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[Illustration: _Harl. MS., Brit. Mus., N^o. 5353, fo. 111_]

G. F. TUPPER, LITHOG: LONDON. 1868.




  DIARY
  OF
  JOHN MANNINGHAM,

  OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE,
  AND OF BRADBOURNE, KENT, BARRISTER-AT-LAW,

  1602-1603.

  EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT BY
  JOHN BRUCE, ESQ.,

  AND PRESENTED TO THE CAMDEN SOCIETY BY
  WILLIAM TITE, ESQ., M.P., F.R.S., F.S.A.,
  PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.

  WESTMINSTER:
  PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS AND SONS.

  M.DCCC.LX.VIII




  WESTMINSTER:
  J. B. NICHOLS AND SONS, PRINTERS,
  25, PARLIAMENT STREET.




  TO
  THE COUNCIL AND MEMBERS
  OF
  THE CAMDEN SOCIETY.

GENTLEMEN,

When you did me the honour to appoint me President of your most useful
Society as the successor of the Marquess Camden, I felt anxious to
express my sense of that honour by some appropriate acknowledgment.

I at first thought of printing a MS. from my own library, but, not
finding one that seemed exactly suitable, in my difficulty I applied to
my old and valued friend Mr. Bruce, and he pointed out to me
Manningham's Diary in the British Museum as possessing a varied interest
in the literary world which was likely to commend it to your notice. I
willingly adopted his suggestion; and I owe to him my sincere
acknowledgments for the pains he has bestowed in seeing the work through
the press, and in prefacing it with an interesting essay.

I have now to offer you this copy of Manningham's little book, and to
assure you how sincerely I am

Your obedient and obliged servant,

  WILLIAM TITE.
  42, Lowndes Square,
  3rd October, 1868.




PREFACE.


The original of MANNINGHAM'S DIARY, which is here printed, is No. 5353
in the Harleian collection of MSS. in the British Museum. It is a
diminutive 12mo. volume, measuring not quite six inches by four, and
containing 133 leaves. The handwriting, of which an admirable
representation is given in the fac-simile prefixed, is small, and in the
main extremely legible; yet in some few places, from haste in the
writer, from corrections, from blotting, from the effects of time, and
from other obvious causes, difficulties have occurred in a word or two,
which, even with the assistance of gentlemen most skilful in reading the
old hands, have not been entirely overcome. The few instances in which
the collater has been baffled are indicated by marks of doubt.

The first historical writer who noticed this little volume for a
literary purpose was Mr. John Payne Collier. In his Annals of the Stage,
published in 1831 (i. 320), Mr. Collier quoted from this Diary various
passages connected with his special subject, and drew attention to the
principal personal facts disclosed by the writer respecting himself,
namely, that he had many relations in Kent, and had probably been a
member of the Middle Temple.

The late Mr. Joseph Hunter was the next writer who used the work for an
historical purpose.[1] With his well-known fondness for genealogical
inquiries he applied himself to determine who the writer was whom Mr.
Collier had designated merely as a barrister. In this inquiry Mr. Hunter
was completely successful. Pursuing the clue given by the mention of
relationships in Kent in the various ways which would occur to a person
skilled in such investigations, Mr. Hunter fell upon a track in which
coincidences between the facts stated in the MS. and those elicited by
his own researches followed one another so rapidly as in the end to
leave not even the shadow of a doubt that the desired result had been
obtained.

    [Footnote 1: See his Illustrations of Shakespeare, i. 365.]

We shall briefly indicate the course by which Mr. Hunter arrived at his
conclusions. It looks easy enough after the end has been attained, but
it will be borne in mind that inquiries of this kind are extremely
discursive. The statement of a few leading facts upon the establishment
of which the final conclusion is arrived at, gives no idea of the time
lost in investigations which are merely tentative. In all such inquiries
we are soon reminded of the pretty passages which, after turnings and
windings almost _ad libitum_, are ultimately found to lead to nothing.

Besides cousins of at least seven different names who are alluded to by
the Diarist, several of them in connection with Canterbury, Sandwich,
and Godmersham, there is one whom he specially commemorates as "my
cousin in Kent" (p. 19), and whom he frequently vouches by that
designation, or merely as his cousin, as his authority for