Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

Sir Thomas Overbury

1581–1613

Introduction

The courtier Sir Thomas Overbury is best remembered for the circumstances of his death in 1613, one of the greatest scandals of the Jacobean period, for which the King's erstwhile favourite Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and his wife Frances Howard stood trial for murder in 1615, although only their supposed accomplices were subsequently executed.

The Canon

Overbury was also, however, a writer, although the canon of his works is very uncertain. His most popular work, of uncontested authorship, was his poem A Wife, which was posthumously published in 1614 but which was widely circulated in manuscript probably both before and after that date (OvT 13-25). The printed edition was so successful that it went through a variety of new impressions and editions for a number of years. These editions were, however, fleshed out with various other verse and prose works, notably a series of prose Characters (OvT 26-36) and a verse translation from Ovid (OvT 10-12), whose authorship ranges from uncertain to downright spurious. To these may be added the prose Observations in his travailes (OvT 39-58) which may perhaps have been written by him on his travels in the Low Countries and France in 1609, but which was not published until 1626. Yet one other work attributed to him in manuscripts (OvT 37-38), and not published until 1715, is a version of James I's Table Talk. Since some references here cannot date earlier than 1622 this compilation can hardly have been made by Overbury, but it is not impossible that certain of the anecdotes incorporated here might ultimately derive from him.

Letters and Documents

Autograph letters by Overbury survive in the Public Records and elsewhere, but have not been given entries below. A facsimile example of one written to Sir Dudley Carleton, 24 February 1613, in the National Archives (SP 14/72, f. 83), appears in Petti, English Literary Hands (1977), No. 50; and a facsimile of another, written to William Trumbull, 4 April 1613 (now British Library, Add. MS 72343, f. 82r) appears in Sotheby's sale catalogue The Trumbull Papers (14 December 1989), lot 28 (p. 68).

The Murder Trial

There was also a huge contemporary circulation of manuscript copies of accounts of the Overbury murder trial and proceedings in 1615, an event that more than gripped public interest, but which is outside our present purview. A number of these copies are cited notably in Alastair Bellany, The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England: News Culture and the Overbury Affair, 1603-1660 (Cambridge, 2002).

Abbreviations

Beecher
Sir Thomas Overbury (And Others), Characters, together with Poems, News, Edicts, and Paradoxes based on the eleventh edition of A Wife Now the Widow of Sir Thomas Overbury, ed. Donald Beecher (Ottawa, 2003).
Rimbault (1856)
The Miscellaneous Works in Prose and Verse of Sir Thomas Overbury, Knt. now first collected, ed. Edward F. Rimbault (London, 1856).

Verse

The Authours Epitaph ('The span of my daies measur'd, here I rest')

First published in A Wife now the Widdow of Sir T. Ouerbury (London, 1614). Rimbault, p. 46.

OvT 1

Copy, headed Sr Thomas Overburys epitaph upon himself.

An octavo verse miscellany, entitled Juvenilia Ludicra, in a single small mixed hand, 103 leaves, all now window mounted in a quarto volume, in 19th-century half morocco.

Probably compiled by a Cambridge University man.

c.1630s

Inscribed in engrossed lettering (f. 1r) E Libris Richard Sutclif. Later owned by Benjamin Heywood Bright (1830-84), merchant and author. Sotheby's, 18 June 1844 (Bright sale), lot 194.

OvT 2

Copy.

A quarto miscellany of verse and prose, in a cursive predominantly secretary hand, i + 284 leaves, in contemporary calf.

Compiled by Sir John Gibson (1606-65), of Welburn, near Kirkby Moorside, Yorkshire, when he was a Royalist prisoner in Durham Castle. The name Penelope Gibson on f. 174r.

c.1653-60

Bookplate of William Ward Jackson.

OvT 3

Copy.

A quarto verse miscellany, including 50 poems by Donne, in a single neat secretary hand except for ff. 70r-2r, which are in another secretary hand.

Comprising folios 57r-137v in a quarto composite volume of MSS, in various hands, 173 leaves, in 19th-century leather gilt.

c.1620s

Later owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Among the collections of William Petty (1737-1805), first Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Shelburne.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Lansdowne MS: DnJ Δ 8. Recorded as item 133 among Manuscripts in Quarto in the list at the end of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 85.

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 740 f. 81v)
OvT 4

Copy.

A duodecimo miscellany of verse and prose, predominantly in a single non-professional hand, iv + 214 pages, in contemporary calf.

Inscribed (p. 211) I ended this book Novr. 13th 1723.

c.1723
OvT 5

Copy, headed Sr. Thomas Overbury's epitaph written by himself.

A quarto verse miscellany, including seventeen poems by Donne and fifteen by Strode, the main part in a single hand, 334 pages (but pp. 3-4 extracted, and including a later index).

Possibly compiled by one W: H:: i.e. probably William Holgate (1618-46), of Queens' College, Cambridge, with late 17th-century additions apparently made by other members of the Holgate family, of Saffron Walden and Great Bardfield, Essex.

c.1630s [-late 17th-century]

Owned in the early 18th century by John Wale, who supplied the index on pp. 330-3. Owned before 1927 by Col. W.G. Carwardine-Probert, of Bures, Suffolk (descendant of the Holgate family).

