Meditations, prayers, and a mother's legacy : Religious writing c.1651-1656.

Meditations, prayers, and a mother's legacy : Religious writing

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Bibliographic Details
Imprint:	Marlborough, Wiltshire : Adam Matthew Digital, 2008.
Description:	1 online resource
Language:	English
Subject:	Meditation. Prayer. Fife (Scotland)
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13013468

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:	Adam Matthew Digital (Firm), digitiser.
Notes:	AMDigital Reference:MS 6489 Anne, Lady Halkett is best known today for her engaging autobiography, British Library MS Additional 32376, edited most recently by John Loftis (although soon to be available again, along with excerpts from Halkett's other manuscripts, in Suzanne Trill's forthcoming Lady Anne Halkett: Selected Self-Writings. She is also the author of fourteen surviving manuscripts of religious meditations dating from c.1651 to 1699 (National Library of Scotland MSS 6489-6502) and of additional manuscripts, some lost and some extant only in print versions. Halkett's biographer, 'SC' (most likely her minister Simon Cooper) appended a list of "Books written by the Lady Halket" (sigs H2r-H4v) to his Life of the Lady Halket, published in 1701, two years after Halkett's death. This list indicates that there were once twenty-one volumes of meditations, plus "There are besides the forementioned, about thirty stitched Books, some in Folio, some in 4to. most of them of 10 or 12 sheets, all containing occasional Meditations" (sig.H4v ). According to Cooper's numbering, out of the series of twenty-one volumes those that survive are numbers v-vii (i.e. NLS MSS 6489-6491), ix-x (NLS MSS 6492-6493), xii-xiii (NLS MSS 6494-6495), and xv-xxi (NLS MSS 6496-6502) (see individual catalogue entries for these manuscripts). The seven missing volumes are volumes i (written 1644-1648, plus some verses added in 1658), ii (1649-1650), iii (1651), iv (1652), viii (1663-1665), xi ( 1675-1676), and xiv (1682-1683), but there is an additional volume mentioned after volume xv, which is a 136-page continuation from volume xv of meditations on the book of Acts (1686). These lost volumes contain a variety of meditations on texts from scripture and on personal and public matters, including longer meditations on death, the Book of Judges, and on the Virgin Mary. These manuscripts were lost by 1870, when John Gough Nichols was preparing his edition of Halkett's autobiography for the Camden Society (1875).Not all of the lost manuscripts are completely lost, however, since Cooper arranged for the publication of extracts from a number of them in 1701 and 1702. These are Halkett's meditations on Psalm 25 (from the lost volume iii in Cooper's list), specifically Meditations on the twentieth and fifth Psalm. By one who had found how beneficial it was to have the Soul continually placed upon Divine Objects, and therefore made choice of this Psalm, to raise her contemplations. Two other volumes were published in 1701: Meditations and prayers, upon the first week; with observations on each day's creation: and considerations on the seven capital vices, to be oppos'd: and their opposit vertues to be studied and practised (from the lost volume viii) and Instructions for youth. Written by the Lady Halket, for the use of those young noblemen and gentlemen, whose education was committed to her care. This last tract does not appear to have a counterpart in Cooper's list of Halkett's manuscripts. A final work was published in 1702 : Meditations upon the seven gifts of the holy spirit, mentioned Isaiah XI. 2, 3. as also, meditations upon Jabez his request, I. Chron. IV. 10. together with sacramental meditations on the Lord's Supper; and prayers, pious reflections and observations. A note at the end of this volume indicates that all of its material was taken from the original manuscripts listed in the last three lines of the catalogue of her books at the end of the Life, i.e. from among the thirty manuscripts in folio and quarto, now lost. In the preface to this last volume Halkett makes tantalizing reference to another lost manuscript: she notes that since she finished writing on the Book of Acts, "I have not fixed my Thoughts upon any thing, but what hath been occasional (except that Book which I have designed for making known, Experiments for the Health of the Body.)" (sig. D1r-v). This might be some kind of medical treatise, based on her wide experience of treating illness throughout her life.In the fourteen extant manuscripts (National Library of Scotland MSS 6489-6502) Halkett writes two main types of meditations which she calls occasional meditations and select meditations (in the catalogue entries they are classed as meditations and biblical meditations, respectively). She writes occasional meditations on specific dates and events, relevant to her own life