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The Leeds Verse Database (BCMSV) is a database of detailed information about the items of English poetry contained in the 17th and 18th century manuscripts in the Brotherton Collection. The manuscripts range from contemporary copies of poems by writers like Dryden and Pope to popular tags and epitaphs. Many of the manuscripts are miscellanies and commonplace books which have never previously been indexed.

The database currently contains records for some 6,600 separate poems from over 160 different manuscripts. The work of indexing is still in progress, and the database is often updated. Please note that the database is a detailed finding-list of items in Brotherton Collection, with the exception of poems of four lines or fewer it does not contain full text.

Basic Searching

From both the basic search and the detailed search you can enter a search term into the Anywhere field to search across every field in the catalogue for that term.

  • You can enter a single word: e.g. Swift
  • Or you can enter a phrase, enclosed in inverted commas: e.g. 'William III'
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Limiting your Search

You can limit your search by inserting the following terms:

AND

Use AND between search terms to find records where both terms are present:

  • e.g. Swift AND Pope will find records which contain both Swift AND Pope
  • e.g. Swift AND Pope AND Gulliver will find records which contain Swift AND Pope AND Gulliver

OR

Use OR between search terms to find records where either term is present:

  • e.g. Swift OR Pope will find records which contain either Swift OR Pope
  • e.g. Swift OR Pope OR Dalloway will find records which contain Swift OR Pope OR Dalloway

NOT

Use NOT between search terms to find records where the first term, but not the second, is present:

  • e.g. Pope NOT Alexander will find records which contain Pope but NOT Alexander
  • e.g. Swift NOT Jonathan will find records which contain Swift but NOT Jonathan
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Searching on particular fields

Leeds Verse Database consists of 16 fields. The following 5 fields are searchable from the basic search:

  • Start contains the first three words in modernised spelling
  • First Lines contains the first 2 lines using the original manuscript spelling
  • Title gives the poem's title using the original manuscript spelling, although some words have been expanded to facilitate searching
  • Author contains the authors' name in inverted form, e.g. Dryden John
  • Content contains a summary of the subject-matter and/or genre of the poem, in the cataloguer's own words. An attempt has been made to use the same terms for the same concepts and to include terms such as love, religious, satire, pastoral. Also noted are proper names central to the subject of the poem, and classical or biblical sources.

The following 8 fields, along with the 5 fields listed above, are searchable from the detailed search:

  • Last Lines contains the last 2 lines using the original manuscript spelling
  • Attribution is used to record not only a manuscript attribution to an author but also (a) a named source for a poem, e.g. a printed source, (b) the language translated or adapted from, where relevant, and (c) the use of the Bible as a source
  • Date is only used for simple numbers e.g. 1729, 172- (for decades), or 17-- (for centuries). See searching for dates below on how to search for date ranges.
  • Length records the number of lines (with refrains etc. counted as if written in full)
    There is no attempt to record metre or line length. The Length field can be used only for specific numbers of lines. To search for poems longer or shorter than a given length the Anywhere field must be used, e.g. @leng>500 or @leng<30.
  • Verse Form records the basic verse form e.g. couplets, 3 stanzas abcb, blank verse
  • Bib Refs contains bibliographical references and is mainly restricted to:
    Crum: Margaret Crum, First-Line Index of English Poetry 1500-1800 in Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, Oxford (1969);
    Day & Murrie: C.L. Day and E.B. Murrie, English Song-Books, 1651- 1702 (1940);
    Foxon: D.F. Foxon, English Verse 1701-1750: A Catalogue of Separately Published Poems (1975)
    POAS: Poems on Affairs of State (the Yale edition, 7 vols, 1963-75).
    BCMSV: References to other occurrences of the same item within the Brotherton Collection Manuscript Verse Database
  • MS contains the manuscript number within Special Collections
  • Record No contains the number of the individual record in the database

The database contains a further 3 fields:

  • Physical Features is a brief characterisation of the manuscript, e.g. 'Commonplace book of English and Latin verse and prose, c.1610-1620'
  • Compilers records the name(s) of the manuscript's compiler(s) (i.e. scribes), if known
  • Owners is restricted to owners, who are actually named in the manuscript

