Bodleian MS Research Articles

The Synod of Dort in Arabic: Bodleian MS Marsh 268

ABSTRACT Bodleian MS Marsh 268 is a translation of the Heidelberg Confession, the Belgic Catechism, and a selection from the Standards of the Reformed Church. Completed in May 1619 at the conclusions of the Synod of Dort, it is the first documents about Protestant theology in Arabic, and it demonstrates that the Synod was preparing for proselytization in Arabic-speaking regions of Dutch commercial and colonial expansion.

Elizabeth A. New (ed.), Records of the Jesus Guild in St Paul's Cathedral, c. 1450–1550: An Edition of Oxford, Bodleian MS Tanner 221, and Associated Material. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2022. 311pp. 6 plates. £40.00 hbk.

Elizabeth A. New (ed.), Records of the Jesus Guild in St Paul's Cathedral, c. 1450–1550: An Edition of Oxford, Bodleian MS Tanner 221, and Associated Material. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2022. 311pp. 6 plates. £40.00 hbk. - Volume 50 Issue 1

Records of the Jesus guild in St Paul's Cathedral, c. 1450–1550. An edition of Oxford, Bodleian MS Tanner 221, and associated material. Edited by Elizabeth A. New. (London Records Society Publications, LVI.) Pp. xvi + 311 incl. 6 ills. Woodbridge–Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2022. £40. 978 0 900952 62 3

Records of the Jesus guild in St Paul's Cathedral, c. 1450–1550. An edition of Oxford, Bodleian MS Tanner 221, and associated material. Edited by Elizabeth A. New. (London Records Society Publications, LVI.) Pp. xvi + 311 incl. 6 ills. Woodbridge–Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2022. £40. 978 0 900952 62 3 - Volume 74 Issue 1

Attributing Authorship to Bodleian MS Douce 171: A Seventeenth-Century Comedy by Arthur Wilson

Abstract This article argues that the anonymous dramatic fragment at the end of Bodleian Library, MS Douce 171, recently catalogued as ‘Comedy of Stella and Alexis’, is an authorial draft written by the seventeenth-century playwright Arthur Wilson (1595–1652). It does so through a careful consideration of the manuscript’s bibliographic features, as well as through palaeographical and stylistic comparison to Wilson’s extant plays and other documents in his hand. While scholars have long recognized the play’s existence, they have overlooked the identity of its author, in large part due to a neglect of the archival context in which the manuscript appears. This article not only assigns the play to a known early-modern dramatist, but also offers an exercise in attributing authorship to a theatrical document that gives very few hints about its origins.

Books and Manuscripts 2020

Books and Manuscripts 2020

John Polwhele's Horatian Translations

The poems and translations of John Polwhele ( c.1606–1672) are preserved in a single autograph manuscript, Bodleian MS English poetry f. 16. Some have received intermittent scholarly attention in recent times, often on account of Polwhele's admiration for and emulation of Ben Jonson. As well as other classical translations, Polwhele's manuscript includes eleven poems and passages from Horace, nearly all of them versions of odes and epodes. A handful have been printed or partially printed before. The purpose of this contribution is to provide transcribed texts of the complete set in a uniform way in a single document. As well as the Jonsonian connections of Polwhele's Horatian writings, they are of scholarly interest because they use Horace as a vehicle for comment on the translator's own times, including events of the English civil war period such as the regicide of 1649.

Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text by Sarah McNamer

Reviewed by: Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text by Sarah McNamer Emma Louise Barlow McNamer, Sarah, Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text (The William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature, 14), Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2018; hardback; pp. clxxx, 264; R.R.P. US$65.00; ISBN 9780268102852. The William and Katherine Devers Series, founded in 1995, explores the works of Dante and his contemporaries as points of convergence for the interweaving lines of inquiry of the medieval Italian cultural tradition. As noted by Daragh O'Connell and Beatrice Sica ('Literary Cultures in/and Italian Studies', Italian Studies, 75 (2020), 125–39), recent scholarship in the field has shown an inclination to look beyond the canon in favour of examining potential alternative canons and 'minor' authors and texts, contributing to a reframing of cultural authority in the early Italian literary tradition. Given this trend, it is entirely clear why the series editors have invested in Sarah McNamer's book: while the unattributed Latin text of the Meditationes vitae Christi was highly influential during the medieval period, McNamer proposes a previously unstudied Italian text, allegedly authored by one of the Poor Clares of Tuscany, as the original text of the Meditations, thus complicating not only its textual history, but the history of medieval Italian literature more broadly. This book constitutes an exciting and compelling new perspective on a significant text. The preface to this volume states that it will present the Italian testo breve with an English translation and commentary, as well as a detailed exposé of the ramifications of the Italian text in terms of 'the development of prose narrative in the early Trecento; the role of women as writers and readers in the invention of genres and devotional practices; the part played by the Franciscans in the cultivation of affective piety; the rise and risks of vernacular theology; and the history of emotion' (p. xviii). The presentation of the text, translation, [End Page 243] and commentary is exemplary, and McNamer makes illuminating observations regarding the vital role of Franciscans and of women in medieval devotion, and the ways in which prose narrative developed in fourteenth-century Italy. However, the compact nature of the initial paratextual argument leaves the question of medieval vernacular theology and its relationship to affective states comparatively underdeveloped, and McNamer's frequent redirections to her contemporaneous article published in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (111.1–2 (2018), 65–112) do not quite counterbalance this shortcoming. The book is presented in two main sections. The first 180 pages contain an introduction that presents the reasoning behind offering a critical edition of this testo breve, alongside a paratextual argument. There is a textual history that accounts for the newly 'discovered' (p. xxviii, n. 13) testo breve as well as the Italian and Latin texts already known to scholars, following a meticulous close reading of particular textual interpolations. The 'authorship' section posits an author of Franciscan affiliation and a woman, based on analysis of textual referents as well as contextual information regarding literacy and social practices, while the 'date and place of composition' section gives a detailed provenance of the testo breve, dated to c. 1300–1325 (p. cxx). This is followed by a catalogue of the manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian MS Canon. It. 174), a linguistic analysis by Pär Larson, which argues that the text is Tuscan but copied by Venetian copyists, and notes on editorial principles and quirks of the translation. The second section contains the 'critical edition' of the testo breve, divided into its thirty-one chapters. The facing-page English translation is sound and notes on the text prove highly useful in understanding the text's devotional uses and contexts. However, references to the author's close comparative reading of the text with one purportedly later Italian version (the testo minore, a longer text that most closely resembles the testo breve) is revealed only in snippets, rather than comprehensively. While McNamer acknowledges that producing a comparative critical edition is against the intention of the monograph (pp. xxxiii–xxxiv), some confusion remains regarding the accuracy of the term 'critical edition' in reference...

The Vita of Marie d’Oignies and Late Medieval England

Two late medieval Latin manuscripts and one fifteenth-century Middle English manuscript testify to English interest in Jacques de Vitry’s thirteenth-century Vita of Marie d’Oignies, a mulier religiosa of the diocese of Liege. Both the Latin fifteenth-century Oxford codex, St. John’s College, MS 182 and the Middle English fifteenth-century Oxford Bodleian MS Douce 114 were owned by Carthusian charterhouses. The contemplative English Carthusians helped supply secular readers with texts as can be seen in MS Douce 114 which contains the Middle English translation of De Vitry’s Latin Vita. Readers of the Book of Margery Kempe recall that Margery writes that her priest-amanuensis comes to understand her tears after reading about Marie’s weeping in De Vitry’s Vita. De Vitry saw Marie d’Oignies as the icon of a new type of lay piety; Margery Kempe takes her as a model.

Oldham, Rochester, and Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poet. 123

Oldham, Rochester, and Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poet. 123

Aubrey’s villa: an edition of Bodleian MS Aubrey 17 Designatio de Easton-Piers in Com: Wilts. By John Aubrey with essays and commentary by Kate Bennett, Peter Davidson and Kelsey Jackson Williams. 295mm. Unnumbered pp. The Old School Press, Seaton, 2018. isbn9871899933457. £135 (hbk).

Aubrey’s villa: an edition of Bodleian MS Aubrey 17 Designatio de Easton-Piers in Com: Wilts. By John Aubrey with essays and commentary by Kate Bennett, Peter Davidson and Kelsey Jackson Williams. 295mm. Unnumbered pp. The Old School Press, Seaton, 2018. isbn9871899933457. £135 (hbk). - Volume 99

Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text by Sarah McNamer

Reviewed by: Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Textby Sarah McNamer Barbara Newman Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text. By Sarah McNamer. [ The William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature, Volume 14.] (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2018. Pp. clxxx, 264. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-268-10285-2 hardcover; 978-0-268-10287-6 e-book.) Few medieval religious texts enjoyed greater influence than the early fourteenth-century Meditationes Vitae Christi(MVC), often known as "pseudo-Bonaventure" because so many manuscripts credit the Franciscan saint. Mary Stallings-Taney, editing the text in 1997 for the Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, ascribed it instead to an obscure Tuscan friar, Johannes de Caulibus. In this revisionist study, Sarah McNamer turns all previous inquiries into authorship on their head. On her telling, the original core of the lengthy MVC was a short Italian text preserved in a single manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian MS Canonici Italian 174). This brief devotional work meditates only on Christ's infancy and passion—by far the most popular parts of the Meditations—from a markedly feminine point of view, with casual references to "our sweet spouse" suggesting that the writer and her intended audience were nuns. In a long, tightly argued introduction, McNamer posits that this Italian author was a Poor Clare from Tuscany, whose work was soon afterward Latinized and expanded by one or more clerics. The book presents an edition and facing-page translation of the Canonici text, prefaced by a study addressing the textual history of the MVC, its authorship, date and place of composition, and the manuscript itself. A linguistic analysis by Pär Larson is also included. McNamer's thesis, first aired in a 2009 Speculumarticle, has already sparked controversy; she is engaged in ongoing debate with two Hungarian scholars, Dávid Falvay and Péter Tóth. Space does not allow a full discussion of the issues here, but no one with an interest in affective piety or the vicissitudes of women's authorship can overlook this volume. [End Page 361] As McNamer rightly observes, only the absence of close reading maintained the priority of the received Latin text for so long. Single authorship for the MVC is difficult to support in view of the work's sharp tonal and stylistic contrasts. Its deeply affective meditations on the infancy and passion have little in common with the much longer, central portion on Christ's public ministry, which is heavily didactic and includes numerous citations from St. Bernard and other authorities. Unlike the Italian text, the public ministry section pointedly calls attention away from women and low-status people. The Latin redactor, McNamer argues, also deleted a long, sentimental scene in which the Virgin kisses Christ's body from head to toe—a compelling case of a male cleric toning down feminine affectivity. It is no wonder that his material proved less attractive to a growing lay audience, hungry for devotions that could move them to tears. If McNamer is right, our broader narrative about the Franciscans' role in the evolution of lay piety will have to change, for everything that Johannes de Caulibus or another friar added to the nun's meditations was designed not to produce an affective text, but to neutralize one. Much is at stake here, and it will take time for Italianists and Franciscan scholars to give these issues the thorough vetting they deserve. In the meantime, McNamer's compelling arguments have already changed our understanding of the MVC and its reception. Marshaling the revisionist potential of textual scholarship at its finest, her monograph won the MLA's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Award for the best work of the year in Italian literary studies. Barbara Newman Northwestern University Copyright © 2019 The Catholic University of America Press

An Unrecorded Critical Response to Pope's Imitations of Horace by William Popple, c. 1755

Bodleian MS Douce 201, one of four dispersed folio volumes which contain professional scribal copies of the later literary works of William Popple (1700–1764) in a form evidently intended for the printer, contains three extensive dialogues ‘between a certain … Doctor of D––y and A Critic’. The first and last of these discussions, none of which were printed in Popple's time, or have been printed since, are among the earliest critical works to address Alexander Pope's Imitations of Horace (first published 1733–8). They focus on Pope's versions of Horace's Satires 2.1 and 2.2 respectively, and their primary target is the editorial presentation of these texts by William Warburton in his edition of Pope's Works, 1751. They are closely related to Popple's own complete sequence of Horatian imitations (also largely unprinted) of the 1750s.

Blanche, Two Chaucers and the Stanley Family

The textual history of The Book of the Duchess challenges many spurious traditions encouraged by the apparently disordered state of Chaucer’s texts on his death. The lack of contemporary references casts doubt on whether the poem was circulated in the fourteenth century or commissioned by John of Gaunt as an elegy for his wife. The first witnesses, in three mid-fifteenth-century manuscripts, contain substantial lacunae, ‘resolved’ in Thynne’s printed edition of 1532. This article examines Bodleian MS Fairfax 16, which bears the arms of John Stanley of Hooton, a leading court functionary from a rising family. It argues that the selection of texts in that MS reflects Stanley’s contact with a cultural milieu centred on the Duke of Suffolk, while the inclusion of The Book of the Duchess and The House of Fame may result from Suffolk’s wife Alice Chaucer making available material from her grandfather’s personal papers.

