Two hundred page miniature commonplace book, and grammar school work-book, compiled by a future Prebendary of Carlisle Cathedral during his childhood in rural Cumberland. The manuscript’s writer, the young Erasmus Head, states that he was 14 when he began this manuscript, probably under the tutelage of a teacher at Dalston Grammar School in his native village. Adjacent to Rose Castle, residence of the Bishops of Carlisle, Dalston Grammar School had been endowed in the 1690s by the Bishop of Carlisle and had close connections to Cambridge University where Head would begin studying within a year of beginning this manuscript - parts of it could date from his undergraduate years.
On the evidence of this manuscript, Head’s early education conforms to a fairly conservative model of English grammar school curriculum, taking in major humanist authors, primarily Virgil’s Georgics, and then offering a series of dialogues on Lucian, Homer, Hesiod, Horace, virgil, Juvenal and Persio. During this period Georgics Book IV was both taught as poetry but also used by figures like John Martyn as a practical guide to animal husbandry and botany - it could connect the study of classical Latin to more progressive ideals of scientific observation. However it is the only work cited in Head’s manuscript from which such conclusions can be drawn.
Early 18th century manuscripts of this kind are very scarce in commerce.
ERASMUS HEAD (b1701) was the son of John Head, of Dalston, Cumberland, matriculating at Queen’s College, Cambridge, 1727, (aged 16); B.A. 1731, M.A. 1735, Prebendary of Carlisle Cathedral. He published:
A Sermon Preached at the Ordination held at Rose-Castle (1746) and:
Loyalty recommended on proper principles... preached in the Cathedral Church of Carlisle (1747) - reflecting on the horrific aftermath of the ‘45 rebellion and reprisals and executions then in hand in his home city.
Southern Methodist University holds a manuscript codex in Erasmus Head’s hand: A compendious system of natural and revealed religion, ’compiled from the most judicious and eminent writers by Erasmus Head, M.A. prebendary of Carlisle, vicar of Whitt[in]gham and of Newburne in Northumberland.’
DESCRIPTION:
(7.6x4.9cm) black morocco, presumed to be a 19th century imitation of an earlier binding with extensive gilt decoration and ‘Erasmus Head’s MSS. 1726’ to the spine; gilt roll to the edges of the boards. Marbled endpapers; two later endpapers precede the earlier text block. It seems possible that the order of Head’s manuscript may have been tampered with during the 19th century refurbishment, with the extended Virgil text appearing after the dialogues rather than before.
Text now begins with
1 ‘The Fourth Book of Virgil’s Georgicks’; inserting ‘Another argument of Herennius Modestinus a Lawyer’ (40pp, c150 words per page/ 6000 words). Ends with ‘Finis’
Blank leaf and then ‘Aristophanis Argumentum Caline’ [pp] 2
2 Title page: ‘Luciani Samosalensis Viri Ingenio ac Eloquentia... Erasmus Head Anno Statis 14-15 Annoq Domini 1726 hoc scripsit et mediatus est
‘Luciani Samosalensis in Dialogis selecta Notae’ - 12 of Lucian’s dialogues, most separated by blank sheets and with Erasmus Head’s statement of authorship ending several. A mixture of Latin and Greek. [pp] 86, c13000 words
3 Annotationes quaedam Homericae [pp] 18, c2750 words - dialogue format
4 Annotationes quaedam in Hesiodi Principo [pp] 14, c2200 words
5 Quaedam annotationes at observationes Horatianes [pp] 18, c2750 words
6 Quaedam Annotatines aut Observationes Virgilianes [pp] 14, c2200 words
7 In Juvenale Observationes [pp] 2, c300 words
8 In Persio Observationes [pp] 6, c900 words
