(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:
There's many deale upon the score for Wyne,
When they should pay, forgett the Vintners Syne.
(fol. 45)[24]
From Thomas Stapleton's Orationes Academicæ, Miscellaneæ Triginta Qvatvor
(1600), Manningham confidently reproduces complete passages wordfor-word:
Si Deus justus et potens est, quae eius sacrosanctam religionem violant ab ipso vindicanda relinquii debent? Volet enim quia justus est, et poterit, quia potens.
(fol. 63)
[25]
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:
Watson: First, he [Father Parsons] could not then haue any colour to set out bookes, or anticke shewes (as he hath) or to blaze it abroad in all nations, how cruell, tyrannicall, and inhumane the persecution of Catholikes is in England. Secondly, he could no longer after haue blowne the infamous blasts that course both sea and land, he affirming England to be the nurcery of faction, sedition, and of all mischiefe wrought throughout the world. . . . Thirdly, he could not by al likelihood haue had any Catholike Prince or other in Christendome to haue banded on his side. . . . Sixtly, his baits
had bene worth nothing for enticing and alluring of any subiect to rebellion. . . . Seuenthly, this tolleration or liberty of cõscience, wold quite haue cut off two bloudy hopes, which
Parsons hath in al his practises: to wit, aswel the indãgering of her Maiesties royall person. . . .
[26]
Manningham: His [Watson's] sp[ecia]ll argumentes for a tolleracion in relligion:
- 1. that yf a tolleracion were induced, then there should be noe collor to publishe bookes howe tyrannicall the persecution of Catholiks is.
- 2. Then England should not be called the nursery of faction.
- 3. Then the Spaniard should have noe Prince to band on his side.
- 6. The subjects would not be so fitt to be allured to rebellion.
- 7. The safety of hir Majesties person mutche procured.
(fol. 14-14b)
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:
Hayward: the parliament in England by Henrie the first; who in the sixteenth yeare of his raigne, called a councell of all the states of his realme at Salisburie, which our Historiographers do take for the first Parliament in England.[27]
Manningham: In K. Henry the first tyme the 16[th] yeare of his raigne the first parliament in England.
(fol. 130)
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:
Floyd: Like as a battered or a crazed ship by letting in of water, not only drowneth her selfe, but all that are in her: so a king or a vitious tyrant, by vsing detestable enormities, destroyeth not himselfe alone, but all others beside that are vnder his gouernment. . . .[28]
Manningham: A wicked king is like a crazed ship, which drownes both selfe and all that are in it.
(fol. 6b)
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:
Warner: For long agoe the Calendar of Women-Saints was filde, Fewe not to opportunitie, importunated, yeild.[29]
Manningham: The callender of women saynts was full long agoe. That [there?] are soe fewe nowe that will not yield to opportunity, yf they be importuned.
(fol. 60)
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:
Warner: A Womans Loue is Riuer-like, which, stopt, will ouer-flow, But when the Currant finds no let it often fals too lowe.[30]
Manningham: A Womans love is river-like, which stopt doth overflowe, But when the river finds noe lett, it often runnes too lowe.
(fol. 60)
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.
