CALL FOR PAPERS

“Revolutionizing Early Modern Studies”? The Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership in 2012

University of Oxford

17-18 September 2012

To mark a decade of the Text Creation Partnership (TCP)’s work at the Bodleian Libraries, producing searchable, full-text transcriptions of works in Early English Books Online (EEBO), we invite proposals for research papers and posters reflecting the various ways in which TCP texts are being used.

Is EEBO-TCP revolutionizing research and teaching in early modern studies? What features would be desirable but are not yet available? What improvements could be made in the decade to come?

The TCP is a collaboration between the University of Oxford, the University of Michigan and ProQuest. It is funded internationally by a consortium of partner institutions, and in the UK through JISC Collections. TCP editions power full-text searching of ProQuest’s EEBO database, and contribute to many other projects’ work.

To date, the TCP has produced over 40,000 full-text XML editions of books printed between 1473 and 1700. Phase I produced over 25,000 texts, and Phase II, currently underway, will complete the corpus of about 70,000 unique titles in English.

The conference will feature two keynote speakers: Dr John Lavagnino, King’s College London; Dr Emma Smith, University of Oxford.

For people interested in using TCP texts for research, one-to-one text clinic sessions are available.

We welcome proposals for papers and posters on:

• Research based on EEBO-TCP
• Methodologies in teaching
• Text editing
• Emerging trends influenced by EEBO-TCP’s availability
• Potential for future research

Proposals for 20-minute papers should be a maximum of 500 words, and for posters, 250 words.

Deadline for proposals is 7 May 2012.

Invitations to present will be sent by 1 June 2012.

If you would like your paper to appear as part of the conference proceedings (registration required) in the Oxford University Research Archive , the deadline for submission of final papers is 29 August 2012.

We welcome proposals from graduate and post-doctoral students as well as established scholars. If you would like to be considered for a financially assisted place at the conference, please indicate this when you submit your proposal.

For further details, see the conference website. For proposal submission, details of the conference venue, and registration, please visit the University Stores.

For any queries, and to book a text clinic session, please email Pip Willcox.

We hope to see you at Oxford in September!

Through May 20, 2012, the Folger Shakespeare Library is featuring a special exhibit called Shakespeare’s Sisters: Voices of English and European Women Writers, 1500-1700. According to its website, the exhibit:

takes its title from a famous passage in Virginia Woolf’s book A Room of One’s Own (1929), in which Woolf imagines a gifted sister of William Shakespeare, completely thwarted by the social restrictions of his day. Drawing on the breadth and depth of the Folger collection, with additional rare materials from other institutions, Shakespeare’s Sisters presents a far more complex—and fascinating—reality.

The exhibition has received stellar reviews from the New York Times and the Washington Post, and Folger’s Public Programs is offering a variety of related readings, lectures, and concerts.  The accompanying book presents a collection of new work by writers such as Eavan Boland, Rita Dove, Maxine Kumin, Linda Pastan, and Jane Smiley, among others, in response to some of the early women writers featured in the exhibition.  Written, designed, printed, and bound by women, the book is a limited-edition keepsake: Shakespeare’s Sisters: Women Writers Bridge Five Centuries.

In case you can’t make it to Washington, D.C. this spring—or if you can, but would like to see more of the books on display—there are a couple of options. The exhibition’s website contains images of almost all the items, a suggested reading list, and links to a dozen recordings (and transcriptions) made by women scholars, providing more background on some of the writers. We also invite you to further investigate these authors and their works in EEBO-TCP. You can take your time paging through facsimiles of books like those on display at this exhibit, and search their full text to quickly locate passages of interest.  We’re thrilled that Georgianna Ziegler, curator of the Shakespeare’s Sisters exhibit, was willing to collaborate with us to highlight some books from Shakespeare’s Sisters whose full text is available for further study in EEBO-TCP.:

The exhibit features a copy of Marguerite de Navarre’s  A godly medytacyon of the christen sowle, translated from French to English by Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth I) when she was only 11 years old. EEBO-TCP contains a complete transcription of this work, based on a copy owned by the British Library.

