Lot 5: [NELSON, HORATIO

LORD ]--VIRGIL.
OPERA INTERPRETATIONE & NOTIS ILLUSTRAVIT CAROLUS RUAEUS, LONDON: H. KNAPLOCK ET AL., 1740

signed six times by horatio nelson when a schoolboy, also signed by other members of the Nelson family, and with annotations in ink and pencil in several hands throughout; 8vo, contemporary calf, tear to title page repaired with tape, 65mm tear at sig. 2N1, margins closely cropped by binder with loss to some headlines and annotations, some paper damage, browning, rebacked

PROVENANCE

Lord Horatio Nelson; William Nelson; Anna Gurney; Thomas Fowell Buxton; thence by descent

NOTE

This remarkable volume was used by the young Nelson when he was boarding at the William Paston School in North Walsham. He signed it in six places using three distinct forms of his name: "H. Nelson" (p.237), "Horace Nelson" (twice, pp.232-33), and "Horatio Nelson" (three times, pp.286, 394-95 (cropped), and the separately paginated index p.222). Nelson was known as Horace within the family as a child but only one other "Horace Nelson" signature is known to survive; his signature as a witness in the Burnham Thorpe marriage register (13 March 1769), which has been corrected in another hand (usually said to be his father's) to the more formal "Horatio". The same marriage register includes the only other known childhood "Horatio Nelson" signature (13 November 1769). Strong similarities between the signatures in the register and those in the current volume confirm that these are examples of Nelson's immature hand.

Horatio Nelson wrote his name repeatedly in this volume in the days before his departure from Norfolk to join his first ship, HMS Raisonable. He departed in the second half of March; two of the signatures here are dated 14 March, with a third on the 11th. The book then passed to his brother William, whose name ("Wm Nelson") is found on the title page (dated 1771) and again at p.611. William was Horatio's fellow student at William Paston School.

This copy of Virgil's works has seen heavy use as a school-book. In addition to the signatures it had been heavily annotated in a number of hands. There are English cribs of the Latin, notes of passages to be learnt, and other comments ("Grundy Beetson Rogue and Vagabond", sig. A2r). Of particular interest are some annotations to Aeneid Book II (pp.241-45) in a hand similar to that of the Nelson signatures, and the appearance four times of the name "Captain Maurice Suckling", the uncle who played such an important part in Nelson's early life.

It is not known when the book passed out of the Nelson family, and perhaps it remained at the William Paston School. It evidently remained in Norfolk where it passed into an important and influential local family of wealthy Quakers. It was owned by Anna Gurney of Cromer, a prominent local lady who, as well as being a noted Old English scholar, was closely involved in naval affairs through her role in organising operations to save the lives of seamen wrecked off the Norfolk coast. Gurney (who had been paralysed from the age of ten months), lived for many years with her cousin Sarah Buxton, and following Gurney's death in 1857 the book passed to Sarah's nephew (who had also married a Gurney), Thomas Fowell Buxton (1822-1908).