These fields maybe searched by entering your search term into the Anywhere field followed by .phys. for Physical Features; .comp. for Compilers; and .own. for Owners. These coded short forms must be enclosed in full stops:

  • e.g. commonplace.phys. will search for commonplace books in the physical features field only
  • e.g. John Salvio.comp. will search for John Salvio in the compilers field only
  • e.g. Sarah Bignell.own. will search for Sarah Bignell in in the owners field only
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Searching for Dates

The Date field (available from the detailed search) is only used for simple numbers. Please note that many manuscripts have not been dated, so have been assigned to a decade, or to a century:

  • e.g. 1729 will search for the exact date 1729
  • e.g. 172$ will search for the 1720's decade
  • e.g. 17$ will search for the 17th century

To search for date ranges use the Anywhere field:

  • e.g. @date>1740 will search for poems dated later than 1740
  • e.g. @date>1740<1760 will search for poems dated later then 1740 but earlier then 1760
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More Advanced Searching

Search terms typed into different field boxes (in both the basic search and the detailed search) are automatically linked by AND, i.e. all the records found will contain all the terms specified within the fields specified.

To link fields in other ways, i.e. with OR or NOT, the complete search formulation must be entered in the Anywhere field with the fields specified by the following coded short forms:

  • strt for the Start Field
  • frst for the First Lines field
  • last for the Last Lines field
  • attr for the Attribution field
  • auth for the Author field
  • titl for the Title field
  • date for the Date field
  • leng for the Length field
  • vers for the Verse Form field
  • cont for the Content Field
  • bib for the Bib Refs field
  • ms for the MS field
  • phys for the Physical Features field
  • comp for the Compilers field
  • own for the Owners field
  • recn for the Record Number field

Enter your search term into the Anywhere field followed by the coded short form for the field you want to search. The coded short form must be enclosed in full stops:

  • e.g. swift.auth. not swift.attr. will search for Swift in the author field but not in the attribution field
  • e.g. swift.frst. or swift.last. will search for Swift in the first lines field or in the last lines field.

Truncation ($) and Wildcard (?) Symbols

You can avoid searching on similar words and widen your search to include similar word forms by using truncation ($) and wildcard (?) symbols.

You can use $ symbol to search for word roots and alternative forms:

  • e.g. report$ will find records that contain report, reports, reporting, reported etc.
  • e.g. child$ will find records that contain child, children, childhood, childlike etc.

You can use the ? symbol to replace a single character in a word:

  • e.g. wom?n will find records that contain woman, women etc
  • e.g. organi?ation will find records that contain organisation, organization etc
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Advanced ways to limit your Search

As well as the basic operators (AND, OR, NOT) there are further ways you can limit your search:

NB all operators can be used in both the basic search and the detailed search.

WITH

Use WITH between search terms to find records where both terms occur in the same sentence:

  • e.g. Swift WITH Pope will find records which contain the word Swift WITH Pope in the same sentence
  • e.g. Sift WITH Dalloway will find records which contain the word Swift WITH Dalloway in the same sentence

SAME

Use SAME between search terms to find records where both terms occur in the same field:

  • e.g. Swift SAME Pope will find records which contain the word Swift WITH Pope in the same field
  • e.g. Swift SAME Dalloway will find records which contain the word Swift WITH Dalloway in the same field

NEAR + a number

Use NEAR + a number, between search terms to find records where both terms appear in any order in the same sentence. The number specifies the maximum number of words occurring between your search terms:

  • e.g. Swift NEAR3 Pope will find records which contain Swift and Pope where there are 3 or less words between the terms
  • e.g. Swift NEAR10 Dalloway will find records which contain Swift and Pope where there are 10 or less words between the terms

ADJ + a number

Using ADJ + a number between search terms is much like using NEAR + a number, but the terms in question must be in the order specified:

  • e.g. Swift ADJ3 Pope will find records which contain Swift before Pope where there are 3 or less words between the terms
  • e.g. Swift ADJ10 Dalloway will find records which contain Swift before Dalloway where there are 10 or less words between the terms
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Last updated May 1, 2008 by the Special Collections Team