Iv. the Manuscripts of Schellinks's Journal
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
l6 JOURNAL OF WILLIAM SGHELLINKS IN ENGLAND probably with the West Indies: buying slaves at the African coast, to sell in the English colony of Barbados and loading sugar to sell in London or Amsterdam was a profitable business. He was a wealthy man,6' who had no difficulty in financing a 'Grand Tour' for his son and his companion lasting more than four years, and incidentally having his son's portrait painted en route by eminent portraitists: by Vaillant in Paris in April 1663 and by Voet in Rome in April 1665.fe iv. The Manuscripts of Scheliiitks's Journal Two versions of the manuscript are known: one now in the Royal Library, Copenhagen,63 the other in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.64 The Copenhagen version has a total of 1,466 quarto pages (152 x 190 mm), written in the same hand, average 30 lines to the page, divided into three volumes. The first volume includes 95 separately numbered pages covering Schellinks's journey with his fellow artist Lambert Doomer to France in the summer of 1646. This part was transcribed and studied by Herma Van den Berg in 1943.65 The Journey from 1661—5 is covered in 1,371 consecutively numbered pages. The departure from Amsterdam in July 1661 and the travels in England up to arrival in France in April 1663 (270 pages), is in Volume I, which also includes twenty-nine pages of Schellinks's notes on London, 'written for my amusement and to refresh the memory', and a place index of the following French journey. The second volume (pp. 318—791) covers the journey through France and Italy, up to his departure from Rome for Naples. The third volume (pp. 794-1371) covers the rest of Italy, Sicily and Malta, the return to Rome and through Italy, Switzerland and Germany to Holland in 1665. Some of the numbered pages, mainly between chapters, are blank. Detailed work has been limited to the journey of 1661—3 in Volume 1, which has been transcribed in full and translated into English. Aikema66 has established that the handwriting throughout this MS is that of Schellinks himself, made from diaries he kept en route, after his return to Amsterdam; he left the writing-up of his earlier travels in 61 See note 23 above. 62 Wallerand Vaillant (1623-1677) in Paris 1659-65, where he painted several members of the Royal Family. Jacob Ferdinand Voet (a1639.-c.1700) portrait painter at the Papal Court in Rome. 63 Ny. Kgl. Saml. 370, I-III. 64 MS d'Orville 558, 559, 560. 65 Herma van den Berg, Willem Schellinks and Albert Doomer in Frankrijk, in Oudheidkundig Jaarboek, series IV, deel 11, 1943. 66 See above note 5. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 23 Sep 2021 at 16:33:47, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960116300000075 INTRODUCTION 17 1646 until that time, as remarks in his journal make clear (see Van den Berg, pp. 7 and 12). There is no doubt that this manuscript is original, confirmed by the following: 1) Bound in with Volume I is the 'laissez passer' on his departure for France (see text-notes 239 and 240). 2) In Volume II a printed inventory of 1659 to the royal Tombs in St. Denis, as well as several other little guides, then recently printed and detailed by Kernkamp6' are bound in. 3) On three pages in Volume I there are some small sketches to illustrate the adjacent text, clearly from Schellinks's hand: of the running game seen on 21 July 1661 (see text-note 10), an entrance gate to a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields on 19 August 1661 (text-note 43), and part of the lettering in the stone parapet at Audley End on 3 October 1662 (text-note 191). There are more small sketches in later parts of the manuscript. 4) There are a number of'afterthoughts'; we noted in Volume I writing between the lines, in the margin, or the insertion of unnumbered pages. 