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Binding: half green leather. Spine, in gold: Chetham crest. BASSE/M.S.
Endpaper, verso: stamp: W. Boddington, Binder, Todd St., Manchester.
57 leaves of paper 18.7 x 15 cms, unnumbered and unlined.
1r In modern hand: Hanwell, Oxford. In C17th hand: Norreys
[Francis, Lord Norreys].
2r Blank, but shows signs of having been pasted down. Was this
the original endpaper? In 1860, Corser described the manuscript as being
in its original binding (see below).
2v Chetham press mark in ink: Glass C4/3/7
Note by James Crossley, in ink, referring to Corser's ownership of and
description of the manuscript and of its lot number in the Heber sale.
3r Cutting from the British Magazine 1783: Bycot, in
Oxford, The seat of the Earl of Abingdon.
4r Title page: POLYHYMNIA | A Poem | written by | William
Basse gent. |
Nos convivia, nos praelia virginum,
Sectis in juvenes unguibus acrium,
Cantamus: vacui, sive quod urimur,
Non praeter solitum leves.
Hor: lib 1. Ode 6.
5r - 6r Dedication. To the Right Noble and Vertuous
Lady, the Lady Bridget Countesse of Lindsey, Barronnesse of Ersbie, &
of Ricot &c.
7r - 8v Verses To the Right Honorable Francis Lord
Norreys, Earle of Berkshiere (in his dayes)
9r - 9v To the Lady Falkland uppon her goeing into
Ireland: 2 sonnets.
9v - 10r Of a great Floud.
10r - 10v Of the Raine-bowe.
11r - 18v The youth in the Boate.
19r - 39v The Second part of The youth in the Boate.
40r - 41v The Morall.
42r - 42v Of Pen and Pensill, uppon A fayre &
vertuous Ladyes Picture.
43r - 44v On the House of a Noble Knight & worthy
favourer Of my Muse.
45r - 50r An Elegie of a rare singing Bull-fynch,
found dead in his Cage in the cold & wet. June 19 1648.
50v - 53r Of the four mile Course on Bayards-greene,
sixe times run over by two famous Footmen Patrique Dorning & William
O'Farrell.
53v - 55r The Spirituall Race.
For a description of the manuscript, see:
1. Manuscript catalogue of the Revd. Thomas Corser's Library, p. 237.
(Mun.A.6.37)
2. Corser, Thomas: Collectanea Anglo-poetica ... part 1, 1860 pp.
199-206 (Chetham Society O.S. 52)
The volume was, according to Corser, probably bought by Hanwell the Oxford
bookseller when Ricot, the seat of the Norreys family, was taken down. Heber
acquired it from Hanwell and it was sold as lot 70 in part II of the
Heber sale (10th Feb 1836) for £3.5.0. It was sold as lot 192 of the
first part of the Corser sale (28th July 1868) for £1.11.0. to Honnor.
It was in Chetham's Library by 1883 when volume VI of the printed catalogue,
in which it appears, was published.
For another manuscript poem by Basse, see Halliwell Phillipps broadside
no. 2757, 'On Mr. William Shakespeare who died in Aprill 1616'.
Neg. microfilm J.R.L. February 1968.
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