University of Virginia Library

The 1640 Volume

The title page of 40 (STC 1665) reads: "POEMS: | BY | FRANCIS BEAUMONT, | Gent. | Viz. | The Hermaphrodite. | The Remedie of Love. | Elegies. | Sonnets, with other Poems. | — | LONDON, | Printed by Richard Hodgkinson for W[illiam]. W[ethered]. | and Laurence Blaikelocke and are | to be sold at the signe of the | Sugar-loafe next Temple | Bar in Fleet-street. | 1640." It contains 40 leaves, A—K4. This volume was produced by a small but established printer and two young men who were just beginning their careers as publishers. Richard Hodgkinson, the printer, usually printed one or two books a year between 1630 and 1663, and never more than seven, except that in 1640 he was unusually active and produced eighteen volumes.

Laurence Blaikelocke, the principal publisher, took up his freedom in 1638 and published at premises near Temple Bar until 1654. He published two books in 1639 and four in 1640. On 2 September 1639 he entered on the Stationers' Register "a Booke called Salmacis and Hermaphroditus or the Hermaphrodite, a Poem, by ffrancis Beomont" (Arber, IV, 474), for which he had obtained a license on 31 August (see imprimatur on E4). William Wethered took up his freedom in 1637 and his name occurs in the Stationers' Register until 1646, but the only extant volume with which he is definitely associated as publisher is the 1640 Beaumont poems (see A Dictionary of Printers by McKerrow, 1910, and Plomer, 1907, and Morrison's Index of Printers, 1961 and 1955). On 7 October 1639 he entered in the Stationers' Register "Poems by ffrancis Beomont. gent. viztt. Remedium Amoris. The Passion of Christ with diuers Elegies. Also a Poem against stargaizers &c by Master John ffletcher," for which he paid sixpence, the entry fee for a single volume (Arber, IV, 482).

In order to forward their newly begun businesses both Blaikelocke and Wethered were evidently on the lookout for old texts by popular authors that they could persuade the wardens of the Stationers' Company were unassigned. Actually Salmacis and Hermaphroditus had previously been published by John Hodgets in 1602, but it had not been entered in the Stationers' Register. The Passion of Christ may have been an otherwise unknown poem,

or it may have been Joseph Fletcher's Christs Bloodie Sweat, which had been duly entered and published by R. Blower in 1613; but if it was, the change of title misled the wardens, and Wethered did not publish it anyway.

The volume resulting from the Stationers' Register entries by Blaikelocke and Wethered appears to have been set in type piecemeal and to have undergone three or four changes in content during the course of composition. Blaikelocke evidently had at first intended to publish only Salmacis and Hermaphroditus under Beaumont's name, and his volume of five quarto gatherings was probably already in type and perhaps printed, with the imprimatur on E4 (E4v is blank), when he joined forces with Wethered. The Remedie of Love was then added on F1-H2 and the word "FINIS" placed at the end of the text on H2. At this point the decision was probably made to add another group of poems, so the catchword "AN" was placed at the bottom of H2 and "An Elegie on the Ladie Markham" and ten other poems, the last two being in commendation of Beaumont, were set in type on H2v—K2. As this left two leaves of the final gathering blank, two more poems (Nos. 22-23) were added to fill the blank pages. Later in the course of printing, the word "FINIS" was removed from H2, with the result that some of the surviving copies (Bodleian Ashmole 1663 and Malone 784, Harvard Britwell, Huntington) appear with and some (Harvard, Morgan, Newberry) without it.

Blaikelocke was clearly the leading spirit in the enterprise. He signed the dedication, with the statement that the "Poems" (note the plural) were "the issue of brave Beaumonts braine," his Salmaces [sic] and Hermaphroditus appears first in the volume, and only the address of his place of business is given on the title page. Later he was probably solely responsible for the augmented second edition of 1653. The second major poem in the 1640 volume, The Remedie of Love, had been entered and attributed to Beaumont by Wethered. It is impossible to determine which of the two publishers of 40 was responsible for adding the remaining poems on H2v—K4; the first eleven may have been the "diuers Elegies" that Wethered entered, though it is also possible that they had been collected and attributed to Beaumont by Blaikelocke. Of the 23 poems in the 1640 edition, six (Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 20, 21) are Blaikelocke's dedication and commendatory poems attributed in the text to other authors; the remaining 17 items the title page implies and Blaikelocke in his prefatory poem asserts are by Francis Beaumont. In what follows I set forth the evidence for the authorship of each of the poems in 40. All of them, except No. 13, were reprinted in 53, A1-4v, and B1-E3v, with the same attributions.

