British Library Journal (volume 4, number 1, spring 1978)

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John Webber's South Sea drawings for the admiralty: a newly discovered catalogue among the papers of Sir Joseph Banks
(1978-04)
Joppien, Rudiger
THE Department of Manuscripts in the British Library, a treasure-house of many little-known works of art which one might not expect to find there, preserves more than 150 drawings and water-colours by the British artist John Webber (1750-93). The late Martin Hardie, a connoisseur of the British water-colour school, praised Webber as a 'good draughtsman and a delicate colourist' but, in spite of this favourable view, Webber's work has remained largely unknown to art historians and has never been properly examined. This may have been due to the fact that Webber's work requires rather specialized attention. Webber was the official draughtsman on Captain Cook's third voyage to the Pacific (1776-80); this had a very direct bearing upon his development as an artist and on his choice of subject-matter. Webber was present when Cook discovered the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and explored the north-west coast of America; for the period of four years he recorded places which no artist before him had seen. It seems that the works from this voyage exceed in number those which Webber produced during his later travels in Great Britain and Europe.
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Marvell after Cambridge
(1978-04)
Burdon, Pauline
MARVELL'S movements on first leaving Cambridge have never been known to his biographers. Exactly when he left Trinity College is also in doubt, but it is clear that by September 1641 he had been absent for an unacceptable length of time. If it is a fact that he ran away to London after being persuaded by Jesuits to do so, then this suggests that, apparently as early as 1639, he was becoming restive at the university. The tragedy of his father's drowning in the Humber in January 1640/1 seems to have removed a restraint, and the young Marvell no longer felt obliged to continue for his M.A. In the troubled years leading up to the Civil War (even a parliament was summoned after the space of more than half his lifetime) he must surely have become infected with the passions and unrest prevailing in the country. It is now possible to show where he was, describe some of the people he knew, and suggest what he might have been doing after leaving Cambridge, since three signatures of his have been discovered on documents dated 8, 10, and 21 February 1641/2.
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Notes on some manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes
(1978-04)
Green, R. F.
IN one of the scrap-books of the notorious collector John Bagford (1650-1716), which are now part of the Harleian collection, is preserved a hitherto unnoticed leaf from a manuscript of Thomas Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes. It is a single parchment leaf (Fragment 90, MS. Harley 5977), mounted on a guard, and measuring 155 X 105 mm (written area, approximately 150X70 mm), with twenty-eight long lines to the page, and no stanza division. It contains lines 2472-527 (according to the line-numbering of Furnivalls edition of the poem),' written in a neat mixed (Anglicana and Secretary) hand of the middle of the fifteenth century; the initial letter of each line is marked with a single vertical red stroke. The leaf has been heavily trimmed, and no trace now remains of any marginal glossing, foliation, signature, or catchword.
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An addition to the Faust literature: an unknown 'harrowing of hell' in the British Library, London
(1978-04)
Henning, Dr. Hans
THE spread of material on the subject of Faust began in the sixteenth century with the existence of Faust as an historical figure, and with the appearance of a 'Faust-trilogy' (Faust-Buch of 1587, Wagner-Buch of 1593, Fausts Gaukeltasche of 1607). The subject entered English literature with an English version of the Faust-book (1587-8) and with Christopher Marlowe's dramatization. The Faust tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries brought new versions of the Faust-book and further dramatic treatment in Dutch, German, and French, as well as adaptations into farces, pantomimes, and ballets by William Mountford (1697), John Rich (1723), Thomas Merrivale (1724), and John Thurmond (1724 and 1727).
2
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The artist of the Leviathan title-page
(1978-04)
Brown, Keith
FEW title-page designs, if any, can rival the success of that bluntly eloquent engraving which prefaces the first edition (1651) of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Though it was re-used for two further editions in the author's own lifetime, successive reproductions have given it far wider currency since its reappearance in the great Molesworth edition of Hobbes's collected works of 1839-45. Today it is still quite commonly invoked in expositions of Hobbes's thought: even if there have also been murmurs that it must take part of the blame at least, for certain persistent misunderstandings or oversimplifications of key elements in his theory. It is a remarkable record, and the plate has attracted scholarly attention and a certain amount of debate, not just as a trailer to Leviathan but also in its own right.
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Pietro Bembo's L'Histoire du Nouveau Monde
(1978-04)
Clough, Cecil H.
THE third volume of Giovanni Battista Ramusio's Delle Navigationi et Viaggi was first published in Venice by Giunti in 1556.' It included an account of the first Spanish descent to the River Amazon made during 1542. This account was written by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo y Valdes (1478-1557), and sent as a letter to Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), the distinguished humanist, who from 1530 until his death was the official historian as well as the librarian of the Venetian Republic. It was Bembo, a friend of Ramusio, who undertook to have translated into Italian what appears to be this very letter presumably so that Ramusio could include it in his projected volume. However, while Ramusio's third volume includes such primary material as Oviedo's letter, it contains also extensive extracts from histories.
1
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Hilarius Cantiuncula and his book of poems
(1978-04)
Rhodes, Dennis E.
THE present brief investigation arose out of the discovery of an unfortunate error in the British Museum's Short-title Catalogue of Italian Books 1463-1600 (1958), where on page 327 we read the following entry: 'Hilarius, a writer of Latin verse in Germany. Cantiunculae hendecasyllaborum liber. Apud P. Petramsanctam: [Gualtiero Scotto:] Venetijs, 1555. 8°. (11409.aa.43(1)).' It was not realized at the time that in fact Cantiuncula is the author's surname, not part of the title of the book. He was Hilarius Cantiuncula, in the vernacular Hilaire Chansonnette, whom nowadays we should look upon rather as a Frenchman than a German.
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Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1965-1975: English books 1641-1700
(1978-04)
Jannetta, M. J.
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1965-1975: English books 1641-1700
1
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Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1976
(1978-04)
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1976
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British Library Journal (volume 4, number 1, spring 1978)

British Library Journal (volume 4, number 1, spring 1978)

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