III
A Directional Study of the Variants
To resolve these ambiguities, we must use other kinds of evidence.
The dates on the manuscripts put all of them before 1646, and S is the only
one with a definite date, September 1637, one month after the poem was
written. But even there Cranfield's note indicates that manuscripts were
circulating "about London" in September of that year. Furthermore S itself
has the signs of a corrupt version; thus an early date means little. As is
commonly known in manuscript study, a late manuscript can easily have
been copied from an authoritative early one, whereas an early manuscript
can be very corrupt, with many intermediaries between it and the archetype.
A similar difficulty comes with study of the accidentals of the witnesses.
We can seldom be sure that a scribe did or did not use a holograph
manuscript as his copy, for scribes stamp a manuscript with their own
habits of spelling and punctuation even more distinctly than compositors of
printed books. And again, we can not be sure that
another manuscript did not intervene between the scribal copy and the
archetype. For simplicity we assume that one has not. Although Suckling's
habits of spelling are known from his autograph letters, distinctive authorial
spellings do not bleed through the work of these scribes. In the case of the
printed edition of 1646, a kind of negative proof has been made, above, to
show that authorial papers were not used as copy for the poem.
One other kind of evidence remains: the inherent nature of the
variants themselves, the directional variants. We are looking for signs of
originality and derivation so as to decide which witnesses stand closer to the
archetype than the others. If original readings occur in more than one
manuscript, they must descend independently from the archetype, but if
original readings appear in only one witness, the descent of the manuscripts
is radically altered (as in diagrams D, E, and F). The signs of an original
reading or directional change, listed by Dearing, vary considerably in their
reliability. In the discussion above, S has been shown to be more
sophisticated, simplified, and smoothed out than the others: this is one of
the best kinds of proof of a derivative text. A misreading that can go only
one way is another strong proof. Also the reading that makes sense rather
than nonsense is likely to be more original, but this kind is often reversible,
for a scribe may make sense out
of a corruption in his archetype. On the other hand, a more difficult reading
is not necessarily the more original; nor is the "better" reading or more
poetic reading necessarily more original.
A number of directional variants establish M and Ha as most probably
closer to the archetype than any of the other witnesses. The strongest case
can be made for the format of the stanzas, in conjunction with significant
omissions that would not have arisen unless the archetype were arranged in
the pattern of the Malone and the Harvard manuscripts. These manuscripts
separate the four-line stanzas by spaces, and they link pairs of stanzas by
a system of monosyllabic words suspended between them. S and C group
the stanzas in eight lines, C indenting the last four lines of each octave,
while neither uses the suspended words between. At the other extreme, E
uses four-line stanzas without suspended words, and does not pair any of
the stanzas. In placing the monosyllables, Hn and 46 seven times agree with
MHa and the other eight times with E; but 46 and Hn do not always
suspend the monosyllable between the same pairs of stanzas. In other
words, 46 suspends in the middle of octaves 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 13, while
Ha suspends in octaves 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The sense of the poem
clearly falls into eight-line units, so that either SC or MHa is likely to have
been in the author's manuscript. If we assume that Suckling was careless
with such details and wrote his original as we see E, it does not seem
probable that a scribe would invent such an unusual scheme as in MHa, and
we cannot easily explain the regular presence of the linking words at the
beginning of the fifth line of each octave.
Next assume that Suckling started to write the verses with the
suspended words but he dropped the habit about halfway through where Hn
or 46 leave off. It is possible that a scribe who liked consistency would
have finished out the scheme, to produce the format of M and Ha. This
possibility is demonstrated by the mistaken addition of a transitional word
between lines 56 and 57 in Ha. However the facts contradict such an
hypothesis, for at line 53 and 107 all the texts except 46 retain the
transitional word, in either the suspended position or as the first word of a
line. Why should such omissions occur in 46 at these points, unless an
ancestor of 46 had the words in their suspended positions and they were
overlooked by the copyist? A similar omission arose independently in 46,
M, and Hn at line 93, where only two lines of a stanza survive. C and E
read Then as the first word of the line, S reads
Next, and Ha suspends Then between the
stanzas.
The
distributional study showed that M is not closely related to 46Hn, nor are
C and E and Ha closely related. Therefore the archetype must have read
Then and the word must have been suspended between the
stanzas, or else it could not have been so easily overlooked by M, Hn, and
46.
The assumption that SC have the original format is destroyed by the
same kind of evidence, for both of them omit And at line 21,
and C omits But at line 29. By elimination, the only
hypothesis
which fits the evidence is that M and Ha have the original format.
