A mother's legacy to her unborn child : Advice 1622.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prayer.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Notes:

AMDigital Reference:Add. MS 27467

This manuscript appears to be authorial, written in 1622 during Elizabeth Jocelin's pregnancy and before her death in childbed. The British Library holds two versions of Elizabeth Jocelin's legacy, one a manuscript "authorized" by the Calvinist minister Thomas Goad in his preface to Jocelin's text and approved by him for print publication (British Library Additional MS 4378), the other a manuscript showing signs of authorial revision (British Library Additional MS 27467). The latter version is autographed "Eliza Joscelin", and the hand which has transcribed the text appears to be the same throughout, so that the alterations which appear from time to time, words crossed out or inserted, have a very strong claim to being Jocelin's own revisions. In an article Brown, 2000and an edition of Jocelin's legacy, Brown, 1999 Sylvia Brown has noted the differences between the two manuscripts. Note that in the present manuscript there is no section twelve among the numbered sections of advice: the numbering skips from eleven to thirteen. In the other version of this manuscript, (British Library Additional MS 4378), section twelve consists of advice to honour and obey parents. That segment of the manuscript is also present in this manuscript, but it is included within section eleven. The fact that section thirteen of both manuscripts is advice to remember the golden rule suggests that in the present manuscript the heading for section twelve has been inadvertently omitted. British Library Additional MS 27467 opens with a dedicatory epistle to the author's husband Taurell Jocelin (fols 1r-6r), followed by "A mother's legacy to her unborn child" (fols 7r-44v) comprising a preface and thirteen numbered sections (the heading for the twelfth section has been omitted). In contrast to the British Library's other version of this manuscript, (British Library Additional MS 4378, British Library Additional MS 27467) includes many corrections. Sometimes these corrections are written in a different colour of ink, suggesting that the scribe has returned to revise the text. Because these revisions often involve changes in connotation or emphasis, it is thought that the scribe was Elizabeth Jocelin herself. One owner valued this manuscript quite highly, enough to have it bound lavishly in dark blue velvet with gilt edges.