| Description | Commonplace book compiled by Sir William Drake. This volume contains extensive personal memoranda as well as notes from works read. Personal entries deal with the following:
Estate management; personal advancement; and travel, particularly the Low Countries. This volume may have been compiled in the Netherlands as it contains many references to Dutch customs, economics and places.
Notes from works read are more crowded and disorderly. The principal entries include an extract from "The Advancement of Learning" by Francis Bacon, paginated incorrectly from the 1605 printed edition. The passage concerned is from the section in Book II on 'Civil Philosophy' and it is annotated with parallel passages from the De augmentis scientiarum and references to other authors, especially Machiavelli. The remainder is notes on works by Pontanus, Cardan, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Bacon, Lipsi and Barclay, and short bibliographical referenes and memoranda. |