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Holgate MS: DnJ Δ 58 and StW Δ 22. Briefly discussed in W.G.P., Verses by Francis Beaumont, TLS (15 September 1921), p. 596, and in E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare, 2 vols (Oxford, 1930), II, 222-4. Also discussed, with facsimiles on pp. 68 and 70 of pp. 181 and 13, in Michael Roy Denbo, Editing a Renaissance Commonplace Book: The Holgate Miscellany, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, III, ed. W. Speed Hill (Tempe, AZ, 2004). pp. 65-73. For facsimile pages see DnJ 2931 and ShW 25. Complete microfilm in the Essex Record Office (T/A 98).

The Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 1057 p. 170)
OvT 6

Copy.

A folio verse miscellany, containing 89 poems, including 43 by Donne, in several hands (ff. 21r-62r in a single accomplished secretary hand), 69 leaves, in paper wrappers.

The text of the poems by Donne derived from the same source as the Lansdowne MS (British Library, Lansdowne MS 740) and related in part to the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS II (Huntington, HM 198, Part II).

c.1620-5

Formerly among the muniments of the Earl of Dalhousie (descendant of the Maule and Ramsay families), of Brechin Castle, on deposit in the Scottish Record Office [now National Archives of Scotland] (GD45/26/95/1). Sotheby's, 20 July 1981, lot 490.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the the Dalhousie MS I: DnJ Δ 11. Complete reduced facsimile and transcription in The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others: A Facsimile Edition, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Columbia, 1988). Also discussed by Ernest W. Sullivan, II in Donne Manuscripts: Dalhousie I, John Donne Journal, 3/2 (1984), 204-19; in And, having done that, Thou hast done: Locating, Acquiring, and Studying the Dalhousie Manuscripts, in The Donne Dalhousie Discovery: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Acquisition and Study of the John Donne and Joseph Conrad Collections at Texas Tech University, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan II and David J. Murrah (Lubbock, TX, 1987), pp. 1-10; and in The Renaissance Manuscript Verse Miscellany: Private Party, Private Text, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 289-97.

Facsimiles of f. 15v in DLB, vol. 121, Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1992), p. 13, and of f. 42r in Sotheby's sale catalogue and in Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000 (Oxford, 2008), p. 431, Illus. 91. A complete microfilm of the MS is in the National Archives of Scotland.

Sullivan suggests that the miscellany derives from sources preserved by members of the Earl of Essex's circle, their most likely conduit to the Dalhousie family being John Ramsay (1580-1626), Viscount Haddington and Earl of Holderness.

Texas Tech University, Lubbock (PR 1171 D14 f. 30r)
OvT 7

Copy.

A folio collection of verse containing 143 poems by Donne and his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single predominantly italic hand (except for two poems on f. 104r-v, added afterwards by two other italic and secretary hands), the main scribe also probably responsible for the Puckering MS (DnJ Δ 13); this collection constituting ff. 13r-161v of a single folio volume containing also Part II, with an index on ff. 2r-11v (covering both Parts) in another hand, ii + 279 leaves in all, in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked).

c.1623-5

Old pressmark MS G. 2. 21.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (Part I): DnJ Δ 14.

OvT 8

Copy, headed Sr Thomas Ouerburies Epitaph.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, closely written in probably a single secretary hand, ii + 393 pages, in old calf.

c.1620

Inscribed (p. [i]) This curious Manuscript was bought by me of Mr Muskett the Bookseller. Norwich - J. P. B. Unidentified Dobell sale catalogue, item 182.

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 628 pp. 317-18)
OvT 9

Copy.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, closely written in probably a single secretary hand, ii + 393 pages, in old calf.

c.1620

Inscribed (p. [i]) This curious Manuscript was bought by me of Mr Muskett the Bookseller. Norwich - J. P. B. Unidentified Dobell sale catalogue, item 182.

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 628 pp. 321-2)
The Remedy of Love ('When Love did reade the Title of my booke')

A verse translation from Ovid's Remedia amoris. First published as The First and Last Part of The Remedy of Loue: Written by Sir Thomas Overbvry Knight (London, 1620). Rimbault, pp. 205-19.

OvT 10

Copy.

A quarto verse miscellany, including 50 poems by Donne, in a single neat secretary hand except for ff. 70r-2r, which are in another secretary hand.

Comprising folios 57r-137v in a quarto composite volume of MSS, in various hands, 173 leaves, in 19th-century leather gilt.

c.1620s

Later owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Among the collections of William Petty (1737-1805), first Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Shelburne.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Lansdowne MS: DnJ Δ 8. Recorded as item 133 among Manuscripts in Quarto in the list at the end of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 85.

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 740 f. 131r)
OvT 11

Copy.

A quarto verse miscellany, in one or more secretary hands, with (ff. 244r-54r) a first-line index, 254 leaves, in modern half-morocco, poems on ff. 34v and 242v dated 1637.

Including 91 poems and some prose works by John Donne and fourteen poems by Thomas Carew.

c.1637

Among the collections of Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (1776-1839), first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, of Stowe House, near Buckingham, largely derived from the collection of the antiquary Thomas Astle (1735-1803), which in turn chiefly derived from Astle's father-in-law, the Essex historian Philip Morant (1700-70) (see DnJ Δ 15). Later owned by Bertram, fourth Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878).

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as Stowe MS II: DnJ Δ 44 and Stowe MS: CwT Δ 22.

