Paleographical Challenge #35

March 17, 2020

By Kathryn James

Today’s puzzle pictured above for the Paleographical Challenge.  Suggested solution to yesterday’s challenge shown below:

5 to bow. v.a.
To incline; to dispose
She yt shd all parts to reunion bow
She yt had all magnetic force alone
To draw & fasten sundred parts in one
Donne

One of many notes by Samuel Johnson and his amanuenses towards a later edition, bound into a copy of the first edition of A Dictionary of the English Language (1755).  Gen MSS Vol 728, vol. 1 (formerly MS Vault Johnson), shown here opened to the note for “To bow.”