Beinecke MS 394               England, s. XVII^^1/4
Nicholas Breton, Three Dialogues

1.  f. i recto - verso blank; f. ii recto [Title-page:] Auspicante Jehouah/
Auxilium memoriae Liber/ Nicolai Bretoni, opus, non minus sibi laboriosum,
quam lectori studioso fructuosum.  ff. ii verso - v verso blank

2.  f. 1r [Heading:] To the Right Honorable my very good Lorde and Master:
the Lorde Northe, encrease of honor, and hartes wished happiness.  [dedication:]
Right Honorable, the worlde is so full of Machauiles thatt thatt [sic] he
who studies any matter of worthe more then the greedy humor of game...I take my
leave in all humblenes.  Y^^or honors in all bounden duty.  Nich. Breton.  f.
1v blank

     Dedication to "Lorde North", presumably Dudley, third Baron North (1600-66).


3.  ff. 2r-10r [Heading:] Religio.  [First dialogue:] Quest:  In Religion
Whatt is firste to be Considered?  Aw:  Thatt there is a God...Qu:  And, Whatt
in the Comforte of Mercy?  Aw:  the life of loue.  ff. 10v-11r blank

4.  ff. 11v-17r [Heading:]  In Philosophia:  quid Considerandum?  [Second
dialogue:] Qu:  Whatt firste note take you in Natural philosophy?  Aw:  thatt
Nature is a spirite:  comprehensible in her properties...Qu:  and whatt of
sorrow?  Aw:  the Misery of Nature.  ff. 17v-18v blank

5.  ff. 19r-24v [Heading:]  Whatt is moste Necessary in a Common Welthe to be
Considered.  [Third dialogue:] Aw:  The prince, the Counsaile, the people.
Qu:  Whatt note you touchinge the prince?...or by Inheritance or Traffique, and
so the better att his neede to make use of them.  ff. 25r-80v blank

     These three dialogues are not printed in A. B. Grosart, ed., The Works in
Verse and Prose of Nicholas Breton (Edinburgh, 1879).

     Paper (watermarks:  two unidentified pots, one with the letters RF, the
other with B and a vertical stroke in the upper panel on the belly, and
two vertical strokes in the lower panel), ff. v (paper) + 81 (65 bis),
293 x 195.  Irregular format.
     I^^16 (ff. i-v, 1-10; -7, a blank?), II^^16, III^^14, IV^^20, V^^14, VI^^12
(-7 through 11).
     Written in neat sloping cursive.
     Binding:  s. xviii [?].  Plain vellum case with one tie.

Written in England by the author, Nicholas Breton (1545?-1625?; DNB, v. 2, pp.
1183-89), at the beginning of the 17th century (see art. 2); early modern
provenance
otherwise unknown.  Sold at Parke-Bernet (13 Nov. 1968, no. 20) to C. A.
Stonehill, from whom it was acquired as the gift of Edwin J. Beinecke for the
Beinecke Library.

Barbara A. Shailor