Details
MORE, Sir Thomas. De optimo reip. statu deque nova insula Utopia ..., Epigrammata ... Basle: Johannes Froben, March 1518.
3 parts in 1 volume, 4° (218 x 155 mm.). Each title and dedication within historiated woodcut border, full-page woodcut border, full-page woodcut map of Utopia, and illustration, all by Hans and Ambrose Holbein, numerous fine large woodcut initials, different large printer's device at end of each part. (Light marginal waterstaining in first two quires.) Contemporary black calf, blindstamped with double panel of a Tudor Rose and the Annunciation, signed A.H., on upper and lower cover (Oldham, Panels Ro. 19 and BIB.4; Foot Henry Davis Gift II no. 12). (Spine original, but skilfully restored, ties lacking, later front pastedown.) In silk-lined morocco box by Riviere.
THIRD EDITION, (the first to be published by Froben), revised by the author, and FIRST EDITION of the Epigrammata. The first edition of Utopia had been published in Louvain in 1516. Gibson 3; Adams M-1756; Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration 260, attributing the illustrations to the Holbeins, cf. nos. 258 (title border first used in 1517); 236 signed by Hans Holbein, and 237 (title border to Epigrammata first used 1516).
PROVENANCE: 1. John Foxe, Archdeacon of Surrey. He was probably a nephew of Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester (cf. Cassan Lives of the Bishops of Winchester p. 323).
2. William Say, given him by Robert Warmyngton 'At nunc fruor Guilelmo Say possessore'. This is almost certainly Sir William Say of Essenden (d. 1529). Erasmus had visited him in 1499 with his pupil William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who subsequently married Say's daughter Elizabeth. According to R.W. Chambers, Life of More (p. 70): 'Say was a family friend of the Mores and it may have been thought that through him More met Erasmus' (both inscriptions on title).
3. 16th-century biographical note on More's life and death on rear endpaper.
4. J. Fazakerley, 1706 (cut-out signature pasted inside upper cover).
5. The Robin Collection (20th-century bookplate in the morocco box).
ADDITIONAL EPIGRAMS IN MANUSCRIPT
At the end of More's Epigrams, on pages 270, 271 and 272, three Latin epigrams and two English poems have been added in a contemporary hand. All except the first, which is unrecorded, were not published until 1557 and 1568, although they must clearly have circulated in manuscript. The Latin poems are in an italic hand, the English in a secretary hand of the first half of the 16th century. They are: LEWIS THE LAST LOVER IN FORTUNATUS Ey flattering fortune, loke thou never so fayre Nor never so pleasantly begyn to smyle As though thou woldest my Ruyne all repaire during my liff thou shalt me not begile Trust shall I god to enter in a while His haven of heaven ever sure uniforme Ever after thy calme loke I for a storme TM
DAVY THE DISAR IN FORTUNAM
Longe was I lady Lucke your serving man And now have lost ageyn all that I gatt Wherefore whan I thinke on you now and than And in my mynde remembre this and that Ye may not blame me though I beshrewe yor catt But in faith I blesse you ageyn a thousand tymes ffor lendyng me now som laysser to make rymes Tho M
Both these poems were written by More while prisoner in the Tower and were first published, with variants, by Rastell in 1557.
The Latin Epigrams are:
EIUSDEM IN FENERATOREM [i.e. by the same author to the Usurer]. Hac non si sapis ire vis viator Capelus iacet hic olens cadaver Toto maximus orbe fenerator quem lugent modo pauperes sepultum Non his quae fuerat benignus unquam Sed quae non fuerat antea sepultus
THIS POEM IS UNRECORDED ALTHOUGH APPARENTLY BY MORE.
ALLUSIO AD NOMEN MORI Moraris, si sit spes hic tibi longa morandi hoc te vel morus, more, monere potest Desine morari & celo meditare morari hoc te vel morus more, monere potest Morari prima producta significat stultum agere
T. MORI. Qui memor es mori, longe tibi tempora vite Sint & ad eternam pervia porta mori. (This is repeated in another hand on rear endpaper.)
Both these epigrams were first printed in Doctissima D. Thomae Mori ... Epistola (Louvain 1568). The Yale edition of Complete Works of St. Thomas More vol. 3 part II lists them as no. 278 (pp. 67 and 302) and records two manuscript copies 1. Brit. Lib. MS Royal 17.D.XIV and 2. in a copy of Vives' edition of Augustinus, De civitate Dei, 1522 in the library of the Catholic Church in Lower Brailes, Warwickshire, containing also the two English poems (reproduced op. cit. after page 203). They are believed to have been composed about 1530.