In a dedication at the beginning of the book, John Bale praises the work of the young princess:

Of thys Nobylyte, haue I no doubt (lady most faythfully studyouse) but that yow are, with many other noble women & maydēs more in thys blessed age. If que∣styon were axtme, how I knowe it? my answere wolde be thys. By your godly frute, as the fertyle tre is non other wyse than therby knowne, luce. vi. I receyued your noble boke, ryght frutefully of yow translated out of the frenche tunge into Englysh. I receyued also your golden sen¦tences out of the sacred scriptures, with no lesse grace than lernynge in foure no∣ble lāguages,  Latyne, Greke, Frenche, & Italyane, most ornately, fynely, & purely writtē with your owne hande.

In the case of the work above, EEBO-TCP contains a transcription of the exact edition (though not the exact copy) of the book on display. In other cases, the book on display is in a foreign language, but EEBO-TCP contains a version published in English.  Shakespeare’s Sisters features a false memoir of Marie Mancini, published to take advantage of the popularity of this colorful figure. EEBO-TCP contains two English translations of this Duchess’ memoirs. According to Elizabeth Goldsmith, who published the first edition of Marie Mancini’s true memoirs in 1998, this English version is based on Sebastien Bremond’s “significantly revised version” of Mancini’s memoirs, which was published in Leyden in 1678.  (In fact, all editions of Mancini’s memoirs until Goldsmith’s were based on the Bremond rewriting).

The work relates a life of intrigue among aristocracy, beginning with childhood pranks. Here, a young Marie Mancini conspires with her compatriots to convince a six-year-old girl that she was pregnant and had even given birth:

An o∣ther thing that made us Sport about that time, was a Pleasantry of the Car∣dinals, with Madam de Bouillon, which was about six years old. The Court was then at Lafere. One day as he made sport with her about some Gallant that he said she had: at last he began to chide her for being with Child. The Re∣sentment which she shewed, diverted all so, that it was agreed she should be still told of it. They streightened her Cloaths from time to time; and they made her believe that she was growing very big.

This continued as long as it was thought necessary, to perswade her, to the likelihood of her being with Child. Yet she would never believe any thing of it, and denyed it with a great deal of heat, untill the time of her Lying-in came, she found betwixt her Sheets, in the morning, a Child new born. You cannot imagine the Astonishment and Grief she was in, at this sight. Such a thing, said she, ne∣ver happened to any, but to the Virgin Mary and my self; for I never felt any kind of Pain. The Queen came to con∣dole with her, and offered to be God-mother; many came to Gossip with her, as newly brought to bed: And that which at first was but a Past-time, within doors, came to be the publick Divertisment of all the Court.

The life of Marie’s sister Hortense Mancini  may have inspired the character of Lady Reveller in playwright Susanna Centlivre’s work, The Basset-Table. Shakespeare’s Sisters features a number of plays written by women, many of which are also represented in EEBO-TCP. The Basset-Table, published in 1707, is part of a separate TCP corpus that focuses on 18^th-century works.  It is freely available for anyone to read online.

According to the Shakespeare’s Sisters online exhibit, Bathsua Makin was known as the greatest female scholar in England. She was also tutor to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I. In An essay to revive the antient education of gentlewomen, Bathsua Makin argues that gentlewomen should be more thoroughly educated—if only to provoke men, who will feel inferior to their accomplishments, to higher learning themselves. She argues that historically, women have held an important place in education and art, and that this should be reestablished:

