Miscellany : Miscellany c. 1690-1698.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prayer.

Netherlands.

London (England).

Hertford (England).

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Summary:

Cowper states that she began writing the volume in 1690, and then returned to it in 1698. Within the manuscript, she instructs that it should be left to her daughter-in-law, Judith Cowper; however, since Judith died fifteen years before her mother-in-law, it is unlikely that she ever owned the manuscript.

Notes:

AMDigital Reference:D/EP F43

D/EP F43 is another miscellany, containing primarily excerpts from the religious prose works of authors such as Jeremy Taylor, Benjamin Whichcote, Simon Patrick, John Tillotson and Francois de Sales. In a preface to the volume, Sarah Cowper states that she began the collection in 1690, "being then in affliction and under great disturbance of mind". This "disturbance of mind" is apparent in Cowper's uncharacteristically erratic numbering of the leaves, which switches from foliation to pagination, and sometimes skips or repeats numbers. After writing until p.68, she then abandoned the work, returning to it in 1698, despite eye troubles, which forced her to wear spectacles when reading even the "biggest print". At that time, she explains, "I tasked myself to write one page every day, and were it possible (as I hope it is not) that I should never reap other benefit from the perusing of these best thoughts and meditations of learned and good men, yet the present diversion from my own troubled thoughts may render it sufficiently worth my time and labour". She then argues that both Queen Elizabeth and Caesar Augustus provide "great examples" for this "method" of transcribing others' works (fol.1r). While Cowper indicates that she herself hopes to reap benefits from later perusing the document, she also clearly intends for others to read it: like D/EP F41, she dedicates this volume to her son William's first wife, Judith, "desiring she would leave it to some one of the family to be kept in memory" of its compiler.