A Note on Milton's Annotated Copy of Gildas in Harvard University (Widener) Library

Author(s): W. H. Davies
Source: Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 15 (1939), pp. 49-51
Published by: British School at Rome
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40310458 .
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A NOTE ON MILTON'S ANNOTATED COPY OF GILDAS IN

HARVARD UNIVERSITY (WIDENER) LIBRARY
On pages 75-80 of the HarvardStudiesand Notesin Philology
andLiterature,

VoL XX (1938), is an article(with facsimiles)by Mr. J. Milton French

entitled'Milton's AnnotatedCopy of Gildas'. It deals witha copy,in the
WidenerLibrary(shelfnumberBr. 98.319F), of H. Commelinus1Rerum
at Praecipui,Heidelberg (1587), given
Vetustiores
. Scriptores
Britannicarum

to the libraryabout 1765 by Thomas Hollis. This book containson pages

113-146the 'De Excidio et ConquestuBritanniaeEpstola' of Gildas. A
formerownerhas insertedthirteenbriefmarginalnotes on pages 114-123,
on variousmattersin Ch. 1-33of the 'De Excidiof
comments
i.e. explanatory
to
Mommsen's
edition;Mon. Germ.Hist., Auct.Ant.,
(numberedaccording
of thebook,containing
XIII, Chron.Min.iiifBerlin1894- 8), The remainder
Britanniae9
'Historiae
the
'HistoriaBritannica'
Regum
Geoffrey's
(pp. 1-92),
in sixbooksofPonticusVirunnius(pp. 93-112),Bede's 'Ecclesiastical
History*
(pp. 147-280), a 'De GestisAnglorumLibri Tres' (pp. 281-348), William
of Newburgh's'Rerum AnglicarumLibri Quinqu' (pp. 353-496) and
Froissart's'HistoriarumEpitome' (pp. 497-568), has no marginalia.
To anyonefamiliarwiththeearlyeditionsof Gildasit is at onceobvious
of the printed
that all the 'Miltonic' marginaliaare mere transcriptions
marginaliain Josseline'seditionof the 'De Excidio Britanniae'(London
now
1568)- an editionwhich,owingto its readingsfroma MS. represented
for
Brit. MuseumVit. A. VI, is of primaryimportance
by the fragmentary
a
the
This
will
be
shown
text.
few
establishing
amply
by
comparisons
betweenthe 'Miltonic' marginalia
thereis no need to giveall the thirteenand thosefoundin thevolumesof Josseline'seditionin theBritishMuseum
(C. 76. a. 12) and CambridgeUniversityLibrary(Syn. 8. 56. 73). The
numbersare thoseof Mr. French.1
'Miltonic' Marginalia.
1 P. 114. 1. 21: i. frustra.
i. perspicue.
2 P. 116. 1. 2: Bunduicasiue Voadicia 80000.
Tacit: regnante
Dion: 70000. Romanorum
Neronediciturinteremisse.

Josseline'sMarginalia.
P. 4a: dixissepedi. i. frustra
dixisse:manufateri
oratio,ut manudocere,i. aperteet
prouerbialis
perspicuedocere.
P. 8b: Haec virilisfeminaBun(d)uicasiueVoadicia
nomineapud DionemCassium80000 Romanorum 70000 apud TaciturnregnanteNerone
diciturinteremisse.

1 For Nos. 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 videJosseline,pp. 12b, 16b, 16b,20a, 21a, 25a respectively.
H

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5o

THE BRITISH SCHOOL

'Miltonic' Marginalia.
4 P. 117. 1. 45: i. terravcl humo.
5 P. 118. 1. 6: (G)alfridus habet (s)tcmmata:
Polyd: (s)igna.
6 P. 1 18. 1. 19: (C)uruca i. Nauis. sic (i)n vet:
M.S. de Interp: verborumexplicatum.
II

P. 120. 1. 50: Anno Christi 493. Bed. ca:

16.I1: 1.

13 P. 123. 1. 7: palata. admissa. i. aperta delicta.

AT ROME

Josseline'sMarginalia.
P. 14a: Sablone, i. terravel humo.
P. 15a: Galfridus pro stigmata habet stemmata,
Polydorus ex coniecturamutans habet signa.
P. 15b: curuca,i. nauis, sic in vetustiss,imis
manuscriptis libris de interpretationibusverborum
. * explicatum.
P. 23a: Adventus Saxonum in Britanniamannus
quadragesimus quartus, ut Beda indicat cap.
16 lib. 1 fuit annus Christi49 3.
P. 29b: palata admissa. id est. aperta delicta.