The British Library: Stowe MSS (Stowe MS 962 f. 194r)
OvT 12

Copy.

A folio verse miscellany, containing 89 poems, including 43 by Donne, in several hands (ff. 21r-62r in a single accomplished secretary hand), 69 leaves, in paper wrappers.

The text of the poems by Donne derived from the same source as the Lansdowne MS (British Library, Lansdowne MS 740) and related in part to the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS II (Huntington, HM 198, Part II).

c.1620-5

Formerly among the muniments of the Earl of Dalhousie (descendant of the Maule and Ramsay families), of Brechin Castle, on deposit in the Scottish Record Office [now National Archives of Scotland] (GD45/26/95/1). Sotheby's, 20 July 1981, lot 490.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the the Dalhousie MS I: DnJ Δ 11. Complete reduced facsimile and transcription in The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others: A Facsimile Edition, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Columbia, 1988). Also discussed by Ernest W. Sullivan, II in Donne Manuscripts: Dalhousie I, John Donne Journal, 3/2 (1984), 204-19; in And, having done that, Thou hast done: Locating, Acquiring, and Studying the Dalhousie Manuscripts, in The Donne Dalhousie Discovery: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Acquisition and Study of the John Donne and Joseph Conrad Collections at Texas Tech University, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan II and David J. Murrah (Lubbock, TX, 1987), pp. 1-10; and in The Renaissance Manuscript Verse Miscellany: Private Party, Private Text, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 289-97.

Facsimiles of f. 15v in DLB, vol. 121, Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1992), p. 13, and of f. 42r in Sotheby's sale catalogue and in Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000 (Oxford, 2008), p. 431, Illus. 91. A complete microfilm of the MS is in the National Archives of Scotland.

Sullivan suggests that the miscellany derives from sources preserved by members of the Earl of Essex's circle, their most likely conduit to the Dalhousie family being John Ramsay (1580-1626), Viscount Haddington and Earl of Holderness.

Texas Tech University, Lubbock (PR 1171 D14 ff. 58v-62r)
A Wife ('Each woman is a brief of woman kind')

First published, as A Wife now the Widdow of Sir T. Ouerbury, in London, 1614. Rimbault, pp. 33-45. Beecher, pp. 190-8.

OvT 13

Copy, in double columns, ascribed to Sr Thomas Overbury Knight.

A large folio miscellany of English and Welsh poems, in occasionally alternating black and red ink, 61 leaves, in contemporary vellum.

Compiled by Richard Roberts, Justice of the Peace.

c.1628

Sold by P.J. Dobell in 1936.

Bodleian Library, Don. MSS (MS Don. c. 54 ff. 4r-5r)
OvT 14

Copy, ascribed to Sir T. O.

A miscellany of verse and prose, in a single hand, originally in two volumes, xxiii + 158 pages, in 19th-century green morocco gilt.

c.1630s

Once owned by one C. Agard and later by F.W. Cosens (1819-89), book collector. The original second volume here bought from Colbeck Radford, sale catalogue No. 24 (1932), item 157.

Bodleian Library, Eng. poet. e. MSS (MS Eng. poet. e. 37 p. 39 et seq.)
OvT 15

Copy, in an accomplished predominantly secretary hand.

An independent quarto verse miscellany, including 47 poems by Donne, in two secretary hands.

Constituting ff. 230r-99v in a quarto composite volume of verse and prose, in various hands, 308 leaves, in modern half green morocco gilt.

c.1620-33

Among the collections of Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford (1661-1724), and his son, Edward, second Earl of Oxford (1681-1741), and acquired in 1722 from the bookseller Nathaniel Noel (fl.1681-c.1753).

Cited in IELM I.i as the Harley Noel MS: DnJ Δ 2.

OvT 16

Copy, untitled.

This MS cited in Beecher, pp. 95n, 122, 351-2.

A quarto verse miscellany, including 50 poems by Donne, in a single neat secretary hand except for ff. 70r-2r, which are in another secretary hand.

Comprising folios 57r-137v in a quarto composite volume of MSS, in various hands, 173 leaves, in 19th-century leather gilt.

c.1620s

Later owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Among the collections of William Petty (1737-1805), first Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Shelburne.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Lansdowne MS: DnJ Δ 8. Recorded as item 133 among Manuscripts in Quarto in the list at the end of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 85.

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 740 f. 75r-9v)
OvT 17

Copy.

A quarto miscellany of English and Latin verse and prose, largely in a neat secretary hand, 91 leaves, in limp vellum.

Early 17th century

Among the papers of the Gell family, of Hopton Hall, Derbyshire, including those of the Parliamentary commander and MP Sir John Gell, first Baronet (1593-1671). Formerly D258/60/26a.

Derbyshire Record Office (D258/34/26/1 ff. [49r-53v])
OvT 18

Copy, headed The election of a wife.

A quarto miscellany, in English and Latin, in a single small italic hand, i + 124 unnumbered leaves (including blanks), in contemporary vellum with ties.

c.1615

Inscribed (f. [ir]) This Book I bought at Chester...1734 / J. Draye. Among the collections of Christopher Hunter (1675-1757), Durham antiquary and physician.

