Items
Details
Title
Shakespeare miscellany [manuscript], 1769-1770.
Description
[56], [17] p. ; 24 X 19 cm
Associated name
Hobbins, Frances, 1754- author.
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Dealer's description: 4to [24 x 19], pp. [56] each with a decorative printed boarder of which 17 pages blank; original decorative wrappers with an engraving of Shakespeare’s memorial and another print [see below], somewhat frayed and torn at edges, evidence of excising and covers detached, but still a good example. Frances Hobbins was born on the 28th November 1754 and so would have been between 16 and 17 years old when she briefly took lessons from a writing master. Frances was probably taught by a itinerant writing-master, something which appears to be confirmed by each of the exercises being dated from April to June 1769, although there is some additional work eighteen months later in December 1770. The writing master probably supplied the unusually decorative notebook, not only have the pages a patterned edge to them but also have two illustrations on the covers, one an unrecorded print of Shakespeare’s monument at Westminster Abbey copied from an earlier engraving by J. Maurer and the other, also an unrecorded print after Cornelis Vissche’s the ‘The Mousetrap’. The use of Shakespeare on the cover may indeed point to a local product in the Warwickshire area and may have been produced as an acknowledgement in advance of the famous David Garrick Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769, that was held at Stratford. The title of the first exercise in decorative copperplate within red rules ‘To a Lady very fearful of thunder.’ - the poem was published first in the Gentleman’s Magazine for August of the preceding year. The next exercise is to write out a page of the line ‘Recreations, if innocent are lawful.’ each line being subjoined with her name and then dated 4th May 1769, that being accomplished Frances then seemed more secure in her abilities to write her name, dated as at the beginning of the notebook. For the next few weeks she practices her hand in quotes and scriptural passages, however on the May 25th, 1769 are three receipts ‘Receiv’d of Timothy Tenant, One Pound Eighteen Shillings, for a Quarters Rent, due at Lady Day last. by me Francis Hobbins.’ This strongly points to the instructor as being both a teacher of ‘Penmanship and Accompts’ something of bedfellows trades when the teaching clerks and office boys in a good round hand for accounting and like transactions were a necessary accomplishment. Steadily Frances builds up her confidence and another poem ‘The Rural philosopher’ some eight pages long and again from the same copy of Gentleman’s Magazine is given as something like a final exercise; a shorter poem on ‘Honesty’ is penned a two days later. Frances took her pen up again in December 1770 and thought to fill in three blank pages that had been skipped, very likely this was done under her own aegis. There is little enough information on writing masters who travelled around Britain in the eighteenth century and virtually nothing on the the education of young ladies in provincial Warwickshire except their surviving notebooks. Aileen Douglas in her essay ‘Making their Mark: Eighteenth-Century Writing-Masters and their Copy-books ‘ published in the Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies notes that ‘Martin Billingsley had recommended italic generally, and, at the end of the century, several round hand copy-books aimed at both men and women were published. Eighteenth-century copy-books, however, explicitly design their round hand samples not only for men but for those involved in trade. Women, rarely considered, are identified only as writers of italic. For example, a section of George Bickham’s English Monarchical Writing-Master (1756), is devoted to an “Italian Copy-Book” of Ladies’ Hands. A decade later, in his Treatise on the Art of Writing, Ambrose Serle speaks of italic as being “peculiarly practised by the Ladies”.’ This does show that there was some slight effort to teach a good writing hand to girls as well as boys, but on the whole this was something more perfunctory in a girls education. We know little of Frances’ life but from various sources we have established that she was born at Sambourne, a small town some 12 miles from Stratford upon Avon and 20 miles from Warwick. She married Joseph Brandish (1751-1821) a surgeon from Alchester, a few miles away from Sambourne, on the 14th February 1776. We know a little more of Joseph as he published his Observations on the use of caustic alkali in scrofula and other chronic diseases in 1811 where he called himself ‘Surgeon to the Duke of Sussex’ apparently from helping him through an asthma attack. Francis lived on at Alchester until her death, aged 88, in 1843, she probably formed part of an outer circle of friends to the poet Anna Seward for a letter to one of Frances’ daughters from 1793 is published in the edition of Seward’s letters - further research might discover more information."