• [1] WEre these but worthlesse Poems or light Rimes. A2r—v. 24 lines in couplets. Headed "To the worshipfull Robert Ducie . . ." and subscribed "Laurence Blaikelocke." The publisher's dedication, readdressed to "Robert Parkhurst Esq" in 53.
• Nos. 2-7 were printed, with some changes, from the anonymous Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, printed at London [by Simon Stafford] for Iohn Hodgets, 1602 (STC 18972—hereafter O2).

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• [2] IT is a statute in deep wisdoms lore. A3. 14-line sonnet. Headed "To the true Patronesse of all Poetrie, Caliope" and subscribed "F.B." Not subscribed in O2.
• [3] LIke to the weake estate of a poore friend. A3v. 14-line sonnet. "In laudem Authoris," subscribed W. B. as in O2.
• [4] EIther the goddesse drawes her troopes of loves. A3v. 14-line sonnet. "To the Authour," subscribed J. B. as in O2.
• [5] THe matchlesse lust of a faire poesie. A4. Three sixains. "To the Author," subscribed J. F. (A. F. in O2, which reads "The matchlesse Lustre of faire poesie.")
• [6] I Sing the fortune of a lucklesse paire. A4v. Ten lines ababcdcdee. "The Author to the Reader," unsubscribed as in O2.
• [7] MY wanton lines doe treat of amorous love. B1-E3v. 920 lines in couplets. (922 lines in O2). "Salmaces & Hermaphroditus, or The Hermaphrodite."

Dyce printed Nos. 2-7 from 40 (XI, 443-471) because he did not have access to O2; Beal listed Nos. 2, 6, and 7 (BmF 133-136). J. Payne Collier, The Works of Shakespeare, I (1844), cxvi note 3, was the first to note that Nos. 2-7 were reprinted from O2. He called 40 a "fraudulent reprint" and did not accept the attribution to Beaumont because in 1602 "Beaumont was only sixteen [actually seventeen], and the first edition has no name nor initials to the address 'To Calliope,' to which Blaickelocke in 1640, for his own book-selling purpose, thought fit to add the letters F. B. In the same way, he changed the initials to a commendatory poem from A. F. to I. F., in order to make it appear as if John Fletcher had applauded his friend's early verses." Dyce commented, "Mr. Collier may be right; but my own impression is, that it really was the production of Beaumont's youth," and printed Nos. 2-7 from 40.

The next year an editor signing himself "Dramaticus" reprinted the entire text of the Bodleian copy of O2 (then thought unique) in Shakespeare Society Papers, III (1847), 98-126. He noted the addition of the initials "F. B." to the author's address to Calliope, the change of "A. F." to "I. F." after a commendatory poem, and that "the name of Francis Beaumont no where appears," and so concluded that, "without going to the extent of asserting positively that he had no hand whatever in it, it may be strongly doubted whether Blaiklock did not impute it to him fraudulently, in order to avail himself of the popularity of Beaumont's name" (p. 94).

Since 1847 the O2 text of Salmacis has been three times reprinted: by Gwyn Jones, Golden Cockerel Press, 1951; by Elizabeth Story Donno in Elizabethan Minor Epics, 1963; and by Nigel Alexander in Elizabethan Narrative Verse, 1967. Jones considered the attribution to Beaumont "unproved and unconvincing" (p. 7), Donno merely observed that it was attributed to Beaumont in 40, and Alexander apparently accepted the attribution but without explanation. Hallet Smith, Elizabethan Poetry, 1952, p. 70 note 20, accepted the argument of "Dramaticus" and concluded that the authorship "remains unknown."