The article by Mr. French opens by assuming,without

any reservation,
that 'one furtherbook from Milton's
has
library
very recentlybeen discovered', and then proceeds to describe 'its precious cargo of notes' and
'Miltonic comments1(ibid., pp. 75, 78). Later it is assertedthat the notes
'in several ways . . show the influence of the
English translation of
2
Hildas which appeared in that year' (i.e., 1638: ibid.,
p. 79) and illustrate?
3
'Milton's habitual sifting of the truth of the
printed statement . ... ,
his activity as a lexicographer. . his keen relish for minute shades of
meaning and for the flavorsof unusual words' (ibid., p. 80). It concludes
with the sentence(ibid., -p.80): In a veryminor fashion,these
marginaliain
the Gildas volume are chips from the same
that
fashioned
the
workshop
satiricalinvectivesagainstSalmasius and the
discourses
of
heavenly
Raphael/
In the light of the analysisof the marginalia
alreadygiven,no detailed comment is necessaryon these deductions.
Two points, however, remain to be examined, 'The
handwriting',
I see no reason to
says Mr. French on page 76, 'is most convincing ...
doubt that the writerof the annotations in the Pindar, the
Euripides, the
and
the
Bible
in
the
British
Museum, to say nothing of the
Lycophron,
Cambridge Manuscript and the Commonplace Book, was one with the
writerof these marginalia.' Here opinions must
greatlydiffer.The scriptof
most of the worksmentionedwhich is accessiblefor
comparisonin facsimiles
shows a preponderanceof cursiveformsveryunlike the ratherset minuscules
of the notes under consideration.4A close
comparisonof the lettersreveals
2 English
translation,
'printedby T. Cotes for W.
parts,Oxford1925-1932(in a description
of nos. UICooke' on thetitle-page,
witha portrait
(!) by Marshall: LIII in part2 it is statedthatsome of the 'numerous
London1638. The translator
followsthetextofPolydore marginalia'who is
-genuine,accordingto Sotiheby,"
- are doubtful).The Pindar notes
Vergilin manyplaces; hence some of the translations 'rather uncritical*
Mr.
French
are defective.
quotedby
(HarvardUniv. Lib., Sum. 123) have the samegeneral
8 It;
maybe remarkedthatmanyof Josseline'smar- appearanceas theGildasianmarginalia,
buttheindividual
are
omitted
'Milton*.
ginalia
entirely
by
lettersshow manydivergences.The J-form
of I occurs
4 Cf. forMilton,
Milton
1
608-1
'John
674: Facsimiles onlyoncein ournotes
an articlein ModernPhilology*
of Autographsand Documentsin the BritishMuseum' Vol. XIX no. 3, Feb. (Cf.
^22, byE. K. Rand,on 'Jandfin
intheElucida- Miltons Latin Script').For a general
(Brit.Mus. 1908);S. L. Sotheby,Rumblings
study,cf. S. A.
tionof theAutograph
London
and
esof Milton,
1861;
Tannenbaum, The Handwritingof the Renaissance,
W.
W.
New
pecially
Greg, EnglishLiteraryAutographs,
an excellent
3
York, 1930(containing
bibliography)

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NOTE ON MILTON'S ANNOTATED COPY OF GILDAS

51

as similarities*
Nor are our 'Miltonic* marginalia
as many differences
of a clear-cutdistinctive
utilisedfromthe sixteenth
type,for manuscripts
often
have
notes
in
this
onwards
marginal
styleof hand.5It would
century
to know, too, how often Milton used the four diamondbe interesting
as
reference
markin thetextto his marginalia,
a
forI havenoted
dots
shaped
and thePindar
onlya roughcrossin thefacsimiles
The secondpoint is, as Mr* Frenchpointsout, thata quotationin the
Book(f* 195) is given from page 119 of Gildas- a reference
Commonplace
applicableonly to Commelinus'volume*This would indicatethat Milton
used a copyof Commelinus*But supposinghe ownedsucha copy- and the
Bookand History
contentsof his Commonplace
ofBritainindicatehis familiarity
withthe historiescontainedin this work is it likelythathe would have
chosencertainpartsof Gildas only for marginalia?And could not many
otherhistorians,earlierand later,have used such a handycompendium?
Again,the copyistof marginalnote 5 did not evencheck 'stemmata'with
textin the samevolume(p* 39, Bk*VI, Ch* 2, where'stigmata*
Geoffrey's
is quite plain)* Milton's own datingof the Battleof Badon is a.d. 527
of '(de) curucis*
(Hist. Brit.,Bk*3: cf*marg*note 2 above)* His translation
as
French
wouldsuppose,
not
so
curious
Mr*
is
as
note
(videmarg*
6) 'gorroghs'
for 'carroghes'occursin a similarpassagein Holland's Camdenof 1610whichMilton had read; and 'currok',in the sense of the Irish 'curach',
on
influence
meaninga 'littleship',is foundabouta*d*1450.6The presumed
the
of 1638is largelydiscredited
Miltonof theEnglishtranslation
analysis
by
historical
the
that
utilised
Milton
be
it
must
nor
earlier;
forgotten
given
worksof Camden,Buchanan,etc*,and that his commandof Latin was
combinedwith a remarkableflairfor translatingit into terse,vigorous
English*7
withtheabsenceof Milton's signature
All theseconsiderations,
together
- 'the page (which presumablyit formerly
had) containinghis signature'
being lost (Mr* French,p* 78)- make any definite,not to say probable,
ascriptionto Milton a matterof keen dispute*Convincingproofis as yet
of
as a contribution
lacking*What is certainis thatthenotesin themselves,
Andwe arefarfromsharingMr*French'sconviction
'Milton', areworthless*
that 'one furtherbook from Milton's libraryhas very recentlybeen
W* H* Davies.
discovered'*
6 The distinctive
Anglo-Saxonscriptof 'nest'in marg.
note 10 is also foundin Josseline's
marginalia.
Vide Oxford English Dictionaryunder curach\
=
Cf. Welsh 'corwg' coracle.Probably'carroghes'is a
misprintfor 'curroghes*(ibid.). On the question of
Milton'ssources for die Historyof Britain,vide H.
Glicksmanin the University
of WisconsinStudiesin

Language and Literature,No. n, 1920, pp. 105-144

theregiven). It is notedthatMilton
(and thereferences
made greatuse of Gildas,but no fulldetailsare given.
Milton'sextensiveuse of original authoritiesis also
indicated.
7 Vide
precedingnote.

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