Curators agree this should be cataloged as a manuscript, but also want descriptions of the two unrecorded prints. See CDM or HW for more information.
Dealer's description: 4to [24 x 19], pp. [56] each with a decorative printed boarder of which 17 pages blank; original decorative wrappers with an engraving of Shakespeare’s memorial and another print [see below], somewhat frayed and torn at edges, evidence of excising and covers detached, but still a good example. Frances Hobbins was born on the 28th November 1754 and so would have been between 16 and 17 years old when she briefly took lessons from a writing master. Frances was probably taught by a itinerant writing-master, something which appears to be confirmed by each of the exercises being dated from April to June 1769, although there is some additional work eighteen months later in December 1770. The writing master probably supplied the unusually decorative notebook, not only have the pages a patterned edge to them but also have two illustrations on the covers, one an unrecorded print of Shakespeare’s monument at Westminster Abbey copied from an earlier engraving by J. Maurer and the other, also an unrecorded print after Cornelis Vissche’s the ‘The Mousetrap’. The use of Shakespeare on the cover may indeed point to a local product in the Warwickshire area and may have been produced as an acknowledgement in advance of the famous David Garrick Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769, that was held at Stratford. The title of the first exercise in decorative copperplate within red rules ‘To a Lady very fearful of thunder.’ - the poem was published first in the Gentleman’s Magazine for August of the preceding year. The next exercise is to write out a page of the line ‘Recreations, if innocent are lawful.’ each line being subjoined with her name and then dated 4th May 1769, that being accomplished Frances then seemed more secure in her abilities to write her name, dated as at the beginning of the notebook. For the next few weeks she practices her hand in quotes and scriptural passages, however on the May 25th, 1769 are three receipts ‘Receiv’d of Timothy Tenant, One Pound Eighteen Shillings, for a Quarters Rent, due at Lady Day last. by me Francis Hobbins.’ This strongly points to the instructor as being both a teacher of ‘Penmanship and Accompts’ something of bedfellows trades when the teaching clerks and office boys in a good round hand for accounting and like transactions were a necessary accomplishment. Steadily Frances builds up her confidence and another poem ‘The Rural philosopher’ some eight pages long and again from the same copy of Gentleman’s Magazine is given as something like a final exercise; a shorter poem on ‘Honesty’ is penned a two days later. Frances took her pen up again in December 1770 and thought to fill in three blank pages that had been skipped, very likely this was done under her own aegis. There is little enough information on writing masters who travelled around Britain in the eighteenth century and virtually nothing on the the education of young ladies in provincial Warwickshire except their surviving notebooks. Aileen Douglas in her essay ‘Making their Mark: Eighteenth-Century Writing-Masters and their Copy-books ‘ published in the Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies notes that ‘Martin Billingsley had recommended italic generally, and, at the end of the century, several round hand copy-books aimed at both men and women were published. Eighteenth-century copy-books, however, explicitly design their round hand samples not only for men but for those involved in trade. Women, rarely considered, are identified only as writers of italic. For example, a section of George Bickham’s English Monarchical Writing-Master (1756), is devoted to an “Italian Copy-Book” of Ladies’ Hands. A decade later, in his Treatise on the Art of Writing, Ambrose Serle speaks of italic as being “peculiarly practised by the Ladies”.’ This does show that there was some slight effort to teach a good writing hand to girls as well as boys, but on the whole this was something more perfunctory in a girls education. We know little of Frances’ life but from various sources we have established that she was born at Sambourne, a small town some 12 miles from Stratford upon Avon and 20 miles from Warwick. She married Joseph Brandish (1751-1821) a surgeon from Alchester, a few miles away from Sambourne, on the 14th February 1776. We know a little more of Joseph as he published his Observations on the use of caustic alkali in scrofula and other chronic diseases in 1811 where he called himself ‘Surgeon to the Duke of Sussex’ apparently from helping him through an asthma attack. Francis lived on at Alchester until her death, aged 88, in 1843, she probably formed part of an outer circle of friends to the poet Anna Seward for a letter to one of Frances’ daughters from 1793 is published in the edition of Seward’s letters - further research might discover more information."
Curators agree this should be cataloged as a manuscript, but also want descriptions of the two unrecorded prints. See CDM or HW for more information.
Genre/form
Manuscripts (documents)
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 271277 (flat)