University of Virginia Library

Young's Corrections to Dodington's Epistle to Bute: Evidence from the Yale Manuscript
by
James E. May

In 1776, Thomas Becket published A Poetical Epistle from the Late Lord Melcombe to the Earl of Bute: With Corrections, by the Author of the Night Thoughts.[1] George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe, though better known as a politician and patron, dabbled in poetry while at Oxford before entering politics and returned to it throughout his career. Although he published few poems, these have not slipped unnoticed from the press. His An Epistle to Sir Robert Walpole (1725) was reprinted in London and Dublin; his "On Sir Robert Walpole's Birth-Day" was reprinted in Dodsley's A Collection of Poems by Several Hands; and his ode "Shorten Sail," to be discussed below, was anthologized in our own century.[2] He had been a friend, collaborator, and patron of the poet Edward Young, the author of The Complaint

or Night Thoughts (1742-45), from his Oxford years into the 1720's; then they grew apart until the collaboration discussed below brought them together in 1761, forging a final reconciliation. In 1710, Dodington had written flatteringly of fellow Exeter College poet George Stubbes that his lines were "bold as nervous Y---g." Dodington would later help Young not only to obtain a pension for poetical accomplishments from the Walpole administration but also to revise his tragedies and his satires The Universal Passion (1725-28), largely written at Dodington's Eastbury estate.[3] Thus, it was with some justice that Dodington late in his career turned to Young for help with his Poetical Epistle to the Earl of Bute.

Becket's publication consists of a brief publisher's advertisement, the Proem, the Epistle proper, and a series of footnotes to both sets of verses. In the advertisement, while insisting on his source's authenticity, Becket offered a vague description of the manuscript: "To preclude every Doubt, concerning it's Authenticity, the Original Manuscript, in Lord Melcombe's Hand-writing, with the Corrections, in That of Dr. Young, is left for Inspection at the Shop of the Publisher." The 70-line Proem is addressed to John Stuart (1713-1792), the third Earl of Bute, styled Pollio in the poem (pp. 1-5); in it, Dodington eulogizes the virtues of his deceased friend John Duke of Argyll, Bute's maternal uncle. The Epistle offers 294 lines on wisdom and cunning and their consequences (pp. 7-25), which briefly address the youthful Pollio in the opening and refer to the young King George III in the close. The texts of both the Proem and the Epistle have respectively 21 and 50 readings in italic, varying in length from a word (38 of the total) to a couplet, preceded by a number that refers to alternate readings at the foot. Becket does not indicate what the footnotes represent.

The reader may well suppose that the text is entirely Dodington's original with Young's corrections placed in the footnotes. However, it is also possible that Becket printed the revised text incorporating Young's suggestions and that he placed Dodington's rejected original readings in the footnotes. Several authors have assumed that the footnotes contain Young's revisions, including a writer for The Critical Review, Lloyd Sanders (Dodington's biographer), and Harold Forster (Young's biographer).[4] That ascription, I

think, is suggested by the title phrase "With Corrections" (as opposed, say, to "As Corrected by"), and, as I shall argue, there is some evidence that the footnotes are Young's corrections. But never has the authenticity of Becket's edition been examined. The poem itself deserves some attention: The Monthly Review said it "has some merit, and some morality in it. It is, really, as decent a thing as one could expect from a Lord."[5] Also, no one has yet examined the nature of Young and Dodington's collaboration, even though a fairly clear record of it remains.

Although Becket's printer's copy has been lost, the Lewis Walpole Library of Yale University possesses a manuscript version of the Epistle to Bute bound with a signed autograph letter from Young to Dodington dated 17 October 1761 and referring to the poem. The poetical manuscript, which I will argue postdates that version printed in 1776, and the letter from Young to Dodington dated 17 October 1761, along with another dated 6 October 1761, substantiate most of Becket's claims for his source. However, these documents question Becket's claim that his copy "bears [the] Date the 26th of October 1761" or at least deny that date's accuracy. For, as I shall argue, the letter dated 6 October accompanied the return of a corrected manuscript (presumably that printed by Becket), and the second, dated 17 October, refers to a later version of the Epistle to Bute than that reprinted by Becket.[6] The poetical manuscript at the Lewis Walpole Library (LWL), though it has received little attention and never been printed, conflates the readings in both the text and footnotes of Becket's edition. By examining the printed text and its footnotes, the manuscript version of the poem, and several of Young's letters relating to the poem and to another of Dodington's poetical compositions, we are able to understand much about Dodington's composition and Young's collaboration. This examination will also answer the great question raised by the Becket edition, indicating which of Young's suggestions were incorporated by the author.