5) In many cases a date, name, distance or translation of an English text is left blank, presumably with the intention of filling in later. The Copenhagen MS was part of the Royal Library before 183168 when the Ny. Kgl. Saml. [New Royal Collection] was founded. The Bodleian MS is also bound in three volumes, written on folio paper (230 x 360 mm), about 45 lines to the page, MS d'Orville 558 covers the journey through England and France, up to the entry into Italy, covering 298 folios. MS d'Orville 559 has 407 folios of which only three are part of the Journal: a trip outside Rome in April 1665 also covered in the Copenhagen MS (in correct chronology). The major part of 559 is a description of palaces, gardens and over 400 churches in Rome. This would appear to be a MS transcript of a printed source, which however (like some in France) is not bound in the Copenhagen MS and remains to be identified. MS d'Orville 560, 289 folios, continues the journal from the end of 558, i.e. departure from Rome for Naples, up to the return to Amsterdam in 1665. The folios in each of the three volumes are numbered separately in pencil. The Bodleian Library acquired the d'Orville MSS in 1804 from the grandson of Jacques Philippe d'Orville (1696-1751), Professor of History 67 G.W. Kernkamp, Verslag van een onderzoek in Sweden, Nomvegen en Denemarken, naar Archivalia ... , The Hague 1903. 68 Private communication Erik Petersen, Research librarian, Royal Library, Copen- hagen. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 23 Sep 2021 at 16:33:47, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960116300000075 l8 JOURNAL OF WILLIAM SCHELLINKS IN ENGLAND at the Atheneum Illustre, in Amsterdam 1730-42.6g The 1646 journey, the notes on London, and the index in Volume I of the Copenhagen MS do not appear in the Bodleian MS. On comparing the two MSS, we noted some interesting differences, e.g. a) Whilst the Copenhagen MS is throughout by the same hand, there are several changes in handwriting in the Bodleian MS, e.g. at Volume I, 65/66 and at Volume III, 259/60. b) The Copenhagen MS has in the first pages substantially more information on personalities and places, which is not in the Bodleian MS (see text-note 2). c) In the Copenhagen MS Schellinks sometimes uses the singular 'I', where the Bodleian MS uses 'we'. d) Often there is a difference in syntax between the two MSS: the Bodleian paraphrasing the Copenhagen MS. e) There are differences in spelling: the Copenhagen MS uses a later spelling, the Bodleian MS uses mostly an older type of spelling already considered conservative in the seventeenth century.70 f) There are a few instances in which the Bodleian MS gives more information than Copenhagen: e.g. the Bodleian MS, on 16 July 1661 mentions that Owen Spann the innkeeper at Harwich is the postmaster, a fact not given in the Copenhagen MS. Also, on describing the customs on St. Valentine's day, the Bodleian MS correctly makes it clear that they apply to married as well as to unmarried people, as would be concluded from the Copenhagen MS (see text-note 73). It is therefore clear that at least for the early part of the Journal the Bodleian MS is not a slavish copy of the Copenhagen original by a clerk. Either the scribe of the Bodleian MS knew what was described because he was there, or he had access to the original notes. As to the first alternative, the only person who was there throughout with Schellinks was young Jacobi Thierry; he may well have been the writer of some of the Bodleian MS; the additional information in the Copenhagen MS referred to in b) above is mostly the names of Jacobi Thierry's relations and friends who see the travellers off. Jacobi may have thought it immodest or unnecessary to include these; another scribe would appear rude in omitting them. As the other alternative, the copyist had access to and used Schellinks's original notes. This too is possible. There may be more to be found out. 69 Falconer Madan, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, (1895—1953), IV, p. xxii, and Private Communication, Dr K. Bostoen, Leiden University. 70 Private communication, Dr. K. Bostoen. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 23 Sep 2021 at 16:33:47, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960116300000075 INTRODUCTION ig Towards the end of the part of the Journal describing England, the first copyist seems to give up: there are two blank pages in the MS, which then continues in a different, more easily readable handwriting, possibly that of a professional scribe (see text-note 238). We then see for the first time an indication that the Bodleian MS, at least from that point, with its new copyist, was intended for publication: on fol. 67 there is, above the heading 'Rey' [Rye], a blank space with a pencilled instruction (in Dutch): 'Note. Here should be a print of the town'. On 67V, after the heading 'France, of which now follows all that we found in our journey in the Kingdom remarkable to have seen', there is also nearly half a page blank, with another pencilled note: 'Note.