It may now be demanded, by those studious of Antiquity, why the Vertues, the Disciplines, the Nine Muses, the Devisers, and Patrons of all good Arts, the Three Graces; should rather be represented under the Feminine Sex, and their Pictures be drawn to the Portraictures of Damosels, and not have Masculine Denominations, and the Effigies of Men? Yea, why Christians themselves, in all their Books and Writ∣ings which they commit to Posterity, still continue the same practice? Why Wisdom is said to be the Daughter of the Highest, and not the Son? Why Faith, Hope, and Charity, her Daughters, are represented as Women? Why should the seven Liberal Arts be expressed in Wo∣mens Shapes? Doubtless this is one reason; Women were the Inventors of many of these Arts, and the promoters of them, and since have stu∣dyed them, and attained to an excellency in them: And being thus a∣dorned and beautified with these Arts, as a testimony of our gratitude for their Invention, and as a token of honour for their Proficiency; we make Women the emblems of these things, having no sitter Hierogly∣phick to express them by.

These are just a few of the works by women featured in Shakespeare’s Sisters that can be read in full in EEBO-TCP. Based on the Shakespeare’s Sisters Exhibition Item List, below is a summary of more than 20 books on display at the Folger that are also represented in some way in EEBO-TCP. We hope this resource will add to your enjoyment of the Shakespeare’s Sisters exhibit!

• Amelia Lanyer. Salve Rex Judaeorum. London: Printed by Valentine Simmes for Richard Bonian, 1611. STC 15227 copy 1; EEBO-TCP transcription based on a copy held by the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.
• Marguerite de Navarre. A godly medytacyon of the christen sowle. Translated by Elizabeth I, Queen of England. Wesel: Dirik van der Straten, 1548. STC 17320; EEBO-TCP transcription based on a copy held by the British Library.
• Thomas Bentley. The monument of matrones. London: H. Denham, 1582. STC 1892 copy 2; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription of Bentley’s 1582 The sixt lampe of virginitie conteining a mirrour for maidens and matrons, which was issued as parts six and 7 of The monument of matrones, based on a copy held by the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery
• Georgette de Montenay. Liure d’armoiries en signe de fraternite contenant cent comparaisons de vertus et emblemes Chrestiens agences. Frankfurt: Jean Charles Unckel, 1619. STC 18044.8; EEBO-TCP transcription based on a copy held by the British Library.
• Margaret Fell. Womens speaking justified. London: [s.n.], 1666. F642 copy 1; EEBO-TCP transcription based on a copy held by the Huntington.
• Mary Wroth. The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania. London: Augustine Matthews?, 1621. STC 26051 copy 1; EEBO-TCP transcription based on the copy held by the Folger Shakespeare Library.
• Anna Weamys. A continuation of Sir Philip Sydney’s Arcadia. London: William Bentley, 1651.166- 792q; EEBO-TCP transcription based on the copy held by the Folger.
• Hortense Mancini, duchess de Mazarin. Memoires de Madame la Duchesse de Mazarin. Cologne: Chez Pierre du Marteau, 1675. DC130 M28 A3 Cage; EEBO-TCP contains transcriptions of two distinct English translations of this work, both published in 1676: One based on a copy held by the Harvard University Library and one based on a copy held by the Huntington.
• Marie Mancini. Les memoires. Cologne: Chez Pierre du Marteau, 1675. DC130 C61 M4 1676 Cage; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription of a 1679 English translation of this work, based on a copy held by the Huntington.
• Madame de La Fayette. The princess of Cleve. London: printed for R. Bentley and S. Magnes in Russel-Street in Covent-Garden, 1688. 154- 944q; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription of a 1689 play adapted from this work, based on a copy held by the Huntington.
• Robert Garnier. The tragedie of Antonie. Doone into English by the Countesse of Pembroke. Translated by Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. London: P. Short for William Ponsonby, 1595. STC 11623; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the Huntington.
• Elizabeth Cary. The tragedie of Mariam. London: Thomas Creede for Richard Hawkins, 1613. STC 4613.2; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the Huntington.
• Katherine Philips. Copy of Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs Katherine Philips, ca. 1670. V.b.231; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription of a 1664 edition of this work, based on a copy held by the Folger.
• Aphra Behn. The widdow ranter. London: Printed for James Knapton, 1690. B1774; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the Huntington.
• Mrs. Manley (Mary de la Rivière). The lost lover. London: printed for R. Bently, in Covent-Garden; F. Saunders, in the New-Exchange; J. Knapton, and R. Wellington, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1696. M435; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the British Library.
• Catharine Trotter. Agnes de Castro, a tragedy. London: printed for H. Rhodes in Fleetstreet, R. Parker at the Royal-Exchange, S. Briscoe, at the corner of Charles-street, in Russel-street, Covent-Garden, 1696. C4801 copy 2; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the Library of Congress.
• Susanna Centlivre. The basset-table. London: printed for Jonas Browne, and S. Chapman, 1706. 153- 587q; displayed frontis (image). The TCP transcribed a 1705 edition of this work as part of its Eighteenth Century Collections Online project (freely available to the public).
• Mary Pix. The false friend. London: Printed for Richard Basset, 1699. P2328 copy 2; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the Bodleian Library.
• Christine de Pisan. Here begynneth the boke of the cyte of ladyes. London: in Poules chyrchyarde at the sygne of the Trynyte by Henry Pepwell, 1521. STC 7271; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription of this work based on a copy held by the British Library.
• Mary Astell. A serious proposal to the ladies, for the advancement of their true and greatest interest. London: Printed for R. Wilkin, 1694. 140- 765q; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the Yale University Library.
• Anna Maria van Schurman. The learned maid. London: John Redmayne, 1659. S902; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the British Library.
• Bathsua Makin. An essay to revive the antient education of gentlewomen, in religion, manners, arts & tongues. London: John Darby, 1673. M309; EEBO-TCP contains a transcription based on a copy held by the Huntington.