The LWL manuscript, bound with a front endpaper and Young's letter of 17 October, is written throughout in the same scribal hand on 16 numbered folio pages. The proem is prefaced by the head-title, 'Of Wisdom & Cunning | & their Consequences | True & False Greatness | Lord M. to the Earl of Bute. &c | Quos irrupta [sic] tenet Copula. Hor:' [.][7] Above the title,

presumably in the eighteenth century, a hand extraneous to the manuscript and in a different ink has written the date '1760'. W. S. Lewis, who purchased the manuscript in 1925,[8] has written inside the front cover that the date '1760' is in Horace Walpole's hand. However, that date cannot be right since, as Walpole probably knew, Dodington did not become Baron Melcombe of Melcombe Regis, Dorsetshire, until 6 April 1761,[9] about the time Bute, already prominent in the administration, became Secretary of State for the Northern Department. Possibly the date was inscribed by Henry Penruddock Wyndham, Dodington's relation who inherited Dodington's papers, and published an abridgement of his diary in 1784. Two notes on the front endpaper are both in Wyndham's hand, the first initialed by him. The '6' and '7' in the '67' of the first note distinctly resemble those characters in the date '1760':

These notes assert that the Epistle proper was largely composed long before 1761. Although the first note does not explicitly say this epistle is the same as another addressed to Sir Robert, "also" in the second note might imply such. Furthermore, Horace Walpole noted in the margins of his copy of Dodington's Diary (1784) that Wyndham "wrote to Joseph Warton in 1784 that he had found among Dodington's papers an old copy of the poem, but inscribed to Sir Robert Walpole."[10] However, it is possible that Wyndham confused the epistle later sent to Bute with a fair copy of Dodington's

published Epistle to Sir Robert Walpole. If the epistle on wisdom and cunning were written before Dodington parted company with Sir Robert Walpole, we must wonder why it was not published more than two decades before Young saw it, for Dodington had had no hesitation about publishing an epistle to Walpole. Although this poetical manuscript addressed to Walpole is not extant and Dodington's Proem to Bute must date from around 1761, there is no evidence to deny Wyndham's claim that Dodington had addressed to Frederick an earlier version of the Epistle, presumably during his two years as chief advisor to the Prince before his death in 1751.

Sanders, knowing of the manuscript now at LWL, assumed the footnotes of the 1776 edition were Young's revisions and concluded that the LWL manuscript "apparently represents the form in which Melcombe wished his 'Epistle' should be given to the world, because many of Young's emendations have been adopted in it [the LWL manuscript], while others have been discarded" (p. 260). Sanders, who misdates the edition "1766," does not offer any textual evidence that the notes contain Young's readings, but his assessment seems correct.

With and without reference to the manuscript, one can find evidence in the edition to argue Young's alterations are in the notes. The footnote to the word "narrows" in line 28 of the Epistle ("narrows" is also the LWL manuscript reading) is "strangles, or smothers." It seems more likely that Young offered two alternate readings than that Dodington had. Also, a few footnotes with readings shared by the manuscript are obvious corrections, like the replacement of the unidiomatic "in prey" with "a Prey" at line 29 of the Epistle. Although the footnoted readings contain no additions and are nearly all rephrasings, some of these verbal alterations seem characteristic of Young, and none are uncharacteristic. At line 32 of the Epistle, where the manuscript and footnotes share the word "Toils," the printed text has "Moyls," which is a word very uncommon, if ever present, in Young's writings. The footnote reading "These Fiends" referring to personified emotions and conditions resembles Young's calling sorrow "that foul Fiend" in Resignation, written within a year of this revision.[11] The best stylistic evidence involves twelve footnotes making substitutions for the relative conjunction and pronoun "that," in nine instances with "which." (The manuscript accepted ten of the changes, rejecting the use of "It" in Epistle, line 44, and "which" in Proem, line 38). Although Young often used 'That' as a demonstrative, he rarely used it as a relative pronoun. For example, in the first 708 lines of the second edition of Resignation, "that" appears as a relative five times, half as often as it is used as an adjective and demonstrative pronoun; whereas, "which" is employed as a relative pronoun twenty-one times.

