Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Jeremiah Losty. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. No early illustrated copy seems to have survived. Although undated, this manuscript goes some way to fill the gap in Mughal manuscript illustration between the end of the reign of Shah Jahan r. The present writer was able to study it closely and concluded that the text was copied around , that there were three illustrative campaigns, the first two of which were contemporary with the writing, but that the third campaign was undertaken later, almost certainly in the s in the imperial studio of Muhammad Shah r.
There are very few good quality Mughal manuscripts from the latter half of the 17th century with which this manuscript could be compared. Shah Jahan was interested in manuscript illustration only for inclusion in his chronicles, while under the puritanical Aurangzeb r. Artists must have sought other employment in this period whether with princes and noblemen or else in a more commercial environment. Although inscribed as a Johnson manuscript and hence collected by Richard Johnson in India before his return to England in , it is not certain that the inscription is correct.
Even more interesting was the discovery that it is another version of the Northumberland manuscript. As two of the earliest if not the earliest illustrated versions of this text, these manuscripts, by far the finest known illustrated versions, assume a particular importance.
Their style is derived from the 17th century Mughal style, as they are copying the Shahjahani style albeit in a simplified manner. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again.
Username Please enter your Username. Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Search within work. Most scholars pinpoint as the year when the folder was most in use.
Among the scattered words and phrases on the folder cover that call for explanation are the name William Shakespeare and the titles of two of his plays, Richard II and Richard III. Understandably, Baconians claim this as evidence that Bacon was Shakespeare.
What is evident is, first that he was privy to the coverup during the period when it first began, and second that the coverup was tied to the publication of the two Richard plays. Scholars have assumed that the folder once held manuscripts of the plays.
That may well be true, although the titles are in the lower center of the folder, nowhere near the table of contents in the upper right corner. That their titles were jotted on the cover could be a clue written by a secretary that the plays were in the folder, and that William Shakespeare or Shakespear , also jotted was the name to be put on their title pages.
By October of the following year, Hunsdon was dead and the Company, just returned from the road, published the plays with the name William Shake-spear on the title page hyphenated, suggesting that it was a pseudonym.
Both Bacon and Oxford would have been aware of the word since literary folk from Dante on down used it as an example of how Latin grammar could result in a word of ridiculous length. It makes sense that he, or his secretary, would jot it down to assure himself of its spelling before writing it in the fair copy of Piers Penniless intended for the printer. This would push the origins of the folder to or earlier, when Piers Penniless was published.
He created the folder as a place to keep private the drafts of his essays from all but his closest secretary. As time went by, other scripts he wished to keep private were stored in the folder, which was kept separate from his other papers, perhaps under lock and key. The presence of the titles of the two Richard plays, plus the name Shakespeare spelled two ways, suggests that he held the manuscripts to these plays during the period when the name Shakespeare was first used on published plays, to , also suggesting that he had something to do with the publication.
Doubtless he would have been concerned about the fate of the folder, but there was little he could do, since he was forbidden by the king to return to York House following his disgrace.
Thanks for sharing your erudite summary of the Northumberland manuscript. The Pembroke circle is currently on my mind and the scenario that occurred prior to the publication of the Folio. Seems like solid reasoning from evidence. The sound idea of Bacon or secretaries practicing penmanship, the economizing on paper: how on earth could these simple clear solutions elude the Baconians or, for that matter, the Stratfordians building Shakspere castles in Warwickshire air?
It certainly did not escape the Baconians.
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