University of Virginia Library

Ralegh and Ayton: The Disputed Authorship of "Wrong Not Sweete Empress of My Heart"
by
Charles B. Gullans

Of all the disputed poems of the early seventeenth century, "Wrong not, sweete Empress of my heart" presents for several reasons one of the most severe problems. First, there is the fact that in some versions, but not all, the poem begins with a six-line pentameter stanza, riming ababcc, the -c rime being feminine, while the rest of the poem is in quatrains of alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines, riming abab, the -b rime being feminine. Second, the number of copies is very large; and the texts are radically divergent from one another, showing the nicest gradations of corruption and contamination. Any attempt to establish a more or less definitive text would have to suppose the problem of authorship more or less definitely settled, since the chain of authority of the texts would depend on attribution. If one believes Sir Walter Ralegh to be the author, those copies which attribute the poem to him would be taken to form the most authoritative group, and the "ideal" representative of the group, if there is one, would be chosen for a copy-text. But we have a third complication in that there are four claimants for the poem, Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Robert Ayton, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, and Lord Walden. In what follows, the available texts of the poem have been treated from the viewpoint of an editor of Ayton; and it is the Ayton MSS., Nos. 1 and 2 below, from which other MSS. are considered to diverge. This is not a mere assumption, but it is necessary to state the fact so that the procedure will be clear.

The Texts

The starred texts below contain the introductory stanza of six lines, "Our Passions are most like to floods and streams," sometimes given as "Passions are likened best to (unto) floods and streams." It will be noted that in every instance where the preliminary stanza is found, the poem is attributed to Ralegh.

• 1. British Museum, MS. Additional 10308, fols. 9v-10. This is a MS. of Ayton's poems compiled at some time shortly after 1660 by his nephew and heir, Sir John Ayton, who has frequently corrected the MS. at whim. His corrections in this poem are supported by manuscript tradition. See the notes to lines 26 and 28 of the poem. A transcription is given in The Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse, pp. 85-86.
• 2. B. M. MS. Additional 28622, fol. 18r-v. This is a MS. of Ayton's poems, compiled perhaps in the 1670's by a "naive" copyist. It represents a

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  different MS. tradition from No. 1 and, at least for some poems, an older tradition before authorial revisions. For this poem it gives a text in substantial agreement with No. 1, but with a few errors of transcription.
• 3. Edinburgh University Library, MS. Laing III, 436, pp. 20-21. Headed: Songe. This is an early seventeenth-century poetical miscellany which is unusual in that it gives copies of 18 poems by Ayton, the largest number contained in any such miscellany. Some of the poems it gives are known otherwise only from the Ayton MSS., a fact which suggests that the compiler had unique access to Ayton's work. The texts of the poems given frequently differ substantially from the Ayton MSS. This may suggest either that the versions are early or that the copyist was careless. On the whole the former seems more likely, since the variant readings are always possible and sensible readings. The text which it gives of this poem is fair, but it introduces some unique readings and some blunders of transcription.
• * 4. B. M. MS. Additional 25303, fol. 118r-v. Subscribed: Sir W: R.
• * 5. B. M. MS. Additional 21433, fols. 112v-113v. Subscribed: Sir W: R. This manuscript has been shown by G. C. Moore Smith to be a transcript of the preceding,[1] although it does not follow slavishly. Several attempts are made in this poem to emend the more difficult and unacceptable readings of the preceding manuscript.
• 6. B. M. MS. Harley 6057, fol. 18. Headed: An Ode. Subscribed: S ir Walter Rawleigh. It generally follows Nos. 4 and 5 but introduces some unique readings of its own. It shows its affinity with 4 and 5, among other ways, by attempting to emend, with different results, the same readings which No. 5 emends.
• 7. MS. Folger 1.21, fols. 62-63. Subscribed: S:r Walter Raleigh.
• 8. MS. Folger 452.5, pp. 90-91. Headed: A silent wooer.
• 9. B. M. MS. Lansdowne 777, fol. 63r-v. Headed: To his Mistresse. Subscribed: Sr Wa: Raleigh. Nos. 7, 8 and 9 constitute a definite group.
• * 10. MS. Folger 1.28, fol. 59. Headed: Sr Wa: Ral: To the sole Governess of His Affections.
• * 11. Bodl. MS. Rawl. poet. 160, fol. 117. Headed: Sir Walter Raleigh to Queene Elizabeth.
• * 12. B. M. MS. Additional 22602, fols. 30v-31. Headed: Sir Walter Ralegh to ye Queen. This is the text given in The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Agnes M. C. Latham (1951), pp. 18-19.
• 13. MS. Corpus Christi College 328, fol. 78r-v. Headed: A paradox yt silence is ye best suiter.
• 14. MS. Additional 23229, fol. 54r-v.
• 15. MS. Additional 27407, fol. 129. Subscribed: finis quod sumbodie. In Scottish orthography. This is a curious text which shows almost complete independence when it diverges.
• * 16. John Cotgrave, ed., Wits Interpreter, 1655, pp. 40-41 of the second numbering. Headed: To his Mistresse by Sir Walter Raleigh.