Although it cannot identify who did what, textual criticism can show that the manuscript represents a version later than that published, one incorporating readings from both the printed text and footnotes and introducing others not found in either source. In the 71 passages with variant readings between the printed text and the footnotes, the LWL manuscript shares substantive readings with the footnotes on 47 occasions, shares all but one substantive (taken from the printed text) with the footnotes on 1 occasion, and shares or largely shares the substantives of the printed text on 22 others.[12] In the remaining case, Epistle, lines 45-46 (discussed below), it divides its fidelity equally between the printed text and footnotes. On four pages all the footnoted readings are like the manuscript's, but on one page with seven footnotes (page 3) all the readings in the poetic text are more like the manuscript's. If the LWL manuscript had preceded the copy Young corrected, the press would have had to have inconsistently placed Young's and Dodington's readings. For example, on pages B1r and B1v in both the printed text and the footnotes individual lines agree with and differ from those on manuscript pages five and six. This varying conformity cannot be explained by any division of work (by manuscript pages or by printed formes or pages) between one or more compositors confused about where to put Dodington's original readings and Young's emendations.[13]

Furthermore, variant readings to lines 45-46 of the Epistle found in the printed text, printed footnotes, and the LWL manuscript can best be understood by assuming the manuscript to be an eclectic text produced from the text and annotations printed in 1776:

If the LWL manuscript were composed prior to the printer's copy annotated by Young, then Young would have guessed Dodington's original but since-changed readings in either lines 45 or 46. If the printed text records Young's readings, Young chose 'enliv'ning' in line 45, the word Dodington would have formerly used but had since replaced with 'excessive'. If the footnotes record Young's readings, Young chose 'bright'ning' in line 46, much the same wording Dodington would have formerly used but had since replaced with 'quickens'. To make sense of these alternate readings, we must suppose Dodington produced the LWL couplet from his and Young's earlier attempts, later recorded in 1776. Not surprisingly, the manuscript at line 46 does not agree precisely with the phrasing of either the printed text or footnotes. About a dozen readings in the manuscript are independent of either source, and, a few, including additional lines, must be later revisions.[14] Of course, some substantive variants are probably compositorial errors. The compositor's fallibility is evident at line 62 of the Epistle, where a paragraph begins with the second line of a couplet.

That the LWL manuscript reflects the author's final intentions seems likely to judge from the quality of its variants. In revising to compose the LWL version, Dodington chose the better of at least several alternatives offered by his original text (extant as the printed text) and Young's emended version (extant as the footnotes). For example, lines 9-10 of the Proem have a faulty rhyme in the printed text that the footnote corrects with a simple shift of words. One cannot imagine anyone proposing the printed text as a correction for the footnote:

Not surprisingly, the LWL manuscript shares substantives with the footnote except for retaining the reading 'his' before 'Dignity'. Or, again, in lines 43-44 of the Proem, where the now heavenly Argyll is eulogized as a model for conduct, the manuscript shares the footnote's substantives, which regularize the meter and simplify the complex syntax in the printed text: It would usually be presumptuous to judge when Dodington made right or wrong choices or what readings are characteristically Young's or Dodington's; however, these stylistic judgments add some support to the textual arguments. When the manuscript rejects what strike me as superior readings, these are more often in the printed text (as at line 193).[15] In these cases one must suppose Dodington's better judgment acquiesced to either Young's friendship or poetical success. That inclination is also evident in the manuscript's agreeing twice as often with the footnotes as with alternative readings in the printed text.

Before supporting the likelihood of Dodington's accepting Young's corrections, I would digress to argue the improbability of the LWL manuscript being the product, not of Dodington, but of an editor possessing the manuscript that Young annotated. This possibility need be admitted since the LWL manuscript is not a Dodington autograph to judge from comparison of it with autographs of Dodington's diaries, parliamentary speeches, and letters.[16] If only because of Young's contemporary status, it seems more likely that an owner editing the annotated manuscript would accept all Young's changes or none than that he would labor to produce an eclectic text. Moreover, the manuscript's being bound with Young's letter of 1761 suggests that it was produced for or by Dodington, as does Wyndham's possession of the manuscript in the 1780's. The modest abbreviation "Lord M." in its title suggests the manuscript was prepared for Dodington. And there are readings peculiar to the LWL manuscript, like the motto, requiring an unlikely boldness on the part of an editor. For example, in the Proem, line 38, the LWL manuscript has 'Hearts' where the printed text and footnotes have 'Soul'; in the Epistle, line 290, it has 'Virtue' where they have 'Glory'; and in the Epistle, line 14, it has 'Th'Imperial Murderer' where the printed text has 'The purple Murderer' and the footnote reads '[The] royal Butcher'.

