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3. Manningham's Reliability as a Note-Taker

When a preacher delivers a sermon during a church service, members of
the congregation experience an oral phenomenon whose pace and subject
matter they do not control. Note-takers in this setting cannot ask the preacher

to slow down, repeat or skip material, discuss a different scriptural passage, or
alter his exegetical stance; once they have decided whether to attend a church
service, the note-takers' other choices include whether to stay, where to sit, and
whether to pay attention, choices that affect listening comprehension and
hence the auditors' notes. That certain aspects of a spoken sermon are beyond
the auditor's control is evident from one of Manningham's experiences:

Assessing the quality of note-taking abilities is anything but straightforward
in the context of a church service because a preacher may speak extempore,
using no written text with which we can compare the auditor's notes, he may
revise his oral remarks when he later writes them down, or he may preach
from a written text and then revise it before circulation or publication.[20]
Compared to auditors, readers have more choice in the texts they digest and
more influence over the pace at which they receive information and take
notes. And if a reader's printed or manuscript sources are extant, we are in
a good position to judge the notes' accuracy, a word used here in the sense of
reproducing an argument's rhetorical touches, phrasing, and development
(organization, use of evidence, logic, and so forth). With different variables
surrounding the oral text and the printed or manuscript one, the more controlled
reading environment therefore allows us to assess Manningham's accomplishments
as a note-taker when he works directly—relying on only the
momentary use of memory as he immediately transcribes material from a
source into his Diary—from printed texts and manuscripts. Furthermore, we
can readily compare some of his entries with the printed texts on which they
are based and, when he takes notes on manuscripts or spoken sermons that are
later printed, as is occasionally the case, we can also examine the relationship
between the source and the notes.[21]

(a) Printed Sources

We can confidently consult the same editions of most of the eight printed
books from which Manningham transcribes directly and usually extensively[22]

A comparison of his notes with six of those sources reveals that his transcripts,
like his notes on manuscripts range from exact quotations to summaries and
loose paraphrases.[23] Manningham clearly works directly from his sources, presenting
remarkably accurate passages, some extensive and some in Latin, when
he gives excerpts from two of these printed texts. The Diary's excerpts from
Samuel Rowlands's Tis Merrie When Gossips Meete (1602) include about
twenty lines of witty poetry, most containing the source's exact words:

(fol. 45)[24]

From Thomas Stapleton's Orationes Academicæ, Miscellaneæ Triginta Qvatvor
(1600), Manningham confidently reproduces complete passages wordfor-word:

For reasons that are by no means clear—it would be difficult to locate two
texts as divergent in theme, form, language, purpose, and audience as Tis
Merrie When Gossips Meete and Orationes Academicæ—in these entries
Manningham wished to keep a full and precise record of his sources.

When Manningham takes notes from three other printed texts, his apparently
different purposes lead to different results, as the need for selective
notes about key points calls for abandoning word-for-word transcripts in favor
of clear, concise summaries. Outlining what William Watson calls arguments
for "tolleration for religion" in A Decacordon of Ten Qvodlibeticall Qvestions
(1602), Manningham takes reliable, if selective, notes:

When Manningham turns to John Hayward's An Answer to the First Part of
a Certaine Conference Concerning Svccession (1603), his précis mixes close
paraphrases and exact quotations:

Taking notes on Thomas Floyd's The Picture of a Perfit Common Wealth
(1600), Manningham presents brief excerpts that significantly condense his
source and freely deviate from its wording while remaining true to its sense:

Similar to the excerpt from Hayward, this passage's length, compression, and
wording suggest that Manningham's goal is to capture not a developed argument
but a sententious simile.

Two excerpts from William Warner's Albions England (1602 edition;
fols. 54 and 60) give a clear idea of Manningham's different note-taking techniques
even when he directly transcribes the same kind of material, rhymed
couplets written in fourteeners. In these entries, his purpose is transparent—
the Diary becomes a commonplace book for antifeminist themes—but the
notes he produces take two different forms. In one entry, Manningham writes
a précis, transforming Warner's verse to prose and altering the syntax, yet still
capturing the significant word-play:

In another excerpt, he retains this source's poetic form and syntax while introducing
three substantive variations (which I have italicized) that suggest
not misremembering over a period of time but rather minor carelessness
("doth" for "will" and "runnes" for "fals") and eye-skip that causes "Riuer"
in the first line to reappear in place of "Currant" in approximately the same
location in the second line:

These examples from Watson, Hayward, Floyd, and Warner contain none of
the characteristics of notes that rely on medium- or long-term memory, such
as misremembered words or phrases, muddied syntax, sentences or phrases
blurred into one another, reorganized material, and ellipses where key information
should appear. Instead, the respect that Manningham accords the
substance of his printed sources when he paraphrases or summarizes them, as
well as the fidelity with which he reproduces the printed words of such authors
as Rowlands and Stapleton, indicates that these excerpts from printed
sources were probably written while reading and with different purposes in
mind.

