Item 36 - Poems of the time of Charles II, Part I

This volume and Crewe MS 37 form a set. The compilation is similar to one in the National Library of Scotland (Advocates’ Library, MS 19.1.12), and several items only occur in MS in these two collections: see e.g. Crewe MS 37, ff. 133–4, 199–200, and 285–7; Crewe MS 38, f. 62–4. The spine-labels record that the contents were collected for Robert, Viscount Bodmin, but though the copies of diplomatic documents at one end of the first book (pp. 315–21) are probably in his hand, the remaining items cannot have been copied for him, because many of them, including the very second (pp. 5–14), were composed after his death in 1682. The diplomatic documents, which were written before the other contents, must have been written some time between 1679, the date of the earliest, and 1682. The remaining contents, which appear to have been written by one writer over a fairly short period, were probably written about 1689, the approximate date of the latest items. The armorial bookplates of Jonathan Boucher and Robert, Earl of Crewe, are pasted inside the front cover. The former bears some pencil marks which may relate to a sale.