O2 was not entered on the Stationers' Register and has no author's name

on the title page nor after the first and last of the introductory poems which are written in the person of the author. It is the earliest and most accurate text, with only two manifest typographical errors (7.115 "burn sht" for "burnisht" and 647 "sto'ne" for "stol'n") and has only a single word (7.757 "was smooth" for "is smooth") emended by modern editors (40, properly I think, also emended 7.52 "for" to "for's", 139 "their" to "the", 371 "quiuers" to "quiuer", and 473 "drinking" to "parting").

40, A3-E3v, has the same contents in the same order as O2 and is clearly a direct reprint, though carelessly done. It has at least 40 typographical errors, and more than 60 other deliberate changes from O2 in its text. Some I believe are proper emendations (as the four listed above), but many are arbitrary substitutions that neither change nor improve the meaning (4.8 "faire" for "fine", 7.6 "These" for "The", 53 "and 'twas" for "that was", etc.). Some deliberately change the phrasing where that of O2 appears perfectly satisfactory (5.10 "more rare invention" for "more mouing passion", 7.32 "could not choose but kisse" for "did of purpose kisse", etc.). Others are emendations that betray a lack of understanding of the text. Thus at 7.176 where O2 has "entred" 40 reads "entring", which destroys the grammatical structure of the sentence; and 40 omits lines 373-374 of O2.

But despite these editorial changes, there are numerous direct textual links between O2 and 40 which show that an annotated copy of O2 itself was the printer's copy for 40. Thus though the compositor of 40 imposed his own patterns of accidentals on his copy and gave it a more modern appearance, a few older or unusual spellings reappear in 40, as 3.10 "Epithites", 7.169 "promooters," and 577 "Mayre-maids" (O2 "Mair-maids"). Of more significance are the duplication of typographical peculiarities, such as the failure to italicize the second proper name in 7.110 "Pelion . . . mighty Osse"; or 40 being led astray by the typographical error at 7.647, where O2 reads "let my sport be sto'ne" and 40, failing to see that "sto'ne" was a typographical error for "stol'n", rewrote the passage as "let her name be known."

There are four manuscript copies of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus of the second quarter of the seventeenth century or later, all of which derive directly or indirectly from one or other of the prints. Cambridge University Library Mm. 4. 13 was copied directly from O2, as shown by close agreement in readings, and is anonymous like its original. Brit. Lib. Add. 33988, ff. 16-29v, transcribed after 1647, is headed "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus a Poem written by ffrancis Beaumont"; but it was copied directly from 40, as shown by its omission of lines 373-374 and numerous other agreements in error, so its attribution has no independent value.

The two remaining manuscripts, Kent Archives Office U1121 Z14 and Bodl. Rawl. poet. 120, ff. 92-122, share over a hundred peculiar readings, many of them manifest errors (3.5 "muse", 4.7 "watry Nymphs", 5.3 "raisinge maiesty", 7.63 "Vp to", 74 "clearer grace", 78 "Queene of", 99 "sides there", etc.), and omissions (7.285-286, 817, 819-821), which show that they descend from an exclusive common ancestor (X). That X was a direct transcript of O2 is shown by both manuscripts having the five preliminary poems subscribed

as in O2; by the general tenor of their readings which agree with O2 against 40; by their preservation of probable errors of O2 at 7.52 "for", 473 "drinkinge", and 757 "was smooth"; and even by the preservation of accidentals characteristic of O2, such as the spellings 7.58 "abilliments", 424 "sate", 515 "bever", 580 "swarfy", and 720 "rosiat".

Kent Archives Office U1121 Z14, a separate manuscript of 14 leaves, first noticed by Beal (I thank Mr. D. C. Gibson for further information and a xerox), is a moderately accurate text which omits 16 lines, repeats eight (notably 7.665-666 after 854), and has at the end, "finis / FRANCIS BEAMONT." Bodl. Rawl. poet. 120, ff. 91-122, was originally a separate manuscript of 32 leaves, carelessly transcribed with the omission of 64 scattered lines and the repetition of nine others. Prior to its being bound with three other manuscripts, the first and last probably damaged leaves were discarded and a substitute final leaf of different paper stock was added. On the recto of this was written, in different ink by a different but not much later hand, the last eight lines of Salmacis with the subscription, "Finis / Francis Beaumont / 1634." The most reasonable inference would seem to be that the second scribe drew his text and subscription from the damaged last leaf of the original he replaced or from X, and that X and probably the Rawlinson original had been transcribed in 1634.