3 parts in 1 volume, 4° (218 x 155 mm.). Each title and dedication within historiated woodcut border, full-page woodcut border, full-page woodcut map of Utopia, and illustration, all by Hans and Ambrose Holbein, numerous fine large woodcut initials, different large printer's device at end of each part. (Light marginal waterstaining in first two quires.) Contemporary black calf, blindstamped with double panel of a Tudor Rose and the Annunciation, signed A.H., on upper and lower cover (Oldham, Panels Ro. 19 and BIB.4; Foot Henry Davis Gift II no. 12). (Spine original, but skilfully restored, ties lacking, later front pastedown.) In silk-lined morocco box by Riviere.
THIRD EDITION, (the first to be published by Froben), revised by the author, and FIRST EDITION of the Epigrammata. The first edition of Utopia had been published in Louvain in 1516. Gibson 3; Adams M-1756; Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration 260, attributing the illustrations to the Holbeins, cf. nos. 258 (title border first used in 1517); 236 signed by Hans Holbein, and 237 (title border to Epigrammata first used 1516).
PROVENANCE: 1. John Foxe, Archdeacon of Surrey. He was probably a nephew of Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester (cf. Cassan Lives of the Bishops of Winchester p. 323).
2. William Say, given him by Robert Warmyngton 'At nunc fruor Guilelmo Say possessore'. This is almost certainly Sir William Say of Essenden (d. 1529). Erasmus had visited him in 1499 with his pupil William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who subsequently married Say's daughter Elizabeth. According to R.W. Chambers, Life of More (p. 70): 'Say was a family friend of the Mores and it may have been thought that through him More met Erasmus' (both inscriptions on title).
3. 16th-century biographical note on More's life and death on rear endpaper.
4. J. Fazakerley, 1706 (cut-out signature pasted inside upper cover).
5. The Robin Collection (20th-century bookplate in the morocco box).
ADDITIONAL EPIGRAMS IN MANUSCRIPT
At the end of More's Epigrams, on pages 270, 271 and 272, three Latin epigrams and two English poems have been added in a contemporary hand. All except the first, which is unrecorded, were not published until 1557 and 1568, although they must clearly have circulated in manuscript. The Latin poems are in an italic hand, the English in a secretary hand of the first half of the 16th century. They are: LEWIS THE LAST LOVER IN FORTUNATUS Ey flattering fortune, loke thou never so fayre Nor never so pleasantly begyn to smyle As though thou woldest my Ruyne all repaire during my liff thou shalt me not begile Trust shall I god to enter in a while His haven of heaven ever sure uniforme Ever after thy calme loke I for a storme TM
DAVY THE DISAR IN FORTUNAM
Longe was I lady Lucke your serving man And now have lost ageyn all that I gatt Wherefore whan I thinke on you now and than And in my mynde remembre this and that Ye may not blame me though I beshrewe yor catt But in faith I blesse you ageyn a thousand tymes ffor lendyng me now som laysser to make rymes Tho M
Both these poems were written by More while prisoner in the Tower and were first published, with variants, by Rastell in 1557.
The Latin Epigrams are:
EIUSDEM IN FENERATOREM [i.e. by the same author to the Usurer]. Hac non si sapis ire vis viator Capelus iacet hic olens cadaver Toto maximus orbe fenerator quem lugent modo pauperes sepultum Non his quae fuerat benignus unquam Sed quae non fuerat antea sepultus
THIS POEM IS UNRECORDED ALTHOUGH APPARENTLY BY MORE.
ALLUSIO AD NOMEN MORI Moraris, si sit spes hic tibi longa morandi hoc te vel morus, more, monere potest Desine morari & celo meditare morari hoc te vel morus more, monere potest Morari prima producta significat stultum agere
T. MORI. Qui memor es mori, longe tibi tempora vite Sint & ad eternam pervia porta mori. (This is repeated in another hand on rear endpaper.)
Both these epigrams were first printed in Doctissima D. Thomae Mori ... Epistola (Louvain 1568). The Yale edition of Complete Works of St. Thomas More vol. 3 part II lists them as no. 278 (pp. 67 and 302) and records two manuscript copies 1. Brit. Lib. MS Royal 17.D.XIV and 2. in a copy of Vives' edition of Augustinus, De civitate Dei, 1522 in the library of the Catholic Church in Lower Brailes, Warwickshire, containing also the two English poems (reproduced op. cit. after page 203). They are believed to have been composed about 1530.