Another New Manuscript of Sir John Davies's Epigrams

This article presents evidence for associating a new manuscript of Sir John Davies’s Epigrams, now in the Hampshire Record Office, with the Hampshire gentleman, Sir Richard Paulet (c.1558-1614). It explores the transcription of the poem sequence to document the different scribes involved in the production of the manuscript, and to explore its place within our understanding of the transmission, and transmissional networks, of Davies’s writing. The manuscript can be associated with the Middle Temple, and so (I argue) is a privileged if in many respects faulty witness to the very earliest circulation and transmission of Davies’s Epigrams. The discovery of this and other ‘new’ manuscripts of Davies’s very varied works, I suggest, extend new opportunities in the coming years for a new edition of his generically varied Works.