The attribution to Beaumont in both these manuscripts must come from X, which was a transcript, probably made in 1634, of the anonymous O2. Since the attribution was not in X's original, it must have been added by X's scribe, who wrote after Beaumont's death. Since X's attribution is late and from an unknown source, it provides only doubtful corroboration of the suspect testimony of 40. G. C. Macaulay, Francis Beaumont a Critical Study (1883), 197-200, rejected the attribution of Salmacis to Beaumont because "it is so entirely different in character from his other works." C. M. Gayley, Beaumont the Dramatist (1914), 41, accepted the attribution because, "Both diction and verse display characteristics not foreign to Beaumont's heroic couplets in epistle and elegy, nor to the blank verse of his dramas,—though they do not markedly distinguish them." Philip J. Finkelpearl (N&Q, October 1969, pp. 367-368) pointed out parallels between Salmacis and The Metamorphosis of Tabacco, dubiously attributed to Francis's brother John, as evidence that the two brothers were acquainted with each other's work, parallels which Roger Sell (N&Q, January 1972, p. 11) brands as "all classical allusions of the kind which are the stock-in-trade of the Ovidian poet," and so of no probative value as evidence of acquaintance. Impressions vary, stylistic criteria are uncertain. Cyrus Hoy ("The Shares of Fletcher and his Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon III," SB, 11 [1958], 87) concluded that it is "quite impossible to establish for Beaumont a neat pattern of linguistic preferences that will serve as a guide to identifying his work." So we must depend primarily upon external evidence, which in this case is uncertain.

[8] WHen Cupid read this Title, straight he said. 580 lines in couplets. F1-H2.

"THE REMEDIE OF LOVE." An apparently unique text, entered and attributed to Beaumont by Wethered on 7 October 1639. Printed by Dyce (XI, 446-471); not listed by Beal because no manuscript could be found. This is in part a metaphrase but in the main an original rehandling of the material of Ovid's Remedia Amoris. Ovid's poem was translated or paraphrased several times in the early seventeenth century. One version by F. L. was printed in 1600 (STC 18794), another by Sir Thomas Overbury in 1620 (STC 18975), and a third by J. Carpenter in 1636 (STC 18976). Thomas Heywood said he had translated the entire work, but only the few lines he quoted in Troia Britannica, 1609, survive (STC 13366). All four of these texts differ markedly from the one printed here, and Wethered remains the only known authority for attributing it to Beaumont.

[9] AS unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds. 68 or 70 lines in couplets.

First printed with the heading "An Elegie on the Lady Markham" in 40, H2v-3v. Reprinted by Dyce (XI, 503-505) and listed by Beal (56-83). This exercise of wit in the form of an elegy on the friend and relative of Lucy Countess of Bedford, the widowed Bridget Markham who died at Twickenham on 4 May 1609 and on whom Donne also wrote an elegy, is attributed by name to Beaumont in Brit. Lib. Add 30982 f. 50, Stowe 962 f. 82v, and Huntington HM 198 Part I p. 11, and by initials in Bodl. Ashmole 38 f. 77 and Brit. Lib. Add. 25707 f. 30v. It is attributed to I. D. in Bodl. Eng. poet f. 9 p. 199 and Harvard Eng. 966.1 f. 48, to A. P. (the scribe) in Brit. Lib. Stowe 962 f. 19, and is anonymous in Brit. Lib. Add. 23229 f. 66v (from 40), Egerton 2230 f. 3v, and Sloane 1446 f. 72v, Bodl. Rawl. poet. 117 f. 193, and Rawl. poet. 160 f. 27v, and the Digby MS printed in N&Q 3 (1851), 367 (lines 49-70 only). Beal does not indicate whether or not his added Nos. 60, 68-70, 70.5, 71, and 73-82 are attributed. This is the only poem in 40 whose attribution to Beaumont is adequately substantiated from other sources.