Dodington's inclination to accept the majority of Young's suggestions while yet rejecting many others is also evident in the collaboration on Dodington's verses "Kind Companion." A week or so after receiving Young's final revisions of the Epistle to Bute, Dodington sent Young, perhaps partly in thanks, verses addressed to and commending Young, apparently along with

the Horatian ode "Shorten Sail," which they would preface.[17] After Young expressed his appreciation in an untraced letter, possibly with some suggested revisions, Dodington on 27 October 1761 sent Young a fair copy of these verses: "Ye seem'd to like the Ode I sent you for your Amusement, I now send it you as a Present. If you please to accept of it, and are willing our Friendship should be known when we are gone you will be pleas'd to leave this among those of your Papers, which may possibly see the Light by a posthumous Publication" (Pettit, 550-551). Two days later Young asked Dodington if the verses might be "Prefixed" to the second edition of Resignation, "considering the Similar Contents of Both." (Dodington rejected Young's proposal, insisting upon posthumous publication.) More significantly, Young added a postscript with suggested revisions for that set of verses addressed to himself:

When published with the ode in The Public Advertiser of 23 August 1762, the prefatory verses contained in lines 7-13 almost all the changes Young had proposed on 29 October 1761. The published text agrees in all its substantives with that Young sent the Dutchess of Portland on 2 January 1763, claiming that Dodington had sent it to him "scarce a Month before his Death" (Pettit, 565-566). In this final version, Dodington did emend the line "Where Omnipotence resides" much as Young had suggested ("When the Love of God presides"), though he maintained "Where" for "When." The

only other substantive difference between the seven lines in Young's letter and those published is Dodington's employment of "gloomy Path," not "dreadful Path." It is curious that Young had used "gloomy Path" with just this meaning in the second edition of Resignation, published in May 1762.[18] Young had sent the revised opening for the second edition to Dodington on 29 October 1761 and would have sent the whole revision upon its publication, but perhaps Dodington's word choice influenced Young's. In any case Young would not have quoted seven lines to correct the third, fourth, and sixth quoted. The first two lines may well be Young's in their entirety, and, also, the seventh line, for Young to have written it out, must contain a substantive revision. The commonplace of moving from the "Shore" on to the ocean of God and righteousness appears in Resignation (2nd edition, pp. 48-49); but then all Dodington's imagery and diction in the two short verses can be found in Young's Resignation. It is as if Dodington had written for Young the sort of poem that he knew Young would have written him. This too suggests a disposition prone to accept Young's recommended changes.

When did Dodington compose the Proem to Bute and write or revise the Epistle? The facts of Dodington's friendship with Bute argue that the poetical gift would have been undertaken during the last half of 1761 or the first half of 1762. During 1761 Dodington's friendship with Bute cooled somewhat, but the two remained friends up until Dodington's death on 28 July 1762. Although there is much friendly correspondence between Dodington and Bute during the October when Young revised the poem, the two were not so close as Dodington wished them to be. On 13 April 1762, Dodington wrote Bute, "since the middle of the summer, I found such an alteration, not in your kindness, my dear Lord, but in your confidence, which would have been very grievous" but for Dodington's "unswerving attachment."[19] Dodington supposed he owed "the Diminuition of your [Bute's] Confidence to this false Impression" that Dodington was eager "to gett a Place." He insisted that he was too old to seek the wealth attendant to place. Subsequent correspondence grows increasingly cordial, and on 13 June 1762 Bute offered Dodington the Admiralty. Thus, the Epistle's high moral tone and belief in patriotic service would have served Dodington's need from June 1761 to June 1762 to reassure Bute of the author's motivations and abilities.

Young's letters to Dodington suggest that the LWL manuscript was produced between 6 and 17 October 1761. Also, the letters suggest that the collaboration was no more the product of friendship than the means to renew it. Young seems to have returned the corrected manuscript—presumably that used by Becket—with his letter of 6 October. Referring only generally to the poem, the letter implies Young's distance from, yet warmth toward, Dodington:

After the complimentary close and signature, a short postscript further remarks: "I know but little of Lord Bute, but admire his Uncle as much as you my dear Lord! God preserve you, & prepare us both for the Urn you mention." That Young saw the Epistle itself is suggested by his calling the work "Noble and Useful," a characterization more proper to it than the Proem.

