Books and Manuscripts

The Earliest Known Surviving Autograph Manuscript by William Blackstone

"Who can forbear your Nuptials to relate,
And speak the Pleasures of so blest a State;
A Love so constant and so true a Flame,
To Future Ages must be told by Fame:
Hers, like the Vestal Fire does ever burn:
Yours, like the glowing Ashes in an Urn."

(Charterhouse School: Surrey, England, ca. 1735). Autograph manuscript poem, signed by William Blackstone, addressed "To the Rev:d Mr. Hotchkis". Single sheet, 14 7/8 x 9 in. (378 x 229 mm). Comprising 36 lines. In mat with engraved portrait of Blackstone, and in frame, 23 3/4 x 26 1/4 in. (603 x 667 mm). Published in Wilfred Prest, William Blackstone: Law and Letters in the Eighteenth Century, 2008, p. 24 and Appendix I (pp. 313-314)

A unique poetic composition penned by a 12-year-old William Blackstone while a student at Charterhouse School in Surrey, England, composed in celebration of the marriage of his headmaster, the Rev. Dr. James Hotchkis. Blackstone entered Charterhouse in 1730 at age seven, after his cousin Charles Wither obtained from Sir Robert Walpole (a governor of Charterhouse) a nomination for the precocious child to be admitted as a "Poor Scholar" (Prest, William Blackstone: Law and Letters in the Eighteenth Century, p. 21). He proved to be "an exceptional pupil", where his "Talents and Industry rendered him the Favourite of his Masters, who encouraged and assisted him with the Utmost Attention." (Prest, p. 24). His literary talents were quickly recognized, with poetry being some of his earliest known compositions (which he would largely cease producing following his admittance to the Middle Temple in 1741 to take up his illustrious career in law). By the time of his exit from Charterhouse in 1738 to begin his studies at Oxford, Blackstone was one of the leading students and had gained a gold medal for his verses on Milton.

Wilfred Prest, in his biography of Blackstone, discusses this very manuscript: "A still earlier piece of versifying, with a direct Charterhouse link, was apparently not included in that [the aforementioned] volume. This 30-line set of rhyming couplets celebrates the the wedding c. 1735 of the Charterhouse headmaster, James Hotchkis, 'in whom', according to his pupil, 'Good nature and sound Learning reign'. Penned in a somewhat immature hand, the addition below the English verses of six lines of Latin summarizing the same hymeneal theme gives the whole piece the character of a school exercise. Even so, the mere fact of its preservation points to contemporary recognition of the unusual promise of the author, who self-deprecatingly styled himself 'a Boy in Praise, unskill'd to tune the Lyre.'" (p. 24).

Material from this period of Blackstone's life is incredibly rare. A bound collection of his autograph juvenilia, Select Poems and Translations Between the Years 1736 and 1744, dates to the same period, but is now apparently lost (see Maggs Bros., Catalogue 576, Autumn 1932, item 843, 1932).

A fine and extremely early work from this acclaimed English jurist.