About this Hand

 

Bibliographical Information

'Sir Walter Rawleigh his letter to the King at his return from Guiana', with 'Even such is time that takes in trust'
Gonville and Caius College MS 73/40, f. 215v

 

Description and Dating

The text is written in a cursive, untidy, irregular secretary hand with some italic influence. The contact of the pen with the paper appears somewhat scratchy and irregular, and as a consequence it is sometimes difficult to distinguish certain letters. At two points ('m' in line 8 and 'y' in line 10) it is difficult to tell whether the scribe has intended abbreviations (for 'me' and 'the'), or has misspelt or miscopied words. A number of words, including 'Guiana' and 'Trinidado' in the 'Articles' appear in a different, italic script. There are some long or swashed ascenders and descenders, for example minuscule 'g' and 'h', and interference between adjacent lines. In general, the bodies of the letters are quite large, and the text appears cramped on the page. Minuscule 'e' takes the backwards 'e' form, and minuscule 'd' occasionally looks like minuscule 'e', with a very short descender and open body (see 'Lord', line 8 of the poem). There are three types of minuscule 'r': Greek epsilon, left shouldered (often used as the initial letter of a word, with a long upstroke), and a distinctive double-stemmed form looking like an italic 'rr' form. Minuscule 'm' and 'n' have forms close to the italic. The use of long s, short s for 'ss' (e.g. 'commission', line 9 of the 'Articles') looks forward to mixed and italic hands of the seventeenth century. While many graphs (e.g. figure of eight 'h') are traditional secretary forms, this hand is caught between these received forms and a possibly greater fluency in writing an upright italic. The scribe writes haltingly with great inconsistency of slant and size, lending the sequence of lines its rather ungainly appearance. Right and left margins are ruled on the page, although the text sometimes crosses these lines. A date close to the death of Ralegh in 1618 seems likely.