erstwhile chorister in the Chapel Royal (c.1674-7). Among the muniments of Chichester Cathedral.

This MS recorded in Wyn K. Ford, The Chapel Royal at the Restoration, MMR, 90 (1960), 99-106 (p. 100). For a discussion of this and other MSS in Walter's hand (with facsimile examples), see Bruce Wood, A Note on Two Cambridge Manuscripts and their Copyists, M&L, 56 (1975), 308-12.

West Sussex Record Office (Cap. VI/1/1 pp. 79-80)

CoA 37.5 Early 18th century

Copy, headed Christ's Passion by M^r Cowley from a Greek Ode of M^r Masters, in a quarto verse miscellany (occupying ff. 84r-117v).

A tall folio composite volume of verse and some prose, chiefly translations from Latin, in various hands and paper sizes, 133 leaves, mounted on guards, in half red morocco.

Volume XVIII of papers of the families of Browne, Mariett and West, of the manor of Alscot, in Preston-on-Stour, Gloucestershire.

Portions once owned by Henry Jackson (1586-1662), Hooker's first editor; by Anthony Wood (1632-95), Oxford antiquary; by Thomas Coxeter (1689-1747); and probably by James West, FRS, FSA, MP (1703-72), politician and antiquary.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 30000 through 34999 (Add. MS 34744 ff. 93v-5r)

CoA 37.8

Copy.

A quarto volume entitled Miscellany Poems, By Severall Hands. Collected by B. Cumberlege, in various hands or styles of script, with occasional pen-and-ink drawings and use of coloured inks, xiv + 195 pages, including a table of contents, in later calf.

c.1703

Bookplate of Frederick Lewis Gay, of Brookline, Massachusetts, 1916.

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 584 pp. 169-71)

CoA 38

Copies, in a musical setting by Henry Bowman, marked for three voices, Cantus primus, and three voices respectively, the Bassus continuo part (iii) with the incipit only, untitled.

A set of three oblong quarto musical part books, each formally entitled A Colection of 120 or more of the Choicest Divine Hymns or Anthemnes English and Latin, that have binne Extant within this 110 or 120 yeeres, to this present yeere 1688, the lyrics probably in a single neat rounded hand.

Comprising (i) Bassus part, ix + 155 leaves, in modern vellum. (ii) Treble part, viii + 136 leaves, in contemporary vellum. (iii) Bassus continuo part, iv + 109 leaves (lacking ff. 39-44), in contemporary vellum.

1688

York Minster (MS M. 5. S (i) ff. 54v-5r; (ii) ff. 50r-1r; (iii) f. 51v)

The Chronicle. A Ballad ('Margarita first possest')

First published, among Miscellanies, in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 39-42. Sparrow, pp. 43-6.

CoA 39

Copy, in a musical setting by Captain Henry Cooke, untitled.

A folio songbook, almost entirely in a single rounded italic hand, with (ff. 3r-7v) a table of contents, 113 leaves, in 19th-century half dark red morocco.

Compiled by Edward Lowe (c.1610-82), organist and composer (his signature f. 2v).

c.1654-70s

Arms of Eleanor Bursh on a seal affixed to f. 56r. Later owned and annotated in pencil by Thomas Oliphant (1799-1873), music editor and cataloguer.

A complete facsimile of this volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 5 (New York & London, 1986).

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 29396 f. 99r)

The Civil War ('What rage does England from it selfe divide')

Most of Book I first published as A Poem on the late Civil War (London, 1679). Waller, II, 465-81. The full text of Books I-III first published in Toronto, 1973, ed. Allan Pritchard. Collected Works, I, pp. 115-62.

*CoA 40

Autograph

Partly autograph manuscript, in three unbound quarto quires, iii + 28 leaves.

Comprising: Book I, 576 lines, in the hand of an amanuensis, with corrections and a few insertions in Cowley's hand, on eight leaves; Book II, 617 lines, entirely in Cowley's hand, on nine leaves; and Book III, 647 lines, also entirely in Cowley's hand, on ten leaves.

c.1643

Among the MSS of the Cowper family of Panshanger, Hertfordshire; evidently once belonging to Dame Sarah Cowper (1644-1720) and probably given to her by Martin Clifford (c.1624-77).

Edited from this MS in Pritchard's edition, with a facsimile of Book III, lines 65-92, as frontispiece. Also discussed in Pritchard, Editing, with facsimiles of Book I, lines 477-518, and Book III, lines 33-64. A facsimile of f. [6r] is also in IELM, II.i (1987), Facsimile Xa, after p. xxii.

Hertfordshire Record Office (D/EP F48)

CoA 41

Copy of Books I-III, in a rounded stylish hand, transcribed from CoA 40, inscribed in the margin By Abraham Cowley.

This MS, copied c.1670, collated and described in Pritchard's edition, pp. 59-60, and in Pritchard, Editing, with a facsimile of Book I, lines 303-20.

A quarto verse miscellany, in several hands, one cursive hand predominating, entitled at one end Poems Collected at several Times from the year 1670 and at the other end Collections of several things out of History. begun about the year 1670, written over a period, 336 largely unnumbered pages (plus blanks), 205 pages from one end and 131 pages from the reverse end, in contemporary vellum boards.

Compiled chiefly by Sarah Cowper (née Holled, 1644-1720), Lady Cowper, wife of Sir William Cowper, MP (1639-1706), possibly in part from texts supplied by Martin Clifford (c.1624-77), erstwhile secretary of the Duke of Buckingham and Master of the Charterhouse. Including (pp. [91-116]) 26 poems by Sir Charles Sedley as a single group (and copies of a poem of doubtful authorship on pp. [165] and [179]).

c.1670-1705

Recorded in IELM, II.ii, as the Cowper MS: SeC Δ 2. Discussed in Allan Pritchard, Editing from Manuscript: Cowley and the Cowper Papers, in Editing Poetry from Spenser to Dryden, ed. A.H. De Quehen (New York & London, 1981), pp. 47-76, esp. pp. 62-5, and in Harold Love, Two Rochester Manuscripts Circulated from the Charterhouse, The Library, 6th Ser. 16/3 (September 1994), 225-9.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F36 pp. [1-90])

CoA 42

Extracts, chiefly from Book I, here beginning How could a Warr so sad and Barbarous please, with a few lines from Books II and III.

This MS recorded in Pritchard's edition, p. 8.

A quarto miscellany of verse and prose, in a single cursive hand, 376 pages (including blanks), in contemporary calf.

Compiled almost entirely by Sarah Cowper (née Holled, 1644-1720), Lady Cowper, wife of Sir William Cowper, MP (1639-1706), and inscribed by her inside the front cover Sarah Cowper 1673. Possibly compiled in part from texts supplied by Martin Clifford (c.1624-77), erstwhile secretary of the Duke of Buckingham and Master of the Charterhouse.

c.1673-1700s

Discussed in Harold Love, Two Rochester Manuscripts Circulated from the Charterhouse, The Library, 6th Ser. 16/3 (September 1994), 225-9.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F37 pp. 258-9)

CoA 43

Copy of Book I, lines 1-568, headed On the Civill Warr Suppos'd to be written by Abr: Cowly and that upon very good ground tho not in his Printed Workes.

This MS collated and described in Pritchard's edition, pp. 61-3.

A folio volume of poems chiefly on affairs of state, in professional hands, ff. 1-49 comprising poems of the 1640s, ff. 49v onwards Restoration poems up to 1681, 174 leaves (including twelve blanks), in contemporary calf, both covers stamped 1642, with remains of clasps.

Including nine poems in the Marvell canon (plus apocryphal poems); ff. 1-157 a single unit in variant styles of hand; ff. 158-62 in yet another hand on a smaller tipped-in quire of paper.

Mid-late 17th century

Among the collections of Francis Douce (1757-1834), antiquary and collector.

Cited in IELM, II.i (1993) as the Douce MS: MaA Δ 3. Marvell contents recorded and selectively collated in Margoliouth and in POAS, I and II.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Douce 357 ff. 42r-9r)

CoA 44

Copy of Book I, lines 1-568, a neat rounded hand, with a title-page Of the Civill War suppos'd to be written by Abr: Cowly and that vpon very good ground tho' not in his printed workes, on ten folio leaves. Late 17th century.

This MS collated and described in Pritchard's edition, pp. 61-3.

A large folio composite volume of largely official papers relating chiefly to Cheshire, in various hands and paper sizes, 321 leaves, mounted on guards, in half green morocco.

Volume XIII of the papers of the Aston and Norris families, of Cheshire and Lancashire.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 35000 through 39999 (Add. MS 36913 ff. 311r-20v)

CoA 44.4

Copy.