The title of one 1657 work hints at its grand aims: Irelands naturall history being a true and ample description of its situation, greatness, shape, and nature, of its hills, woods, heaths, bogs, of its fruitfull parts, and profitable grounds : with the severall ways of manuring and improving the same : with its heads or promontories, harbours, roads, and bays, of its springs and fountains, brooks, rivers, loghs, of its metalls, mineralls, free-stone, marble, sea-coal, turf, and other things that are taken out of the ground : and lastly of the nature and temperature of its air and season, and what diseases it is free from or subject unto : conducing to the advancement of navigation, husbandry, and other profitable arts and professions

The work is addressed to

One of my favorites is a poem printed on a wreath of heart-shaped knots, from Recreation for ingenious head-peeces, or, A pleasant grove for their wits to walk in of epigrams 700, epitaphs 200, fancies a number, fantasticks abundance : with their addition, multiplication, and division: 

The poem reads:

TRUE love is a pretious pleasure,
Rich delight unvalu’d treasure,
Two firme Heartes in one ♡ meeting,
Grasping hand in hand ne’r fleeting,
Wreathlike like a maze entwineing
Two faire mindes in one combineing;
Foe to faithless vowes perfidious
True love is a knott religious,
Dead to the sinnes yt flameing rise
Through beauties soule seduceing eyes,
Deafe to gold enchaunting witches,
Love for vertue not for riches;
Such is true loves boundles measure.
True love is a pretious pleasure.

From the same book, a selection of “Posies for Rings,” or short epigrams that might be engraved inside a ring given as a token of love:

This ballad illustrates the custom that the first person you see on February 14 is your Valentine:

In the month of February,

the green leaves begin to spring;

Pretty Lambs trip like a Fairy,

Birds do couple, bill, and sing;

All things on earth,

That draweth breath,

In love together then do joyn,

Why should not I.

My fortune try,

And seek me out a Valentine.

