Brigadoon

Yesterday morning, Bodington Hall and its environs were buzzing with people. Last night, there were a handful left at dinner. They dwindled further this morning. Now the place is nearly empty. I'm still here because I had a manuscript to look at today, and since the Congress offered the option of staying through tonight, I took it.

I didn't have enough time with the manuscript, but then, one never does, when one is a North American coming to the UK on fishing expeditions. It's so hard to tell how much time you'll need with any one book. I liked this one better than most of what I saw at the BL. It gave a good sense of the interests of a group of people, probably family, including sense of humor: one of them liked to make anagrams both English and Latin of his friends' names, and then write verses about them. Some of the anagrams didn't seem to work very well. The writer introduced extra letters or left out repeated ones. But here's one I liked:

An anagramm upon Mr Richard Stacy, a present procurer under god of ease for the Gout: Stay a Rich Curde.

Of course now that I can't check on it I wonder about that U. This writer has lower-case a's that often open at the top, like u. And yet, given the gout, curd seems more likely than card.

Later in the MS, Stacy provides a recipe for the relief of hemorrhoids. It requires a lot of hog grease.