Details
[HERBERT, George (1593-1633) Scribal copy of the Latin poems, with one English poem (addressed to Bacon, 'My Lord a diamond to mee you sent'), manuscript in brown ink in an early 17th century hand, circa 1620-1630, 39 pages, 8vo, blank leaves, ownership inscription of William Pickering, 19th century calf. Provenance. Robert, Marquess of Crewe (bookplate).
The Latin poems are chiefly replies to Andrew Melville's long Sapphic ode, Anti-Tami-Cami-Categoria, composed in 1603 - 1604 and first published in 1620, a copy of which appears on folios 1 - 5. Herbert's poems were first printed from a different manuscript, under the title Musae Responsoriae in James Duport's Ecclesiastes Solomonis, 1662 (F.E Hutchinson, ed. The works of George Herbert, 2nd edition, 1945, pages, 384 - 403 and 416). The present manuscript was known to John Fry, who published 'from a small quarto volume of manuscript Latin poetry' the English poem addressed to Francis Bacon as Lord Chancellor, the opening lines 'My Lord a diamond to mee you sent And I to you a Blackamoor present' in his Bibliographical Memoranda (Bristol, 1816)
The sequence of epigrams published as Musae Responsoriae, Herbert's defence of Anglican ritual, is thought to have been the sequence which he circulated earliest. Principally dedicated to King James, it constitutes a serious entry into religious apologetics, and was written immediately after Herbert's appointment as Orator at Cambridge, in January 1920 (W.H. Kelliher. The Latin Poetry of George Herbert, in J.W. Binns, Ed. The Latin Poetry of English Poets, 1974).
The manuscript also includes six other Latin poems, the first three inspired by Herbert's admiration for Bacon. 'Ad Autorem Instaurationis Magnae', 'De Eodem', and 'Comparatio inter Munus Summi Cancellariatus et Librum'; also 'Aethiopissa ambit Cestum Diversi Coloris Virum', his only poem of secular love; 'In Natales et Pascha Concurrentes', and 'Wren cum Chirotecis', an epigram of 6 lines opening 'Candida amicitiae nascentis pignora'.
The publisher William Pickering, who owned the manuscript in 1850, and for whom it was bound, mistakenly describes it on the front free endpaper as being in Herbert's autograph, also saying that the English poem to Lord Bacon and 'Wren cum chirothecis' were unpublished.
The Latin poems are chiefly replies to Andrew Melville's long Sapphic ode, Anti-Tami-Cami-Categoria, composed in 1603 - 1604 and first published in 1620, a copy of which appears on folios 1 - 5. Herbert's poems were first printed from a different manuscript, under the title Musae Responsoriae in James Duport's Ecclesiastes Solomonis, 1662 (F.E Hutchinson, ed. The works of George Herbert, 2nd edition, 1945, pages, 384 - 403 and 416). The present manuscript was known to John Fry, who published 'from a small quarto volume of manuscript Latin poetry' the English poem addressed to Francis Bacon as Lord Chancellor, the opening lines 'My Lord a diamond to mee you sent And I to you a Blackamoor present' in his Bibliographical Memoranda (Bristol, 1816)
The sequence of epigrams published as Musae Responsoriae, Herbert's defence of Anglican ritual, is thought to have been the sequence which he circulated earliest. Principally dedicated to King James, it constitutes a serious entry into religious apologetics, and was written immediately after Herbert's appointment as Orator at Cambridge, in January 1920 (W.H. Kelliher. The Latin Poetry of George Herbert, in J.W. Binns, Ed. The Latin Poetry of English Poets, 1974).
The manuscript also includes six other Latin poems, the first three inspired by Herbert's admiration for Bacon. 'Ad Autorem Instaurationis Magnae', 'De Eodem', and 'Comparatio inter Munus Summi Cancellariatus et Librum'; also 'Aethiopissa ambit Cestum Diversi Coloris Virum', his only poem of secular love; 'In Natales et Pascha Concurrentes', and 'Wren cum Chirotecis', an epigram of 6 lines opening 'Candida amicitiae nascentis pignora'.
The publisher William Pickering, who owned the manuscript in 1850, and for whom it was bound, mistakenly describes it on the front free endpaper as being in Herbert's autograph, also saying that the English poem to Lord Bacon and 'Wren cum chirothecis' were unpublished.