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Beal refers to Harvard MS Eng. 266 as a 'transcript of Complaints probably made from the edition of 1591', and he is not very often wrong (he tends to use 'probably' where lesser mortals might just assert things in my experience). I haven't looked at it, but one does sometimes come across careful transcriptions from printed texts, some of which even transcribe the colophons and so on. This is a dim memory, but I have a feeling BL Harley 6910 does this kind of thing (certainly I've seen a Spenser MS in the BL at some point in my travels which is clearly a transcription from print, but these things melt from the mind so readily). Sadly one can't claim much for this sort of MS, though it might be significant as an indicator of the price/scarcity/value of the volume if there were two roughly contemporary MS transcriptions of the printed text. Also they're a useful way of picking out the mannerism of a particular scribe (you can see what kinds of things he likes to do if you can be sure you have the copy from which he was working). As for illustrations by Hillyard, well you can hope... There is the Bodleian Harington MS which lovingly pastes in engravings from Italian eds of Ariosto, and there are also some curiously perfect MS emblem books complete with illustrations out there; so you never know what you might find. Scribes do sometimes want to make books. But I guess that the Harvard MS won't shake the spheres. Happy nearly new year. Colin Burrow, Fellow and Tutor, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge CB2 1TA tel: 01223 332483 web: http://www.english.cam.ac.uk -----Original Message----- From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of aprescot Sent: 26 December 2002 19:55 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: MS of Complaints By the way, does anybody know anything about a MS of Spenser's *Complaints* at the Houghton Library in Cambridge? I have ordered a microfilm and Joe Loewenstein will be there next term (year?) and can deal with it better than I can but in the meantime, aside from waiting for the microfilm to arrive I thought maybe somebody has information about it. I assume it's not *very* exciting or there would have been comments to that effect on it in the scholarship. Perhaps it is premature to make this inquiry before I've seen the thing (or its filmy double), but I don't want to waste much time thinking about it if a lot of people out there have seen it and determined that despite Houghton's date of "c. 1591) it's really a 19th c. copy of Upton's version. In my dreams, of course, it's signed "Edmund Spenser" and has instructions to the printer and illustrations by Hillyard. Ho ho. Just kidding. David Miller, Patrick Cheney, and Joe himself say they don't know much about it so I can go on dreaming for a few more days. Anne Prescott. >===== Original Message From Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> ===== >Be sure the Edmund Spenser Home Page ><http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenser/main.htm> gets a heads-up to link >you in. Congratulations on a fine project. > >Richard Bear <[log in to unmask]> >Renascence Editions ><http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/ren.htm> anne prescott english, barnard college