A folio verse miscellany, entitled The Muse's Magazine, or Poeticall Miscelanies, in two parts, in a single hand, 189 leaves.

Including 27 poems by Cowley; eleven poems by Katherine Philips, evidently derived from printed sources; 10 poems by Rochester, as well as apocryphal items; twelve poems by Sedley, plus one of doubtful authorship; and 15 poems by Waller, evidently derived from printed sources.

A note on a flyleaf relating to the bookseller John Dunton (1659-1733): John Dunton His Book, for which Mr. Corbet at y^e Addisons Head, accepted One Half Guinea in full Payment for it, as Witness my Hand, Hannah Rakley. A note on f. 1: Since I had transcrib'd this whole Book, I met with some state Poems of these later times, mostly since K. George's Accession to the Crown [1714] which I have here inserted, as a supplement to these state Poems which make a part of this Collection by themselves. Date at the end of the volume: 1718, and some notes on a flyleaf dated 1724.

Early 18th century

The M^r. Corbet from whom Dunton purchased this MS was evidently the bookseller Thomas Corbett (fl. 1705-43), who ran his business at the Addison's Head, next to the Rose Tavern, without Temple Bar, from 1719 until his death in 1743. Neither Dunton nor Corbett are known to have used this MS for publication purposes.

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Dunton MS: PsK Δ 8; RoJ Δ 4; SeC Δ 1; WaE Δ 10.

For John Dunton's career, see Stephen Parks, John Dunton and the English Book Trade: A Study of His Career with a Checklist of His Publications (New York & London, 1970).

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 150 through 199 (MS Rawl. poet. 173 f. 55v)

Claudian's Old Man of Verona ('Happy the man, who his whole time doth bound')

First published, among Essays in Verse and Prose, in Works (1668), p. 135.

CoA 44.6

Copy, in a 19th-century hand, ascribed to Ab: Cowley Esq^re.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, in English, Latin and Greek, predominantly in a single hand, with 19th-century additions (pp. 195 onwards, at least partly from earlier MS sources), 279 pages, in contemporary calf.

c.1644 (and later)

Inscribed (f. [i^r]) William Han: 1644, probably by the academic compiler.

Yale, Osborn MS b 150 through Osborn MS b 199 (Osborn MS b 150 pp. 204-5)

The Complaint ('In a deep Vision's intellectual scene')

First published in Poems, by Several Persons (Dublin, 1663). Verses, Lately Written upon several Occasions (London, 1663). Waller, I, 435-40. Sparrow, pp. 169-74.

CoA 45

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell.

A folio music book.

End of 17th century

University of Birmingham, Barber Institute (MS 5002 pp. 44-54)

CoA 45.5

Copy of a musical setting for this poem (without the text).

A folio volume of vocal compositions largely by Henry Purcell, 126 leaves.

End of 17th century

Once owned by James Pears. Bought at the Dr Samuel Arnold sale 24 May 1803 by W. Russell. Puttick & Simpson's, 22 December 1869, lot 613.

Bodleian Library, Music MSS (MS Mus. c. 28 ff. 101v-2r)

CoA 46

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell, inscribed M^r. Cowley's Complaint set by H P.

A large folio music book, almost entirely in a single rounded hand, 146 leaves, in 19th-century half red morocco.

c.1700

Notes (f. 2r) by a son of Dr Williams recording his purchase of the volume from the widdow of Simon Child, organist of New College, Oxford. Inscribed (f. 1v) Phil: Hayes 1757 and The Gift of M^rs Cave. Bookplates of the Rev. John Parker and Stephen Groombridge, FRS. Bought at Groombridge's sale by J. Smith of Deptford and presented by him in November 1832 to Vincent Novello (1781-1861), music publisher. Acquired by his bequest on 21 March 1887.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 33235 ff. 57v-63r)

CoA 47

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell.

Purcell's predominantly autograph folio Score Booke Containing Severall Anthems w^th. Sy[m]phonies.

c.1690

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (R.M. 20. h. 8 ff. 201r-199 rev.)

CoA 48

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell, on six folio leaves (the last trimmed).

c.1700

Christ Church, Oxford (MS Mus. 1150)

CoA 49

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell.

MS music book.

Late 17th century

Conservatoire Royal de Musique, Brussels, Belgium (MS 1035 pp. 70-80)

CoA 50

An octavo miscellany of verse and drama, largely in a single small cursive hand, with later additions by one or two hands after p. 142, 185 pages (including blanks) plus a tipped-in leaf at the end, in brown calf.

Late 17th century

Sotheby's, 13 June 1870, lot 157, to James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89), literary scholar and book collector; thence, on 5 July 1870, to Warwick Castle Library. Formerly Folger MS 3.4.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.series, 1 through 99 (MS V.a.85 pp. 51-6)

CoA 51

Copy (words only), headed Song.

A tall folio music book, in probably several hands, written from both ends, 414 pages (including numerous blanks), in old half-calf marbled boards.

c.1680-1700s

West Sussex Record Office (Cap. VI/1/1 pp. 408-401 rev.)

The Concealment ('No. to what purpose should I speak?')

First published in The Mistresse (London, 1647). Waller, I, 119-20. Sparrow, pp. 118-19. Collected Works, II, No. 52, pp. 83-4.

Musical setting by Henry Purcell published in Works of Henry Purcell, XXV (London, 1928), pp. 124-7.

CoA 52

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell.

This MS recorded in Purcell Society edition.

Purcell's predominantly autograph folio Score Booke Containing Severall Anthems w^th. Sy[m]phonies.

c.1690

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (R.M. 20. h. 8 ff. 212v-211r rev.)

CoA 52.5

Copy, headed Silence.

A quarto verse miscellany, in several hands, a neat mixed hand predominating up to f. 55r, 151 leaves (including a few blanks), in contemporary calf.

c.1730

Inscribed (in another hand) on the front pastedown Thomas Boydell. Formerly Folger MS 4108.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.series, 300 through end (MS V.a.308 f. 35r)

CoA 53

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell.

MS music book.

Late 17th century

Conservatoire Royal de Musique, Brussels, Belgium (MS 1035 pp. 81-85)

CoA 53.5

Copy, headed On his Mistriss not Loving him by [Dryden deleted] Cowley.

A quarto verse miscellany, largely in one hand, with additions by others, written from both ends, material at the reverse end dated 1708-9, ii + 114 leaves, in 19th-century half-calf.

Inscribed (f. [ii^r]), probably by the compiler, Ex Libris Georgij Wright [b.1685/6] S^ti Johannis Collegis Cantabrigiensis Alumni, Decimo quarto Junij. Annoq. Domini 1703.

c.1703-9

Also inscribed (f.[ii^r]) M^rs Frances Wright 1708. A postal address on f. 95r (rev.) reads: Direct to Marg^tt Borrett att M^rs. Borretts In Kirkby=stephen Westmoorland p brough bag _ These.

Recorded in IELM, II.ii, as the Wright MS: WaE Δ 12.

Edinburgh University Library (MS Dc. 3. 76 f. 54v)

Coolyes verses uppon my Lady Elisabeth birth on Christmas euen 1635 ('Your picture mighty P. ingrau'd in gould')

First published in Grosart (1881), I, cxxxix-cxl. Waller, II, 483.

CoA 54

Copy, subscribed A. Cowley.

Edited from this MS in Grosart and in Waller.

A quarto verse miscellany, in a single neat predominantly italic hand, occupying ff. 25r-79v, the second of three independent MSS in different hands (including extracts from Hayward's Henry IV and from Sir Edwin Sandys, and parliamentary proceedings 1623/4), in a composite volume, 141 leaves, in modern half morocco gilt.

The verse miscellany, including an Index (ff. 78v-9v), is compiled by John Holles (1595-1666), second Earl of Clare.

Mid-17th century

Discussed in Andrew McRae, Literature, Satire and the Early Stuart State (Cambridge, 2004), 42, and Thomas Cogswell, The Symptomes and Vapors of a Diseased Time: the Earl of Clare and Early Stuart Manuscript Culture, RES, NS 57 (2006), 310-336. The parliamentary proceedings published in Christopher Thompson, editor, The Holles Account of Proceedings in the House of Commons in 1624 (Orsett, Essex, 1985).

The British Library: Harley Collection, numbers 6000 through 6999 (Harley MS 6383 f. 50r-v)

Constantia and Philetus ('I sing two constant Lovers various fate')

First published in Poetical Blossomes (London, 1633). Waller, II, 7-12. Collected Works, I, pp. 21-5.

CoA 54.1 Late 17th century

Copy of stanzas 1-6, written in a neat italic hand to replace a lost leaf in the volume.