Certainly Young read the Proem. He refers to its lengthy praise of Bute's uncle, John Campbell, the second Duke of Argyll, and the urn he mentions is in line 34 of the Proem. This letter appears to have been written to accompany the revised manuscript. That is particularly suggested by the absence of any other business in the letter, and its being Young's first letter to Dodington for some time, probably the first since at least late April when Dodington was elevated to Baron Melcombe (as is suggested by the playful repetition of "Lord!"). Indeed, aside from Young's requesting that his Conjectures on Original Composition be sent to Dodington in 1759 (Pettit, 495), this letter is the first reference to Dodington in Young's extant correspondence since 1727.

Young's letter to Dodington of 17 October contains two specific textual references. Although it was principally written to thank Dodington for the ode "Kind Companion," Young opens the letter with two thoughts regarding the Epistle to Bute and returns to it in concluding. I quote the entire letter since it has only been known from Thomas Warton the Younger's fairly accurate transcription:

Dodington had evidently sent Young thanks for his emendations, indicating that some of them had been used. This communication probably was accompanied by a text substantially the same as the LWL manuscript, which would

show the outcome of Young's labor. That Dodington had sent a new manuscript is evident in Young's reference to Dodington's reinstating two verses. These might well be lines 49-50 of the Epistle, which are transposed and have substantive differences between the manuscript and the footnotes. They are the only lines found in different positions in the manuscript and either the printed text or footnotes. As in the printed text where the lines differ only in accidentals, the manuscript reads: "She ["Wisdom"] warrs on Vice alone, & her Decree | Draws not the Sword to fetter, but to free." The footnote reads: "Draws not the sword to fetter, but to free, | And Vice alone is slain by her decree." If, as the footnote suggests, Young had reversed their position, and Dodington had rejected the change, then, in the sense that Young had altered them, Dodington had "reinstated" the verses to their old position, possibly with some revision, so that Young could have been satisfied that they were now set right.

More significantly, the three feet of one line and all the following line which Young would change in the concluding couplet ("if we can judge aright | From a fair Morning of meridian Light") are from the only lines of the LWL manuscript not printed in 1776. The printed text ends with the remark that it is the Muse's charge "to praise True Greatness on the Throne, | 'Tis thine, O George! to make that Praise thy own." The couplet added in the manuscript introduces a compliment into the exhortation, ascribing some "true Greatness" (l. 293) to young King George III: "And Thine it is, if we can judge Aright, | From Morning Brightness of Meridian Light." Young's remark in the postscript about the "Ease & Simplicity of ye above alteration," though it could refer to the whole revised epistle (i.e., the new manuscript), more probably refers to either of the two changes specifically noted. Since the other change concerns the power of wisdom and cannot raise the issue of flattery, the "alteration" Young referred to must be the concluding couplet. Young's revision reduces somewhat the "brightness" ascribed to King George, and, thus, makes the close less flatterning. This couplet must not have concluded the manuscript Young revised. That would explain why now Young amended it. Also, if it was in the printer's copy, why, when he was intent on faithfully reproducing an old manuscript, did Becket strike the couplet in 1776? Similarly, we may ask why, if the LWL manuscript had preceded the version printed by Becket, didn't he receive and reprint the work's full title and its motto?

In summary, Dodington sent Young an epistle on "Wisdom and Cunning" probably drafted at least a decade earlier, along with a recently written proem to the Earl of Bute. Young revised both sets of verses, which were later printed together by Becket with Young's emendations placed in the footnotes. As I have hypothesized, Dodington returned a revised version incorporating most of Young's emendations and adding a closing couplet, this text being either the LWL manuscript or another very similar text. Young commented on two passages in this manuscript and returned it to Dodington.

Presumably, Dodington then had a fair-copy drawn up for presentation to the Earl of Bute, possibly inserting Young's suggestion for the final couplet.[20] This collaborative revision was a part of a larger exchange begun when Young sent Dodington his privately printed Resignation around 1 September 1761 (Young recalled the gift on 29 October 1761 [Pettit, 551]). It involved the revision of one or two shorter poems by Dodington and perhaps the second edition of Young's Resignation. The Becket edition of Dodington's Poetical Epistle to the Earl of Bute manifests Young's continued regard for his old friend and patron. But it is the Yale manuscript of this poem, with its incorporation of Young's revisions into the author's final intentions, that testifies to Dodington's esteem for Young.

Notes