University of Virginia Library

The 1653 Volume.

Almost at the end of his publishing career, Blaikelocke issued in 1653 an enlarged second edition of his 1640 volume. A variant title page lists William Hope as publisher, suggesting that he had contracted to take some of the sheets for sale at his own shop, so Blaikelocke was probably responsible for the entire contents of the book. 53 reprinted 22 of the 23 poems in 40, and added 109 new items, all but two of which had been printed previously, many under the names of other authors. Four of these new items are commendatory poems; three are specifically ascribed to Thomas Randolph, J. Cleaveland, and Tho. Batt; 72 are attributed jointly to "Beaumont and Fletcher"; but the remaining thirty are presented as the work of Beaumont alone. Blaikelocke's sources for all of these 109 new items can be found, and

in most cases even the specific printed editions he drew upon can be determined. Only four of these 109 new items are possibly Beaumont's.

For analysis the 53 text may be divided into ten sections. I list the contents in order below, indicating the source for the text of each item or group of items and giving in parentheses the names of earlier scholars who first made identifications of authorship. All the specific textual sources, and the names of many of the authors, are here established for the first time.

(1) A1-4v, the title page and six preliminary poems (Nos. 1-6) reprinted from 40. The wording of Blaikelocke's dedicatory poem remains the same, but the addressee is now Robert Parkhurst instead of Robert Ducie (Blaikelocke had in the intervening years betrayed his first patron to the Committee on Sequestration). No. 2 is subscribed F. B. and No. 5 J. F. as in 40.

(2) A4v-8v, four added poems commending Beaumont and Fletcher, reprinted directly from the 1647 Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, E1-2v and d1r-v (hereafter abbreviated BF).

(3) B1-E8v, a reprint of the remaining contents of 40 in the same order, except that No. 13 is omitted.

(4) F1r-v, two new poems, "Love is" and "A shepherdesse," ostensibly by Francis but actually by his brother John (Weber), the first poem complete but only the first six of the 80 lines of the second, copied verbatim from Sir John's Bosworth-field, 1629, H2-4v.

(5) F2-3v, two previously unprinted poems. (a) "Since thou art dead, Clifton, the world may see." 64 lines in couplets headed "A Funerall Elogie on the Death of the Lady Penelope Clifton" and subscribed "F. B." Lady Penelope, the first child of Lady Penelope Rich by Sir Charles Blount (later earl of Devonshire), became the first wife of Sir Gervase Clifton (1586-1666), and died at the age of 23 on 26 October 1613. Francis's brother Sir John Beaumont and Michael Drayton also wrote elegies upon her, and Sir John named his son Gervase after her husband. Printed by Dyce (XI, 511-513 from 53 with collations from two manuscripts) and listed by Beal (BmF 87-95). Of the six manuscripts I have seen, three attribute the lines to Francis Beaumont (Bodl. Ashmole 781 p. 153, Brit. Lib. Add. 25303 f. 105, and Stowe 962 f. 139) and three are anonymous (Brit. Lib. Add. 21433 f. 175v—because the following leaf containing the end of the poem is lacking, Harley 3910 f. 20, and Huntington HM 198 Part I p. 99). Beal does not indicate whether or not his added Nos. 93-95 are attributed. (b) "Stand still my happiness and swelling heart." 38 lines in couplets, headed "The examination of his Mistris Perfections" and subscribed "Fran. Beaumont." Reprinted as doubtful by Dyce (XI, 495-496) and listed by Beal (BmF 84-86). Untitled and subscribed "F. Bea:" in Bodl. Malone 13 (mid-late 17th) f. 3r-v (omits lines 25-28). Anonymous in Brit. Lib. Add. 25707 f. 157 and Egerton 2725 f. 147. The texts are independent of one another.

