Item Summary

An anonymous, English, seventeenth-century commonplace book, written in a number of hands, containing both literary and scientific entries. The volume demonstrates the wide intellectual interests of the age and of the milieu in which the Royal Society existed in the last two decades of the seventeenth century and beyond. Topics range from religion, literature, and science to carpentry, fishing and the English statute law governing it. The volume would seem to date initially from the period 1660-1670, but there are additions: works published in the 1680s are referred to. While the bulk of the entries are in English, there are some in Latin (not many), a substantial number both in Spanish and translated from the Spanish, some in Italian, and some translations from the French, with one text on fortification in that language (ff.111r-113v). The most heavily cited Spanish source is Pedro Mexia, Silva de varia leccion (1540). Often the sources are identified, sometimes by date of edition, sometimes by page. Folio (310 x 200mm): ff. [i], 171 (inclusive of blanks), foliated [2], 1-65, 73-84, 87, 92-128, 130-180, [3], with clear evidence of stubs of cancelled (cut out) leaves, plus 4ff. containing indexes loosely inserted, written in ink in various hands on paper watermarked with a fools cap, the index leaves on a different paper (fleur-de-lys crowned). Conserved and rebound in the Preservation Office, 2013. Housed in a drop-spine box with the former binding, a contemporary binding of parchment over pasteboard, hand-lettered on spine in ink "COMMON/ PLACE/ BOOK." The boards are badly warped and lack their ties. The North Library bookplate is on the inside front pastedown.