A printed exemplum of Abraham Cowley's Poeticall Blossomes, 3rd edition (London, 1637), in modern half-morocco.

Inscribed inside the front cover G. David 1901 Nov. 23.

Cambridge University Library, shelfmarks M through end (Syn. 8.63. 251 sig. A6r-v)

The Country Life. Lib. 4. Plantarum ('Blest be the man (and blest he is) whome're')

First published, among Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose, in Works (London, 1668). Waller, II, 419-20.

CoA 54.2

Copy.

A folio verse miscellany, entitled The Muse's Magazine, or Poeticall Miscelanies, in two parts, in a single hand, 189 leaves.

Early 18th century

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Dunton MS: PsK Δ 8; RoJ Δ 4; SeC Δ 1; WaE Δ 10.

For John Dunton's career, see Stephen Parks, John Dunton and the English Book Trade: A Study of His Career with a Checklist of His Publications (New York & London, 1970).

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 150 through 199 (MS Rawl. poet. 173 f. 169v et seq.)

CoA 54.3

Copy, followed by Cowley's Latin version.

A folio volume of notes and papers by Evelyn, 136 leaves.

Volume CLXXVII of the Evelyn Papers.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 60000 through end (Add. MS 78344 ff. 87v-9r)

CoA 54.4

Copy.

An octavo miscellany of largely moral or religious verse and prose, chiefly in a small stylish cursive hand, with additions in margins and borders in a second even smaller hand, 316 pages (plus four pages of religious notes), in contemporary red morocco gilt.

Including 24 poems by Abraham Cowley (pp. 1-40) and 18 poems by Katherine Philips (pp. 41-81) transcribed from a printed source.

Late-17th century

Arms of the Trevor family and the initials I D stamped on the cover. Inscribed names of Francis Stephens (Liber Donum Francisci Stephens) and, later, of E.H. Baker (on the front pastedown). Later owned by Thomas Philip (1781-1859), Earl de Grey, of Wrest Park, Bedfordshire. then in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872) manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 18637.

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Trevor MS: PsK Δ 10.

Yale, Osborn MS b 100 through Osborn MS b 149 (Osborn MS b 118 p. 19)

The Country Mouse ('At the large foot of a fair hollow tree')

First published in Poems, by Several Persons (Dublin, 1663). Verses, Lately Written upon several Occasions (London, 1663). Waller, II, 414-16.

CoA 54.5

Copy, headed The Country Mouse A Paraphrase upon Horace, 2^d Book: Sat: 6.

1711-12

Edinburgh University Library, Laing Collection (MS La. III. 798 pp. 35-8)

CoA 54.6

Copy.

A set of three quarto verse miscellanies, largely in a single cursive hand, all transcribed from printed books, 276 + 340 + c.350 pages, in contemporary vellum boards.

Volume I with a title-page Scraps of Poetry On Winter, Its Opposites, & Concomitants: and many other agreeable Fragments all Collected Chiefly from borrowed Books Begun April 7^th: 1760. and finished May 20^th: 1760. By me Tho: Austen, Rochester.

Volume II, written from both ends, some pages in a second hand, dated 1765.

Volume III, written from both ends, entitled An Abstract of curious, odd, & comical Passages from old Plays as they came casually to hand, Begun Novemb^r. 1767.

1760-7

Donated by Edgar Huidekoper Wells (class of 1897).

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 611 Vol. I, pp. 252-5)

CoA 55

Copy.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, principally extracts from Sir Thomas Pope Blount's De re poetica (1694), in a non-professional cursive hand, 220 pages, in contemporary calf.

c.late 1690s

Yale, Osborn MS b 100 through Osborn MS b 149 (Osborn MS b 135 ff. 113v-15r)

CoA 55.5

Copy, ascribed to M^r Cowley.

A folio verse miscellany, in a single neat hand, with some rubrication, 122 pages, with an index, in contemporary marbled boards.

With a title-page: Poems on Various Subjects Extracted cheifly from the Works of Some of the Most Celebrated Poets Scribendo Disces MDCCXLVII.

1747

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MS fc 60 pp. 77-80)

Davideis ('I Sing the Man who Judahs Scepter bore')

First published in Poems (London, 1656). Grosart, II, 45-115. Waller, I, 239-401.

CoA 56

Copy, apparently transcribed from a printed source.

A folio volume comprising three poems, 107 leaves.

1692-3

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 1 through 49 (MS Rawl. poet. 12 ff. 3r-57v)

CoA 56.2

Extracts.

An unbound collection of unbound manuscripts of verse and other writings, in various hands and paper sizes, upwards of 100 items.

Belonging to the family and descendants of Sir William Temple, Bt (1628-99), diplomat and author.

Sotheby's, 13 December 1994, lot 43, to Figgis Rare Books.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Temple MSS] [unnumbered item])

Davideis, Book I, Psalm 114 ('When Israel was from bondage led')

Waller, I, 254-5.

CoA 57

Copy, subscribed by A. Cowley.

A quarto commonplace book and miscellany of verse and prose, in various hands, with additions up to 1751, ii + 662 pages (some erratically numbered), in contemporary calf.

c.1672-1715 [plus later additions]

Ownership inscriptions (pp. [i] and [662]), dated 1672, by John Digby, of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Other inscribed names including (p. 662) Thomas Digby, Edward Digby, Robert Debnam, and (p. [640]) Josh: Churchill 1694.

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 586 p. [541])

Davideis, Book II, The Vision ('First David there appears in Kingly state')

Waller, I, 295 et seq.

CoA 57.2

Copy, in a musical settong by John Blow.

A tall folio songbook, in two or more cursive hands, written from both ends, with (f. iii^r) an index, iv + 99 leaves (including indexes), in 19th-century half green morocco gilt on marbled boards.

Late 17th century

Booklabel of William Hayman Cummings, FSA (1831-1915), singer and musical antiquary. Sotheby's, 17-24 May 1917 (Cummings sale), lot 487.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Egerton MS 2960 ff. 90r-89v rev.)

Davideis, Book III, Song ('Awake, awake my Lyre')

Waller, I, 344. Sparrow, pp. 191-2.

Musical setting by Pietro Reggio published in Songs [London, 1680]. Setting by John Blow published in Choice Ayres and Songs. The Third Book (London, 1681).

CoA 57.4

A composite series of copies of Cowley's verses, in a musical setting by John Blow, as the Act song at Oxford for 1679, copied seven times for different vocal parts, 45 folio leaves (irregularly paginated and foliated), in modern boards.

c.1679

Bodleian Library, Music MSS (MS Mus. Sch. C. 122)

CoA 57.6

Copy, in a musical setting by John Blow, headed Song.

A folio volume of vocal music, probably in a single cursive hand, 190 leaves, in remains of vellum boards within modern half red morocco.

c.1682

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 33234 ff. 21r-6r)

CoA 57.8

Copy in a musical setting by John Blow, with a pencil note The words of this air are the beautiful ode in Cowley's Davideis Book 3 which David sings under the window of his Mistress Michol.

A folio music book, in probably a single hand, 125 leaves, in contemporary brown blind-stamped calf within modern half red morocco gilt.

Owned and probably compiled by one John Channing, whose label IOHN CHANNING 1694 was on the original spine.

c.1694-7

Inscribed in pencil (f. 1r) Alex Tytler 1779. Label on a flyleaf of Alfred Moffat. Edinburgh. 1896.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 35043 ff. 122v-3r)

CoA 58

Copy, in a musical setting by John Blow.

A folio music book.

End of 17th century

University of Birmingham, Barber Institute (MS 5002 pp. 14-23)

CoA 59

Copy, in a musical setting by John Blow, untitled.

A folio songbook, in several hands, one italic hand predominating, with (f. 1v) a list of contents, 46 leaves, in modern half red morocco.

Inscribed (f. 1r), possibly by the compiler, Charles Campelman his book June y^e 9. 1681 (God give him grace 1682 added in another hand).

c.1681 -1700s

Sotheby's, 20 January 1854, lot 1138.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 19759 ff. 11v-12r)

CoA 60

Copy, in a musical setting by John Blow, untitled.

A tall folio songbook, the lyrics in a cursive italic hand, with (f. 2r-v) a brief table of contents, 149 leaves (plus numerous blanks), in modern half red morocco.

Compiled by John Walter, organist of Eton College (in 1681-1705) and possibly erstwhile chorister in the Chapel Royal (c.1674-7).

c.1682-1700s

Inscribed (last page, inverted) M^r Dolbins book Anno domini 1681/2 and (on the penultimate page) M^r Dolben^s Booke and M^r James Hart. Bookplate of Robert Smith and (f. 1r) a note signed by him dated 4 June 1813.