(6) F4-6v, two related poems, "Sir or" headed "The Hermaphrodite made after M. Beaumonts Death by Thomas Randolph M. A. Sometime fellow of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge," and "Problems of" headed "Upon the

Hermaphrodite written since by Mr. J. Cleaveland." The first of these had been printed in the posthumous second edition of Poems . . . By Thomas Randolph, M. A. and late Fellow of Trinity Col. in Cambridge, 1640, K3-4, headed "Upon an Hermaphrodite"; but the 53 text was taken from the fourth edition, 1652, K3-4, from which it varies in only one word and the correction of three obvious misprints in its 66 lines. Both poems were printed in the anonymous collection of John Cleveland's poems, The Character of a London-Diurnall: With severall select Poems. By the same Author, 1647, B2-3 (three editions), the first headed "Upon an Hermophodite" and the second headed "The Authors Hermophrodite, made after M. Randolphs death, yet inserted into his Poems." Both were reprinted with the same headings, but properly spelled, in Poems. By J. C. With Aditions, 1651, A6-7v; 53's text of the second poem may have been taken from this edition, though it varies in five words of the 62 lines. The text of the second poem states that it is by the author of the first, so both must be by Cleveland. The two poems were probably included because their titles suggested to Blaikelocke a relationship to Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, but there is no evidence in the texts themselves that their author was acquainted with that work.

(7) F6v-G5v, twelve poems, probably all, and certainly all but three, taken from printed editions of Waller, Cleveland, Randolph, Shirley, Donne, and Carew. (a—b) "Here Coelia" headed "To the Mutable Faire" without subscription and "Not caring" headed "Of Loving at first sight" subscribed "Tho. Batt." Both of these are by Edmund Waller (Dyce) and were printed with the same headings in his Poems, 1645, I4-6 and G1r-v; but Blaikelocke's texts vary from the print in five of the 68 lines of the first and two of the 20 lines of the second. (c) "For shame" headed "The Antiplatonick," actually by Cleveland (Weber) and printed with the same heading in his Poems, 1651, D4r-v, from which Blaikelocke's text varies in only one word and three variant forms in its 48 lines. (d) "Say lovely" verbatim from Waller's Poems, 1645, E1v-2. (e) "Behold the" by Waller (Dyce MS), taken with one verbal variant from his Poems, 1645, E2v. (f) "Heaven knows" by Randolph (Nichols); Blaikelocke's text varies in seven words in its 38 lines from the fourth edition of Randolph's Poems, 1652, G4v-5. (g) "While others" by Shirley (Nichols), verbatim except for two elisions from his Poems, 1646, F1. (h) "Now fie" by Shirley (Dyce), verbatim from his Poems, 1646, F6. (i) "Go and" by Donne (Weber), the first two stanzas only, verbatim from his Poems, 1633, Cc2v, or 1635, 1639, 1649, or 1650. (j—l) "Fear not," "How ill," and "Let fools" by Carew (Dyce), taken with only one verbal variant from his Poems, 1651, A6v, B8 r-v , and D1v-2.

(8) G6-L6v, 74 items taken directly from BF (the 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher Folio), from which the four commendatory poems on A4v-8v above had also been copied. (a) G6-H1v, "Stay light-foot," headed "A maske of the Gentlemen of Graies Inne, and the Inner Temple, by Mr Francis Beaumont," from *8D2r-v of the Folio (noted by Fredson Bowers, The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, I (1966), 122). (b) H2-L5, "To please" etc. (72 items), headed "Prologues, Epilogues, and Songs to severall Plaies,

written by Mr Francis Beaumont and Fletcher," selected from C4-*8D1v of the Folio. None of these are by Beaumont, and many are not by Fletcher either. (c) L5v-6v, "The Sun which doth the greatest comfort bring," 82 lines in couplets headed "Mr Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben Iohnson, written before he and Mr Fletcher came to London, with two of the precedent Comedies then not finished, which deferred their merry meetings at the Mermaid," directly from the 1647 Folio, 3X3v-4, where it follows The Nice Valour. A superior text of this had been printed among "Poems . . . By other Gentlemen" in Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare Gent., 1640, L4-5 (STC 22344), headed "To Ben. Iohnson" and subscribed "F. B." Printed by Dyce (XI, 500-503) from BF, and by Herford and Simpson, Ben Jonson, XI (1952), 374-377, from Trinity College Dublin 877 (G. 2. 21) ff. 144-145, with variants from BF and four other manuscripts. Of the 12 manuscripts I have seen, six attribute the lines to Beaumont by name (Bodl. Malone 13 p. 56; Brit. Lib. Egerton 2421 f. 27v (headed "to Dr Donne"), Sloane 1792 f. 85v; Huntington HM 198 Part I p. 128; St. John's College Cambridge 416 (S. 23) f. 49v; and Trinity College Dublin 877 (G. 2. 21) f. 207v); one by initials (Brit. Lib. Add. 30982 f. 79v); and five are anonymous (Bodl. Eng. poet. e. 97 f. 50; Harvard fMS Eng. 96.3 f. 31v; Huntington HM 172 f. 31v, Huntington HM 198 Part II f. 115v; and Trinity College Dublin 877 f. 145. Beal does not indicate whether or not his added Nos. 105-107 112, and 116 are attributed.