(b) Manuscript Sources

In a few instances, the transcripts in Manningham's Diary are based on
manuscript sources. These notes are significant in part because they sometimes
offer tantalizing glimpses of his access to lines of manuscript traditions
that are no longer extant. That they have vanished makes it difficult to assess
Manningham's handling of them, obliging us to be cautious when judging
these particular notes. One text that existed only in manuscript when Manningham
copied directly from it in 1602 is Sir John Davies's The Lottery (fol.
95-95b). Because Davies had been at the Middle Temple about a decade before
the diarist, Manningham's ability to gain access to this document, like
those containing works by Donne, points to a circle of friends associated with
the legal profession who shared manuscripts that were indirectly transmitted

from authorial sources. Extant in Francis Davison's 1608 edition of A Poetical
Rhapsodie and in a manuscript in the Conway Papers, Davies's Lottery is
made up of introductory matter in verse and prose followed by a series of
couplets, each of which accompanied one of the "lots," small gifts distributed
during an entertainment given by the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton,
when Queen Elizabeth visited Harefield House in the summer of 1602.[31] Many
of the sixteen couplets that Manningham copies reproduce readings found in
A Poetical Rhapsodie or the Conway Papers Manuscript or both. When the
printed text and that manuscript present different readings, however, Manningham
never agrees with A Poetical Rhapsodie; he sides with the Conway
Papers Manuscript on about six occasions; on another handful of occasions,
the Diary provides independent readings that agree with neither text and
probably represent minor errors.[32] One example will suffice to illustrate the
relationship among these texts:

Because Manningham reproduces both his source's wording and its iambic
pentameter couplet form throughout an extensive excerpt, the transcript
avoids the characteristic signs of relying on medium- or long-term memory.
Rather, it appears that he was consulting his source when he made an accurate
transcript of a lost manuscript that is closely related to the one contained
in the Conway Papers rather than the one that Francis Davison used as the
source for A Poetical Rhapsodie.

Manningham takes more extensive notes on the manuscript of another
text with a murky textual history, The Legend of Mary, Queen of Scots, attributed
to Thomas Wenman (fols. 91b-94b). The poem's nineteenth-century
editor, Jon Fry, writes that the manuscript is dated 1601 but provides no information

about its location.[34] Since I have been unable to trace this manuscript
and I can therefore compare Manningham's notes only with Fry's
nineteenth-century edition, it is difficult to measure their accuracy. Not only
do the two texts' numerous substantive variants indicate that Manningham's
source is a different manuscript but they are also generally unhelpful in determining
which, if either, might be accurate and which in error. The following
quotations are from the Diary; italics identify the substantive differences
with Fry's edition, whose readings appear in brackets. In terms of syntax,
diction, and meter, some of Manningham's excerpts are clumsy:

(fol. 91b)

But other excerpts are somewhat superior and may more faithfully represent
the source:

(fol. 91b)[35]

While these excerpts from the Diary do not appear to be based on memory,
they may suggest either that Manningham smoothed out material that he
found awkward (a practice he does not engage in elsewhere) or more likely
that he copied directly from his source and followed it with care.

Manningham's Diary contains material from John Donne's Paradoxes,
yet another text with a confused history of transmission, beginning when it
was written in the 1590s and continuing beyond its first publication in his
Juvenilia in 1633. Many manuscripts of the Paradoxes were circulated, particularly
in the early seventeenth century,[36] making it difficult to determine
where the one that Manningham consulted is located in the various lines of
transmission. As a result, we must exercise caution when gauging the accuracy
of his transcript. Manningham and Donne had many mutual friends who
probably exchanged manuscripts,[37] and most of the readings in Manningham's
transcript of Paradoxes 2 and 10 (fol. 101-101b) are supported by their
appearance in other manuscripts of these texts, as well as in the 1633 printed
edition.[38] In the following entry from the Diary, I have used italics to identify

the substantive variants with Donne's Juvenilia, whose readings appear
in brackets:

As Helen Peter's extensive collation indicates, few of these variants are
unique to Manningham's Diary; instead, most appear in one or more manuscripts.
The close connections among various manuscripts provide corroborating
evidence that, without relying on his memory, for no tell-tale signs point
to this means of transmission, Manningham's direct copying produces a faithful
transcript from a manuscript carrying some contemporary authority because
it circulated among mutual friends after being transmitted, however
indirectly, from an authorial source (even if some of the manuscript's readings
were later judged inferior by printers and editors). This conclusion is
reinforced on the same pages that contain Paradoxes 2 and 10 by the appearance
of two other Paradoxes that were not included in the Juvenilia—"Hee
that weepeth is most wise" and "To keepe sheepe the best lyfe"—but that have
received serious consideration as authentic compositions by Donne.[40] Although
the uncertain nature of the transmission of these manuscripts means
that my conclusions are necessarily tentative, a comparison of the Diary with
three manuscript sources that Manningham consults—Davies's Lottery, Wenman's
Legend of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Donne's Paradoxes—suggests that
he had access to texts that carried some authority and made extensive, generally
reliable transcripts by copying directly from them.

Manningham's transcript of another manuscript text by Donne attempts
to reproduce its iambic pentameter couplet form. The results, which stand
in sharp contrast to the transcript of William Warner's couplet beginning "A
Womans love is river-like," do not follow the source with care or present a
condensed version that might be termed a précis. Rather, this entry reveals
numerous misrememberings and clumsy approximations that point to the use
of memory after a lapse of some time. After reading the manuscript of one of
Donne's Epigrams, Manningham writes the following title, attribution, and
couplet:

(fol. 118)

Besides beginning with an alexandrine, Manningham's version presents other
clear differences from anything contained in this epigram's manuscript tradition,
whose extant documents include only one substantive variation—the
title (other early manuscripts have no title or refer to the poem by such titles
as "A beggar," "On a Beggar," or "On a Cripple")—from the 1633 printed
text:

Referring to Manningham's entry as "obviously from memory," W. Milgate,
the editor of Donne's Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters, observes that
"Those who find epigrams memorable often have faulty memories, and many
variations in the manuscripts can be ascribed to this cause."[42] That Manningham's
entry begins with a title that weakly attempts to summarize the couplet
while merely restating it and identifying a setting ("on the ground") suggests
that his memory is at work, providing an approximation to fulfill the expectation
that a title should precede the couplet. Further evidence of memorial
intervention appears in the misremembering of some key verbs, as "stand"
and "move" are transformed into "sitt" and "stand," and switched to the
couplet's opening line. This conclusion about the role of Manningham's
memory may be strengthened by the fact that the Diary's version is entirely
in the third person, so it lacks the dramatic first-person opening and subsequent
shift to the third person that appear in the printed text and all other
manuscript versions. Yet Manningham's reproducing of the couplet's rhyme
and word-play indicates that this manuscript is connected in some way to an
authoritative line of transmission. However, the substantive differences between
the epigram contained in the Diary and the one contained in all extant
manuscripts[43] demonstrate that Manningham, rather than writing a summary
or transcribing the complete couplet directly from a manuscript (even an inferior
one), uses his memory to attempt to reproduce the poem's form and to
convey a loose sense of its contents, focusing on the final word's pun.

(c) Oral Sources

In early modern England, as in our own age, people often display different
levels of skill when taking notes from material that they read and material
that they hear, but when Manningham transcribes from oral sermon sources
the results are analogous to the Diary's entries based on his direct copying of
printed texts and manuscripts. At Paul's Cross in 1602, he takes extensive

notes on two sermons that were printed some years later: Robert Wakeman's
on Jonah 3:4-5 (20 June 1602) was published as Ionahs Sermon, and Ninivehs
Repentance in 1606 (fols. 27b-28), and John Spenser's on Isaiah 5:4 (10 October
1602) appeared as A Learned and Graciovs Sermon Preached at Paules
Crosse in 1615 (fols. 40-43). The Diary contains excerpts from only the first
half of Wakeman's printed sermon, just as it includes nothing from the final
section of Spenser's. Although this gap is difficult to explain—did Manningham
leave the church before the sermons ended, find the second half of each
sermon less than noteworthy, or suffer homiletic fatigue (Wakeman's sermon
extends to some 102 printed pages, Spenser's to 50)?—the entries he wrote lack
any sign of relying on memory over a significant amount of time:

Because Manningham records sentences that do not appear when Spenser's
sermon is printed posthumously more than a decade after it was delivered,
it is clear that someone—probably the preacher, given the substantive nature
of the changes—revised the sermon during that interval.[45] When writing a
summary of Spenser's sermon, Manningham reveals "a keen grasp" of the
sermon's "fundamental points,"[46] in the view of his modern editor, as he
sometimes reproduces the preacher's wording and sometimes alters it:

Grasping Spenser's main response to objections to the reformed faith and
conveying it in his horticultural terms, Manningham reveals what Sorlien
calls "an ear for the preacher's imagery" as he presents this "remarkably accurate
paraphrase and précis."[48] Although the notes on both Wakeman's
and Spenser's sermons are selective and compressed, they provide closer paraphrases
than one would expect to find if Manningham used his memory
after some time passed.

To cite a representative example of radical compression of an oral
source until little more than its essence remains, when Manningham writes
about a sermon in March 1603 he does not identify the date, the preacher,
or the text he chose to preach on, but he does provide the location—"AT
A SPITTLE SERMON"—and a concise summary of the main point, while
capturing its play on words: "Yf our synnes come out with a newe addicion,
Godes punishmentes will come out with a newe edition" (fol. 109). Similarly,
he presents a reliable one-sentence summary of a sermon on 31 October
1602: "At Paules Dr. Dove made a sermon against the excessive pride and
vanitie of women in apparraile, &c., which vice he said was in their husbandes
power to correct" (fol. 54b).[49] The nature of Manningham's single
sentences from these sermons—short excerpts that summarize key observations
while reproducing only a little of the sources' exact wording—points
to his purposeful recording of a pun and rhyme as rhetorical flourishes or of
a concise moral lesson, all written down while the preachers spoke.

With its focus on John Manningham's techniques and reliability as a
note-taker, this examination of his various entries from printed texts, manuscripts,
and oral sermon sources allows us to be somewhat more confident
when considering the nature and significance of the Diary's entry on Lancelot
Andrewes's 1602 Whit-Sunday sermon. Drawn to another preacher of
some stature, just as he was drawn to John Spenser and John King, and willing
to devote many pages of his Diary to Andrewes's sermon, Manningham
took notes directly—that is, while the preacher spoke. As in all other entries
in the Diary, there are no signs of his recopying shorthand notes, and as in
all other entries except the one on John Donne's epigram "Of a beggar that
lay on the ground," there are no signs of his relying on medium- or longterm
memory. Manningham captures Andrewes's characteristic rhetorical
flourishes, such as his alliteration ("The Holy Ghost is not given to all in
the same measure, nor the same manner" [fol. 24]), and especially his imagery,

balanced syntax, and repetition ("Wee knowe that bread is the strength
of mans hart, yet sometymes it may be expedient to fast: our bloud is the
treasury of our lyfe, yet sometymes it is expedient to loose it; our eyesight is
deare and precious unto us, yet sometymes it is expedient to sitt in a darke
roome" [fol. 23]). The evidence I have gathered from oral sermon sources as
well as printed and manuscript texts further indicates that Manningham's
notes on Andrewes's sermon do not constitute a word-for-word or complete
record. Rather, while Manningham captures some of his sources' exact wording,
as in his notes on Samuel Rowlands's Tis Merrie When Gossips Meete
and Thomas Stapleton's Orationes Academicæ, he also freely shifts his notetaking
technique and writes paraphrases and summaries, as in many of his
entries on printed prose tracts, such as those by William Watson, John Hayward,
and Thomas Floyd, and on many manuscripts, though his notes on
Andrewes's sermon do not appear to contain any instances of radical compression.
We are fortunate not only that Manningham and his little book
were present when Andrewes preached on Whit-Sunday in 1602, but also
that Andrewes consulted his own sermons and lectures so often. A number
of printed and manuscript texts that have been identified as possibly being
by him might find their attributions strengthened because his echoes and repetitions
make apparent the connections with canonical texts, as is the case
with the Orphan Lectures and various manuscripts. Just as only one source—
John Manningham's Diary—contains evidence about two of Donne's Paradoxes
that are not extant, so only the Diary provides the necessary information
to connect the 1602 sermon to a later Whit-Sunday sermon by Andrewes.
In each instance, the diarist's intervention is a fluke of history. The evidence
is overwhelming that Manningham, precisely as he did when taking notes as
Wakeman and Spenser preached, leaves a fairly full, reasonably reliable, and
in this instance unique account of the event.