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Sir John Harington's Manuscripts in
Italic
by
R. H. Miller
Thanks to P. J. Croft's intricate analysis of Harington's secretary hand,[1] it is now possible not only to affirm his identification of that hand but to show also that three italic manuscripts of works by Sir John Harington have been erroneously identified as autograph. The manuscripts in question are (1) Cambridge Adv. b. 8. 1, a text of 52 epigrams bound in with a copy of his translation of Orlando Furioso (1591) and presented to his mother-in-law, Lady Jane Rogers, dated Dec. 19, 1600; (2) Folger Library V.a.249, a relatively complete text of Harington's epigrams, dated June 19, 1605; (3) British Library Royal 17 B xxii, a presentation copy of Harington's Supplie or Addicion to the Catalogue of Bishops, dated February 18, 1608. These manuscripts are described in Peter Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, I (1980), ii, items HrJ 21, HrJ 22, and HrJ 328, respectively, where they are also listed as autograph.[2] They also appear to be the only manuscripts of Harington's work that are predominantly in the italic hand. Although italic appears frequently in his other manuscripts, they are predominantly in secretary hand.
In his work on Harington's secretary hand, Croft was able to distinguish that hand from at least two scribal hands. What is additionally significant is that what I will call the Croft secretary autograph appears exclusively in tandem with a distinctive italic quite different from that of the three manuscripts noted above, all of which appear to be in the same hand. This Croft italic hand is also consistent with Harington's italic signatures. The consistency of this hand and the Harington signature allows for further substantiation of Croft's conclusions about Harington's secretary hand and also allows us to identify the three italic manuscripts in question as being in a scribal hand.
Two manuscripts in the Croft secretary provide clear examples of Harington's autograph italic. They are B.L. Add. 18920 (Beal HrJ 8), the famous autograph manuscript of the Orlando translation (c. 1590-91), where the head stanzas and marginalia are in italic, and Bodl. Rawl. B. 162 (Beal HrJ 326), Harington's autograph text of his A Short View of the State of Ireland (dated April 20, 1605), where Latin verses appear in italic embedded in the secretary hand of the text. Additional examples can be found in other Harington autograph manuscripts and in his letters. As can be seen from these examples, Harington's italic is a somewhat insecure hand, not as refined as that of a professional scribe nor as assured as his elegant secretary hand. It is characterized by some ligation between the minuscules, lines that show compression of words and letters, and heavily clubbed ascenders and curled descenders. Overall, it has a rather erect, slightly tremulous character.[3]
This italic hand appearing in the Croft secretary autograph is also identical to Harington's signature, of which many examples exist.[4] An example is given below, from the manuscript of the epigrams presented to Lady Rogers, one of the italic manuscripts in question here: only the date and signature in this specimen are autograph.
The signature shows the distinctive tremor, the erect quality of the letters. Especially noticeable is the minuscule t, which is narrow and tall, as it is also in the Croft specimens. The example shows clearly the contrast between the scribal italic of the text of the letter and Harington's date and signature, which is discussed in more detail below.
A comparison of the above italic examples from the Croft secretary autograph and those from the three italic manuscripts shows the same difference between the two hands as is found in the letter to Lady Rogers. Limitations of space prevent reproduction of more than a sampling of specimens from these manuscripts, but those who consult them will find numerous examples that bear out my identification. Harington's clubbed ascenders and curled descenders contrast with the broadly stroked ones of the italic manuscripts. Harington's italic shows again more verticality in the angle of the script and a narrower width to minuscules, particularly in the n and m, and the taller t. Capitals also are less elegantly shaped in Harington's autograph. The three italic manuscripts in question also contain, to a greater or lesser degree, Harington's autograph corrections in italic, which can be identified with ease, and which provide vivid contrasts between the scribal hand and Harington's.[5]
Only the title here is in autograph. Contrast can be seen most clearly in the forms of the d, f, and t.
The phrase "from Bathe" in line 4 of the title is autograph. This same alteration also appears in the poem as it is given in Fo. V.a.249, p. 45.