(9) L7-8v, two poems on Beaumont's death reprinted from 40, Nos. 20 and 21.

(10) M1-N8, thirteen elegiac and convivial poems taken from three earlier prints. (a) M1-2v, five epitaphs, on Shakespeare, Jonson (two), Spenser, and Drayton, and a sixth poem "On the Tombes in Westminster," taken directly from the 1650 edition of Wits Recreations, O4v-5 and O8v-P1. All the poems in Wits Recreations are anonymous; but since Shakespeare, Drayton, and Jonson all died after Beaumont he could not have written epitaphs on them. Norman Ault, Elizabethan Lyrics, 1925, pp. ix—x, first pointed out that the sixth poem, 18 lines beginning "Mortality behold and fear," first appeared in Wits Recreations, and that a 48-line version, which he printed, was in John Weever's Ancient Funeral Monuments, 1631, [Tt6v-Vv1] and was not by Beaumont. He also noted anonymous texts in two later manuscripts, Bodl. Ashmole 38 and Brit. Lib. Add. 18044. Later (TLS, 12 January 1933, p. 24) he showed that the 48-line version first appeared in W. B. and E. P.'s A Helpe to Discourse, 1619 (STC 1547), and suggested that its author may have been William Basse. Printed from 53 as doubtful by Dyce (XI, 497), but Beal followed Ault in rejecting it (p. 67) and added manuscript versions in Bodl. Eng. poet. f. 27 pp. 337-339, Folger V. a. 275 p. 85, and Yale Osborn b 226 p. 90. The poem, which is not Beaumont's, is the only one that appears under his name in most recent anthologies. The 53 text was printed as Beaumont's in Palgrave's Golden Treasury, 1861, Ward's English Poets, 1880 (where it was highly praised by A. C. Bradley), and in Quiller-Couch's Oxford Book of English Verse, 1900. Helen Gardner, The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1972, followed Ault in printing the 48-line version, though

she probably rightly rejected his attribution to Basse, but wrongly persisted in attributing it to Beaumont.

(b) M3-8 "Not drunken" headed "The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale," 70 four-line stanzas. This was entered by Richard Badger on 22 Une 1629 (Rollins, Index of Ballad Entries, No. 278), but the earliest extant complete edition is an anonymous one published by T. Badger in 1646 (Wing M 1952) with 71 stanzas but many verbal errors. The 53 text was probably taken from an earlier edition, now lost. Mr. Thomas Davis called to my attention a 34-stanza version published in 1642 (Wing R 239A) as by Thomas Randall (i.e. Randolph). In 1661 the 53 text was reprinted without indication of author as the first item in N. D.'s anthology, An Antidote Against Melancholy, B1-4v. In 1711 Thomas Hearne noted, "'tis said the Author was Dr. Peter Mews, Bp. of Winchester" (Remarks and Collections, ed. C. E. Doble, III [1899], 219).

(c) M8v-N6v, five convivial poems taken directly from the 1650 edition of Wits Recreations, Z8v-Aa7v. The first of these, "When shall," may be by Thomas Randolph (see Herford and Simpson, Ben Jonson, VIII, 449); the second, "Fetch me," was printed from a different source in An Antidote Against Melancholy, 1661, I1-2, where it is attributed to Dr. Hen. Edwards (a reference to King Charles in line 80 shows that it was composed after Beaumont's death).

(d) N7-8, "Happy is" headed "The praises of a Country Life," by Ben Jonson (Dyce MS); taken with only two verbal variants in its 70 lines from "Under-woods" (No. 85) in the second volume of The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, 1640, Nn1-2.