[10] CAn my poore lines no better office have. 20 lines in couplets. H4.

"AN ELEGIE." Chalmers (VI, 184) observed that "these lines are part of Sir John Beaumont's Elegy on the lady Marquesse of Winchester [d. Oct. 1614] inserted here probably from an oversight of the editor." Sir John was Francis's elder brother; the verses printed by 40 are lines 1-18 with a new concluding couplet of a 100-line poem "Of the truly Noble and Excellent Lady, the Lady Marquesse of Winchester," in Sir John's posthumously published Bosworth-field, 1629, L8-M1v. Since 40 contains verbal variants in eight of its first 18 lines, its text probably derives from a now untraced manuscript rather than directly from the 1629 print. Rejected by Dyce and not listed by Beal.

[11] SLeepe, old man, let silence charme thee. 24 lines a4b3a4b3 trochaic. H4v.

"A Charme." J. P. Collier, A Catalogue . . . of the Library at Bridge-water House, 1837, pp. 26-27, listed a copy of 40 inscribed, "For the Right Hoble John Earle of Bridgwater my much Honourd Lord from his Lordes most humblest servant Henry Lawes," in which after this poem the same hand has

written, "H: H: this coppy of verses was made by Henry Harrington & set by Henry Lawes 1636." The Bridge-water copy of 40 is now in the Huntington Library (60332) and contains the manuscript inscriptions that Collier quoted, which appear to be Lawes's holograph. Furthermore, the text of the poem with a musical setting appears in Lawes's manuscript collection of his own musical compositions, Brit. Lib. Add. 53723, f. 20 item 40. (see Pamela J. Willetts, The Henry Lawes Manuscript, 1969, pp. 38-39). In this manuscript the verses themselves are anonymous, but Lawes indicated the authors of only two of the 383 poems he set, and 17 folios later, where he entered his settings for Milton's Comus, he noted only that "the 5 songes followinge were sett for A Maske presented at Ludlo Castle, before ye Earle of Bridgwater Lord president of ye Marches. October. 1634." Lawes also set five other songs by Henry Harington which he printed in his Ayres and Dialogues, 1653, 1655, and 1658. Another anonymous manuscript text of No. 11, also headed "A Charme" as in 40, is preserved in Bodl. Eng. poet. c.50 f. 33 of the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Rejected by Dyce (XI, 442) on the basis of Collier's report, and by Beal (p. 67), who adds four more presumably anonymous manuscript texts in the Folger, National Library of Wales, New York Public, and Rosenbach Foundation Libraries. See also No. 18 below.

[12] FOndly, too curious Nature, to adorne. 32 lines in couplets. I1r-v.

"On the Marriage of a Beauteous young Gentlewoman, with an Ancient man." An apparently unique text. Printed as doubtfully Beaumont's by Dyce (XI, 488-489). Not listed by Beal because he found no manuscript.

[13] CAtch me a Starre, that's falling from the Sky. 8 lines in couplets. I1v.

"Womans Mutability." This poem is similar in subject to Donne's "Go and catch a falling star." A variant text, titled "On womans inconstancy" and beginning "Goe catch a star," was printed in Wits Recreations, 1640, E3, and 1641, D7, all of whose items are anonymous. The 40 text with a musical setting by John Playford was printed in his Select Ayres and Dialogues, 1659, D2. There are seven anonymous manuscript texts varying greatly in wording and even in order of lines: Bodl. Ashmole 47 f. 36, Malone 21 f. 45v, Rawl poet f. 8; Brit. Lib. Add. 30982 f. 26, Sloane 1867 f. 24 (from Wits Recreaations), Stowe 962 f. 31v; Corpus Christi College Oxford 328 f. 19. In an eighth manuscript, Brit. Lib. Harley 6057 f. 15, the lines are subscribed "Iohn Dunne," but since the text of this was copied directly from the anonymous 1640 or 1641 Wits Recreations the ascription can have little authority. This is the only poem in 40 that was not reprinted in 53, and its variant was also unaccountably omitted from the 1645 and later editions of Wits Recreations. Omitted by Dyce without comment and not listed by Beal.