This volume discussed in Bruce Wood, A Note on Two Cambridge Manuscripts and their Copyists, M&L, 56 (1975), 308-12.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 22100 ff. 32v-40r)

CoA 61

Copy, in a musical setting by Pietro Reggio, untitled.

A folio volume of vocal music, probably in a single cursive hand, 190 leaves, in remains of vellum boards within modern half red morocco.

c.1682

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 33234 f. 20r-v)

CoA 62

Copies, in a musical setting by Pietro Reggio, both marked for Basso Continuo, untitled.

1688

York Minster (MS M. 5. S (ii) ff. 78v-9r; (iii) ff. 64v-5r)

Dialogue ('What have we done? what cruel passion mov'd thee')

First published in The Mistresse (London, 1647). Waller, I, 147-8.

CoA 62.5

Copy, beginning at stanza 5, here beginning Thou first perhapps who didst the fault commit, in the middle of a prose Longwinded Epistle...sent by a faire Lady from the Feather Tavern in Clarkenwell to exercise a wild fancy.

Two quarto volumes of poems, translations and other material, including (with title-page f. 53r) Poems & Translations. by Hugh Wormington. A.D, 1718, in a single hand, probably autograph, 216 leaves, both volumes in contemporary calf gilt.

c.1715-23

Inscribed (f. 3r) Ex Libris Hugonis Wormington S². C. D. Anno Dom 1715, and (f. 1r) Presented by The Marchioness De Crequy To Randle Jackson. With Jackson's bookplate.

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 80 I, f. 126v)

The Discovery ('By 'Heaven I'll tell her boldly that 'tis She')

First published in The Mistresse (London, 1647). Waller, I, 98. Collected Works, II, No. 29, pp. 57.8.

CoA 63

Copy, headed 30 Song.

Late 17th century

Once owned by Thomas Rawlinson (1681-1725) and afterwards among the collections of Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford (1689-1741).

Cited in IELM I.i (1980) as the Harley Rawlinson MS: DnJ Δ 64.

The British Library: Harley Collection, numbers 3000 through 3999 (Harley MS 3991 ff. 139v-40)

CoA 63.2

Copy.

A folio leaf, with verses on the recto only, in a single hand.

Mid-late 17th century

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn Poetry Box VI/47 f. 1r)

Elegie upon Anacreon, who was choaked by a Grape-Stone ('How shall I lament thine end')

First published, among Miscellanies, in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 59-62.

CoA 63.5

Copy of the last twelve lines, beginning It grieves me when I see what Fate.

c.1715-23

Inscribed (f. 3r) Ex Libris Hugonis Wormington S². C. D. Anno Dom 1715, and (f. 1r) Presented by The Marchioness De Crequy To Randle Jackson. With Jackson's bookplate.

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 80 I, ff. 14v-15r)

An Elegie on the Death of John Littleton Esquire ('And must these waters smile againe? and play')

First published, in Sylva, in Poeticall Blossomes, 2nd edition (London, 1636). Waller, II, 55-6. Collected Works, I, pp. 78-80.

CoA 64

Copy, headed On the death of Jo. Littleton Esq^r who was drowned leapinge into y^e water to saue his Brother. 1636.

An octavo verse miscellany, in a single neat predominantly italic hand, 72 leaves, in old leather.

Probably compiled by one H.S., a Cambridge man.

c.1640s-50s

Later owned by the Rev. Philip Bliss (1787-1857), antiquary and book collector, with his bookplate and inscription 1806 Purchased of Lansdown of Bristol. Bliss sale, 21 August 1858, lot 192.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 20000 through 24999 (Add. MS 22603 ff. 19r-20r)

The Epicure ('Fill the Bowl with rosie Wine')

First published, among Miscellanies, in Poems (London, 1656). Waller, I, 55-6. Sparrow, p. 55.

Musical setting by Henry Purcell published in Comes Amoris (London, 1687). Works of Henry Purcell, XXII (1922), pp. 55-8.

CoA 65

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Bowman, untitled.

A folio music book of vocal compositions, the lyrics in English and Latin almost entirely in a single italic hand, with a contemporary index (f. 93r), 94 leaves, in 19th-century half red leather.

Compiled by the composer Henry Bowman, those songs set by himself listed by him on f. 93r.

c.1678-80s

Bookplate of Katherine Sedley (1657-1717), daughter of Sir Charles Sedley and later Countess of Dorchester, of Southfleet, Kent. Inscribed (f. 93r) John James. Purchased from J. Harvey, 13 July 1877.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 30382 f. 39r-v)

CoA 66

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Purcell.

MS music book.

Late 17th century

Once in the library of R. Wagener, at Marlburg.

Conservatoire Royal de Musique, Brussels, Belgium (L.H. XY 27. 174 pp. 16-17)

CoA 66.5

Copy, in a musical setting ascribed to Mr Henry Hall.

An oblong quarto songbook.

Late 17th century

Owned in 1732 by Richard Goodson, of Christ Church, Oxford.

Christ Church, Oxford (MS Mus. 350 pp. 12-13)

CoA 67

Copy, headed A Song, on a small slip of paper.

Late 17th century

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn Poetry Box VII/74)

The Epilogue [to the Guardian] ('The Play, great Sir, is done. yet needs must fear')

First published, under the pseudonym Francis Cole, in The Prologue and Epilogue to a Comedie, presented, at the Entertainment of the Prince His Highnesse, by the Schollers of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge, in March last, 1641 (London, 1642). Printed (with the first line: The Play is done, great Prince, which needs must fear) in The Guardian (London, 1650). Waller, I, 32 (and II, 242). Autrey Nell Wiley, The Prologue and Epilogue to the Guardian, RES, 10 (1934), 443-7 (pp. 444-5).

Latin Poems

Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris ('Hic, O Viator, sub Lare parvulo')

First published, among Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose, in Works (London, 1668). Poemata latina (London, 1668). Waller, II, 461-2.

CoA 202

Copy.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, principally extracts from Sir Thomas Pope Blount's De re poetica (1694), in a non-professional cursive hand, 220 pages, in contemporary calf.

c.late 1690s

Yale, Osborn MS b 100 through Osborn MS b 149 (Osborn MS b 135 f. 116r-v)

Ornatissimo Doctissimoq' Viro Dom°. Doct. Fraser Augustissimi Regis Caroli 2^di. Medico Primario ('Helleborum tantum, Medicorum summe, remittas')

First published in John Sparrow, Cowley's Plantarum Libri Duo: A Presentation Copy, The London Mercury, 20 (August 1929), 398-9.

*CoA 203

Autograph

Autograph Latin verse of eight lines inscribed in a copy of A Couleii Plantarum libri duo (London, 1662) presented by Cowley to Sir Alexander Fraizer.

c.1662

Formerly owned by John Sparrow (1906-92). Christie's, 21 October 1992 (Sparrow sale), in lot 239 (unidentified, among 7 others), to Quaritch.

Edited from this MS in Sparrow, loc. cit. Photocopies in British Library, RP 5278.

Estate of Robert S Pirie, New York ([Cowley/Plantarum])

'Qualiter in ramo volucris quae semper eodem'

Unpublished.

CoA 204

Copy, untitled and here ascribed to A.C..

A quarto miscellany of verse and prose, in English and Latin, in a single small hand, 31 leaves, in contemporary half-calf over marbled boards, imperfect.

A label on the cover: D^r. Lynnet's Common Place Book: i.e. compiled by Dr William Lynnet (1622/3-1700), of Trinity College, Cambridge.

c.1643

Inscribed Ri. Walker 1758. some years agoe M^r. Brigg bought this Common place book in Smithfield, and gave it to RW. Inscriptions dated 1792 by Thomas Bousefield (or possibly James Simpson), wheelwright of Kendal. Purchased from J.W. Jarvis & Son, 30 January 1891.

Bodleian Library, Eng. misc. MSS (MS Eng. misc. e. 13 f. 11r)

CoA 205

Second, variant version, untitled, original heading with ascription to William Spratt deleted.

A quarto miscellany of verse and prose, in English and Latin, in a single small hand, 31 leaves, in contemporary half-calf over marbled boards, imperfect.

A label on the cover: D^r. Lynnet's Common Place Book: i.e. compiled by Dr William Lynnet (1622/3-1700), of Trinity College, Cambridge.

c.1643

Bodleian Library, Eng. misc. MSS (MS Eng. misc. e. 13 ff. 12v-13r)

Prose

The Garden

Verses first published in Poems upon Divers Occasions (London, 1667). The whole essay first published, among Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose, in Works (London, 1668). Waller, II, 420-8.

*CoA 206

Autograph

Autograph MS of Cowley's epistolary essay to John Evelyn, including the verses Happy art Thou, whom God does bless, on seven folio pages, sent to Evelyn 16 August 1666.

