British Library Journal (volume 25, number 2, autumn 1999)

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Tyrwhitt's Urry's Chaucer's Works: the Tracks of Editorial History
(1999-11)
Kelen, Sarah A.
The British Library owns six copies of John Urry's 1721 edition of Chaucer's Works, three of which are catalogued as containing manuscript notes. Of these three catalogue entries, two ascribe annotations to particular people, and one, 642.m.i (the second copy listed in the British Library catalogue), is described as containing 'copious MS notes', but without an attribution. The annotations in this volume are, indeed, copious: word by word correction of Urry's idiosyncratic Middle English orthography in some of the Canterbury Tales; notes making reference to the manuscripts; emendations to the Preface and the Glossary; cross-references to source texts; discussions of Tale order; as well as other sorts of commentary and correction. The annotations in this volume are interesting not only for their sheer number and their engagement with Urry's text, but for their source: they are the notes of Chaucer's next editor, the accomplished classical and Literary scholar, and Trustee of the British Museum, Thomas Tyrwhitt.
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Robert Fulton: A Letter to Lord Nelson
(1999-11)
Smith, R. A. H.
Among the thousands of documents preserved in the British Library's holdings of the papers of Horatio Nelson is a brief note, dated 4 September 1805, from one Robert Francis, writing from 13 Sackville Street, Piccadilly; the writer sought an interview with Lord Nelson concerning the former's naval inventions, while the Admiral was on his last brief visit to England. The note does not appear in Sir Nicholas H. Nicolas's standard edition. The Dispatches and Letters of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, 7 vols. (London, 1844-6). The document (Add. MS. 34931, ff. 68-69V; fig. i) relates clearly to naval matters, but seems at first sight to have no more significance than the other countless similar requests from promoters of far-fetched projects frequently received by men of Nelson's fame and then usually ignored.
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Six Unpublished Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria
(1999-11)
Beddard, R. A.
In the morass of papers left by that diligent servant of the House of Stuart, Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to Charles I and Charles II, is a small cache of six letters written by, or at the command of, Queen Henrietta Maria. Five of them are addressed to Nicholas in his official capacity as Secretary. Three of them are informal, being little more than hastily penned notes in the Queen's own hand. These are undated by her, but two of them have been endorsed by Nicholas with the date on which he received them: 5 September and 1 October 1641. His endorsement locates them in the difficult period of Charles I's residence in Edinburgh, when his master was seeking to build a party among the Scottish nobles. The third most probably belongs to the same year. All three show that the King was during his absence from England regularly employing his wife in the routine business of despatching, and, on occasion, restraining the time of delivery of his correspondence.
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'A Flute of Arcady': autograph poems of Tennyson's friend, Arthur Henry Hallam
(1999-11)
Evans, Roger
Although Arthur Henry Hallam is granted a column and a half in the pages of the Dictionary of National Biography, he remains a tenuous shade in the national memory. He achieved no conventional academic distinction or position of political or social prominence, he left little that may be called ground-breaking and he fathered no progeny, worthy or otherwise. This said, his early death at the age of twenty-two so profoundly shook the greatest poet of the Victorian age, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and its greatest prime minister, W. E. Gladstone, he was a living presence in their memory to the end of their long lives. More importantly for us, he is a presence in the canon of English literature to be equated with Lycidas and Adonais, for he was the subject of one of the most sustainedly moving elegies in our language, Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H.
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Further Sources for the Swiss Civil War of 1712 in the British Library's Collections
(1999-11)
Nattrass, Graham
The British Library's early collections are extremely rich in ephemeral, popular and small-scale printed works from many parts of the German-speaking world, not least from Switzerland, a point illustrated by an article by the present author which appeared in the Spring 1993 issue under the title 'The Swiss Civil War of 1712 in contemporary sources'. That article, which dealt chiefly with tract volume 9305.aa.8 and related editions of the texts contained therein, ended with the stated intention of summarizing in a later issue other contemporary material on the same subject from the Library's collections. The present article will therefore attempt to describe the ballads and other polemical works generated by the events of 1712, as well as the relevant historical and topographical material not so far covered, including a few items acquired since 1993, but concentrating almost exclusively on contemporary editions. For an outline history of the Toggenburg War, as the conflict of 1712 is generally known, as well as maps and a brief bibliography, the reader is referred to the earlier article.
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A History of Edward Gibbon's Six Autobiographical Manuscripts
(1999-11)
Gawthrop, John
Edward Gibbon finished writing the last page of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and added his colophon, 'Lausanne, 27 June 1787'. After laying down his pen, he walked among his acacias, and 'a sober melancholy' was spread over his mind by the idea that, after fourteen years, he had taken 'everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion'. A month later, he was on his way to England to arrange for the publication of his writings. During his stay, he was the guest of John, Lord Sheffield, who had been his friend and confidant for over twenty years and who was to become one of his executors, the editor of his autobiographical writings, and a beneficiary of the proceeds of their sale. On 8 May 1788, the fifty-first anniversary of Gibbon's birth, Strahan and Cadell published the last three volumes of the Decline and Fall. The double festival was celebrated by a literary dinner at the house of Thomas Cadell. There, Gibbon 'seemed to blush' as, in a poem by his friend William Hayley, he heard his prowess in his own field likened to that of Shakespeare and Newton.
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The Development of the Pre-1801 Scandinavian Printed Collections in the British Library
(1999-11)
Hogg, Peter C.
Early in 1770 a Swedish journal published a brief account by a visitor of the public galleries of the British Museum. Describing the Harley rooms, he remarked that copies of the Harleian manuscript catalogue published by the Museum in 1759 had been sent to Uppsala University Library and to the Royal Library in Stockholm. He admired the nine rooms of printed books and praised the reference service: 'One sits very comfortably in a so-called Reading Room, with all the catalogues around one. One orders whatever book one wishes, while an attendant stands ready to fetch it as if it were one's own. It is all truly royal.'
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New evidence about Sir Geoffrey Luttrell's raid on Sempringham Priory, 1312
(1999-11)
Coleman, Joyce
We know more about Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, commissioner of the Luttrell Psalter (BL, Add. MS. 42130), than about the patrons of many other medieval manuscripts. Unfortunately for the many admirers of the Psalter, not all of what we know about Geoffrey casts him in a positive light. In particular, scholars have had to grapple with records that show him leading a violent raid on the Gilbertine priory of Sempringham. According to the royal order dated 27 July 1312, which set up a commission of inquiry in response to the complaint of Prior John de Camelton, 'Geoffrey Literel of Irnham, Edmund de Coleville of Westbitham, John son of John Gobaud, Roger de Birthorpe with John and Thomas his brothers, John de Graveneye, William Pleseleie and John le Hunte, with others 'broke the doors and walls of the priory, carrying away goods worth 500 and assaulting several of the men who tried to stop them.'
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British Library Journal (volume 25, number 2, autumn 1999)

British Library Journal (volume 25, number 2, autumn 1999)

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