xii
foreign scholars, and other short prose pieces.[1] On the inside of the back cover the name Charles is twice written; and on the fly-leaves are scraps of verse and the signatures of Thomas Cary,[2] James Leviston,[3] and Doctor John Craig.[4] The tables of contents, some of the headings of poems, numerous corrections, and five of the sonnets are written by Prince Charles, and Carey's hand appears frequently in corrections and in the sonnets now numbered XLVI and XLVII.[5] The fact that some of the changes are in the hand of the King indicates that he also went over the copy.[6] The greater portion of the MS. is in a neat print-like hand, the same as that of the Museum MS. (Old Royal, 18 B XIV) of the King's Paraphrase of the Psalms. The copyist of the latter was a Scotchman, as is indicated by the dialect of his marginal notes; and it is in any case more likely that the task of transcribing the King's verse and turning it into English would be given to one familiar with the Scottish dialect, for example, either John or Thomas Murray, secretaries respectively to the King and the Prince.
A possible theory regarding the formation of the collection, based on the signatures and the handwritings, is that it was prepared in the King's household, corrected by James, and again revised — whether before or after James's death is not certain — by Charles and Carey. In 1626, Sir William Alexander was delegated to "consider and review
- ↑ Cf. App. I.
- ↑ Thomas Cary, or Carey (1597-1634), not to be confused with the poet of the same name, was a younger son of Sir Robert Carey, who was guardian of Prince Charles and head of his household until he came to the throne. Thomas was made a groom of the chamber to the Prince on his creation (Memoirs of Sir Robert Carey, ed. 1808, p. 105), and retained the position after Charles became king. On the latter's accession he was granted a pension of 500 a year (Col. S. P. Dom., May 25, 1625).
- ↑ James Leviston, William Murray, and Endymion Porter, all grooms of the chamber to Charles, received pensions of 500 at the same time as Carey (ibid.). Leviston, or Livingstone, was knighted before 1629 and made Earl of Callander in 1641.
- ↑ John Craig (d. 1654) was physician to James and afterward to Charles. He succeeded his father, of thesame name, who died in 1620.
- ↑ This description is in accord with the one given in the Museum Catalogue.
- ↑ Cf. footnotes, pp. 5, 10, 19, 25, 43, 53, etc.