1666

Formerly in the Donald and Mary Hyde (Lady Eccles) Collection.

The text corrected from this MS in The Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn, ed. William Upcott (London, 1825), p. 435. Facsimile of the wrapping leaves, the letter and the first two stanzas of the poem in The R.B. Adam Library (London & New York, 1929), III, after p. 73. Facsimile of the first two stanzas of the poem in Charles John Smith, Historical and Literary Curiosities (London, 1847), No. 49, reproduced in Nethercot, facing p. 231.

Harvard, other MSS (fMS Eng 1343 (5))

CoA 206.5

Copy.

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks A through E (EL 8848)

Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose

For verse items, see individual titles.

Dramatic Works

The Guardian

See CoA 68-81, CoA 137-52.

Loves Riddle, IV, i, Song ('It is a punishment to love')

First published in London, 1638. Waller, II, 67-147 (p. 115).

Musical setting of the song by William Webb published in New Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1678).

CoA 207

Copy of Bellula's song, untitled, in a musical setting by William Webb.

This MS collated in John P. Cutts, A Bodleian Song-Book: Don. C. 57, M&L, 34 (1953), 192-211 (p. 203).

A folio songbook, 121 leaves (including c.20 blanks and an index), in contemporary calf (rebacked).

Including ten poems by Carew and twelve poems by or attributed to Herrick, in musical settings, predominantly in a single hand (ff. 2r-63v, 92r-9r, 100r, with a change of style on ff. 64r-5v and in the index probably by the same hand), with 18th-century additions on ff. 81v-7v, 89r-v and 145v-53r, and scribbling elsewhere.

c.1640s-60s

Later owned by Colonel W.G. Probert, of Bevills, Bures, Suffolk. Sold by Quaritch in 1937.

Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the Probert MS: CwT Δ 4, HeR Δ 1. Discussed and analysed in John P. Cutts, A Bodleian Song-Book: Don. C. 57, M&L, 34 (1953), 192-211. Also briefly discussed in George Thewlis, Some Notes on a Bodleian Manuscript, M&L, 22 (1941) 32-5, and in Willa McClung Evans, Shakespeare's Harke Harke ye Larke, PMLA, 60 (1945), 95-101 (with a facsimile of f. 78r). A facsimile of the volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 6 (New York & London, 1987).

Bodleian Library, Don. MSS (MS Don. c. 57 f. 40r)

CoA 208

Copy, in a musical setting.

A folio music book, containing 327 songs, in three largely secretary hands, with a Cattalogue of contents, 229 leaves.

Owned (in 1659) and partly compiled by the composer John Gamble (d.1687), with some misnumbering.

c.1630s-50s

Later owned by Edward Francis Rimbault (1816-76), organist and author. Acquired in 1888.

A complete facsimile is in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 10 (New York & London, 1987). Discussed in Charles W. Hughes, John Gamble's Commonplace Book, M&L, 26 (1945), 215-29.

New York Public Library, Music Division (Drexel MS 4257 No. 164)

Miscellaneous

Herbal

*CoA 209

Autograph

Autograph notebook.

Cowley's autograph notebook of information about numerous specified herbs and their medicinal properties, in Latin and English, the first page of text headed Facultates Medicam, on 86 sextodecimo leaves, the name Abraham Cowley written in another hand on f. 86v, in modern binding lettered on spine Tract on Simples.

c.1656-60s?

Notes (on ff. I and i) in the hand of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). Formerly owned by Francis Bernard (1628-98), apothecary and physician.

Facsimile of ff. 53v-54r in IELM, II.i (1987), Facsimile Xb, after p. xxii.

The British Library: Sloane Collection (Sloane MS 509)

Books Owned or Inscribed by Cowley

Brett, Arthur. The Restauration, or a Poem on the Return of the most mighty and ever glorious Prince Charles the II to his Kingdoms (1660)

*CoA 210

Autograph

Cowley's small quarto exemplum, with his inscription on the title-page Abraham Cowley, 1666.

1666

Pickering & Chatto's A Catalogue of Old and Rare Books (c.1910?), item 628.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Brett])

Cowley, Abraham. Plantarum libri duo (London, 1662)

CoA 211

An exemplum bearinging no trace of Cowley's own hand but inscribed by a contemporary librarian ex dono Authoris.

1662

Bodleian Library, other MSS (8° A. 13 Med BS)

*CoA 211.5

Autograph

An exemplum bearing on a pasted-down slip of paper Cowley's autograph inscription For M^r. Keck from His most humble servant the Author.

1662

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks N through Z (RB 102357)

Martial. M Valerii Martialis epigrammatum libri XV...cum indice Josephi Langii (Paris, 1617)

*CoA 212

Autograph

Cowley's printed exemplum containing three preliminary leaves and five other pages of his autograph annotations in Latin, the spine labelled The Legacy of M^r A. Cowley.

Mid-17th century

Bookplates of Thomas Sprat (1635-1713) and James Veitch (d.1793), Lord Eliock. Later owned by James Crossley (1800-83), author and book collector. Sotheby's, 21 July 1887 (Crossley sale). J.E. Cornish's sale catalogue [1890], item 407, sold to Quaritch.

Estate of Robert S Pirie, New York ([Cowley/Martial])

Letters

Letter(s)

*CoA 213

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, to Sir Richard Browne, from Paris, 1 February [1644/5].

1645

Princeton (RTC01 Box 5, fl. 28)

*CoA 214

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, (in cipher), to George, Lord Digby, from St Germain, 15 September 1645.

1645

Edited in Secret Writing in the Public Records, Henry VIII-George II, ed. Sheila R. Richards (London, 1974), No. 70.

National Archives, Kew (SP 106/10/8)

*CoA 215 1646

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, (partly in cipher), [to John, Lord Colepeper]., from Paris, 20 April 1646.

Edited in Nethercot, p. 114.

A composite volume of letters and papers of the Earl of Clarendon, for January 1645/6-May 1646, 164 leaves.

Bodleian Library, Clarendon MSS (MS Clarendon 27 ff. 147r-8v)

*CoA 216 1646/7

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, partly in cipher, [to John, Lord Colepeper], from Paris, 17 January 1646.

A composite volume of letters and papers of the Earl of Clarendon, for January 1645/6-May 1646, 164 leaves.

Bodleian Library, Clarendon MSS (MS Clarendon 27 ff. 10r-11v)

*CoA 217 1646/7

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, partly in cipher, [to John, Lord Colepeper], from Paris, 9 February 1646.

A composite volume of letters and papers of the Earl of Clarendon, for January 1645/6-May 1646, 164 leaves.

Bodleian Library, Clarendon MSS (MS Clarendon 27 ff. 55r-6v)

*CoA 218 1646/7

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, (partly in cipher), [to John, Lord Colepepper], from Paris, 10 February 1646.

A composite volume of letters and papers of the Earl of Clarendon, for January 1645/6-May 1646, 164 leaves.

Bodleian Library, Clarendon MSS (MS Clarendon 27 ff. 53r-4v)

*CoA 219 1648/9

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, [to ? Henry Bennet], from Paris, 8 January 1648.

Edited in Grosart, II, 352-3. Facsimile examples in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XXVII (a-b).

A folio composite collection of documents and letters.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 18000 through 19999 (Add. MS 19399 ff. 49r-50v)

*CoA 220

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, [to ? Sir Henry Verney], from Paris, 4/14 April 1649.

1649

Microfilm in British Library M/636/9. Edited in Jean Loiseau, Abraham Cowley, sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris, 1931), p. 91.

Sir Ralph Verney, Bt., Claydon House ([no shelfmark])

*CoA 221

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 14 December 1649.

1649

Sotheby's, 26 July 1938, lot 425, to Maggs.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Maggs (I)])

*CoA 222

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Robert Long, from Paris, 18 December 1649.

1649

Sotheby's, 13 April 1905, lot 48, to Sabin.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Sabin (I)])

*CoA 223

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 21 December 1649.

1649

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MSS File 3785 [item i])

*CoA 224

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 29 April 1650.

1650

Sotheby's, 13 April 1905, lot 108, to Sabin.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Sabin (II)])

*CoA 225

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, [from Paris], 28 May 1650.

1650

Sotheby's, 13 April 1905, lot 119, to Sabin.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Sabin (III)])

*CoA 226

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 11 June 1650.

1650

Sotheby's, 25 July 1938, lot 425, to Maggs.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Maggs (VI)])

*CoA 227

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, (partly in cipher), [to ? John, Lord Colepeper], from Paris, with a letter by Henry Jermyn written on the fourth page, 3 September 1650.