Durham Cathedral Library (Hunter MS 48 ff. [31v-3v])
OvT 19

Copy, headed Sr Tho: Overbury's wife.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, closely written in possibly several minute predominantly secretary hands, 291 leaves (ff. 212-16 bound out of order after f. 24), in modern calf.

c.1640s

Inscribed (f. 1r) Joseph Hall (not the bishop). Later owned by John Payne Collier (1789-1883), literary scholar, editor and forger, who has entered in pseudo-17th-century secretary script copies of various ballads on ff. 39r-41r, 107v-79r, 181r-v, 227r-8v, 243r-6r, as well as adding foliation (1-284) before the more recent foliation (1-291, used below). Quaritch's sale catalogue of English Literature (August-November 1884), item 22350, Collier's transcript of the MS made c.1860 being item 22352. Formerly Folger MS 2071.7.

Discussed, with facsimile examples, in Giles E. Dawson, John Payne Collier's Great Forgery, SB, 24 (1971), 1-26.

OvT 20

Copy, untitled.

A folio volume of 143 poems by Donne, plus his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single neat hand, 270 pages (plus a three-page index), in contemporary calf.

Transcribed from Trinity College, Dublin, MS 877, [Part I], pp. 13r-161v (Dublin MS I: DnJ Δ 14) before the extraction from that MS of pages containing two poems by Donne but before the addition of the Hamilton elegy of 1625.

c.1623-5

Acquired in 1895 from Bernard Quaritch by Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), American professor and art historian. Formerly MS Nor 4503.

Recorded in IELM as the Norton MS: DnJ Δ 9. Briefly discussed in C.E. Norton, The Text of Donne's Poems, [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 5 (1896), 1-22 (pp. 11-13). Cited as N by most modern editors and as H4 in Variorum.

Harvard, fMS Eng 966.3 (fMS Eng 966.3 pp. 226-35)
OvT 21

Extract, 66 lines headed The Choice of a Wife in a poem by Sr Thomas Overbury, here beginning If I were to chuse a Woman and ending Both may bud, grow green, & wither.

A quarto verse miscellany, in two neat hands, 14 leaves (plus blanks), in modern quarter-calf cloth.

A (misapplied) title-page (f. 1r) possibly in another hand: Copy of Verses upon ye Government under the Protectour Cromwel -- By Edmund Waller 1650.

Late 17th century

Inscribed (f. [ir]) C F[?].

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 1035 ff. [13v-14v])
OvT 22

Copy, untitled, one stanza cancelled.

A folio verse miscellany, 148 leaves (foliated 161-206), once bound (reversed) with an independent miscellany (Huntington, HM 198, Part I), rebound with this MS (in continuous form without inversion) in 1832 (by Charles Lewis).

Including 59 poems by Donne (and second copies of six poems), in probably six professional secretary hands: A (ff. 1r-25v, 82r-129r); B (ff. 26r, 42v-7v, 49r-63r, 63v-79r, 130r-48r); C (ff. 27r-36v, 41r-2v; with occasional corrections possibly in hand B); D (ff. 37r-40v); E (ff. 63r-v); and F (f. 129v).

c.1620-33

Scribbling includes the name Meriall Tracy (on f. 148v). Later owned by Joseph Haslewood (1769-1833), bibliographer and antiquary; by Edward King (1795-1837), Viscount Kingsborough, antiquary; and by Henry Huth (1815-78), book collector (his library, lot 624). Sotheby's, 17 July 1917 (Huth sale), lot 5873.

Recorded in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS (II): DnJ Δ 26. Discussed in C.M. Armitage, Donne's Poems in Huntington Manuscript 198: New Light on The Funerall, SP, 63 (1966), 697-707.

A complete microfilm is at the University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute (Mic S 15). Betagraph of the watermark in f. 43 in Ted-Larry Pebworth, Towards a Taxonomy of Watermarks, in Puzzles in Paper: Concepts in Historical Watermarks, ed. Daniel W. Mosser, Michael Saffle and Ernest W. Sullivan, II (London, 2000), pp. 229-42 (p. 240).

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (HM 198, Part II ff. 39r-42r)
OvT 23

Copy, in the neat secretary hand, subscribed Sr T: O:.

A quarto verse miscellany, in several hands, written from both ends, including (ff. 3r-49v) 49 poems by Donne in a single neat secretary hand, also responsible for poems by others on ff. 83r, 88r-90r, 4r-11v rev., later notes and two poems by Donne in other hands on the remaining leaves, 124 leaves, in contemporary vellum.

c.1620[-76]

The later material including medical notes written c.1665-76 by Sir John Wedderburn (1599-1679), royal physician.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Wedderburn MS: DnJ Δ 55. Discussed in Alan MacColl, A New Manuscript of Donne's Poems, RES, NS 19 (1968), 293-5.

National Library of Scotland, MS 6504 (MS 6504 ff. 4r-11r rev.)
OvT 24

Copy, headed Sr Tho: Overbery wyfe.

A quarto verse miscellany, 180 pages, in three secretary hands, in contemporary limp vellum.

Probably compiled by a member of an Inn of Court.

c.1630

Bookplate of William Horatio Crawford, of Lakelands, Cork, book collector. Formerly Rosenbach 186.

OvT 25

Copy, untitled.

This MS recorded in Beecher, p. 351.