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• 17. Ibid., p. 68 of the second numbering. Headed: To his Mistress. A text without the preliminary stanza and without ascription to any author. It is a curious irony that the two main MS. traditions should be accidentally represented in this volume.
• 18. John Donne, the younger, ed., The Poems of Lord Pembroke and Sir Benjamin Ruddier, 1660, p. 35. The poem is given to Pembroke.
• 19. Westminster Drollery, The Second Part, 1672, pp. 129-131. Headed: Silence the best Wooer.
• 20. Huntington Library, MS. Huntington 198, part II, fols. 52v-53.

Fragmentary Texts

• 21. MS. Corpus Christi College 327, fols. 10v-11. Headed: To his Mrs. Gives stanzas 1-7 only, and the reading "dear mistress" in line 1, as opposed to "sweet Empress" or "dear Empress."
• 22. B. M. MS. Stowe 962, fol. 185r-v. Headed: The Lord Walden to ye princesse Eliz: The same text as No. 21.
• 23. Bodl. MS. Ashmole 781, fol. 143. Subscribed: Finis Lord Walden. The text is impossible to read, since the ink from the other side of the page has soaked through and rendered the text of almost every page unreadable. Enough of the first lines of stanzas is visible to say that the text is that of No. 21.
• 24. B. M. MS. Egerton 2560, fol. 114. A version of seven stanzas, giving 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and concluding with a variant of 5. It preserves in the first line of 8 the reading of Nos. 1 and 2.
• 25. B. M. MS. Harley 3511, fols. 12v-13. The same text, with substantially the same reading in line one of stanza 8.
• 26. Bodl. MS. Eng. poet. e. 14, fol. 19. Headed: A Song. A version of 5 stanzas, giving 1, 3, 4, a variant of 2, and 7.
• 27. Bodl. MS. Donor d. 58, fol. 22v. Headed: Cant[us] 5. The same text as No. 26.

Texts Not Cited or Collated

• 28. Cambridge University Library, MS. Ee. 5. 23, pp. 6-7. A text of seven stanzas (that of Nos. 21-23) given as two poems (numbered 14 and 15) of three and four stanzas, respectively. I have seen this manuscript but have not collated it.
• 29-32. The Rosenbach Foundation, MSS. Rosenbach 187, 189, 190, 195. I have not seen these manuscripts.
• 33. MS. Huntington 116, pp. 16-18. Headed. Sr Gwalter Raleigh to ye sole Governesse of his Affection. The text is defective, lacking lines 3-4 and 29-30 of the second part, and grossly corrupt.

Texts of the Preliminary Stanza Only

• 1. Bodl. MS. Malone 16, p. 17.
• 2. Bodl. MS. Malone 19, p. 44.
• 3. Bodl. MS. Rawl. poet. 116, fol. 53v.
• 4. B. M. Harley 6057, fol. 9. Subscribed: Th: C:

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• 5. MS. Folger 1.27, p. 43. Miss Latham (Ralegh, p. 116) says that this manuscript contains both parts of the poem, but it contains only the epigram.
• 6. MS. Huntington 198, p. 165.