Therefore, we must conclude that the repeated copying of the poem caused
the gradual omission or rearrangement of the suspended words, a theory
which is nicely confirmed by the way the compositor of Merry
Drollery, 1661, dropped out or realigned suspensions which he
found
in his copy of 1648, making the format of the stanzas like that in E.
The title contains another directional variant, for "The Witts" is
probably the original title of the poem that was sung before the King in
New Forest, in August 1637. George Garrard, in a letter to Thomas
Wentworth,
called it "a Ballad made of the Wits,"
[8] and Lionel Cranfield wrote on the
back
of his copy (S), "Of som Poetts / Of som Wittes." Only 46 has "A Sessions
of the Poets"; ESC have no title; and M, Ha, and Hn have "The Witts."
The word
sessions probably crept into 46's title from the first
line, "A Sessions was held the other day," although it does seem peculiar
that 46, along with S, reads
Session in the first line and
Sessions in the title.
Other directional changes depend upon the plain sense of some
readings over others. Thus 46 appears to be corrupt in
For had not her care furnished you out
instead of the majority reading
For had not her Character furnished you out (61)
Hn, E, and 46 are probably corrupt at line 53,
Suddenly takeing his place againe HnE46
Sullenly takeing his place againe Σ (original)
because "Sullenly" is a mood appropriate to the disappointed poet, and
"Suddenly" was probably introduced because the scribe saw that Will
Barkeley had smiled a few lines before. C changed
Sullenly
to
Silently, possibly for the same reason.
A peculiar substantive change at line 88 may have occurred because
of a misreading.
But Monsceure was modest, and silent confest HaSC
But Monsceure was modest, and silence confest 46HnE
M follows neither, with the word
silene.
Silent
may
be the original reading because it involves more complicated grammar; but
did M mean to put a
t instead of an
e or did his
copy read
silence and he left out the
c? It
cannot be
determined either way. The probabilities favor
silent as the
harder reading.
A similar puzzle is at line 29.
(a) But those that were there thought it not soe fitt MHn
(b) But those that were there thought it not fitt Ha46E
(c) But those that were there did not think it fitt SC[9]
Reading (a) is most likely original because M and Hn have been shown to
be independent witnesses (in the distributional study above), and it seems
unlikely that two scribes would have added the same word
soe
at the same point, but it is possible for Ha46E to have independently
dropped the word in order to improve the meter. And (c) is derivative
because it appears to be another attempt to make iambic meter of the
basically anapestic rhythm.
[10]
A few errors can be explained as transpositions or slips of the eye
over similar words in nearby text.
But wiser Appollo bid him draw nigher Σ
But wise Appollo bid him draw nigher M (105)
(original)
Appollo stopt him there, and bade him not go on
46HnCE
Appollo stopt him here, and bid him not goe on HaMS
(25) (original)
The second of the readings at line 25 may be original because the word
there can be seen in exactly the same place in the line
beginning
the following stanza.
Suckling next was called but did not appeare
But straight one whispered 46 (line 73)
Here
But has been retained in the eye of the compositor of
46,
substituted for
and in the second line, as it reads in Σ.
At
line 42, the scribe of Ha wrote "in travelling France" rather than "travelling
in France" (Σ). Similar errors are:
Surely the Companie could have beene content
If they could but have found any president M
Surely the Companie would have beene content
If they could but have found any president Σ (45)
(original)
(a) Jack Vaughan and Porter and divers
others
46
(b) Jack Vaughan with Porter and divers
others
HnE
(c) Jack Vaughan and Porter with divers
others
Σ (16) (original)
In the last example, (a) is probably derivative because one
and
attracted the other. It is probable that (c) is more original than (b) because
of its occurrence in independent witnesses MHaSC. Thus (b) is a
transposition. However, this argument hangs on the assumption that
MHaSC do not derive from the same faulty ancestor. Considering this
variant in isolation. we could just as reasonably conclude that the ancestor
of HnE46 read as in (b) and had the original reading. But in the light of all
the previous evidence, (c) is more probably original.
In the examples of directional variation, M and Ha most frequently
have original readings, and neither SC alone nor 46HnE alone have original
readings; only when they agree with M or Ha do they contain such variants.
An editor puts special weight on the variants of format of the poem,
because there the argument for original readings is irreversible. Therefore
M and Ha stand closer to the archetype, and we can resolve some of the
ambiguities of the distributional formula. Trees (D), (E), and (F) are out of
the question, for no manuscript has a significant number of original
readings among its type 1 variants. Trees (B) and (C) are not likely to be
right because M and Ha do not have a prominent enough position in them,
and CS, which have no original readings alone, are given undue weight.
Therefore tree (A) is the best.
