The volume opens with three blank leaves, followed by a printed catalogue entry which has been pasted in. Another blank leaf appears before the title page to the sermon.
Duodecimo. Calf binding, featuring the Inner Temple coat of arms on the front and back covers. There are gold gilt edges. The endpapers are marbled. There is a bookplate of the Inner Temple Library on the inside front cover of the volume.
Although this manuscript has been catalogued as a Petyt Manuscript, it was actually presented by Mrs Anne Sadleir, who made the gift in 1661. Her gift was intended as a tribute to her father, Sir Edward Coke, who had studied at Inner Temple. The Petyt Collection was largely bequeathed to the Benchers of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple by William Petyt (1637-1707) in 1707.
J. Conway Davies, ed., Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, Volume I: The Petyt Collection: MSS. 502-533 (Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 330; Hannah Yip
It is conjectured that this sermon was written in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. See J. Conway Davies, Catalogue, p. 330.
A Sermon for Christmas -- ff. 1-40