[14] COld vertue guard me, or I shall endure. 34 lines in couplets. I2r-v.

"The Glance." A slightly variant text, headed "On A Ladies Tempting Eye" and subscribed "Iohn: Rutter:" is in Brit. Lib. Harley 6917 f. 45, transcribed about the middle of the seventeenth century. The DNB identifies this John with Joseph Rutter, whose only published work is a play, The Shepheards Holy-Day, 1635, which does not contain this poem. Printed as doubtful by

Dyce (XI, 489-494). Beal (BmF 96) lists the Harleian manuscript only.

[15] FLattering hope, away, and leave me. 30 lines aabbcC8. I2v-3.

"A Sonnet." An apparently unique text. Dyce (XI, 490-491) prints as doubtful. Not listed by Beal because he found no manuscript.

[16] MAy I finde a woman faire. 20 lines aabb8. I3.

"True Beauty." An identical anonymous text with the same title is in Wits Recreations, 1645, T7v, and later editions. Since the editor of the 1645 Wits Recreations also corrected its text of No. 23 by reference to 40, it is clear that he took his text of No. 16 from the same source. An anonymous text in the late seventeenth-century Brit. Mus. Harley 3991 f. 138 was copied from 53. Printed as doubtful by Dyce (XI, 491), and listed by Beal (BmF 141-143) who adds Folger V. A. 308 f. 138 and New York Public Library, Music Division Drexel 4257 No. 195 but does not indicate whether they are attributed.

[17] NEver more will I protest. 18 lines aabbcc8. I3v.

"The Indifferent." Another probably substantive text, transcribed by William Elyott c. 1655, is anonymous in Bodl. Rawl. poet. 116 f. 53v; an anonymous text in the late seventeenth-century Brit. Mus. Harley 3991 f. 131v was copied from 53. Printed as doubtful by Dyce (XI, 492) and listed by Beal (BmF 97-99) who adds New York Public Library, Music Division, Drexel 4257 No. 36 but does not indicate whether it is attributed.

[18] WHy should man be only ty'd. 30 lines ababcC7 trochaic. I4.

"Loves freedome." Henry Lawes, in the copy of 40 now in the Huntington Library (see above under No. 11), and reported by Collier in the Bridge-water Catalogue, wrote at the end of this poem, "H. H: this Songe was made by Henry Harrington & set by Henry Lawes 1636." The text and musical setting is in Lawes's manuscript collection of his own compositions, Brit. Lib. Add. 53723 f. 33v No. 67. An anonymous text in the late seventeenth-century Brit. Lib. MS Harley 3991 f. 135v, was copied from 53. Rejected by Dyce (XI, 442) on the basis of Collier's report, and by Beal (pp. 67-68) who adds another presumably anonymous text in Harvard MS Eng. 628, pp. 335-336.

[19] LIke to the falling of a Starre. 12 lines in tetrameter couplets. I4v.

"On the Life of Man." George Ellis, in the third edition of his Specimens of the Early English Poets, III (1803), 69, printed the 40 text as Beaumont's but noted, "This is also contained in Bishop King's Poems, 1657." It is printed on K5 of the anonymously published Poems Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonnets of Henry King with the title "Sic Vita." Dyce (XI, 492-493) was uncertain of the validity of the attribution to King and printed it as doubtfully Beaumont's. Miss Margaret Crum, Poems of Henry King, 1965, p. 255, demonstrates that it is unquestionably King's. It is preserved in seven manuscripts (see Miss Crum's list, p. 148) the evidence of three of which is decisive for the canon of King. Beal (p. 67) attributes it to King. 40 is the earliest print.

[20] HE that had Youth, and Friends, and so much Wlt [sic]. 6 lines in couplets. H4v.

