Andronicus

Samuel Bernard (1617/18)

Historical Records

Bodleian Library ms. Crynes 701, an eighteenth-century auction catalogue:

Jacob Hooke (comp), Bibliotheca Bernardiana: Or, A Catalogue Of the Library of the Late Charles Bernard, Esq; Serjeant Surgeon to Her Majesty. Containing a curious Collection of the best Authors in Physick, History, Philology, Antiquities, &c. With several MSS. Ancient and Modern which will begin to be sold by Auction on Thursday the 22d of March, 1710-11. At the Black-Boy Coffee-House in Ave-Mary-Lane, near Ludgate-Street (London, 1711).

It is described by Elliott-Nelson, REED Oxford 2.899:

A copy preserved in the Bodleian Library (Crynes 701) has auction prices recorded in the margins. Lot 674 (p 217), which fetched 10s from an unknown buyer, was a folio-sized manuscript of tragedies by Charles Bernard's ancestor, Samuel Bernard, containing:

1) Julius and Gonzaga, performed in the president's house in Magdalen College, 23 January 1616/17 (this may be the play referred to by Peter Heylyn on 8 March 1616/17);

2) Andronicus, performed on 26 January 1617/18, in the Magdalen College hall; and

3) Phocas, performed on 27 January 1618/19, in the Magdalen College hall.

A second item, lot 925 (p 218) which fetched 2s, was a quarto-sized manuscript containing three tragedies and other poetical works by 'Sarmueli Bernardi': since the plays are not named, it is uncertain whether or not these were the same three plays. Neither volume has been traced.

Theatrical Provenance

Performed 26 January 1617/18 at Magdalen College, Oxford. (REED Oxford 2.851)

Probable Genre(s)

(Latin) Tragedy (Elliott-Nelson)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

(Information welcome)

References to the Play

Only the eighteenth-century auction catalogue described above, in Historical Records.

Critical Commentary

The REED editors note that "It is important to distinguish Bernard’s plain from British Library ms. Sloane 1767, ff 17-66, a Jesuit neo-Latin play with the same title" (Elliott-Nelson 826).

Bentley 3.26 makes precisely this erroneous conflation, following Louise B. Morgan's surmise that the British Museum MS was "probably the one referred to in the Magdalen records" (Bentley 3.27).

For What It's Worth

(Information welcome)

Works Cited

Morgan, Louise B. "The Latin University Drama." Shakespeare Jahrbuch 47 (1911): 78. Print.

REED Oxford 2

Site created and maintained by Dana F. Sutton, University of California, Irvine; updated David McInnis 28 April 2010.