1650

Sotheby's, 2 April 1973, lot 231, to A.R. Heath, with a facsimile example of the subscription in the sale catalogue. Sotheby's, 18 December 1986, lot 3, to Quaritch, also with a facsimile example in the sale catalogue.

Photocopy in the British Library, RP 3513.

Estate of Robert S Pirie, New York ([Cowley letter])

*CoA 228

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 1 January 1650.

1650/1

Facsimile in British Literary Manuscripts, Series I, ed. Verlyn Klinkenborg et al. (New York, 1981), No. 48.

The Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 7674)

*CoA 229

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 8 January 1650.

1650/1

Sotheby's, 25 July 1938, lot 425, to Maggs.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Maggs (II)])

*CoA 230

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 15 January 1650.

1650/1

Sotheby's, 25 July 1938, lot 425, to Maggs.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Maggs (III)])

*CoA 231

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, frpm Paris, 21 January 1650.

1650/1

Sotheby's, 13 April 1905, lot 71, to Lindsay.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Lindsay])

*CoA 232

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 29 January 1650.

1650/1

Sotheby's, 13 April 1905, lot 77, to Maggs.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Maggs (IV)])

*CoA 233

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 25 January 1650.

1650/1

Sotheby's, 18 December 1905, lot 242, to Wadmore.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Wadmore])

*CoA 234

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Robert Long, from Paris, 5 February 1650.

1650/1

Sotheby's, 25 July 1938, lot 425, to Maggs.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Maggs (V)])

*CoA 235

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, [to Sir Robert Long], from Paris, 12 February 1650.

1650/1

Maggs's sale catalogue No. 451 (1924), item 726, with a facsimile (Plate IV).

Edited from a facsimile in H.P. Vincent, Three Unpublished Letters of Abraham Cowley, MLN, 54 (1939), 454-8 (pp. 456-7).

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MSS File 3785, [item ii])

*CoA 236 1650/1

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, [to Sir Robert Long], from Paris, 13 March 1650.

Edited in J. Simmons, An Unpublished Letter from Abraham Cowley, MLN, 57 (1942), 194-5.

A folio composite volume principally of state correspondence and papers of Sir Robert Long, Bt (c.1602-73), Secretary of State, 542 leaves.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Carte 130 f. 169r)

*CoA 237

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, to an unnamed person, from London, 3 April 1656.

1656

Photocopy and microfilm in the British Library, RP 266 and RP 267.

Princeton (RTC01 Box 5, fl. 29)

*CoA 238 1659

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, [to James Butler, Marquess of Ormonde], from Paris, 26 December 1659.

Edited in C.H. Firth, Abraham Cowley at the Restoration, The Academy, 44, No. 1118 (7 October 1893), 296.

A folio volume of copies of documents relating to state matters in Ireland and to the Butler family of Ormonde and their estates, 1632-60, 715 leaves.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Carte 30 ff. 515r-16v)

*CoA 239 1660

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, [to ? Martin Clifford], from London, 23 April [1660].

Edited in Allan Pritchard, Six Letters by Cowley, RES, NS 18 (1967), 253-63 (p. 258).

Letters by Abraham Cowley.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F 24 [unnumbered item])

*CoA 240 1660

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, [to ? George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham], from Whitehall, 3 October 1660.

Edited in Allan Pritchard, Six Letters by Cowley, RES, NS 18 (1967), 259-60.

Letters by Abraham Cowley.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F 24 [unnumbered item])

*CoA 241 1660/1

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, [to James Butler, Marquess of Ormonde], from Paris, 2 March 1660.

Edited in C.H. Firth, Abraham Cowley at the Restoration, The Academy, 44, No. 1118 (7 October 1893), 296.

A folio composite volume of state papers and correspondence of James Butler, first Duke of Ormonde, 1660-84, in various hands, 704 leaves.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Carte 213 ff. 634r-5v)

*CoA 242 1661

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, [to ? Martin Clifford], 18 October 1661.

Edited in Allan Pritchard, Six Letters by Cowley, RES, NS 18 (1967), 260-1.

Letters by Abraham Cowley.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F 24 [unnumbered item])

*CoA 243 1662

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, [to ? Martin Clifford], from Barn Elms, 8 October [1662?].

Edited in Allan Pritchard, Six Letters by Cowley, RES, NS 18 (1967), 261-2.

Letters by Abraham Cowley.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F 24 [unnumbered item])

*CoA 244

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, [to Dr. Richard Busby], [1662?]

Sotheby's, 18 November 1929, lot 146, with a facsimile in the sale catalogue.

Edited in Gentleman's Magazine, 57.ii (October 1787), 847. Reprinted in Grosart, I, xxxiv, and in Nethercot, p. 224.

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MSS File 3784)

*CoA 245 1663

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to John Evelyn, from Barn Elms, [29 March 1663].

Edited in Isaac D'Israeli, Calamities of Authors, 2 vols (London, 1812), I. 83-4. Reprinted in Nethercot, p. 237. Facsimiles in Garnett & Gosse (1903), III, 73, and in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XXVII(d).

Composite volume of letters.

The British Library: Stowe MSS (Stowe MS 755 f. 13r)

*CoA 246

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, to [John Evelyn], London, 7 March 1664[/5?].

1665

Sotheby's, 9 July 1832, lot 64, to Richard Heber (1774-1833), book collector. Sotheby's 10 February 1836 (Heber sale, Part XI), lot 287. Thorpe, Catalogue of Autograph Letters, 1836, item 250. Puttick & Simpson, 3 June 1878, lot 81. Sotheran's sale catalogue No. 12 (1899), item 51.

Edited in H.P. Vincent, Three Unpublished Letters of Abraham Cowley, MLN, 54 (1939), 454-8 (pp. 457-8).

Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Gratz Collection, British Authors/Poets Case 10, Box 38, [unnumbered item])

*CoA 247

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, to John Davis, from Mortlake, 20 February 1665.

1665/6

Harvard, other MSS (fMS Eng 870 (17))

*CoA 248 1666

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, [to ? Martin Clifford], Chertsey, 10 June 1666.

Edited in Allan Pritchard, Six Letters by Cowley, RES, NS 18 (1967), 262.

Letters by Abraham Cowley.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F 24 [unnumbered item])

*CoA 249

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, to John Evelyn (originally accompanying CoA 202), from Chertsey, 17 August 1666.

1666

Sotheby's, 4 May 1910. Sotheby's, 23 April 1923, lot 189, to Blunt. Sale catalogue of John Pearson, 500 Important Books, Manuscripts and Autograph Letters, Vol. I (A-H) [c.1930?], item 136, with a facsimile in the catalogue.

Colorado College (Rare 826.08 T212 v.1, [unnumbered item])

*CoA 250 1666

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Cowley, [to ? Martin Clifford], Chertsey, 17 December 1666.

Edited in Allan Pritchard, Six Letters by Cowley, RES, NS 18 (1967), 262-3.

Letters by Abraham Cowley.

Hertfordshire Record Office (DE/P F 24 [unnumbered item])

*CoA 251

Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to John Evelyn, from Chertsey, 13 May 1667.

Later owned by Robert Borthwick Adam (1863-1940), American book collector. Thence to the collection of Donald and Mary Hyde (Lady Eccles), L.6.68.

Edited in Memoirs illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, 2 vols (London, 1818), II, 229. Reprinted in Grosart, I, lxxvii-lxxviii.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Cowley/Hyde])

Documents

Document(s)

*CoA 252 1649

Autograph

Instructions for M^r. Denham, entirely in Cowley's hand and signed by Queen Henrietta Maria, 10 May 1649.

Edited in Hilton Kelliher, John Denham: New Letters and Documents, BLJ, 12 (1986), 1-20 (pp. 18-19).

A folio composite collection of documents and letters.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 18000 through 19999 (Add. MS 19399 ff. 72r-3v)

*CoA 253

Autograph

A warrant in Cowley's hand signed by Henrietta Maria for payment of 1,200 pistoles to Sir William Davenant, with a subjoined minute in Cowley's hand, 20 June 1647.

1647

Sotheby's, 22 June 1976, lot 105. A photocopy is in the British Library (RP 780).

The Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 3863)

*CoA 254

Autograph

Cowley's signature and endorsement apparently cut from an indenture between Jermyn and Sir Kenelm Digby, 29 December 1660.

1660

The Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 7675)

Will

*CoA 255

Autograph

Cowley's autograph and signed last will and testament, dated 18 September 1665, proved 31 August 1667.

Cowley's will of 18 September 1665, mentioned above and is preserved in the poet's original autograph in the Public Record Office (PROB 10/1000 (proved 31 August 1667)), as well as in a registered copy (PROB 11/324/104 [an annotated transcript can also be found in the Bodleian, MS Eng. hist. e. 1, ff. 8-11v]).

