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Account and commonplace book kept and compiled by Colonel Edmund Pery between 1671 and 1681, with later additions by his son, the Reverend Stackpole Pery

IE 2135 P51/2/1 · Item · 1671-1729

Part of The Limerick Papers

Account and commonplace book, bound in vellum, kept and compiled by Colonel Edmund Pery between 1671 and 1681. The first part of the book contains brief memoranda of financial transactions, mainly monies lent to and borrowed from various individuals, and more complete accounts under headings such as ‘An Acount of All receits of my Cousin Sextens Interest since his death’; ‘Disbursements likewise on the same Account’; ‘An account of what moneys I payed my uncle att my being in London 1679/80’; ‘Receits since my returne from Kinsaile December 1681’; ‘Receits for the use of my uncle Mr Nicholas Batteley since the death of my Cousin Sexten being 23 of November 1671’; ‘Disbursements on the same account Feb the 20th 1671’; and ‘Due to my uncle since accounted for when in England last then owing him £56’. Upside down from the back are further memoranda of sums on money borrowed or lent. In addition to accounts, the book contains ‘A Collection of Several things fit to be knowne’. These include notes on weights and measures; a list of foreign coins and their value in pounds, shillings, and pence; various conversion tables; and a list of the countries of the known world and their acreage. There are several pages of explanations of terms of scientific nature, particularly relating to geography, topography, astronomy, physics, and mathematics. These are followed by instructions on how to ‘Know the Age of the Moon’, ‘know when the Moon is at the South by which you may know what tyme of the night is is [sic] by the Moon on a Sun Dual [sic]’; ‘find when it will be new moon in any given Month’; and ‘find Shrove Sunday’. There are also notes relating to orthography and the pronunciation and usage of English, and a table of the symbolic significance of various colours. Fifteen pages of the manuscript have been dedicated to instructions about horses. These include tips on how to identify a good horse, how to tell its age, and how to keep one in good condition, with further notes on equine ailments, and recipes for salves and potions for their treatment. These are followed by recipes for ‘A Liquor for Bootes’; ‘How to make a Cement which lasteth like marble & resisteth aier or water without disjoyning or uncementing’; ‘To make Iron or Steel exceeding hard’; ‘To make a Candle burne & continue 3 tymes as long as otherways it would; ‘To keep Wine fresh in the heat of summer tho carryed on horse back & exposed to the sun; ‘How to melt mettall quickly yea in a shell upon a little fier; ‘To make quart of good Inck’; ‘To make shott’; ‘To make Iron strong & look like silver’; ‘To make steel cutt Iron as it were Lead’; ‘To make Red Inck’; ‘To make Letters that cannot be read without the paper be put in water’; ‘To make letters that cannot be read but at the fier’; ‘To make Mellons or Cowcumbers ripe before their season’; ‘To keep Grapes fresh all the winter’; ‘To make the hands white’; ‘To take a spot of Oyl out of Cloath’; ‘To keep young Children from having pain in breeding Teeth’; ‘To mak hair not to grow’; ‘To keep flyes from flesh’; ‘To kill fleas’; ‘To take away the Tooth ach’; ‘To renue old & woren letters’; ‘To cure the sting of waspes or Bees’; and ‘To make Hair Curle’. The book concludes with a gardener’s calendar with advice on farming and gardening activities for every month of the year, and ways to predict ‘Dearth or Scarcity, Plenty, Sickness, Heat, Cold, frosts, snow, winds, Rain, Hail, Thunder &c’ from nature. To Pery’s observations have been added sheep, cattle, and butter accounts for 1724, 1725-1726, and 1729 by a different hand, possibly by Pery’s son, the Reverend Stackpole Pery.

Pery family, Earls of Limerick

Pertaining to Colonel Edmund Pery (d. 1721) and His Son the Rev. Stackpole Pery (1686-1739)

IE 2135 P51/2 · Series · 1671-1729

Part of The Limerick Papers

Pery family, Earls of Limerick

The Emmanuel College Cambridge Compendium (single-item collection)

IE 2135 P86 · Fonds · c. 1680-1720

A bound manuscript compendium of statutes, orders and decrees relating to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Covering the period 1585 to 1661, the contents reflect the physical and curricular expansion of the College during its first 75 years of existence.

The first half (folios 1-43) contains the Latin text of the College’s first statutes as provided by its founder Sir Walter Mildmay. The second part of the manuscript (folios 44-81) comprises orders and decrees primarily in English concerning such matters as the borrowing and buying of books from the college library, stipends, rent rates for chambers and rules of the use of the college tennis court. In 1630, one of the decrees ordered that no student ‘shall size bread and beer anywhere but in the Butteries, nor have Dyett provided for them constantly out of the College’ (p. 63). The onset of a plague epidemic eight years later also features prominently. Scholars and fellows of the College were permitted to ‘have free leave to betake themselves thither, where they shall be able best to provide for their own safety, and that notwithstanding the same, they shall receive in the time of their absence the allowance from the College…’ (p. 68) In 1651, misbehaving students were threatened with fines and imprisonment when it was discovered that some of them ‘not regarding their own birth, degree, and quality have made divers contracts of marriage with women of mean estate, and of no good fame in the town to their great disparagement, the discontent of their Parents and friends, and the dishonour of the government of that our University’. Students were strictly forbidden to ‘resort to such houses and places as are mentioned in the said Statute to eat or drink or play or take tobacco, to the misspending their time and to the corrupting of others by their ill example, and to the scandalizing the government of our said University.’ (pp. 71-72)

The volume is most likely from the library of William Shaw (1688-1739) of St John’s College, Cambridge, Rector of Akenham and antiquary. Among the Clarendon Papers held at the Bodleian Library are two further manuscripts from the collection of William Shaw, namely an eighteenth-century commonplace book (MS. Clar. dep. c. 413) and an eighteenth-century volume of ‘Extracts of Records &c. relating to St John’s College in the University of Cambridge’ (MS. Clar. dep. c. 414). The Emmanuel College volume has an eighteenth-century numbering on the inside front cover (No. 47). The two manuscript volumes in the Bodleian Library bear identical numbering, respectively nos. 100 and 46, placing the latter just next to our volume, also relating to a Cambridge college.

The inside cover of the volume contains the bookplate of Charlotte Villiers, Countess of Clarendon (1721-1790), formerly Lady Charlotte Capell, heiress to the wealthiest branch of the Hyde family and wife of Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde and later 1st Earl of Clarendon (both titles acquired through his marriage). The family seat, The Grove, the name of which appears on the bookplate, was located near Watford, in Hertfordshire. It was acquired in 1753 by Thomas Villiers and turned into one of the most fashionable country homes in England.

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

County Cork

IE 2135 P43/1/1/6/1 · sub-series · c. 1700-c. 1899