Thanks kind fate I have my wishes,

for I have now met my dear,

Whom I greet with honey kisses,

her sweet sight my heart doth chear,

My dearest love,

And Turtle-Dove,

O let my arms about thee twine,

For thou art she,

I first did see,

In this case, the coy maid resists his advances,

Surely Sir you are mistaken,

for you met some other Maid,

Young-men they are given to scoffing,

and as much to her you said;

Then do not stay

Me on the way,

with your swéet words that you do coyn

Let me alone,

I must be gone,

Nevertheless, he persists, and the song ends with a wedding:

"The Purification and Presentation," from Jeremy Taylor's 'Antiquitates christianæ,' 1675

But this holy Family, who had laid up their joys in the eyes and heart of God, longed till they might be permitted an address to the Temple, that there they might present the Holy Babe unto his Father; and indeed that he, who had no other, might be brought to his own house. …and therefore when the days of the Purification were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord…And they did with him according to the Law of Moses, offer∣ing a pair of Turtle-doves for his redemption.

But there was no publick act about this Holy Child but it was attended by some∣thing miraculous and extraordinary…for old Simeon came by the Spirit into the Temple, and when the Parents brought in the Child Jesus, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and prophesied, and spake glorious things of that Child, and things sad and glorious concerning his Mother…

But old Anna the Prophetess came also in, full of years and joy, and found the re∣ward of her long prayers and fasting in the Temple; the long-looked-for redemption of Israel was now in the Temple, and she saw with her eyes the Light of the World, the Heir of Heaven, the long-looked-forMessias, whom the Nations had desired and expected till their hearts were faint, and their eyes dim with looking farther and ap∣prehending greater distances. She also prophesied and gave thanks unto the Lord. But Joseph and his Mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.

This feast is also known as Candlemas. In EEBO-TCP, several works describe how this holiday was adapted from Roman Custom to the Christian tradition:

Of course, North Americans today are more likely to recognize February 2 as Groundhog Day, when

Groundhogs belong to the marmot family. Here's another peek at our 18th-century marmot friend, last seen in our Michaelmas post

groundhogs are said to emerge from their burrows and look around. According to lore, if the groundhog doesn’t see its shadow, it stays out and winter is over. If the sun is shining and the groundhog does see its shadow, it is supposedly frightened and returns to its den–an indicator that there are six more weeks of winter to come.

Groundhog Day in its current form has roots in 19th-century Pennsylvania. But the idea that the weather on a certain day can forecast that of the weeks to come (typically the next 40 days or six weeks)  is an ancient one. Groundhog Day’s roots may reach back to the Irish holiday Imbolc, or the Feast of St. Brigid, also celebrated February 2. This date marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, and so serves as a turning point toward spring. Traditionally, this involves watching to see whether hibernating animals such as snakes and badgers emerge from their burrows, as described in this verse:

The Day of Bride, the birthday of Spring,
The serpent emerges from the knoll,
‘Three-years-olds’ is applied to heifers,
Garrons are taken to the fields.

Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, Vol. I & II, p. 117 (1900)

February 2 is one of four “quarter-crosses” in the year (Halloween is another!). As we peel back layer upon layer of meaning–from North American secular to Catholic to Celtic to Roman–it’s clear that these moments of transition from one season to the next have captured people’s attention and imagination for centuries.

Here in Michigan, we’ll have our eyes on Punxsutawney Phil, eager to hear his report. Given the record-breaking mild temperatures we’ve seen so far this winter, his response may well be a colorful one, as imagined by Dan Cohen on Twitter.

I’m delighted to report that this is no longer the case: the University of Michigan-based implementation of the ECCO-TCP texts can now be fully explored by the general public: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/.

This took awhile to implement because of how the site was set up years ago: the TCP’s transcriptions link to page images from the ECCO database. These are called dynamically from servers at Gale Cengage Learning when a user clicks on a link. Previously, only ECCO-TCP partner institutions had access to any of this content, so the whole site required authentication. All authorized users could move seamlessly from text to image views.

When the texts were released to the public, this changed: we had to make sure that everyone could access the texts, but only authorized viewers could see these images, which belong to Gale, and which we don’t have the right to distribute. This required some custom development of our platform, DLXS, which is home to dozens of University of Michigan digital collections and publications.