A folio collection of verse containing 143 poems by Donne and his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single predominantly italic hand (except for two poems on f. 104r-v, added afterwards by two other italic and secretary hands), the main scribe also probably responsible for the Puckering MS (DnJ Δ 13); this collection constituting ff. 13r-161v of a single folio volume containing also Part II, with an index on ff. 2r-11v (covering both Parts) in another hand, ii + 279 leaves in all, in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked).

c.1623-5

Old pressmark MS G. 2. 21.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (Part I): DnJ Δ 14.

Trinity College, Dublin, numbers 800 through end (MS 877, [Part I] ff. 136r-40v)

Prose

Characters

First published in A Wife now the Widdow of Sir T. Ouerbury (London, 1614). Rimbaud, pp. 47-169.

OvT 26

Extracts.

A quarto commonplace book of notes and extracts, closely written in a small mixed hand, from both ends, 146 leaves (including blanks), in contemporary limp vellum.

Compiled possibly by one Thomas Parsons, whose name is subscribed to a letter on f. 92v.

c.1630s
OvT 27

Extracts, in Parkhurst's hand.

A folio composite volume of state letters, tracts, and verse, collected by, and mostly in the hand of, William Parkhurst (fl.1604-67), Sir Henry Wotton's secretary in Venice and later Master of the Mint, including various works in verse and prose attributed to Donne, chiefly in a scribal hand, partly in Parkhurst's hand, 373 leaves (including blanks), in old calf.

Among the papers of the Finch family of Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland. Mistakenly reported by Grierson and Logan Pearsall Smith to have been destroyed in a fire at Burley c.1908.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Burley MS: DnJ Δ 53. Recorded in HMC, 7th Report (1879), Appendix, p. 516. A complete microfilm of the MS is at the University of Sheffield, Microfilm 737.

A neat transcript of parts of the Burley MS (including principally poems on ff. 255r-v, 278v, [279r]-288v, 342v-3r, 294r-300r, 301r-8v), made before 1908, on 35 leaves, is in the Bodleian, MS Eng. poet. c. 80.

Leicestershire Record Office (DG. 7/Lit. 2 ff. 255v-6r)
Characters: A Good Woman

First published in A Wife now the Widdow of Sir T. Ouerbury (London, 1614). Rimbaud, pp. 47-8. Beecher, pp. 200-1.

OvT 28

Copy.

A quarto verse miscellany, including 50 poems by Donne, in a single neat secretary hand except for ff. 70r-2r, which are in another secretary hand.

Comprising folios 57r-137v in a quarto composite volume of MSS, in various hands, 173 leaves, in 19th-century leather gilt.

c.1620s

Later owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Among the collections of William Petty (1737-1805), first Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Shelburne.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Lansdowne MS: DnJ Δ 8. Recorded as item 133 among Manuscripts in Quarto in the list at the end of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 85.

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 740 f. 81r-v)
OvT 29

Copy.

A folio verse miscellany, containing 89 poems, including 43 by Donne, in several hands (ff. 21r-62r in a single accomplished secretary hand), 69 leaves, in paper wrappers.

The text of the poems by Donne derived from the same source as the Lansdowne MS (British Library, Lansdowne MS 740) and related in part to the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS II (Huntington, HM 198, Part II).

c.1620-5

Formerly among the muniments of the Earl of Dalhousie (descendant of the Maule and Ramsay families), of Brechin Castle, on deposit in the Scottish Record Office [now National Archives of Scotland] (GD45/26/95/1). Sotheby's, 20 July 1981, lot 490.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the the Dalhousie MS I: DnJ Δ 11. Complete reduced facsimile and transcription in The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others: A Facsimile Edition, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Columbia, 1988). Also discussed by Ernest W. Sullivan, II in Donne Manuscripts: Dalhousie I, John Donne Journal, 3/2 (1984), 204-19; in And, having done that, Thou hast done: Locating, Acquiring, and Studying the Dalhousie Manuscripts, in The Donne Dalhousie Discovery: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Acquisition and Study of the John Donne and Joseph Conrad Collections at Texas Tech University, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan II and David J. Murrah (Lubbock, TX, 1987), pp. 1-10; and in The Renaissance Manuscript Verse Miscellany: Private Party, Private Text, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 289-97.

Facsimiles of f. 15v in DLB, vol. 121, Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1992), p. 13, and of f. 42r in Sotheby's sale catalogue and in Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000 (Oxford, 2008), p. 431, Illus. 91. A complete microfilm of the MS is in the National Archives of Scotland.

Sullivan suggests that the miscellany derives from sources preserved by members of the Earl of Essex's circle, their most likely conduit to the Dalhousie family being John Ramsay (1580-1626), Viscount Haddington and Earl of Holderness.

Texas Tech University, Lubbock (PR 1171 D14 f. 30r)
OvT 30

Copy.

A folio collection of verse containing 143 poems by Donne and his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single predominantly italic hand (except for two poems on f. 104r-v, added afterwards by two other italic and secretary hands), the main scribe also probably responsible for the Puckering MS (DnJ Δ 13); this collection constituting ff. 13r-161v of a single folio volume containing also Part II, with an index on ff. 2r-11v (covering both Parts) in another hand, ii + 279 leaves in all, in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked).

c.1623-5

Old pressmark MS G. 2. 21.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (Part I): DnJ Δ 14.