‘Of Fairies’: An Excerpt from a Seventeenth-Century Magical Manuscript

Bodleian MS Douce 116, dating to the seventeenth century, provides us with a passage detailing beliefs about fairies written by an anonymous author. This article presents the text of the passage, along with commentary on the manuscript and a comparison of its typology of fairies with those in other period sources.

The Provocations of Orthodoxy: Lydgate and Late-Medieval Books of Hours in Literary Culture

Theologically conventional, books of hours nonetheless participate in cultures of formal and aesthetic experimentation that we would, under other circumstances, call literary. This article explores those provocations by examining the intersections of devotional and literary reading cultures visible in John Lydgate’s “Fifteen Joys of Our Lady,” a small poem that appears in a variety of manuscript contexts. One of these is a book of hours, British Library MS Egerton 3088. But the poem’s other manuscript contexts, ranging from a psalter (Oxford, Bodleian MS Lat. Liturgy. e 47) to an anthology of vernacular poetry (Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.21) reveal how malleable it is. Finally, another poem of Lydgate, “The Fifteen Joys and Sorrows of Our Lady,” provides a vision not only of how devotional reading works, but also of devotional literary production itself.

EPICTETUS, DISSERTATIONES 1.18.10

In the late nineteenth century J.L.G. Mowat published a short note in the Journal of Philology pointing out that in the Bodleian's MS of the Dissertationes of Epictetus there is an ink smudge (on fol. 25r) where all the other MSS have lacunae in several lines, leading to the conclusion that the Bodleian MS is the archetype for all other surviving copies.

Jacob Tonson the Elder as the Publisher of Classical Editions: A Proposal for a New Edition of Euclid

RECENTLY a selection of the ‘literary’ correspondences of Jacob Tonson the elder (1656–1736; hereafter Tonson) and his nephew and partner, Jacob Tonson the younger (1682–1735), has been published. 1 What was not included in that correspondence is much of the correspondence between the two booksellers concerning Tonson’s retirement and purchase and expansion of the Hazle estate, Ledbury, Herefordshire, particularly notable among which is the collection Bodleian MS English Letters, c .129. This collection is almost exclusively concerned with the legal aspect of the purchase of the estate which was organized for his uncle by his nephew, and aspects of Tonson’s reading of literature and newspapers. It also indicates his continued—now largely lost—correspondences with Men of State, such as the Dukes of Marlborough, Newcastle, and Somerset, and Men—notably not women—of Letters, such as William Congreve, Thomas Southerne, and Sir John Vanbrugh, most of them members of the Whig Kit-Cat Club which Tonson founded in 1698 and of which he was secretary. 2

An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities trans. and ed. by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith

Reviewed by: An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities trans. and ed. by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith Ismail K. Poonawala An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith (eds and trans), 2014. Leiden and Boston: Brill, xii + 698 pp., + facsimile of Bodleian MS Arab c. 90, fol. 1A-fol. 49A ( 92 pp.), £188.25. ISBN: 9789004255647 (hbk). This thick volume of over 700 pages is a detailed account of the heavens and earth, illustrated by an unparalleled series of maps and astronomical diagrams. With topics ranging from comets to the island of Sicily, from lunar mansions to the sources of the Nile, it represents the extent of geographical, astronomical and astrological knowledge of the eleventh century. It is lavishly and aesthetically produced with a colour facsimile of the unique manuscript and numerous maps, including two of the world, one rectangular and the other circular. In addition, it includes maps of the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas, Sicily, Cyprus, the Bays of Byzantium, the sources of the Nile, as well as river maps of the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Indus and the Oxus. This authoritative and critical edition of An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe, with annotated translation, is of high scholarly quality. It opens a unique window on the worldview of medieval Islam and represents the extent of the geographical, astronomical and astrological knowledge of the time. It is a welcome addition, particularly, to the list of Muslim contributions to cosmological science and cartography. Both Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith should be congratulated for their valuable efforts. The project for the preparation of this book extended over a decade. We do not know the history of this highly illustrated manuscript of a hitherto-unknown Arabic cosmological treatise, nor where it was [End Page 359] discovered, or how. What we do know is that on 10 October 2000 Christie's, a prestigious auction house in London, offered it for sale and Sam Fogg, a well-known London dealer in rare books and manuscripts, bought it. Later, it was discovered that eight other copies of the entire text, or portions of it, without most of the illustrations, were preserved in manuscripts dating from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries that had gone unnoticed by scholars due to the work's anonymity. Fogg, thereafter, offered the manuscript to the Bodleian Library at a price well under its true market value. Following an extensive fundraising effort, in June 2002 the Bodleian acquired it. The manuscript contains a remarkable series of early maps and astronomical diagrams, most of which are unparalleled in any Greek, Latin or Arabic sources known to be preserved today. Both its illustrations and the Arabic text preserve material gathered from Muslim astronomers, historians, scholars and travellers during the ninth to eleventh centuries whose works are now either totally lost or only partially preserved in fragments in later sources. The Arabic title of the book is Kitāb Gharā'ib al-funūn wamulaḥ al-'uyūn (The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes). It has been recognized as one of the most important discoveries in the history of cartography during recent decades. The manuscript copy is without colophon, that is, unsigned and undated. However, from the appearance of the paper, ink and script, the editors presume a possible dating to the end of the twelfth century. Unfortunately, the author's name is unknown. What is known is that it was composed in Egypt during the reign of the Fatimids, but the name of the reigning caliph is not mentioned. Following the basmala, ḥamdala and taṣliya, the introduction simply states 'And [may the prayers of God be] on the leaders of the community from among his [Muhammad's] descendants, the virtuous chosen ones, the good caliphs.'1 The book begins with a response to a plea for information from a fellow scholar. The author states: You have asked me … to write a volume encompassing the principles of the raised-up roof [i.e. the sky] and the laid-down bed [i.e...