The text of this poem and its ascription present the most difficult problem of the entire canon. Who wrote the poem and what text to print are questions which admit of no certain answer. At best one can advance solutions which appear to account for the facts, but such solutions must be taken as provisional.

The number of manuscript texts of the poem is very large, but must nevertheless represent a mere fragment of the number of copies which were made, for the texts that we have are contaminated, one with another, to such an extraordinary degree that the relationship of the texts does not allow of accurate definition. A collation of three miscellany, and six fragmentary, and seventeen complete manuscript versions (Nos. 16, 18, 19; 22-27; and 1-15) shows that, while the texts have a tendency to break down into groups, a large number of them shift from one group to another on different readings and display no consistent pattern in doing so. The texts which show a more or less constant affinity are Nos. 1-3; Nos. 4-6; Nos. 8-10; and Nos. 11-12. Nos. 1-3 are the only texts which show a constant uniformity in themselves (although No. 3 gives a number of unique readings). Naturally on some readings where the number of variants is small, the other groups or single manuscripts sometimes fall in with them. Nos. 4-6, for example, although they constitute a definite group of readings, are not consistent; No. 6 introduces, like No. 3, several readings peculiar to itself, and on occasion falls in with other groups. Nos. 7-9 are another fairly constant group with which No. 10 falls in as often as it diverges from it.

What I am arguing then is simply this: it is impossible to construct a definitive text for poems derived from such sources as we are considering by any method of collation and comparison of the texts themselves, for there is nothing to provide the principle that determines which reading is a variant and which the original. This is particularly true of MSS. that do not fall into definite groups, but it is also true of MSS. which form definite and apparently derivative groups.[2] For example, there are 16 MSS. and printed texts of another Ayton poem, "Thou sent to mee a heart was Crown'd," which fall into six groups, the "first and true" state represented by the Ayton MSS., and five states of progressive corruption. The corruptions of Group Two are not found in Group One. The corruptions of

Group Three include those of Group Two and new ones of its own. The corruptions of Group Four include those of Group Three and new ones of its own. And the Fifth Group derives from the Third without contamination from the Fourth. But it might be just as conveniently argued that Group Three was the "first and true" state and that three lines of corruption emerged from it. It is only by the assumption that the poem is by Ayton and that the version of the Ayton MSS. is the most authoritative text that the progressive line of corruption and the derivation of groups can be shown. There is no doubt about the authorship of this poem, so that the assumptions have a certain necessary force; without them, there would be no possibility of a definitive text.

Copy-Text and Notes

I have taken for my copy-text MS. Add. 10308 which is generally supported by MS. Add. 28622 and Laing. Sir John has made some emendations which cannot be dismissed, since they are supported either by MS. Add. 28622 or by Laing.

The variant readings for this poem will generally be cited by a number which indicates how many manuscripts give that reading; since there are so many texts and since they are of such shifting loyalty, it would be confusing rather than helpful to cite them individually in the notes. Only texts 1-15 are included in the notes. Texts 22-27, being fragmentary and otherwise corrupt, are of no textual validity. Texts 16-19, the miscellany texts, are late, partially corrupt, and in any case representative of texts included in the manuscript versions cited. No. 27 I have seen but not collated. Nos. 28-31 I have not seen, although they have been collated by Miss Latham in her text of the poem.