1665

Edited in Nethercot, pp. 296-7.

National Archives, Kew (SP 10/1000)

CoA 256

A registered copy of Cowley's last will and testament dated 18 September 1665, proved 31 August 1667.

1667

National Archives, Kew (SP 11/324/104)

CoA 257 c.1665

An annotated transcript of Cowley's last will and testament drawn up 18 September 1665.

A folio volume of biographies of old actors, compiled chiefly by John Payne Collier (1789-1883), literary scholar, editor, and forger, ii + 843 leaves.

c.1640-80

Collier sale, 7 August 1884, lot 117.

Bodleian Library, Eng. hist. MSS (MS Eng. hist. e. 1 ff. 8r-11v)

Collections of Cowley's Verse and Extracts from his Works

Verse collection

CoA 258

A large collection of Cowley's poems, entitled The most Ingenious & famous Abraham Cowley's Poem's

4°, 205 leaves; large collection of Cowley's poems, entitled (f. 2v) The most Ingenious & famous Abraham Cowley's Poem's [In Manuscript added in different ink]; predominantly in three hands (A: ff. 3-90, 103-15v, 142-205v; B: ff. 91-102v; C: ff. 116-41), with additions in other hands on ff. 2v and 202v.

Mid-late 17th century

f. 59v the childish scribbling Edward Edisbury his my name; also John Owen. Later owned (before 15 December 1873) by W. C. Hazlitt (1834-1913)

The British Library: Egerton MSS (Egerton MS 2326)

Extracts

CoA 258.5

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

An octavo verse miscellany, including nineteen poems by Waller (pp. 1-64), probably transcribed from printed sources, with an index, 318 pages.

Compiled over a period, probably by the same person, at one of the English (? Benedictine) colleges in Douai, a later addition (p. 292) dated 1723.

Early 18th century

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Douai MS: WaE Δ 8.

Bibliothèque Municipale, Douai, France (MS 788 pp. 198-201)

CoA 259

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A quarto composite miscellany of verse and prose, in English and Latin, in several hands, 11 + 109 leaves.

Early-mid-18th century

Owned in 1812 by Miss Elizabeth Mansel. Given to Henry Gough, of Redhill, who presented it to the Bodleian in December 1884.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Add. B. 105 f. 97r)

CoA 260

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A folio composite volume of verse, in various hands and paper sizes, some printed, 175 leaves, in contemporary quarter-calf marbled boards.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Ballard 47 f. 67r)

CoA 261 c.1678

Extracts from poems by Cowley.

A duodecimo Vade mecum or A Pocket-Book of verse, compiled by John Gibson the Younger (1630-1711), of Welburne, Yorkshire, 86 unnumbered leaves, in contemporary calf, with traces of clasps.

c.1666-78

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MSS Broxbourne R 359 ff. [46v, 48v-9r, 52r])

CoA 262

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A quarto verse miscellany, 171 leaves, with an index, imperfect at the beginning, in contemporary calf (rebacked).

Compiled by Colonel Gabriel Lepipre, being the 4^th Vol. of his compilations.

c.1748-50s

Donated in 1938 by F.F. Madan.

Bodleian Library, Eng. poet. e. MSS (MS Eng. poet. e. 40 f. 100r)

CoA 263

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

An oblong folio songbook of glees and madrigals, chiefly written by the composer Philip Hayes (1738-97), 78 leaves.

Mid-late 18th century

Bodleian Library, Music MSS (MS Mus. d. 8 ff. 44r-5v)

CoA 264

Copies of, or extracts from, 27 poems by Cowley.

A folio verse miscellany, entitled The Muse's Magazine, or Poeticall Miscelanies, in two parts, in a single hand, 189 leaves.

Early 18th century

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Dunton MS: PsK Δ 8; RoJ Δ 4; SeC Δ 1; WaE Δ 10.

For John Dunton's career, see Stephen Parks, John Dunton and the English Book Trade: A Study of His Career with a Checklist of His Publications (New York & London, 1970).

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, Rawl. poet. 150 through 199 (MS Rawl. poet. 173 ff. 26r-7v, 32v-3r, 35r-40r, 53v-6r 58v-9r, 79r-81v, 96v-7r, 98r-v, 140v-1r 159r-60v, 168v, 169v-70v)

CoA 265

Extracts from works by Cowley, including Davideis.

A composite quarto verse miscellany, 199 leaves, in calf.

Compiled (and ff. 2-39 written) by William Sancroft (1617-93), Archbishop Canterbury; the rest in other hands.

Mid-17th century

Bodleian Library, Tanner Collection (MS Tanner 466 ff. 14r-15v, 19v-20v, 24r-6v)

CoA 266

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A quarto volume of epitaphs, in Latin and English, apparently compiled by one F. Cumming, 140 leaves.

c.1784-1810

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Top. gen. e. 32 Inside front cover)

CoA 267 Late 17th century

Extracts, headed Out of M^r Cowleys works.

A folio composite volume of verse MSS, in various hands, 215 leaves, in 19th-century half-morocco.

Collected and largely copied by Thomas Birch (1705-66), biographer and historian.

Early-mid-18th century

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 4101 through 4999 (Add. MS 4456 ff. 63r-4r)

CoA 268

Extracts from works by Cowley.

A folio composite volume of verse MSS, in various hands and paper sizes, 231 leaves, in 19th-century half black morocco.

Including items once owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Collected by Thomas Birch (1705-66), biographer and historian.

Presumably from item 47 among the folio MSS recorded in Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 77.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 4101 through 4999 (Add. MS 4457 ff. 136r, 148r)

CoA 269

Copy of portions of 12 poems by Cowley, as well as a copy of Spratt's Life of Cowley on ff. 77v-109v (versos only).

A quarto verse miscellany, in a single mixed hand, entitled Essayes for attaineing ffrench in six Bookes,133 leaves (plus numerous blanks), in contemporary vellum boards.

Another title-page (f. 110r): English Verse Turned into ffrench Verse, for my owne improvement in the ffrench Tongue. The English Verse is cheifely M^r: Cowley's. Done by me Ol. Salusbury.

c.1700

Signed Ol. Salusbury also on f. 1r. A copy of the will of Edward Ward, 20 June 1731, added on f. 133. Cochran's catalogue for 1837, item 511. Evans's (Sotheby's), 27 July 1838, lot 1348.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 10000 through 14999 (Add. MS 11492 ff. 117v-31v (versos only))

CoA 270

A Latin version of verses from The Mistresse.

An octavo verse miscellany, inclusing Latin translations.

Late 17th century

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 25000 through 29999 (Add. MS 29241 passim)

CoA 271

Extracts from works by Cowley.

A folio composite volume of verse MSS and miscellaneous papers, in various hands, 248 leaves, in 19th-century half green morocco.

Presented by Mrs Jervis, 13 May 1876.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 30000 through 34999 (Add. MS 30012 ff. 135r, 146r)

CoA 272

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

An oblong folio music book, compiled by Simon Child, organist of Christ Church, Oxford, 98 leaves.

c.1700

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 31460 ff. 71v-8r)

CoA 274

Letter by Cowley.

MS.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 30000 through 34999 (Add. MS 33237 ff. 200r-4r)

CoA 275

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A folio miscellany of theological and family materials, in several hands, 54 leaves (plus numerous blanks), in old calf.

Compiled over a period by members of the Bridgen family, of Bridgnorth, Shropshire, including materials relating to Richard Mapletoft (1725-1801).

c.1708-1801

Inscribed (f. 1v) E Coll. Univ. Anno Dom. 1708, possibly by William Bridgen (d.1738), of University College, Oxford. Purchased from E. C. Shacland, 17 July 1895.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 30000 through 34999 (Add. MS 34660 f. 51r)

CoA 277

Extracts.

A tall folio songbook, largely in a single cursive hand, written from both ends, i + 133 leaves (including numerous blanks), in contemporary reversed calf.

The cover inscribed The Song-Book [of M^r. Montriot added in another hand].

c.1711

Formerly among Lord Leigh's muniments at Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire. Christie's, 16 October 1985, lot 139.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 63626 f. 14v)

CoA 278

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A folio composite volume of letters and papers of William Charleton (1642-1702), naturalist and collector, chiefly on natural history, 315 leaves.

Late 17th century

The British Library: Sloane Collection (Sloane MS 3962 ff. 57r-9v)

CoA 279

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A quarto volume of chiefly religious tracts, 216 leaves.

Late 17th century

Corpus Christi College, Oxford (MS 333 ff. 106r, 118r-24r)

CoA 280

A quarto verse miscellany, largely in one hand, with additions by others, written from both ends, material at the reverse end dated 1708-9, ii + 114 leaves, in 19th-century half-calf.

