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Detailed record for Harley 4185
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| Author |
Lazare François Dagobert |
| Title |
Collection of poems in praise of Charles II |
| Origin |
England, S. E. (London ?) |
| Date |
October 1683 |
| Language |
Latin and English |
| Script |
Humanistic (formal and cursive) |
| Scribe |
Lazare François Dagobert |
| Artists |
Lazare François Dagobert |
| Decoration |
Arms of Charles II in gold and colours (f. 2). Title-page with title and full frame in gold and initial in gold with foliate decoration in gold and colours (f. 3). Miniatures representing a hand holding a bunch of hearts (f. 8), and a candle and a globe (f. 16). Full and partial frames with penwork decoration in gold, colours or black. Text partially in gold and colours. Knot-like decoration and tables formed by words (ff. 12, 20, 21). |
| Dimensions in mm |
365 x 235 |
| Official foliation |
ff. 22 (+ 2 unfoliated early modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and the end) |
| Form |
Paper codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. 18th-century quarter binding of brown calf with decorated paper covers; marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
Written and decorated in October 1683 for presentation to Charles II by Lazare François Dagobert, a French writing master journeying in England: his initials and date (f. 20; see Wright 1972).
? Charles II, king of England (b. 1630, d. 1685): possibly presented to him in October 1683 (Wright 1972).
The note of a price '0 : 10: 6' (f. 1).
Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie: sold to Edward Harley on 13 August 1724 (Wright and Wright 1966; Wright 1972).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley, ‘13 August 1724’ (f. 1).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. |
| Notes |
Lazare François Dagobert produced a similar collection in 1682 for King Louis XIV of France, which is now Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, Leber MS. 5783: see Catalogue ge´ne´ral des manuscrits des Bibliothe`ques Publiques de France: De´partements, vol. II: Rouen (Paris: Plon, 1888), p. 129, no. 3275. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4185.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, pp. 304-05 n. 7.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 102, 122-23, 255, 441. |
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