Spiritual meditations : Religious writing c. 31 August 1683 and 14 March 1685.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Adam Matthew Digital (Firm), digitiser.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Drawing.

Meditation.

Title pages.

Inscriptions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Marlborough, Wiltshire : Adam Matthew Digital, 2008.

Summary:

Internal evidence for start-date of 31 August 1683 only. End-date of 14 March 1685 is the date of Mary Evelyn's death.

Notes:

AMDigital Reference:Add. MS 78441

Add. MS 78441 was formerly catalogued as Evelyn MS 92 when the archive was held at Christ Church, Oxford, and was given the temporary shelfmark Evelyn MS ME13 while the entire Evelyn archive was recatalogued for the British Library. Add. MS 78441 is a collection of spiritual meditations, compiled by Mary Evelyn, daughter of the diarist Evelyn. In a note on fol. 1, dated Friday 31 August 1683, Evelyn explains that she had begun to compile this collection 'in London in the Winter', apparently as loose papers, and has now decided 'to put all in one Book' in case any of the papers should be lost. The 'Miscelania' (Evelyn's title for the book, fol. 3) begins formally with a drawing of an altar, dated July 1684 (fol. 2v) and a title-page with centred title, date and two epigraphs. The rest of the document consists of meditations on spiritual subjects such as prayer and preparation for communion. She also explores issues such as whether she can conscientiously take part in worldly activities, such as dancing and play-going. These issues appear to have arisen at a time when Evelyn was staying with friends of her family in London, and had to reconsider the spiritual instruction she had received from her father to take account of the different circumstances which obtained in the city, rather than the country, and in a household less committed to the routines of spiritual life than the Evelyns' at Deptford. Evelyn's 'Miscelania' has much in common with two documents now held in British Library box ME 12, John Evelyn's 'Directions for the Employment of your Time', addressed to Mary, and Mary's own 'Necessary Additions to those Directions of my Father's when I was at Sayes Court', i.e. the family home in Deptford. The 'Miscelania' manuscript has the appearance of a fair copy - words are added above the line, as if they had been omitted in transcription from the exemplar - although it is possible that the last few pages (e.g. from fol. 15r onwards), which are less carefully organised, are a first draft

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