Characters: A Very Woman

First published in A Wife now the Widdow of Sir T. Ouerbury (London, 1614). Rimbaud, pp. 48-50. Beecher, pp. 201-2.

OvT 31

Copy.

A quarto verse miscellany, including 50 poems by Donne, in a single neat secretary hand except for ff. 70r-2r, which are in another secretary hand.

Comprising folios 57r-137v in a quarto composite volume of MSS, in various hands, 173 leaves, in 19th-century leather gilt.

c.1620s

Later owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Among the collections of William Petty (1737-1805), first Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Shelburne.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Lansdowne MS: DnJ Δ 8. Recorded as item 133 among Manuscripts in Quarto in the list at the end of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 85.

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 740 f. 80r-v)
OvT 32

Copy.

A folio verse miscellany, containing 89 poems, including 43 by Donne, in several hands (ff. 21r-62r in a single accomplished secretary hand), 69 leaves, in paper wrappers.

The text of the poems by Donne derived from the same source as the Lansdowne MS (British Library, Lansdowne MS 740) and related in part to the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS II (Huntington, HM 198, Part II).

c.1620-5

Formerly among the muniments of the Earl of Dalhousie (descendant of the Maule and Ramsay families), of Brechin Castle, on deposit in the Scottish Record Office [now National Archives of Scotland] (GD45/26/95/1). Sotheby's, 20 July 1981, lot 490.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the the Dalhousie MS I: DnJ Δ 11. Complete reduced facsimile and transcription in The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others: A Facsimile Edition, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Columbia, 1988). Also discussed by Ernest W. Sullivan, II in Donne Manuscripts: Dalhousie I, John Donne Journal, 3/2 (1984), 204-19; in And, having done that, Thou hast done: Locating, Acquiring, and Studying the Dalhousie Manuscripts, in The Donne Dalhousie Discovery: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Acquisition and Study of the John Donne and Joseph Conrad Collections at Texas Tech University, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan II and David J. Murrah (Lubbock, TX, 1987), pp. 1-10; and in The Renaissance Manuscript Verse Miscellany: Private Party, Private Text, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 289-97.

Facsimiles of f. 15v in DLB, vol. 121, Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1992), p. 13, and of f. 42r in Sotheby's sale catalogue and in Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000 (Oxford, 2008), p. 431, Illus. 91. A complete microfilm of the MS is in the National Archives of Scotland.

Sullivan suggests that the miscellany derives from sources preserved by members of the Earl of Essex's circle, their most likely conduit to the Dalhousie family being John Ramsay (1580-1626), Viscount Haddington and Earl of Holderness.

Texas Tech University, Lubbock (PR 1171 D14 f. 29r)
OvT 33

Copy.

A folio collection of verse containing 143 poems by Donne and his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single predominantly italic hand (except for two poems on f. 104r-v, added afterwards by two other italic and secretary hands), the main scribe also probably responsible for the Puckering MS (DnJ Δ 13); this collection constituting ff. 13r-161v of a single folio volume containing also Part II, with an index on ff. 2r-11v (covering both Parts) in another hand, ii + 279 leaves in all, in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked).

c.1623-5

Old pressmark MS G. 2. 21.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (Part I): DnJ Δ 14.

Characters: Her next part

First published in A Wife now the Widdow of Sir T. Ouerbury (London, 1614). Rimbaud, pp. 50-1. Beecher, pp. 202-3.

OvT 34

Copy.

A quarto verse miscellany, including 50 poems by Donne, in a single neat secretary hand except for ff. 70r-2r, which are in another secretary hand.

Comprising folios 57r-137v in a quarto composite volume of MSS, in various hands, 173 leaves, in 19th-century leather gilt.

c.1620s

Later owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Among the collections of William Petty (1737-1805), first Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Shelburne.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Lansdowne MS: DnJ Δ 8. Recorded as item 133 among Manuscripts in Quarto in the list at the end of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 85.

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 740 ff. 80v-1r)
OvT 35

Copy.

A folio verse miscellany, containing 89 poems, including 43 by Donne, in several hands (ff. 21r-62r in a single accomplished secretary hand), 69 leaves, in paper wrappers.

The text of the poems by Donne derived from the same source as the Lansdowne MS (British Library, Lansdowne MS 740) and related in part to the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS II (Huntington, HM 198, Part II).

c.1620-5

Formerly among the muniments of the Earl of Dalhousie (descendant of the Maule and Ramsay families), of Brechin Castle, on deposit in the Scottish Record Office [now National Archives of Scotland] (GD45/26/95/1). Sotheby's, 20 July 1981, lot 490.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the the Dalhousie MS I: DnJ Δ 11. Complete reduced facsimile and transcription in The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others: A Facsimile Edition, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Columbia, 1988). Also discussed by Ernest W. Sullivan, II in Donne Manuscripts: Dalhousie I, John Donne Journal, 3/2 (1984), 204-19; in And, having done that, Thou hast done: Locating, Acquiring, and Studying the Dalhousie Manuscripts, in The Donne Dalhousie Discovery: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Acquisition and Study of the John Donne and Joseph Conrad Collections at Texas Tech University, ed. Ernest W. Sullivan II and David J. Murrah (Lubbock, TX, 1987), pp. 1-10; and in The Renaissance Manuscript Verse Miscellany: Private Party, Private Text, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 289-97.