Inscribed (f. [ii^r]), probably by the compiler, Ex Libris Georgij Wright [b.1685/6] S^ti Johannis Collegis Cantabrigiensis Alumni, Decimo quarto Junij. Annoq. Domini 1703.

c.1703-9

Also inscribed (f.[ii^r]) M^rs Frances Wright 1708. A postal address on f. 95r (rev.) reads: Direct to Marg^tt Borrett att M^rs. Borretts In Kirkby=stephen Westmoorland p brough bag _ These.

Recorded in IELM, II.ii, as the Wright MS: WaE Δ 12.

Edinburgh University Library (MS Dc. 3. 76 passim)

CoA 281

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

1711-12

Edinburgh University Library, Laing Collection (MS La. III. 798 pp. 34-8)

CoA 282

A series of copies of, or extracts from, some 57 poems by Cowley, in a single hand, evidently transcribed from printed texts, on twelve folio leaves folded lengthways (including two blanks).

Late 17th century

Inscribed Margaret Cordell April the 3^d 1682 and Domenico Marcura.

Discussed in Suzanne Gossett, Ex Cowleo Cowleo Digna, The Venerabile, 25, No. 4 (1973), 251-6.

English College, Rome (Scritture 35: 3)

CoA 283

Copies or extracts from poems by Cowley, in musical settings.

A folio MS music book.

c.1728

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (MU MS 120 ff. 52r, 225r, 239r)

CoA 284

Extracts, in double columns, headed M^r Abraham Cowley in y^e like manner return'd from business, as his poems tells us.

A quarto verse miscellany of Scottish provenance, in a single largely italic hand, vii + 224 leaves, including an Index, one of what was once two volumes, in quarter vellum on marbled boards.

c.1740

Phillipps MS 9616 (vol. 2).

The Folger Shakespeare Library, Miscellaneous manuscripts (MS M.a.187 f. 3r)

CoA 285

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A duodecimo miscellany of verse and prose, much relating to the Fane and Mildmay families, in a single predominantly italic hand, 130 leaves, in contemporary calf, remains of silk ties.

Compiled by Sir Francis Fane (c.1612-80), of Fulbeck Hall, Northamptonshire, with his signed dedications to his son Henry (ff. 2r-v, 130r) dated respectively 1 January 1655 and 20^th. of Aug^t: 1663.

c.1655-63

The Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.series, 100 through 199 (MS V.a.180 f. 96v)

CoA 286

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A quarto verse miscellany, in several hands, a neat mixed hand predominating up to f. 55r, 151 leaves (including a few blanks), in contemporary calf.

c.1730

Inscribed (in another hand) on the front pastedown Thomas Boydell. Formerly Folger MS 4108.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.series, 300 through end (MS V.a.308 ff. 38v, 47v-8r)

CoA 287

Extracts from works by Cowley

A folio songbook, largely in one hand, written from both ends, vi + 241 pages including blanks(Part I: pp. 1-207; Part II: pp. 1-34), in contemporary panelled calf gilt (rebacked).

Early 18th century

The Folger Shakespeare Library: V.b. series (MS V.b.197 Part I, pp. [5-6])

CoA 288

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

An octavo miscellany chiefly of verse, in several hands, with two tables of contents, 207 leaves (lacking ff. 1-4), in calf.

c.1725

Inscribed (f. 207v) James Dyson and James Thompson.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, Miscellaneous manuscripts (MS W.a.135 f. 73v)

CoA 289

Extracts, headed These Verses Taken out of The works of M^r Abraham Cowley.

A large quarto miscellany of verse extracts, comprising 182 entries, in a single cursive hand varying in style, 115 unnumbered leaves (plus 26 blanks), in contemporary calf.

Entitled (f. [1r]) A Collection of Miscellany Poems from the Greatest Poets, both Ancient and Modern That i have Read, & here place for my own entertainment, to diuert Malincolly Thoughts, & to assist My Memory, That was neuer Good at no Time:.

Late-17th century

From the library at Newburgh Priory, Yorkshire.

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 631 Nos 146-58)

CoA 290

Extracts, transcribed principally from the 1669 edition of The Works, some Ex Libr.Manuscript.

A folio miscellany, in a single non-professional hand, 100 pages (plus blanks), in later calf gilt.

Late 17th century

Harvard, other MSS (fMS Eng 1312 (1) pp. 1-29)

CoA 291

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A quarto miscellany of verse and prose, chiefly in one cursive hand, written from both ends, 271 leaves (including numerous blanks), in contemporary vellum boards.

c.1700

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 48 ff. 21r-2v, 43v)

CoA 292

Extract from The Mistresse.

A quarto miscellany of verse and prose, almost entirely in a single hand, compiled by a university man, 134 leaves, in modern vellum.

End of 17th century-1700s

In a family library at Bath before 1924. Sotheby's, 23 July 1987, lot 11, to Quaritch.

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt 79 f. 126v)

CoA 293

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

An octavo miscellany.

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt q 47 pp. 106-8)

CoA 294

Extracts from Cowley's works.

A quarto verse miscellany, in probably a single mixed hand varying over a period, entitled in another hand Recueil Choisi De Pieces fugitives En Vers Anglois, 214 pages, in modern calf.

c.1713

The Rosenbach Museum & Library, numbers 1 through 239 (MS 239/16 pp. 31-2, 35)

CoA 295

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A small quarto miscellany of anecdotes, aphorisms, verses, etc., in two hands, compiled by Sir Francis Fane (c.1612-80), 193 leaves, in contemporary vellum.

Inscribed by Fane on f. 1r Aug: 24: 1629 / Franciscus Fane and, later, as a bequest to his three grandsons to be read by them when aged 21, dated from Fulbeck, 5 May 1672.

c.1629-72

Sold by Maggs, 29 May 1930.

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office (ER 93/2 f. 143v)

CoA 296

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A quarto volume, in two hands.

274 leaves, unnumbered.

Comprising:

[Part I, ff. 12r-168r], five sermons, the first four by Donne, in the hand of Knightley Chetwode, son of Richard Chetwode, of Chetwode, Buckinghamshire, and Oakley, Staffordshire. 1625/6.

[Part II, ff. 1r-78r rev.], a verse miscellany, produced when the original blank pages were later filled from the reverse end, probably by one Katherine Butler. 1696.

1626-96

The volume inscribed as having been given to Katherine Butler by her father in May 1693.

Described in Potter & Simpson, I, 41-2.

St Paul's Cathedral (MS 52. D. 14 Part II, passim)

CoA 297

Various extracts and copies, notably on pp. 2, 4, 44, 47-9, 196, 206, 222, 225-6, 229, 242, 253, 264, 270, 273-5, 280, 282, 286, 350-4.

A folio verse miscellany, in possibly two neat rounded hands, 366 pages plus a five-page index, dated at the end Finis August y^e. 6^th 1717.

1715-17

University of Chicago (MS 553 passim)

CoA 298

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, in English and Latin, in several hands suggesting communal use, paginated 5-309, in mottled calf.

c.1697-1702

Yale, Osborn MS b 50 through Osborn MS b 99 (Osborn MS b 63 pp. 109-10)

CoA 299

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A composite collection of separate copies of English verse, 64 folio and quarto pages.

Assembled by the traveller Lorenzo Magalotti (1637-1712).

Late 17th century

Sotheby's, 19 July 1966, lot 518.

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MS fb 66 No. 39)

CoA 300

Extract(s) from work(s) by Cowley.

A folio verse miscellany, predominantly in one hand, chiefly in double columns, 92 pages, lacking covers.

Early 18th century

Formerly Osborn MS. Chest II, Number 4.

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MS fb 142 pp. 38-41)

CoA 301

Extracts.

A volume of extracts from various authors, compiled by Frances Fitzherbert, who describes herself as a female scribbler and addresses the Collection of Sentences to Lady Elizabeth Cromwell (1674-1709) in the hope that it might amuse her when she Arive neere sixty years, 49 pages.

c.1700

Sotheby's, April 1963, lot 494.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Fitzherbert MS] passim)

Abraham Cowley

Introduction

Autograph Literary Manuscripts

Letters

Letters Written by Cowley as a Secretary

Thomas Sprat

John Evelyn

Books from Cowley's Library

Manuscript Copies of Cowley's Poems

Other Manuscript Copies

The Canon

Adaptations etc.

Miscellaneous

Abbreviations

Verse

English Poems

Latin Poems

Prose

Dramatic Works

Miscellaneous

Books Owned or Inscribed by Cowley

Letters

Documents

Collections of Cowley's Verse and Extracts from his Works

Contents