Meditations : Religious writing 28 January 1694 - 16 December 1695.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Meditation.

Edinburgh (Scotland).

Dunfermline (Scotland).

Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France).

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Summary:

The manuscript remained in the library at Pitfirrane House, seat of the Halkett family, until it was purchased by the National Library of Scotland in 1951-52 (though it was borrowed from Pitfirrane on two occasions).

Notes:

AMDigital Reference:MS 6500

National Library of Scotland MS 6500 is the twelfth of fourteen extant manuscripts of religious meditations written by Anne, Lady Halkett. For a discussion of all of the surviving manuscripts plus the lost volumes, see the Context and Purpose article in NLS MS 6489. This manuscript consists of select or biblical meditations, followed by occasional meditations, followed by select meditations, and finally by occasional meditations again. The first group of select meditations are on the topics of watchfulness, Matthew 25:13 (pp.1-33, msItem 2); of restraining the tongue, Psalm 39:1-4 (pp.34-58, msItem 3); of avoiding carefulness, Philippians 4:6-7 (pp.59-86, msItem 4); of the grace of God and the fruits it should produce, Titus 2:11-14 (pp.87-135, msItem 5); of prayer (pp.136-145, msItem 6); and on Leviticus 19:2 (pp.146-157, msItem 7). The occasional meditations begin on p.158 and continue to p.237. The range of topics is typically broad: personal and political matters of every description are treated side by side. The next section of select meditations treats the following topics: on learning to be content, Philippians 4:11 (pp.238-268, msItem 25); on being God's husbandry, 1 Corinthians 3:9 (pp.269-278, msItem 26); on Psalm 139:23-24 (pp.278-282, msItem 27); and on Matthew 11:29-30 (pp.283-297, msItem 28). Occasional meditations then fill the volume from pp.298-375. Towards the end of the volume is a meditation on Queen Mary II's death which Halkett begins with a direct statement of her distaste for both the deceased and the fast which has been ordered in her memory: "I cannot omit to make some remarks upon the fast that is kept here this day by proclamation upon the Queen's death as they called her (who died upon Friday the 28 of December 1694 and is to be kept as a national humiliation)" (pp.370-372, msItem 71). Halkett wishes that the queen had been loyal to her father, James II, instead of her husband, William III. On the verso of the final page and the back pastedown (pp. ii-iii) Halkett has written a table of contents. Halkett did not compile this manuscript sequentially. First she began writing the select meditations (pp.1-157) on or after 18 February 1694. She then started a new section for occasional meditations from pp.298-375, which she began writing on 29 March 1694. Dates suggest that she added material to both of these sections at the same time, and finished them both during the same month. After she finished writing occasional meditations on p.375 (on 6 February 1695) she returned to a blank portion of the book and began to write more occasional meditations from pp.158-237 (from 12 March 1695 to 30 April 1695). Then she wrote the select meditations from pp.238-297 (from 9 September 1695 to 16 December 1695). In the last of these select meditations (on p. 283) Halkett explains that she must keep this meditation short, "Having but few leaves left till I come to the occasional meditations page 300 begun March 1694" (Halkett's p.300 is really p.298). On p.297 the writing is tiny as she tries to cram it in before the occasional meditations, and it is also tiny on the final page of the volume (p.375). At the beginning of a meditation dated 26 February 1695, the final meditation in the first section of select meditations, Halkett explains that she has been attaching papers to the spine of each of her volumes of meditations with the dates (although if a scrap of paper was once affixed to this volume's spine, it does not survive). She also writes that she resolves to transcribe the tables of contents of all of her manuscripts, to help her find a subject she would like to read and to be more useful to any who should see her manuscripts after her death (NLS MS 6500, p.146, msItem 7). Halkett is here, as she has done elsewhere in her manuscripts, expressing an interest in a readership after her death.