Such a tree surely relegates the printed text (46) to an inferior
position; but that does not solve all the preliminary problems of an editor,
because it is still uncertain which manuscript, M or Ha, has the shorter line
of transmission. In other words, which manuscript should be the copy-text
for a critical edition? This is a difficult choice, for both seem equally
distant from the archetype. Greg has shown that the copy-text is most
important for the texture of its accidentals, and an editor should choose the
one that offers the best chance of bearing some of the details of the author's
manuscript. In our case, neither M nor Ha shows any significant signs of
authorial copy immediately behind the scribal transcription. The scribe of
M is amazingly uniform in details of spelling and punctuation whether he
is copying Suckling or Waller or Godolphin's poems, and the text of "The
Witts" shows no deviation from his established patterns. Ha is a little more
flexible in his practice,
but when he does deviate from his habits while transcribing "The Witts,"
he moves farther than ever from Suckling's spelling. Suckling writes
doe, goe, so, no;
whereas
the scribe of Ha writes doe, goe,
soe
and noe more frequently in this poem than elsewhere. M
seems
to have more examples of Suckling's favorite past participate ending
-nd, -vd, -rd, -md,
-sd, and more examples of parenthesis in exclamations, direct
address, and asides; however the scribe does the same thing in the rest of
M. Both M and Ha have a small number of type 1 variants and both appear
many times among the "shared" readings on the distributional chart. Thus
it seems like a toss-up between the two. The only substantial difference
between them is that M appears to be more of a professional job, neater,
less prone to literal errors, more regularly punctuated, and generally
cleaned up; while Ha is more naive, prone to simple
omissions and misreadings, messy, and unprofessional. An editor of a
critical text would surely want to favor readings from Ha, if for no other
reason than the obviousness of its errors. As it has been often observed, all
other things being equal, a messy and careless copy is less likely to have
deliberate improvements by a scribe than a highly professional transcript.
But the final decision rests with the accidentals: which of the two agrees
more with Suckling's known habits? Again Ha has an advantage, by a ratio
of forty-eight to twenty-one; therefore Ha is the most suitable basis for an
edition.
Before the final editing, we must ask about the mixed text of the
poem in Fragmenta Aurea 1648. Whence did its twenty-two
corrections come? None of the six type 1 variants appear to be original, and
some are clearly corrupt; for instance, hyde bound for hard
bound (35) and what made for how
came
(57). Once it agrees with Ha alone: betwixt for
'twixt (72), an insignificant expansion. Once it agrees with
HnE
alone, cheared for cleared (115); and twice
with S,
himself scarce for himself hardly (56) and to
any for
any (118). The other twelve variants correct type 1 readings
in
46, including the stanza omitted in 46, and they bring the text into general
agreement with the manuscripts. Consequently the corrections may have
come from a comparison of 46 with a manuscript closely related to S, itself
possibly conflated with HnE. Another possibility is that 46 was compared
against two manuscripts, one similar to S and one to HnE. There is not
enough evidence for either case. At any rate, the text of 48 is considerably
better than 46, but one of the ironies of textual transmission is that 48 was
reprinted only in the surreptitious edition of 1672(?) and in
Merry
Drollery 1661. Whereas the corruptions of 46 were perpetuated in
Suckling's works of 1658, 1694-96, 1709, 1766, 1770, and 1836. Nor were
the mistakes rectified by W. C. Hazlitt's editions of 1874 and 1892, nor in
A. H. Thompson's "standard" edition of 1910, which whimsically followed
1646 for a while, then 1648, and once picked up the erroneous reading
hide bound (35) from 1648. Hazlitt and Thompson did not
even
notice that 48 supplied the missing stanza. The only modern edition which
contains a substantial number of the corrections
of 48 is that by R. G. Howarth in
Minor Poets of the Seventeenth
Century (1931). But since Professor Howarth was unfamiliar with
the
manuscripts, he could not know the importance of seven variants in 48, nor
could he know of the twenty-six corruptions in both 46 and 48.
In the little edition below, I have followed Ha except where a
possibly better reading could be found in other witnesses (if I could explain
how Ha fell in error). I have silently modernized u, v, i, j, and long s;
expanded abbreviations, italicized proper names, and supplied capital letters
at the beginning of lines. In the notes I have recorded only the substantive
and semi-substantive variants from sources that could descend directly from
the archetype, readings in Ha, M, the ancestor of CS, and the ancestor of
46EHn.[11] Clearly derivative readings
from witnesses placed lower on the tree are omitted; thus the reader will
not find type 1 variants from C, S, 46, 48, Hn, and E, because such a
reading was apparently introduced by a copyist. And although I have altered
the accidentals at several points, I have left a complete record of these
changes for a full-dress critical edition.