The mother's legacy to her unborn child

Language: English

Context and purpose

This manuscript appears to be a copy of Elizabeth Jocelin's original, written in 1622, and the copy-text for Thomas Goad's printed edition of 1624.

Context and purpose

The British Library holds two versions of Elizabeth Jocelin's legacy, one a manuscript " authorized" by the Calvinist minister Thomas Goad in his preface to Jocelin's text and approved by him for print publication (British Library Additional MS 4378), the other a manuscript showing signs of authorial revision (British Library Additional MS 27467 ). The latter version is autographed "Eliza Joscelin", and the hand which has transcribed the text appears to be the same throughout, so that the alterations which appear from time to time, words crossed out or inserted, have a very strong claim to being Jocelin's own revisions. In an article Brown, 2000and an edition of Jocelin's legacy, Brown, 1999 Sylvia Brown has noted the differences between the two manuscripts.

The British Library's Add. MS 4378 is written in one hand throughout, which does not resemble Elizabeth Jocelin's autograph in British Library Additional MS 27467. In addition to the dedication and advice contained in Jocelin's own manuscript, MS 4378 also includes a preface called "The Approbation" attributed to the minister Thomas Goad. The approbation is followed by Jocelin's dedication to her husband Taurell Jocelin, and then after three and a half blank leaves the advice begins. "The Mother's Legacy to her Unborn Child" comprises the majority of the manuscript, including folios 11r to 51v. The legacy begins with a prefatory section, followed by thirteen numbered sections.

The author of "The Approbation", the minister Thomas Goad, was ordained in 1606, holding livings in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Essex before becoming domestic chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1611. As chaplain, one of Goad's duties would have included licensing works for the press. Jocelin's legacy was published in 1624 with Goad's alterations, and again in 1684 in an edition which replaced Jocelin's recommendation to use the Puritan Henry Smith's prayers with instructions to refer to Church of England, the Book of Common Prayer. Other editions include two published in the nineteenth century, by the Presbyterian minister Robert Lee in 1853 and Randall Davidson, Bishop of Rochester and later Archbishop of Canterbury, in . This information is taken from Sylvia Brown's 1999 book Women's Writing in Stuart England Brown, 1999 which includes her edition of Jocelin's legacy based on British Library Additional MS 27467.