Facsimiles of f. 15v in DLB, vol. 121, Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, First Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1992), p. 13, and of f. 42r in Sotheby's sale catalogue and in Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000 (Oxford, 2008), p. 431, Illus. 91. A complete microfilm of the MS is in the National Archives of Scotland.

Sullivan suggests that the miscellany derives from sources preserved by members of the Earl of Essex's circle, their most likely conduit to the Dalhousie family being John Ramsay (1580-1626), Viscount Haddington and Earl of Holderness.

Texas Tech University, Lubbock (PR 1171 D14 f. 29v)
OvT 36

Copy.

A folio collection of verse containing 143 poems by Donne and his Paradoxes and Problems, in a single predominantly italic hand (except for two poems on f. 104r-v, added afterwards by two other italic and secretary hands), the main scribe also probably responsible for the Puckering MS (DnJ Δ 13); this collection constituting ff. 13r-161v of a single folio volume containing also Part II, with an index on ff. 2r-11v (covering both Parts) in another hand, ii + 279 leaves in all, in old blind-stamped calf (rebacked).

c.1623-5

Old pressmark MS G. 2. 21.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Dublin MS (Part I): DnJ Δ 14.

Trinity College, Dublin, numbers 800 through end (MS 877, [Part I] ff. 141v-2r)
Crumms fal'n from King James's Table, or his Table Talk, principally relating to Religion, Embassyes, State-Policy, &c.

A discourse beginning God made one part of man of earth, the basest Element to teach him humility.... First published in The Prince's Cabala: or Mysteries of State. Written by King James the First and some Noblemen in his Reign, and in Queen Elizabeth's (London, 1715). Rimbaud, pp. 253-78. Unlikely to be by Overbury (unless one of various sources for the anecdotes) since certain references in the work date from no earlier than 1622.

OvT 37 Late 17th century

Copy, in a rounded italic hand, headed Crumms fal'n from King James's Table. Or his Table Talk, principally relating to Religion, Embassyes, State=policy &c. taken by Sr: Thomas Overbury, the Originall being his own hand writing.

Edited from this MS in Rimbault.

A folio composite volume of tracts, in different hands, 100 leaves, in modern calf gilt.

OvT 38

An abridgement or extracts, untitled.

A small quarto volume of works attributed to Sir Thomas Overbury, in a single secretary hand, 42 small leaves, in quarter-calf marbled boards.

c.1620s

Inscribed (inside the front cover) Ex Bibl G. Brander Armr Feb: 1790 [i.e. Gustavus Brander (1720-87), naturalist] and (on flyleaf) Bibl. T. Astle [i.e. Thomas Astle (1735-1803), archivist and collector of books and manuscripts].

The British Library: Stowe MSS (Stowe MS 279 ff. 2r-14r)
Observations in his travailes

A tract beginning All things concurred for the rising and maintenance of this State.... First published as Sir Thomas Overbvry his Observations in his Travailes vpon the State of The Xvii. Provinces as they stood Anno Dom. 1609 (London, 1626). Rimbault, pp. 223-30. Authorship uncertain.

OvT 39

Copy, in a professional secretary hand, on 24 quarto leaves, the first leaf imperfect, in half-calf.

A reader's note on the first page: This M.S. is not ill writ ye observations just a little enclined to Democrasie....

c.1620s

Once owned by one Hugo James. Inscribed Thom. Tanner. Ex dono R.V. H[ugo] James 1629.

This MS cited in Beecher, p. 30.

OvT 40

Copy of Obseruations of the State of ffrance, Observations vpon the Provinces vnited, and Obseruacons vpon the ArchDukes Countrye, all ascribed to Sr Thomas Ouerburye Knt.

A folio volume of accounts of travels to countries in Europe and to Turkey, 124 leaves (plus blanks), in calf gilt.

Entirely in the hand of John Hopkinson (1610-80), Yorkshire antiquary, of Lofthouse, near Leeds, and comprising Volume 14 of the Hopkinson MSS

c.1660s-70s

Signed bookplate of Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861), book collector, of Eshton Hall, West Yorkshire. Subsequently owned by her step-father Matthew Wilson.

Recorded in HMC, 3rd Report (1872), Appendix, p. 295.

Bradford Archives (32D86/14 ff. 61v-73r)
OvT 41

Copy, in a secretary hand.

A folio volume of miscellaneous papers, many relating to Kent, the greater part in a single secretary hand, 228 leaves, in contemporary stamped calf.

Compiled for, and chiefly relating to, Francis Fane (1582-1628), first Earl of Westmorland.

Early 17th century

Christie's, 18 July 1897.

This volume recorded in HMC, 10th Report, Appendix IV (1885), pp. 4-19.

OvT 42

Copy, in a professional secretary hand, ii + 50 quarto leaves, imperfect, partly eaten away by rodents, in contemporary vellum.

Early 17th century

Volume CCXV of the Trumbull Papers, of the Trumbull family, including chiefly William Trumbull (1576/80?-1635), diplomat and government official. Later belonging to the Marquess of Downshire, of Easthampstead Park. Formerly Berkshire Record Office Trumbull Add 26.

OvT 43

Copy.

An octavo volume of transcripts of state tracts and letters, iii + 227 leaves (including blanks) in all, in calf.

Mainly in three hands, with later additions in c.1683-99.

