Household Scribes and the Production of Literary Manuscripts in Early Modern England

In early modern English households, literate servants such as tutors, chaplains, stewards, secretaries, and ladies in waiting were well positioned to assist their employers in the assembly and copying of verse miscellanies, anthologies, and other literary manuscripts. Looking at several literary manuscripts, some with known servant contributions and others that suggest the participation of household retainers, the essay explores the likelihood that literate servants often performed scribal tasks above and beyond their formal job descriptions, even serving as scribe for their employers’ hobbies and leisure activities. Although copying was an arduous task, servants appear to have viewed these duties not simply as part of their job but also as gift exchanges, as appeals for promotion or patronage, and as a means by which they might gain access to manuscript literature and literary circles. Studies of early modern letter writing have called attention to many of the copy tasks of literate household servants, but the integral role of literate servants in the collection, copying, and preservation of literary manuscripts deserves much more attention

Association of Forced Vital Capacity with the Developmental Gene <i>NCOR2</i>

Background Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) is an important predictor of all-cause mortality in the absence of chronic respiratory conditions. Epidemiological evidence highlights the role of early life factors on adult FVC, pointing to environmental exposures and genes affecting lung development as risk factors for low FVC later in life. Although highly heritable, a small number of genes have been found associated with FVC, and we aimed at identifying further genetic variants by focusing on lung development genes. Methods Per-allele effects of 24,728 SNPs in 403 genes involved in lung development were tested in 7,749 adults from three studies (NFBC1966, ECRHS, EGEA). The most significant SNP for the top 25 genes was followed-up in 46,103 adults (CHARGE and SpiroMeta consortia) and 5,062 chi

Genome-wide association analysis identifies six new loci associated with forced vital capacity

Forced vital capacity (FVC), a spirometric measure of pulmonary function, reflects lung volume and is used to diagnose and monitor lung diseases. We performed genome-wide association study meta-analysis of FVC in 52,253 individuals from 26 studies and followed up the top associations in 32,917 additional individuals of European ancestry. We found six new regions associated at genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10−8) with FVC in or near EFEMP1, BMP6, MIR129-2–HSD17B12, PRDM11, WWOX and KCNJ2. Two loci previously associated with spirometric measures (GSTCD and PTCH1) were related to FVC. Newly implicated regions were followed up in samples from African-American, Korean, Chinese and Hispanic individuals. We detected transcripts for all six newly implicated genes in human lung tissue. The new loci may inform mechanisms involved in lung development and the pathogenesis of restrictive lung disease

Nashe’s Poem for Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange

Of The Choise of Valentines, editor R. B. McKerrow says, There can, I fear, be little doubt that this poem is the work of ThomasNashe (V, 141). From the 1590s through the seventeenth century, the poem was not printed but was circulated privately in manuscript copies among a select coterie audience. Five of six extant manuscript copies begin with a dedicatory sonnet, one of which includes a dedication To the right Honorable the lord S. and another \u27To the right HonourableLordStrainge (Beal 356), offering clues to the specific coterie for which the poem was composed. Although some editors and critics have suggested that this dedication refers to Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, the idea has not been generally accepted. Ian Moulton describes the six extant manuscript copies of the poem from the early seventeenth century extensively, yet without appraising the significance of the dedications to Lord Strange(Moulton 187). This article makes a case for the dedication to Lord Strange and explores some of its ramifications for the interpretation of the poem. Beyond the significance of this identification for thepoem, establishing the dedication toLord StrangeandNashe\u27s participation in elite literary coteries would also be more broadly significant forNashestudies, in challenging a generally held assumption thatNasheeschewed elite patronage (for which assumption, see Ellinghausen, Hutson, Rivlin). Nashe flaunts the sources of imitation in his Choise of Valentines (c. 1592). In the dedicatory sonnet he names the genre as love elegy, and in the epilogue he specifies his debt to Ovid\u27s wanton muse. The poem begins with a nod to Chaucer, who had introduced Saint Valentine to literature in his Parliament of Fowles