Authorship of the Poem

There are four claimants to the poem, Ayton, Ralegh, Rudyerd, and Walden. The last two claims can be dismissed offhand. Rudyerd's claim cannot stand because the volume purporting to contain his and Pembroke's poems is in fact a carelessly edited anthology of seventeenth-century poems. It does contain poems by both Pembroke and Rudyerd, but the mere presence of any poem in this volume constitutes evidence of nothing but the taste of the editor. Walden's claim we may dismiss, since it is advanced by two fragmentary texts (Nos. 22-23).[3]

Nos. 1 and 2 give the poem to Ayton. Nine manuscripts give the poem to Ralegh; six of these have the preliminary stanza (Nos. 4-5, 10, 11, 13, 16), and three do not (Nos. 6, 7, and 9). The editor of Wit's Interpreter gives it to him in one instance, also (No. 16). Thirteen manuscripts (and two miscellanies) assign the poem to no author; of these, seven manuscripts have all eight stanzas of the second part of the poem (Nos. 3, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17, and 19), and six give partial texts (Nos. 21 and 24-28). The number

of texts in any category here is of little significance. Nos. 4-6 are the same text, as are Nos. 21-23, Nos. 24-25, and Nos. 26-27. Thus, Nos. 4-6 each give the poem to Ralegh, but their attribution has only the force of one, since they are texts of the same group; and No. 5 is actually a transcript of No. 4. This is the familiar principle of agreement in error, the formulation of which is due, I believe, to Dr. Johnson. If we were to settle the problems of authorship merely on the quantity of manuscript ascriptions to a given author, we should have to reassign half the poems of the early seventeenth century, and frequently in the face of superior evidence.

My argument is briefly this: (1) the preliminary stanza is probably by Ralegh; (2) it is not part of the longer poem, (3) but became confused with it for fairly obvious reasons such as similarity of subject; and (4) the poem beginning at "Wrong not . . ." is probably by Ayton.

The preliminary stanza cannot be considered part of the poem, regardless of one's opinion of the authorship of either part. It differs with respect to form in rime scheme and line length from the rest of the poem; and with respect to genre and the procedure that any given genre enforces, for it was conceived as an epigram, a concise expression of a general idea, and is complete in itself. An argument from form concerning any Renaissance poem should be convincing in itself; such a combination of rime schemes and line lengths is almost unknown in the Renaissance and is completely unparalleled by any other poem by Ayton or Ralegh. The argument from genre is at least as important: the second part is a discursive lyric, a song, written in a style which is diffuse in comparison with that of the preliminary stanza. The following text of the epigram is from MS. Rawl. poet. 160 (No. 11, above).

It has been suggested to me by Dr. C. F. Main that the two poems became confused as one through the habit of noting poems into commonplace books under topic headings, such as Woman's Love or, in this instance, Passions. The practice was sufficiently frequent for the suggestion to be convincing; such an explanation would account for the consistent attribution to Ralegh when the two parts are given and for the frequent omission of any author in those manuscripts which give only the second part. Furthermore, such an explanation seems to have occurred even in the seventeenth century, for some texts which give only the second part belong to groups which give both parts: No. 6 constitutes a group with 4 and 5, and No. 8 a group with 7 and 9. The only conclusion that can be reached is that the copyists of

Nos. 6 and 8 thought the two parts two distinct poems and separated them. If we assume for the moment that the second part is by Ayton, such an explanation helps to explain why some texts of the second part only are subscribed Ralegh.

By far the most weighty evidence, however, is the fact that Nos. 1 and 2 are compilations of Ayton's poetry alone, and that they are of the highest possible authority, barring a holograph, for the poems which they contain. They give very few doubtful poems, and the doubts about such poems as have been disputed have been raised by very late evidence, such as the ascriptions in Lawes's song books, or suppositious evidence, such as the ascription by modern editors of poems found in manuscripts associated with other authors such as Drummond or Fowler. Miss Latham argues that "neither of the manuscript books professing to contain his [Ayton's] poems has his authority" (op. cit., p. 116), but this is more of an argument against Ralegh than for, since none of the manuscripts of which we know is devoted to Ralegh's poetry alone. It should in fairness be said, however, that Miss Latham states the case for Ayton's authorship of the second part as fully and dispassionately as she states the case for Ralegh's authorship of the whole.

In conclusion, it must be said that the whole argument advanced here is suppositious itself, and in the extreme, but that it appears to account for more of the facts presented by the available texts than any other argument that has been presented. This is not to say that it is true nor that it will prove persuasive; an editor hopes that his arguments are true, but it is not for him to decide whether they are persuasive or not.

Notes