The corrections in B.L. Royal 17 B xxii are more frequent and provide more contrast between the firm scribal italic and Harington's deteriorating italic as it appeared in late 1607-early 1608, when he had already begun to suffer from ill health, four years before his death.[6] The tremulous lighter stroke, the more erect script, the taller t, are all quite evident. The scribe apparently
After the word "Seneca" Harington's script begins, "agaynst Iuvenile consilium privatum <odium> comodum inuesta odium." In the last line the interpolated word "parcial" can be distinguished as autograph. This is only one of many examples of Harington's overlay of the scribal text with his own revisions throughout the manuscript. Hardly a page is bare of some small notation in his hand.
The question naturally occurs, If this is not Harington's italic, then whose is it? The regular hand appears to be that of Croft's scribe A, which can be seen in both its secretary and italic forms in sections of B.L. Add. 46370 (Beal HrJ 32), a copy also of the Catalogue of Bishops, where it is embedded in scribe A's secretary hand. Examples of scribe A's secretary hand are given in Croft, "Harington's Manuscript," Plates 4 and 6, but they show very little of his italic.
Here one can see in the italic passages the firm scribal hand, characterized by a calligraphic, broad stroke to the letters, especially in the ascenders and descenders, that is identical to that of the three italic manuscripts in question here.
This new identification of the italic handwriting for the Harington texts allows us to understand better the nature and role of these manuscripts in the development of the texts of the epigrams and of the Catalogue of Bishops, though the implications of it are not major so far as these texts are concerned. The two italic manuscripts of the epigrams, Cambr. Adv. b. 8. 1 and Fo. V.a. 249, appear to be intermediate in the developing text of those poems, as B.L. Add. 12049 (Beal HrJ 20), an earlier manuscript than either of these, contains autograph revisions that postdate either Cambr. Adv. b. 8. 1 or Fo. V.a.249 and thus represents a later state of the text. So far as is known, B.L. Royal 17 B xxii remains Harington's final, but not autograph, version of his Catalogue of Bishops as he wanted it preserved and as he oversaw its preparation for presentation to Prince Henry. However, the identification of Harington's italic hand through his signature and its exclusive presence within the Croft secretary autograph further confirms Croft's identification of that hand and clears up the confusion in the earlier discussions of the Harington manuscripts by Greg and also by Ruth Hughey.[7]
Notes
See his "Sir John Harington's Manuscript of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia," in Stephen Parks and Croft, Literary Autographs (1983), pp. 39-75; also Autograph Poetry in the English Language (1973), I, no. 20; and his review of Anthony G. Petti's English Literary Hands from Chaucer to Dryden, in TLS, 24 Feb. 1978, p. 241. I wish to thank the following libraries for permission to reproduce manuscript materials from their collections: the Bodleian for Bodl. MS. Rawl. B. 162, the Folger Shakespeare Library for Fo. MS. V.a.249, the Syndics of Cambridge University Library for Cambr. Adv. b. 8. 1, and the British Library for B.L. Add. MS. 46370, B.L. Add. MS. 18920, and B.L. Royal MS. 17 B xxii.
These manuscripts are described as autograph in, respectively, Catalog of the Folger Shakespeare Library (1971), II: 172-173; W. W. Greg, English Literary Autographs (1932), no. XLV, and my own article (alas), "Sir John Harington's A Supplie or Addicion to the Catalogue of Bishops: Composition and Text," SB, 30 (1977), 150.
Juxtaposed facsimiles of both italic hands, that of B.L. Add. 18920 and Cambr. Adv. b. 8. 1, are given in Greg, no. XLV, items b and c, where he describes both as autograph.
It should also be noted that in Harington's manuscript of his translation and commentary on Book VI of the Aeneid (Berkshire Record Office, Trumbull Add. 23), the Latin text of the Aeneid is in a scribal italic hand, with Harington's translation and commentary in his autograph secretary. A facsimile is given in Beal, pp. 126-127. The contrast between the scribal italic hand and Harington's can be seen in the words Harington glosses from the Latin text and the form those same words take in the Latin text.
See Harington's letters from 1607 on in Norman McClure, Letters and Epigrams of Sir John Harington (1930), pp. 39, 109, 142. Ian Grimble, The Harington Family (1957), p. 148, mentions that by 1607 Harington was so palsied he had to have his son handle some of his correspondence, but I have not been able to discover the source of his information. Harington's late hand, c. 1609, can be seen in B.L. Add. 27632 (Beal HrJ 338) in various places.
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