Here’s how it works: all text-based functionality (search, browse, view full text) is available to the public.

Full text view of an excerpt from "Mrs. Taylor's Family Companion" (c. 1795)

When you click on a hyperlinked page number (such as “Page 6,” above), you are automatically directed to the DLXS “pageviewer,” and the middleware checks to see whether you are coming from within the IP range of an authorized ECCO-TCP partner institution. If so, you will see the page image by default—in other words, the site will appear to behave as it always has:

Users at original ECCO-TCP partner institutions automatically see the page image

If you are not from an ECCO-TCP partner institution, you will also land in the pageviewer interface, but you’ll only see a plain text view of the content that occurs on that page. You won’t be able to get to the page image:

Other users see a plain text view of the page they requested

Our publicly available version of the ECCO-TCP texts joins a handful of other access methods that have sprung up independently–just as we hoped they would–in the last nine months. Among them are:

I’m really excited that we now truly offer public web access to the ECCO-TCP texts, laying the groundwork for how we’ll support this functionality when the first of the EEBO-TCP texts are released in a few years. I hope you’ll test this out, and welcome your questions and feedback!

This post has been edited to correct the link to the Oxford Text Archive, as requested in the first comment below. 

Reaching the 40,000 text milestone offers a good opportunity to remind EEBO-TCP users of a powerful alternative way to search EEBO TCP texts—and many other texts besides: the PhiloLogic implementation at Northwestern, or PhiloLogic @ NU for short. This site was developed as a joint CIC project in 2005 and 2006 to create a large merged database of early modern English texts searchable through the University of Chicago’s PhiloLogic search engine, additionally enhanced by the Virtual Modernization (VM) tool developed at Northwestern University. During 2010 and 2011, in collaboration with staff at the University of Chicago’s Electronic Text Service, ProQuest, and the Text Creation Partnership, the launch version of PhiloLogic @ NU was significantly expanded to more than double its original size. It now includes exciting new material: several ProQuest databases absent in the launch version, e.g., The Bible in English and Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare; revised/expanded versions of seven ProQuest databases already represented in PhiloLogic @ NU; and finally about 15,000 new texts from both Phases I and II of EEBO TCP. Visit PhiloLogic.northwestern.edu to see what’s new! If you access PhiloLogic @ NU from a CIC member school or from one of several other participating institutions, you can also go right to work using the resource.

What the enhanced version of PhiloLogic @ NU can mean for students and researchers is best illustrated by an example. Let’s say you are studying the resonance of the Bible’s Second Commandment (“Love thy neighbour as thyself”) in English-language literature of the last 500 years. You might start by searching ProQuest’s “Bible in English” database through PhiloLogic @ NU. To find the relevant biblical passages in PhiloLogic—and there are at least a dozen in most Bible editions—it’s best to do a proximity search for “love” and “neighbour,” restricting proximity to within three words. Thanks to the VM tool, you will uncover occurrences, for example, in the King James Version of 1611, The New English Bible of 1970 (“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself'”), along with numerous others, 194 in all, most of which would not show up in a flat literal-string keyword or keyword phrase search in other online versions of the Bible. Wholly obsolete as well as typographically variant spellings will be retrieved, as in the Bishops’ Bible of 1568 (Matt. 22): ” And the seconde is lyke vnto this: Thou shalt loue thy neyghbour as thy selfe.” Virtual Modernization is so powerful because it invokes variant spellings and typographical variants of both search terms—of “love” (e.g. “loue”) and of “neighbour” (e.g., “neghbour,” “neigbour,” “neighbor,” “ neighbour,” “neighboure,” “neyboure,” ”neygbour,” “neyghbour,” “neyghboure”)—and then searches them against each other in same word order, but otherwise in all possible combinations. No keyword search could have done this before VM.