Only two of the 109 new items in 53 ("Since thou" and "Stand still" F2-3v) were previously unprinted, and of the previously printed items only A maske of the Gentlemen of Graies Inne, and the Inner Temple, G6-H1v, and Mr Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben Iohnson, "The sun" L5v-6v, were attributed to Beaumont in the earlier editions. Five of Blaikelocke's other texts ("Problems of" by Cleveland, "Here Coelia" and "Not caring" by Waller, "Heaven knows" by Randolph, and "Not drunken" by Randolph or Mews) contain a small number of variants from the extant prints, which might indicate derivation from otherwise unknown manuscript or printed intermediaries. All the rest of Blaikelocke's texts were taken almost verbatim from specifically identifiable printed editions of poems by Sir John Beaumont, Thomas Carew, John Cleveland, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Thomas Randolph, James Shirley, Edmund Waller, the Beaumont and Fletcher 1647 Folio, and the 1650 edition of Wits Recreations.

It may have been possible to maintain some doubt about Blaikelocke's culpability in attributing the items in 40 to Beaumont, but there can be no doubt of his deliberate dishonesty in attributing to him the new items in 53. In the latter volume Blaikelocke not only attributed to Beaumont poems that he knew were by known popular poets of the second quarter of the seventeenth century, but he also reprinted without authorization texts that were the property of other publishers. The conclusion is inescapable that no

poem in 40 or 53 can be accepted as Beaumont's on the authority of Blaikelocke or Wethered alone.

Doubts concerning the authenticity of the attributions in the 40 and 53 volumes were expressed early. Probably soon after its publication, the musician Henry Lawes presented a copy of 40 (now in the Huntington Library) to his patron the Earl of Bridhewater, in which under Nos. 11 and 18 he wrote, "made by Henry Harrington and set by Henry Lawes, 1636." Another seventeenth-century owner of a copy of 40 (Bodleian Ashmole 1663), John Aubrey, wrote on A2v under Blaikelocke's name:

Even William Hope, who took some of the sheets of 53 from Blaikelocke for sale under his own imprint, had his doubts about the attributions, and when he reissued the remainder sheets of 53 in 1660 he printed a new title page which described the contents somewhat more honestly as The Golden Remains of . . . Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher . . . enriched with the addition of other Drolleries by severall Wits of these present Times.

It is a serious matter to deprive an author of credit for works that may be rightfully his, but it is just as damaging to attribute to him works for which he had no responsibility. After a poem that he had had nothing to do with had been published under his name, Abraham Cowley commented;

The same fortune befell Beaumont, whose popular name was irresponsibly used by dishonest publishers merely for the purpose of promoting the sale of their own wares.

The evidence here presented makes it clear that we should not accept any of Blaikelocke or Wethered's attributions unless they are substantiated from other sources. On this basis, we must reject from the Beaumont canon all poems in 40 except 2, 6, 7, and 9, and all items added in 53 except The Maske of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inne (G6-H1v, reprinted from the 1547 Beaumont and Fletcher Folio). "Since thou," "Stand still," and "The

sun" (it is worth notice that these four are the only items independently signed with Beaumont's name or initials in 53). This leaves to Beaumont only eight of the 132 items in the combined volumes, and of these eight only four can be accepted as his with any confidence. The attribution of Nos. 2, 6, and 7 in 40 (Salmacis and Hermaphroditus with two preliminary poems) is supported only by the unknown scribe who many years after Beaumont's death added his name to texts he copied from the anonymous O2, and the attribution of "Stand still" in 53 (F3r-v) is supported only by a single unknown scribe of the second half of the seventeenth century who subscribed his defective copy "F Beo". These four must be labelled doubtful at best.

So this leaves us, aside from The Maske, with only one poem probably Beaumont's in 40 (No. 9, "As unthrifts," Dyce XI, 503-505), and with only two in 53: the elegy on Lady Clifton ("Since thou," F2-3, Dyce, XI, 511-513), and the letter to Ben Jonson ("The sun," L5v-6v, Dyce XI, 500-503). To these three we may add the four commendatory poems to Fletcher and Jonson (Dyce II, 8-10 and XI, 497-499), the two poems on Lady Rutland (Dyce XI, 505-511), and one of the three poems added by Beal, "Good Madam Fowler" (BmF 117-132, printed by Grosart in Englische Studien, 1899), a total of only ten in the probable canon.

What is certain is that 40 and 53 are anthologies containing poems by a number of seventeenth-century authors. They therefore deserve a place in a future second edition of Arthur E. Case's Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies, but they do not deserve a place in bibliographies of collected poems by Francis Beaumont.