"On Francis Beaumonts death." Alexander Chalmers, The English Poets, VI (1810), 202, included this in his reprint of 53 but noted, "By Bishop Corbet. Altered by the bishop afterwards. See his poems." This is a reference

to Chalmers's own edition of Corbet's poems (V, 257), which is based on Octavius Gilchrist's 1807 edition. Gilchrist took his text, which varies considerably from 40, from the 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher Folio (BF), d3, where it is subscribed "Rich. Corbet. D. D." An anonymous text varying from both 40 and BF is in Wits Recreations, 1641, R8. The verses do not appear in the early collections of Corbet's poems, Certain Elegant Poems, Written By Dr. Corbet, Bishop of Norwich, 1647, and Poëtica Stromata . . . of R. C., 1648. J. A. W. Bennett and H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Poems of Richard Corbett, 1955, pp. 23 and 115, unquestioningly accept Corbet's authorship and print the poem from 40, the earliest printed text, with variants from BF, Wits Recreations, and the anonymous Bodl. MS Eng. poet. e. 14 f. 93v rev. Two manuscript texts, Brit. Lib. Add. 21433 f. 177v, and Add. 25303 f. 120, derive from BF, but three other anonymous manuscript texts (Brit. Lib. Add. 15227, f. 82v, Bodl. Eng. poet. e. 14 f. 93v rev., and Brit. Lib. Lansdowne 777 f. 67) are substantive and superior in accuracy to BF, Wits Recreations, and 40. Indeed, when the stemma is worked out, Bodl. Eng. poet. e. 14 appears to be the best text and BF to be related to the corrupt Wits Recreations. At least one corrupt intermediary lies between BF and the archetype, so that BF's unique testimony to Corbet's authorship is suspect.

[21] BEaumont lies here, and where now shall we have. 90 lines in couplets. K1-2.

"An Elegie upon Master Francis Beaumont" subscribed "I. Earle." Also subscribed "Joh. Earle" in BF and "Io: Earles" in Bodl. Eng. poet. e. 97 p. 55; anonymous in Bodl. Ashmole 47 f. 44v and Corpus Christi College Oxford 328 f. 66v. The attribution of this poem to Earle and No. 9 to Beaumont are the only adequately substantiated attributions in the whole of the 1640 volume.

[22] HEre she lies, whose spotlesse fame. 18 lines in tetrameter couplets. K2v.

"An Epitaph". Weber reprinted this as Beaumont's in 1812, but observed in his preface (I, cxxi) that he had afterwards found a manuscript note in a copy of the 1660 reissue of 53 which stated that the lines were written "on Mrs. Ann Littleton, who dy'd 6th February, 1625, and lies buried in the Temple Church." Her monument no longer exists in Temple Church—most of the stones were removed in 1642 and stored in the triforium where they were destroyed by bombing in 1942 (David Lower, The Temple Church, 1967, p. 8); but William Dugdale recorded the date of Anne Littleton's interment in Origines Juridicales, 1666, p. 177. Anthony Munday copied the verses, which were probably painted on a board hung over the grave, and the tombstone inscription, in the additions to his 1633 edition of John Stow's Survey of London, p. 762, and young William Sancroft also copied them into his collection of epitaphs in Bodl. Sancroft 59 p. 291 rev. Beaumont, who died in 1616, could not have written an epitaph for a lady who died in 1623/4. Rejected by Dyce on the basis of Weber's report, and by Beal.

[23] LIke a Ring, without a Finger. 80 lines aabbccD8. K3-4.

"A Sonnet." In an appendix to her Poems of Henry King, pp. 254-255, Miss

Crum has demonstrated that this poem is a parody—and that likewise No. 19 by King is an imitation—of a twelve-line stanza beginning "Like to the damaske Rose you see," printed with a second stanza by Francis Quarles at the end of his Argalus and Parthenia, 1629, X4, and also printed the same year, with four different following stanzas, in Simon Wastell's Microbiblion, Z4v-5. The two stanzas printed by Quarles were set to music by Henry Lawes in the manuscript collection of his own compositions, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 53723, f. 18v, and were frequently imitated and parodied.

