St John’s College A.6.51 (James 486)
John Bailey, Notes on the Bible. English, 1647
John Bailey (fl. 1647): Notes on the Books of the Old and New Testaments, in Scriptural order. Proofs of Scripture at fo. ir. 'My Deare Father Sir John Baileys collection of Schripture, writt by his owne hand when Imprison'd by the Rebells in St Johns Coledg Cambridg in those Fatall times of the late Sivell war in England', this note, on fo. iiv, is followed by a signature in darker ink of Elizabeth Lenthall, alias Milward. The author is not in Shaw's Knights of England. There is an elaborate IHS carefully pasted in at the foot of fo. iiv. Now bound with a copy of The Whole Book of Psalmes: collected into English Meeter by Thomas Sternhold, Iohn Hopkins, and others (London, 1640).
185x120 mm. ii+176 pp. Inside front cover the bookplate of William Hamper, the Warwickshire antiquary (1776-1831), and at fo. ir the inscription 'Wm Hamper / Birmingham / 1801'. For Hamper see DNB. Subsequently No. 124 in an unidentified nineteenth-century bookseller's catalogue (cutting inside front cover). The book as bound was acquired by the College in 1899: its arrival is noted in The Eagle 20 (1899), 602-3.
Autograph, a clean copy. Paper, ruled margins, the paper has been trimmed when bound with the printed Psalms. At the end of the composite volume are three fos ruled for music, yet blank. Late seventeenth-century vellum binding on boards, with gold tooling; leather morocco labels displaying in gold: 'MS / Sir I. Bailey's Works'.