Copy number: E-030(1)

On this copy see Snedegar 263.

Binding: Seventeenth-century English (Oxford?) calf, bound for Elias Ashmole; two metal clasps hinged from upper to lower cover; the arms of Ashmole stamped on the clasps, and, in gilt, on the spine. Remains of index tabs.

Size: 314 × 218 × 52 mm.

Size of leaf: 305 × 207 mm.

Parchment front endleaf, formerly used as a pastedown, contains part of a rent roll, written in a fourteenth-century(?) anglicana hand.

Two leaves of early manuscript text inserted between &8 and A1: these contain the omissions noted by William Lilly (see below), and printed in his Merlini Anglici Ephemeris, Or Astrological Judgements for the year 1674 (London: J. Macock, 1674), B5v –C1r; three leaves of diagrams inserted between f5 and f6, D4 and D5, and between D5 and D6; copious marginal notes and numerous corrections of the text, some of each in red ink; many corrections in the hand of John Woodhouse, secretary to Dr Richard Forster, who had Woodhouse correct his Summa against a manuscript then in Merton College, Oxford, now Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 714 (see below and Snedegar 263). Manuscript tables on [*1r]. Notes on parchment front endleaf, by Forster, on plagues in England.

Initials and occasional paragraph marks are supplied in red.

Provenance: William(?) Carey († Mar. 1572/3). Richard Forster (1546?-1616); received the book in 1573 from Carey: inscription on verso of parchment front endleaf: ‘Liber Richardi Forster ex dono Magistri Carei [ ] Febr. 1573'. Nicholas Fiske (?1575-1659). Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), by purchase from Fiske; arms stamped as above. The provenances are recorded in Lilly, Merlini Anglici Ephemeris, C1r: ‘Doctor Forster sometime President of the Colledge of Physitians London, about the year 1608, borrowed the original manuscript out of Merton Colledge Library, in Oxford, by which his then servant John Woodhouse (who heretofore wrote an Almanack under that name) corrected the Doctors printed book (wherein were a multitude of faults in every page). Upon the Doctors death Mr. Nicholas Fiske obtained the corrected printed books (by which in 1642, we amended ours) afterwards Mr. Fiske sold it to my worthy patron Elias Ashmole Esq., in whose library it now remains, and of considerable esteem, in regard the original manuscript is since lost out of Merton Colledge Library, and no where to be met with that I could ever hear of: Habent sua fata libelli'; this paragraph was apparently drafted jointly by Lilly and Ashmole: see Elias Ashmole, ed. Josten, IV 1376-7. Transferred in 1860.

SHELFMARK: Ashm. 576.

Copy number: E-030(2)

Binding: Sixteenth-century English blind-tooled calf; two ties lost. Formerly chained: staple-marks of a hasp at head of the upper cover. On both covers triple fillets form a border, inside which is an ornamental roll (Oldham, Blind-stamped Bindings, pl. LIII, no. 896). Triple fillets form concentric frames; inside the inner one is a further ornamental roll (Oldham, Blind-stamped Bindings, pl. XXXIX, no. 611). No. ‘21' at the head of fore-edge in black ink. The upper cover detached.

Size: 297 × 203 × 43 mm.

Size of leaf: 288 × 184 mm.

Early marginal notes and underlining in the text, some in red. Manuscript diagram on recto of front endleaf.

Provenance: Robert Toteayd (fl. c.1500); signature on [*2r]: ‘M[aster] Rob[ertus] Toteayd'. John Selden (1584-1654); Greek motto on [*2r]; see MS. Broxb. 84. 10, p. 9. Presented in 1659.

Former Bodleian shelfmarks: S. Seld. d.12; D 1. 21 Art. Seld.

SHELFMARK: E 1. 23 Art. Seld.

Copy number: E-030(3)

Wanting the gathering [*].

Binding: Seventeenth-century English calf; two ties lost. Formerly chained: staple-marks of a hasp at head of the upper cover. On both covers triple fillets form a border; ornamental centre-piece, with drums, arrows, and skull, 120 × 95 mm. No. ‘13' on fore-edge in black ink.

Size: 313 × 222 × 48 mm.

Size of leaf: 305 × 195 mm.

Early marginal notes, ‘nota' marks, and underlining in and corrections to the text in black ink.

On a1r a 12-line initial ‘I' is supplied in blue, on a ground of red with reserved white floral decoration, and with a green pen-work border and extensions into the margins; other initials are supplied in red or blue; capital strokes in red.

Provenance: Acquired by 1605: see James, Catalogus (1605), 315.

Former Bodleian shelfmarks: E 1.5 Art; D 7.13 Art.

SHELFMARK: Auct. 2Q 4.6.