or to wider political and religious concerns. Cooper notes in the Life that "There was nothing of moment either in publick affairs, or in more privat occurences, which came to her notice; which, she did not make the subject of a serious meditation and reflection" (pp.38-39). He also remarks that "Contemplation had so spiritualized her mind, that almost every Object suggested pious Thoughts to her" (p.56). Halkett's select meditations are written on specific biblical passages. Of particular interest to scholars of women's writing might be her reflections on women of the Bible (NLS MS 6499, pp.254-370, msItem 48). On two occasions she writes mother's advice: a mother's will to her unborn child, Betty (NLS MS 6489, pp.198-259, msItem 9) and instructions to her son Robert (NLS MS 6492, pp.244-308, msItem 42). Her meditations are written in prose, but two poems are also extant: one written by Halkett on her husband's death (NLS MS 6492, p.xvii, msItem 10) and one she wrote after recovering from illness on 11 February 1692 (NLS MS 6499, pp.ii-iii, msItem 3).Most of the surviving volumes are quartos, but one is a folio (MS 6489) and one is a small octavo (MS 6490). Halkett used different stocks of paper for most volumes, with the exception of MSS 6496 and 6497, which have the same watermarks, and MSS 6498 and 6499, which also have the same watermarks. The volumes are autograph throughout. They are fair copies (only occasionally do they resemble rough notebooks, when Halkett has made numerous corrections). It is possible that Halkett transcribed these meditations from rougher notebooks or loose pages at a later date. In terms of readership, she states on several occasions that she is writing for no one's eyes but God's; yet she wonders if her works might be read after her death if God desires it. At the beginning of a meditation dated 26 February 1695 Halkett explains that she has been attaching papers to the spine of each of her volumes of meditations with the dates they were written and resolves to transcribe the tables of contents of all of them, to help her find sections she would like to read and to be more useful to any who should see the manuscripts after her death (NLS MS 6500, p.146, msItem 7). Her tables of contents seem to have been afterthoughts, which explains why some were written on leaves of paper that were then pasted into the manuscripts later. In her final volume (NLS MS 6502, p.225, msItem 19) Halkett describes her fear that her manuscripts might fall into the wrong hands after her death. A few years previous to her writing this meditation she wrote out the contents of all of the volumes, sealed the papers, and sent them to Simon Cooper and James Graeme so that at her death they might make them known. Cooper returned the sealed papers to her after her son, Robert, returned, but recently asked her to let him and Graeme have the manuscripts. Cooper wanted to read one manuscript at a time and promised secrecy. She sent one but was very disquieted and feared she was being vain. For an interesting discussion of the relationship of Halkett's writing to print culture see Margaret Ezell's article (listed in the bibliography). Some of Halkett's correspondence survives. The National Archives of Scotland holds letters from Halkett to Sir William Bruce, and the National Library of Scotland holds a number of her letters and financial records: see volume 5 of the printed catalogue, plus Acc. 6112 (a more recent accession). The first of the surviving manuscripts of Halkett's meditations is NLS MS 6489. After some frontmatter which includes a table of contents, this manuscript contains a prayer (pp.1-6, msItem 4). This is followed by three lengthy meditations on biblical passages: on I John 5:4 (pp.7-39, msItem 5), Psalm 143 (pp.40-126, msItem 6-6.14), and 2 Kings 2:9 (pp.127-196, msItem 7). A short discussion of a dream (pp.196-197, msItem 8) is then inserted before Halkett's "The mother's will to her unborn child", which she wrote when she was pregnant with her first child, Betty (pp.198-256, msItem 9.1). The volume ends with Halkett's prayer of thankfulness for the safe birth of her daughter on 26 November 1656 (pp.257-259, msItem 9.2). The manuscript was probably begun in about 1653 (given the dates of the missing volumes which precede this volume); however, Halkett returned to a blank page and a half to record a dream from 19 August 1651 (p.196-197, msItem 8). The manuscript is neatly produced but Halkett has returned at several points to make corrections, particularly in the mother's will to her unborn child (msItem 9) Reproduction of: Meditations, prayers, and a mother's legacy, c.1651-1656. National Library of Scotland
Summary:	The manuscript remained in the library at Pitfirrane House, seat of the Halkett family, until it was purchased by the National Library of Scotland in 1951-52 (though it was borrowed from Pitfirrane on two occasions).