Inscribed names including Anthony, Thomas and John Marshall, Jonas Ramsden, Jenkinson, Thomas Maleverer, and Lawson. Owned c.1670s-90s by the family of Sir Thomas Seyliard, third Baronet (d.1701), of Delawarre, Kent. Later note: Bought this Manuscript at Montague's Book warehouse near Queen Street Lincoln's Inn Fields Tuesday Feb: 12 1739. Later armorial bookplate apparently of the Appleyard family of either Yorkshire or Norfolk. Phillips, 20 March 1998, lot 467, to Quaritch.

The British Library: Egerton MSS (Egerton MS 3876 ff. 23r-32r)
OvT 44 Early 17th century

Copy, in an italic hand, with a title-page Sr Thomas Overburie's Observations of The Low Countryes and Kingdome of France.

This MS cited in Steevens, p. 30.

A quarto composite volume of tracts, in various hands, in modern half red crushed morocco on cloth boards gilt.

The British Library: Lansdowne MSS (Lansdowne MS 722 ff. 115r-25r)
OvT 46

Copy, headed Maxims and Observations respecting the state if the 17. Provinces...Anno 1619.

A small quarto volume of works attributed to Sir Thomas Overbury, in a single secretary hand, 42 small leaves, in quarter-calf marbled boards.

c.1620s

Inscribed (inside the front cover) Ex Bibl G. Brander Armr Feb: 1790 [i.e. Gustavus Brander (1720-87), naturalist] and (on flyleaf) Bibl. T. Astle [i.e. Thomas Astle (1735-1803), archivist and collector of books and manuscripts].

The British Library: Stowe MSS (Stowe MS 279 ff. 15r-42v)
OvT 47

Copy, headed Sir Thomas Ouerburye his obseruations in trayuelle upon ye state of the 17 prouinces as they stood Anno Domini 1609 the treaty of peace being then on foote.

Early 17th century

Inscribed Onslow Gardyner. From the library of the Earl of Jersey, Osterley Park. Jersey sale, London, 6 May 1885, lot 1231, to Salkeld. Then in the autograph collection of James Fraser Gluck (1852-97), New York State lawyer and library curator.

Recorded in HMC, VIII, 1, 1881, Appendix, p. 94, n. 7.

OvT 48

Copy, in the hand of Thomas Gell, MP (1595-1657), of the Inner Temple, a folio booklet of six leaves.

Early 17th century
Derbyshire Record Office (D258/12/19 (iv))
OvT 49

Copy.

A quarto volume of state tracts relating to Spain and national defence, in a single probably professional mixed hand, 152 leaves, in old half calf on marbled boards.

Bookplate of Robert Parker, FAS

OvT 50

Copy.

A quarto volume of two tracts, in a professional cursive mixed hand, viii + 18 leaves, with three octavo leaves in another hand loosely inserted, in modern half crushed morocco on marbled boards.

c.1620s-30s

Bookplate of Sir Walter Wilson Greg (1875-1959), bibliographer, with his notes dated November 1897 when at Trinity College, Cambridge. Item 288 in an unidentified sale catalogue.

OvT 51 Early 17th century

Copy, in two professional secretary hands, headed Sr Thomas Overbury his Observacons vpon the state of the 17 Provinces and of France; and first vpon that of the Provinces vnited, on fourteen quarto leaves (plus five blanks).

A quarto composite volume of miscellaneous verse and prose, in various hands, 24 items, unfoliated, in old calf (rebacked).

Among the collections of Thomas Tenison (1636-1715), Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lambeth Palace Library (MS 841 No. 15)
OvT 53

Copy.

A large folio volume of political tracts and papers.

Scribbling including the name John Gamble.

Recorded in HMC, 3rd Report (1872), Appendix, p. 119.

The Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle ([no shelfmark] pp. 147-69)
OvT 54

Copy, in a secretary hand, headed Observations on the United Provinces. The State of the Arch-Duke's Countrie, 31 quarto leaves, in contemporary vellum.

c.1620s
Estate of Robert S Pirie, New York ([Overbury Observations MS])
OvT 55

Copy, in a professional secretary hand, headed Sr Thomas Overburye His observations vpon ye State of ye 7tene Provinces and of France, and first vpon yt. of the Provinces Vnited, 75 small quarto leaves, in half-calf marbled boards.

Early 17th century

Loosely inserted is a letter about the MS by Edward Arleer of Scarborough to its owner L.A.B. Waller, of 5 Talbot Road, Tottenham, 11 August 1883. Later in the library of Charles Kay Ogden (1889-1957), psychologist, linguist, and book collector.

OvT 56

Copy, in a professional secretary hand, headed Sr: Thomas Overburye his observacons vppon the state of the 17 Provinces And of ffrance, And first vppon that of the Vnited Provinces, on 40 folio pages (plus blanks), in later half-calf marbled boards.

c.1630

Later i n the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), book and manuscript collector: Phillipps MS 12376.

OvT 57

Copy, in a professional secretary hand, on seven large folio leaves, disbound.

c.1620
Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MS fb 12)
OvT 58

Copy, in a professional secretary hand, 28 quarto pages.

Early 17th century

Bookplate of Thomas Edward Watson. Quaritch's sale catalogue English Books and Manuscripts 1540-1700 (2006), item 71.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Watson MS])

Contents