But now for the next step: bringing in EEBO-TCP and other databases to find instances in English literature where this biblical commandment is mentioned, altered, and commented upon. PhiloLogic @ NU’s “combo2” file pools a host of very large ProQuest databases with 30,000 EEBO TCP files. No surprise that the results for our Second Commandment search now skyrocket to 3528, opening up access to occurrences of and variations upon this biblical phrase in works from Geoffrey Chaucer to H.G. Wells. On the early end of the spectrum would be this passage from a vita of Saint Catherine of Siena printed in 1500: “Knewest thou not well that in thise two thynges scondeth the perfection of myn commaundementys that is in loue off god and loue of thyn neyghbour.” But we also uncover interesting 19^th and early 20^th century material useful for our study by including some of the more modern ProQuest databases. A passage from George Eliot’s Adam Bede of 1859, for example, reads: “ . . . she went clean again’ the Scriptur, for that says, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself;’ but I said, ‘If you loved your neighbour no better nor you do yourself, Dinah, it’s little enough you’d do for him. You’d be thinking he might do well enough on a half-empty stomach.’” This comes up because ProQuest’s Nineteenth-Century Fiction database is included in the new combo2 file.

Our only regret at the present moment is that although all 25,353 Phase I EEBO TCP texts are represented in PhiloLogic @ NU, so far only 4,180 of the newer Phase II texts are. We look forward to adding the new Phase II material sometime in the future, once the new version of PhiloLogic is introduced—an exciting development described in an earlier post to this blog. But even with the smaller corpus base—and a few quirks—PhiloLogic @ NU is an enormously powerful tool, supporting creative searching across a database of close to 100,000 texts.

For now, PhiloLogic @ NU is available only to CIC member institutions and to several partners outside the CIC, with access to individual and cumulated files customized for each institution based on existing ProQuest licenses and membership in Phases I and II of the Text Creation Partnership. Drop us a line at speciallibraries@northwestern.edu if you’d like to know more.

Jeff Garrett, Northwestern University Library

Illustration of the Adoration of the Magi from John Day's "Certaine godly rules coneerning Christian practice: fit to be observed daily in the lives of all those that would be saved. Gathered out of the holy scriptures, for the good of all those which have a purpose within themselves to lead a godly life.

The night before Epiphany, Twelfth Night, marks the end of the Christmas season’s revelry.  This poem, from Hesperides, or The works both humane & divine of Robert Herrick, Esq. describes how a King and Queen of Misrule were chosen arbitrarily (by finding a bean or pea in their serving of a special cake) to rule over the celebrations:

Twelfe night, or King and Queene.

NOw, now the mirth comes

With the cake full of plums,

Where Beane’s the King of the sport here;

Beside we must know,

The Pea also

Must revell, as Queene, in the Court here.

Begin then to chuse,

(This night as ye use)

Who shall for the present delight here,

Be a King by the lot,

And who shall not

Be Twelfe-day Queene for the night here.

Which knowne, let us make

Joy-sops with the cake;

And let not a man then be seen here,

Who unurg’d will not drinke

To the base from the brink

A health to the King and the Queene here.

Next crowne the bowle full

With gentle lambs-wooll;

Adde sugar, nutmeg and ginger,

With store of ale too;

And thus ye must doe

To make the wassaile a swinger.

Twelfth Night (aso spelled “twelfe night”) isn’t referenced much in the EEBO-TCP corpus: less than thirty times in all, and of those, six come from one author: Ben Jonson’s masques for performance at court as part of the celebration. Three of these are from consecutive years:  Time vindicated to himselfe, and to his honors (1622), Neptunes triumph for the returne of Albion (1623), and The fortunate isles and their vnion (1624). Jonson wrote a number of masques for the court during the reign of King James I, beginning with pageants celebrating the royal entry to the city  in 1604. These three correspond to the later years of James’ reign when, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Jonson had reached the height of his fame but felt increasingly marginalized at court.