Scribal Copies of George Herbert's "Lent" and Easter" in Certaine Carolls, or Divine Hymnes for Christmas Day

Scribal Copies of George Herbert's "Lent" and Easter" in Certaine Carolls, or Divine Hymnes for Christmas Day Amy Bowles There are two exceptionally complete seventeenth-century manuscript collections of George Herbert's poetry: Dr. Williams's Library MS Jones B 62 (c. 1615-c. 1625) and Bodleian MS Tanner 307 (c. 1625-33).1 The former, which contains authorial revisions in Herbert's own hand, sheds light on the poet's methods of composition, while the latter, a presentation copy assembled by the women of the Little Gidding community, was probably used for licensing the poems for their print publication. These two manuscripts, along with the first printed edition of The Temple (1633), have been used as the editorial basis for all modern editions of Herbert's poetry, due to their comprehensiveness and authority.2 However, numerous other individual copies of Herbert's poems circulated in manuscript in the seventeenth century, often through scribal publication.3 Peter Beal's Index of English Literary Manuscripts and online Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts (CELM) identifies copies of Herbert's poems in over thirty manuscripts, while Robert H. Ray's The Herbert Allusion Book records allusions to Herbert's verse in eighty-six manuscripts.4 Francis Bacon's acquaintance with Herbert's poetry as early as 1625 suggests that Herbert's verse may even have had some limited availability in manuscript prior to the 1633 print publication of The Temple.5 The survival of scribal manuscripts containing Herbert's poetry attests to the appreciable popularity of his verse and its collection, arrangement, and dissemination in manuscripts of the seventeenth century. One such copied collection, titled Certaine Carolls, or Divine Hymnes for Christmas Day, contains previously unconsidered copies of Herbert's "Lent" and "Easter."6 University of Illinois Pre-1650 MS 0147 (hereafter Divine Hymnes) is a duodecimo paper volume of 37 leaves in a single hand, with five pages of noted music (fols. 4r-5r).7 The manuscript contains unattributed religious verse, beginning with three hymns written by William Austin (1587-1634) (fols. 4r-7v), an anonymous poem on "the Light, which was when our Savior was borne & the Darkeness when [End Page 77] hee dyed" (fol. 8r), Herbert's "Lent" (fol. 9r-11r), followed by three Austin meditations (fols. 12r-24v), one poem ("Rise O my soul with thy desires to heaven") elsewhere attributed to Henry Wotton (1568-1639) (fols. 25r-v), and, lastly, Herbert's "Easter" (fols. 27r-28v).8 Divine Hymnes contains a dedication to "the three Thrice worthy and right vertuous Virgin-Sisters" Susanna, Judith, and Hester Beckwith, from one "T.S.": Worthy Ladys– The Ancients pourtrayed ye (Χάριτες) or Graces as it were linked in mutuall imbracements, to shew that true Amity is indissoluble. And feigned them to bee Three, to signify that true Gratitude ought allways to bee answearable for Benefitts received, & that wth advantage:// The former resemblance is punctually verifyed in you 3 Gracious Sisters by the sweet connexion of yor most endeared affections mutually imbraceing each other:–But how ill the latter sutes with my case, I blush to mention. Haveing nothing to retribute in leiw of yor many favors I am forced to begg yor acceptance of this poore pittance my acknowledgment, which I offer to you joyntly, by these few ensueing Meditations composed in verse upon such divine subjects as the Times of the yeare bring to more speciall remembrance among Christians, & such as yor Devotion will gladly (& I hope not unprofittably) bee exercized in. The matter is sacred though the verse but playne: which (not foolishly like the Asse that carryed the Goddesse Isis to appropriate to my selfe that which is not my owne) I have onely transcribed from a better Pen: praying you by this, like him that by the foote of Hercules could ayme at the whole body, to veiw my affectionate heart, which unfeignedly wisheth yor happinesse, & perfection in all true vertuous endowments. I humbly take leave, & rest yor Servant sincerely Devoted T.S. [End Page 78] Susanna, Judith, and Hester Beckwith had connections to the...

