Carew, Thomas

Containing 47 poems in a single italic hand, about one third of the poems having authorial autograph corrections, contemporary foliation, 93 pages, plus blanks, on a single stock of paper (Dutch armorial watermark with initials "IB" similar to Heawood 609), contemporary foliation, 4to (200 x 154 mm), 1630s. Contemporary limp vellum gilt, the covers with a central gilt lozenge in a single line frame with tie holes, housed in a crushed blue morocco folding-box; stained.

John Leveson-Gower, Earl Gower (1694–1754; armorial bookplate) — the Duke of Sutherland (Trentham Hall Library; Sotheby’s London, 19 November 1906, lot 1316). acquisition: Seven Gables, 1959

CELM, Thomas Carew (author introduction)

This manuscript is considered the most authoritative source for Carew’s poetry and is one of the most significant poetical manuscripts of the mid-seventeenth century remaining in private hands. Thomas Carew was a leading figure amongst the “Cavalier Poets” who defined aristocratic taste in the reign of Charles I. He came to maturity in the 1620s and the form, imagery and diction of his poetry was deeply influenced by the two great poets of the previous generation, Jonson and Donne. Carew acknowledged these influences in his important poetic appreciations of both men, “To Ben Johnson” and “An Elegie uppon ... Dr Donne,” both of which are found in the current manuscript, and the latter of which closes with the famous epitaph: “Here lies a King, that rul’d as hee thought fit | The universall Monarchy of wit.” Carew’s work took elements of Jacobean verse to create something new, a poised and elegant lyric form with a sophisticated ease that appealed to the arbiters of taste at the Caroline court, and that marked an important step in the direction of travel that English poetry would take after the Restoration.

The current manuscript is the only known collection of poetry dedicated exclusively to Carew’s verse and the only known manuscript directly connected with the poet himself, with the exception of an autograph manuscript of his poem “To Ben Johnson.” The only other examples of Carew’s autograph are a small handful of letters and inscriptions. It is the most important manuscript of a sizeable corpus, however, as little of Carew’s verse appeared in print in his lifetime but instead circulated in manuscript form. Scribal circulation ensured that his verse retained an aura of exclusivity as it took place through privileged social networks, for example around the universities and Inns of Court, rather than through the marketplace. Many poets of the period, most notably Donne, preferred to see their poetry read and circulated in this way, and Carew was widely read in manuscript: about 1,300 individual manuscript poems by Carew are recorded, and nearly forty manuscript volumes containing at least ten poems by Carew are known (including one other in the Pirie library). Despite being one of the greatest and most influential poets of his time, Carew’s lyric verses were not collected in print until after the poet’s early death in 1639.

This manuscript was almost certainly commissioned by Carew himself as an authoritative collection of his own poetry. It may have been intended for presentation. The absence of a dedication is curious but there are several blanks at the beginning of the volume which may well have been intended for a dedication that was never added to the manuscript. The bulk of the volume comprises love lyrics — songs, dialogues, and also witty conceits in the vein of Donne—mostly addressed to “Celia,” but it also includes “To Saxham,” Carew’s major piece of occasional verse, and there is a group of elegies at the end of the collection. Carew’s most widely read poem was also his most notorious, the erotic reverie “A Rapture” (found on fols. 40–43 of the current manuscript). This poem was denounced in Parliament as “lascivious, idle, and unprofitable” in 1640; appropriate epithets, perhaps, for an unabashedly sensuous fantasy of sexual abandon that is widely acknowledged as one of the great erotic poems of the language. Twenty-five lines of the poem are here revised in Carew’s hand, making it the most extensively corrected poem in the current manuscript.

This manuscript provides a unique insight into Carew’s poetry and the lyricism of the Cavalier school. It is a crucial document for the study of seventeenth-century poetry; it was not known to Carew’s last editor, Rhodes Dunlap, and would be the key source for any future edition of his poetry.