Eton College

MS 167

Copy, in a single professional hand, with a title-page decorated in colours, ‘The Life, araignment, and death, of the famous learned, Sir Thomas More Knight, Somtimes Lord Chauncellor of England’, i + 74 quarto leaves, in contemporary vellum gilt with traces of ties. With (f. 2r]) a dedication ‘To the worshipfull louer, and cherisher of learning Mr Simon Gearing’, subscribed ‘William Hill’. Late 16th-early 17th century.

MrT 100: Sir Thomas More, William Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More

Inscribed (f. ir) ‘Hunc Liber perlegi Ottuell Meverell’ and (f. 1v) ‘Dedit Collegio Etonensi Franciscus Goode A.M. 1731’.

This MS mentioned in Hitchcock, p. 2.

First published in London, 1626. Edited, as The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, knighte, written by William Roper Esquire, by Elsie Vaughan Hitchcock (EETS, London, 1935).

MS 174

A possibly autograph MS, in an angular italic hand, of a series of nine Latin poems by J. P. Lotichius (1598-1669), German physician, i i + 17 folio leaves, in contemporary vellum gilt with traces of green silk ties. Lotichius's presentation copy to Wotton, all the poems concerning Wotton (with whom he stayed in Venice in 1618), and with a dedication to ‘Illustrissmum et Excellentissmum. virum DN. ON. Henricum Wottonium Anglo-Cantianum’. c.1620s.

WoH 309: Sir Henry Wotton, Lotichius, J. P. Musæ Admirantes

With a tipped-in letter by Logan Pearsall Smith, from Oxford, 10 March 1914.

One of the poems published in Lotichius's Poemata (Frankfurt, 1620).

MS 194

A small quarto volume of state tracts, in a single secretary hand, i + 17 leaves (plus fourteen blanks), with much seepage of ink, in contemporary limp vellum gilt. c.1634-41.

WoH 280: Sir Henry Wotton, A Parallel between Robert Earl of Essex and George Duke of Buckingham

Bookplate of William Bateman. Item 231 in an unidentified sale catalogue and lot 1770 in a sale of 1893. Inscribed by E.L. Vaughan, assistant master, 1899.

First published in London, 1641. Edited by Sir Robert Egerton Brydges (Lee Priory Press, Ickham, 1814).

MS 247

Copy, the text in a single professional cursive secretary hand, with (f. ivr) a title-page in the hand of another cursive secretary hand, iv + 340 folio leaves, in contemporary limp vellum. Entitled ‘A large and excellent discourse of the Estate of Christendome Written by an unknowne Author about the yeare of or Lord 1594. and 35th of the Raigne of Queen Elizab. Contayning many secrett Passages and hidden Histories of the time both past and present, With much Varietie of other good matter both historicall and Politicall’. c.1620s-30s.

WoH 299: Sir Henry Wotton, The State of Christendom

Bookplates of Sheppard Frere, of John Frere, and of J. Eliot Hodgkin, FSA (1829-1912), of Richmond Surrey, engineer and book collector. Loosely inserted autograph note signed by Logan Pearsall Smith (who thought the MS was Wotton's original manuscript), presenting it to Eton College, 24 March 1941.

A lengthy treatise, beginning ‘After that I had lived many years in voluntary exile and banishment...’. First published in London, 1657. Wotton's authorship is not certain.

MS 251

Copy, in a closely written secretary hand, subscribed ‘Sir Henry Wotton’, seven quarto leaves (plus blanks), in modern half green morocco. c.1634-41.

WoH 281: Sir Henry Wotton, A Parallel between Robert Earl of Essex and George Duke of Buckingham

MS 22 in the library of the Shirley family, Ettington Park, Stratford-upon-Avon. Sotheby's, 29 April 1947, lot 346. Presented in September 1847 by John Hely-Hutchinson, of Chippenham Lodge, Ely.

First published in London, 1641. Edited by Sir Robert Egerton Brydges (Lee Priory Press, Ickham, 1814).

Etoniana 1560

Autograph inscription ‘Sum Nicolai Vdalli. 1550’. 1550.

*UdN 19: Nicholas Udall, Psalterium, reliquaque sacrarum literarum Carmina et Precationes, cum argumentis, et brevi difficiliorum locorum declaratione. Sebastiano Castalione, interprete (Paris, 1513)

Also inscribed ‘Boughton June iith 1663’ [? Boughton House, Northamptonshire, seat of the Montagu family]. Afterwards owned by Joseph Bromehead (1797); by John Blancket; and by John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), Baron Keynes, economist, who donated it to Eton College in 1903.

Juhász-Ormsby, No. 12.

Fb 5.10

Autograph inscription ‘Sum Nicolai Vdalli. 1538’ and annotations in Greek, bound with an uninscribed octavo edition of Euripides (1524). 1538.

*UdN 6: Nicholas Udall, Aesop. Aesopi Phrygis Fabellæ Græce et Latine, cum alijs opusculis, quorum index proxima refertur pagella (Basle, 1524)

Donated in 1751 by John Reynolds (d.1758), Fellow of Eton College.

Juhász-Ormsby, No. 9.