Elegies on the children of Dr John Prideaux, 1624–5

John Prideaux, the farmer 's son who walked from Devon to Oxford in 1596 to take up a position as a servitor (poor scholar acting as a servant in his college), achieved considerable success in most areas of his life. Rising rapidly in academic and ecclesiastical circles, he became successively a royal chaplain, Rector of Exeter College, Regius Professor of Divinity and eventually Bishop of Worcester. He was a notable theologian and became the leading exponent in Laudian Oxford of the Calvinist position.In his private life, he was less fortunate. Seven of his nine children pre-deceased him, the period from September 1624 to September 1627 being a particularly unhappy one with two sons, two daughters and a wife dying within three years.1 For children to die young was hardly exceptional in that period, but in the university community children must have been a rarity, since only heads of colleges and prebends of Christ Church were allowed to marry. Even so, the attention paid to the deaths of Prideaux's children by university poets is somewhat surprising: seven poems in all were written on three of them.The daughters commemorated were Ann, who died in September1624 at the age of six, and Mary, who died the following December, aged seven. An elegy was also written on one of the boys:An Epitaph upon Doctor Prideaux's SonHere lyes his Parents hopes and fears,Once all their joyes, now all their tears.He's now past sense, past fear of paine.'Twere sin to wish him here againe.Had it liv'd to have been a Man,This inch had grown but to a span;And now he takes up the lesse room,Rock'd from his Cradle to his Tomb.'Tis better dye a child, at four,Then live and dye so at fourscore,View but the way by which we come,Thoul't say, he's best, that's first at home.2No author is assigned to this epitaph in Musarum Deliciae3 or in British Library Add. MS 19268,4 where it is entitled merely On the death of a child. Harvard MS Eng.686 and British Library MS Lansdowne 777 agree that the subject is Prideaux's son,5 but the former attributes it to and the latter to Mr George Morley of Ch Ch. Duppa may seem to have the better claim, since MS 328 in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, has an attribution to Duppa as well as corrections in the hand of its later owner William Fulman, who was a careful annotator and in touch with survivors of Caroline Oxford.6The son in question may be assumed to be Matthew, a toddler for whom cradle would be more relevant than for 3-year-old Robert, while John died at 13. As the first death in the young family it probably attracted particular attention. That the poem mentions the age of four is not a difficulty; the poet does not state that this particular child died at that age, but is making a general observation about early death. The number was chosen to contrast with fourscore.Probably Matthew was also the subject of a quatrain found without attribution on the opening page of Folger MS V a 170, headed merely On Dr Prideax his child:Careful mothers to their beds do layTheir babes who would too long, the wantons, play,So to prevent my youth's crimesNature my nurse laid me to bed betimes.It seems less likely that ensuing crimes would have been envisaged for a girl than for a boy, and this elegy also implies a very young child (babes). In Bodleian MS Rawl.117, it is attributed to Sir John Davis; neither author nor subject is identified elsewhere, although the lines were widely copied.7The death of Ann produced a neat epigram:Nature in this small Volume was aboutTo perfect what in woman was left out.Yet fearfull least a Piece soe well begun,Might want Preservatives when she had done,Ere she could finish what she undertookeThrew Dust upon yt, and shut up the Booke.This is found in 36 manuscripts. …