CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT COPY Mock Poem or Whiggs Supplication part ii.d

Pre-publication manuscript copy of a satire on Presbyterian Covenanters and religious factionalism that managed to ride the Hudibras popularity wave and drew readers from both sides of the partisan divide. Before the poem’s publication in 1681 its author Samuel Covill was already complaining about the manuscript’s extensive circulation (other versions survive at the Brotherton in Leeds, Oxford and in Scotland) but this copy which certainly shares a binding with a manuscript currently offered by Quaritch, though probably not a writer, suggests organised scribal copying went into their production. In this unusual piece of late 17th century scribal production we clearly have a word of mouth hit.

DESCRIPTION: Small quarto bound in panelled sheep, rubbed and scraped, with cloth repair to spine. Gilt panels to boards with central floral motif, also applied at the corners of the gilt panels. All edges gilt. Front pastedown with manuscript shelf mark: ‘B 2.76’ and ‘Con’ opposite. First and second leaves of text near detached at gutter.

Written in an italic hand with flourishes to initial letter and handsome calligraphic title page. Some old damp staining to the text which is complete as such, paginated [1]2-70. The final poem about London rising from the ashes of the great fire of 1666 is presented in the same order as the printed version: English followed by Latin, which concludes the text.