‘Ut metus absit, retineatur charitas.’ (Cicero.)
Drafts of letters: on financial matters; one addressed to 'your Ladyship', discussing college scholarships; letter to Mr Ballard re brother's will etc; to his mother, one mentioning the death of Dr Hill [Master of Trinity, died 1653]; to Mr Pellat [?]
Some notes in Latin.
In [?] another hand, notes on celestial observations from 30 Nov. 1650 and August 1652, and the solar eclipse of 1652; also notes on significant dates in the writer's life.
Draft of petition [1660] to Charles II forJohn Wilkins to remain as Master of Trinity (a position to which he was appointed by Oliver Cromwell)
Phrases taken from Ovid (Metamorphoses); Latin verse; Greek verse; Latin prose text [perhaps relating to the Acts of St Andrew?]; more Latin verse; notes on [?] Roman law, mentioning Tiberius Gracchus. Notebook also used from other end in: Latin verse, beginning with a phrase taken from Ovid's Ars Amatoria, 'Militiae species amor est' then diverging; further Latin phrases with English equivalents; Latin notes on rhetoric, including on Cicero.
Extracts from Seneca (Hippolytus) and Terence (in secretary hand), Greek verse, and extract from Livy (in an italic hand). Printed text of Ovid Metamorphoses (Book XV, lines 596-834) bound in at end of volume. Before these printed pages, and written from front to back: Greek and Latin notes: extract from an idyll by Theocritus; Latin text, 'Quam tenua est puerorum natura...'; another Latin text, 'Natura sigillas fuit...'; couplets in Greek.
Possibly a translation from Quintus Curtius Rufus, by an unidentified author. Note on the front free endpaper states that it contains a part of the 6th book, with the 7th through 10th books complete.
(Engraved by Abraham Hertochs.)
(A person in classical dress, standing on a small winged globe and holding a banner. Below the device is printed ‘A PARIS’, the first line of the imprint.)
(With the exception of the title, which is ‘An Enquiry into the Causes of the Present Separation from the Church of England’, this engraving is identical to that on f. 86r.)
(A fleur-de-lis, between the letters ‘L A’, in an elaborate frame.)
(Two flying storks, one feeding the other, in a landscape, within an ouroboros.)
(A caduceus held by two hands, below a flying horse, with two horns of plenty in front; the whole within an elaborate frame incorporating various figures.)
(At the centre is a helmet on a plinth, surrounded by birds or bees.)
(Minerva and an owl, standing either side of an olive tree. Minerva holds a shield bearing the head of Medusa and a banner inscribed ‘Ne extra oleas’. This device appears in Descartes’ Tractatus de homine (1677).)
‘In hoc Unusquisque nostrum | Viret ut arescat | Adolescit ut senescat | Ascendit ut descendat | Vivit ut moriatur.’ (‘Guido Bituricensis’ (Guy de Fontenay?).) The year has been struck through.
(A serpent, in a frame, flanked by cherubs, maps and globes, etc. Designed and engraved by François Chauveau.)
A serpent, in a cartouche, flanked by two female figures, one holding a shield and spear, the other a mirror.
(At the centre is a ship in full sail, with buildings and rocks to one side.)
(The illustration depicts the visit of the Magi, within a strapwork frame. At the foot is a printer’s mark containing the initials ‘F. M.’)
(A head breathing on two hands holding a heart, within two mottos: ‘Verbis initur, manibus contrahitur, corde conservatur societas’ and ‘Concordia res parvæ crescunt, discordia maximæ dilabuntur’; the whole within an elaborate frame. Below the device is printed in capitals ‘A Lyon,’ evidently part of the publisher’s imprint.)