Anonymous versions of No. 23 were copied from 40 in Wits Recreations 1641, X4-5v (four stanzas), 1645, V8-X1v (five stanzas), and Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, 1699, F7v-8v, with a musical setting by Mr. Church; the late Brit. Lib. MS Add. 27407, f. 107v, was copied from the 1645 Wits Recreations. Miss Crum refers to an anonymous eight-stanza parody, beginning "Like to a dove-cote never haunted," in Roxburghe Ballads, I, 208-209, stanzas 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 of which are variants of the five stanzas of No. 23. An anonymous version of No. 23 in Brit. Lib. MS Egerton 923 f. 1 omits stanza 3 and adds two new stanzas. In addition a version of the first four stanzas in Folger MS V. a. 303 f. 224v-5, is subscribed "W. R." on the basis of which Miss Agnes Latham printed the Brit. Lib. MS Add. 27407 anonymous text in her Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh, 1952, pp. 165-170. Printed as doubtful by Dyce (XI, 493-499), listed under Ralegh by Beal (RaW 428-33), who adds St. John's College, Cambridge, S. 32 and National Library of Wales 12443A. These anonymous lines parodying the verses printed by Quarles in 1629 could not have been composed until several years after the deaths of both Ralegh and Beaumont.

When we turn from the evidence for authorship to the texts themselves, we find that wherever other reliable texts are available for comparison those printed in 40 are usually found to be corrupt. Though No. 19 by Bishop King has only one error in its 12 lines and though No. 7 departs from its copy text O2 in only about one line out of ten, No. 10 by Sir John Beaumont is incomplete and varies from the authoritative text printed in his works in eight of its first 18 lines, Nos. 11 and 18 vary from the more authoritative texts of Henry Lawes in every other line, and No. 22, to be seen in a church only a few steps from Blaikelocke's shop, varies from Munday and Archbishop Sancroft's transcripts in five of its 18 lines. Corrupt texts are evidence of either careless copying or corrupt originals, both of which raise doubts about their attributions of authorship.

Blaikelocke was solely responsible for the attribution of Nos. 2, 5, and 7 to Beaumont (there is no evidence that he knew of the existence of the Kent Archives or Bodleian manuscripts from which his own text differs markedly). He was irresponsible in editing his copy text and introduced many unauthoritative emendations. He added the initials F. B. to No. 2 to suggest Beaumont, and he changed the initials A. F. to J. F. under No. 5 to suggest Beaumont's collaborator John Fletcher, clear evidence of his intent to deceive.

Wethered is solely responsible for the attribution of No. 8 to Beaumont, and we have no other direct evidence to test his reliability. Either Wethered

or Blaikelocke, or both together, were responsible for the attributions of Nos. 9-19 and 22-23 to Beaumont. Only one of these (No. 9) is found elsewhere attributed to him. No. 10 is by Sir John Beaumont, Nos. 11 and 18 by Henry Harrington, No. 14 probably by John (or Joseph) Rutter, and No. 19 certainly by Henry King. No. 13 may have been deliberately omitted from the second edition of this collection in 1653; it and No. 17 circulated as anonymous in the printed or manuscript anthologies of the time. No. 22 is an epitaph on a lady who died seven years after Beaumont, and No. 23 is a parody of a poem that was composed after Beaumont's death. This leaves only the unique texts, Nos. 12, 15, and 16, unaccounted for; but considering the company they are in, we can have little if any faith in their being Beaumont's.

Both Blaikelocke and Wethered were young men, newly out of their apprenticeships; they published their joint volume over a quarter of a century after Beaumont had stopped writing and could have had no opportunity of being acquainted with him or with any of his close associates, all of whom were dead by 1640. They made no real effort to collect the genuine poems of Beaumont that were available. Except for Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, at the time they issued their volume at least fourteen poems were circulating under Beaumont's name or initials, seven of them in print and the rest in a number of manuscripts. All but one of these they overlooked.

The most charitable assumption that can be made about the conduct of Blaikelocke and Wethered in publishing The Remedie of Love and the following items in 40 is that they came into possession of a manuscript containing Nos. 8-21, one of which (No. 9) was ascribed to Beaumont and two of which (Nos. 20-21) were elegies upon him, and that they assumed the remaining poems were of Beaumont's authorship. This assumption would absolve Wethered at least of intent to deceive, but it would do nothing to increase our confidence in the authority of his attributions. For Nos. 2-6, the case of the changed initials of No. 5 still stands against Blaikelocke, and all confidence in him disappears when we examine the way he compiled his augmented edition of Beaumont's poems thirteen years later.