:: :: University of Virginia Library

In my "A Restoration Lampoon in Transmission and Revision: Rochester's(?) 'Signior Dildo'" (Studies in Bibliography 46 [1993], 250 — 262) I presented a collation of the nine surviving manuscript texts and the one significant printed text of the Restoration lampoon, usually but not conclusively attributed to Rochester. My argument was that the texts that have been used as the basis for modern editions represent a distinct recension (the B version) which differs from the form in which the poem was originally read at court late in 1673 (the A version). I do not assert dogmatically that the B version is a later revision unconnected with the original phase of composition, but there is certainly circumstantial evidence to that effect, including the fact that its sources are all at least seventeen years later than the date of first circulation. The A version, on the other hand, is recorded in a copy written within weeks of that date.

The A version survives in two already known sources, Bodleian MS don. b 8, pp. 477 — 478, 480 — 482 and British Library MS Harley 7317, ff. 65r — 67r, and a newly discovered third source to be discussed shortly. The Bodleian manuscript is the personal miscellany of the courtier Sir William Haward, a gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles II, while the Harleian text represents a much later copy from a "linked group" which also contained a demonstrably early text of Rochester's "In th' Isle of Britain."[1] In the Haward text, the poem is divided into two sections separated by a pindaric ode on the Bible, the second section being headed "Additions to Seigneur Dildoe." It seems likely that the first section represents the form in which the poem was initially sung, recited and passed from hand to hand at Whitehall, and the second a selection of stanzas added by its various readers.[2] The version in Harleian 7317 has the poem as an unbroken sequence but disagrees with Haward over the order of stanzas and numerous readings, while at the same time agreeing strikingly with it against the manuscripts of the B version. These, by contrast, are relatively invariant except where the

170

order of stanzas has become disrupted by eyeskips. The distinction suggests two quite different modes of distribution.

The composition of the A version was clearly prompted by the wedding of the Duke of York in November 1673: it might even have been written for performance as a set of fescennine verses during this period — possibly with the king present.[3] It would seem to have circulated very rapidly through the court, acquiring new material as it went and being subject to constant rewriting by those who sang or recited it. There may even have been episodes of memorial transmission of the kind that led much later to a single stanza from it being written by a reader into the margin of a B-version manuscript.[4] The B text, on the other hand, is found only in manuscript anthologies of lampoons written for sale by the "Cameron" scriptorium and by one other, as yet unidentified, scribe.[5] Its mode of replication was intrinsically more stable, and its intended readership was also different, not being concerned with the poem as a repository of current scandal but as a precursor of post-1688 anti-Jacobite satire.

The importance of the new text, which was kindly brought to my attention by Peter Beal, is that it gives us a third version of the earliest or A version, and that its form both supports and strengthens my assumption about the earlier stages of circulation. It should also be noted that it is not attributed to Rochester! Contained in an uncatalogued manuscript in the Powis papers in the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, it has been identified by Beal as in the hand of another courtier of the time, Sir Edward Herbert. It agrees with Haward but with no other manuscript in including the name of the tune to which the poem was originally sung, and shares most of its characteristic readings. It also further demonstrates the agglutinative tendency of the earliest period of circulation by containing twelve lines found in no other source.

The text of the new version is given here with the permission of the National Library of Wales. Its variants from the other sources can be established by referring to the collation printed in my earlier article. The variants in line order relative to the base text (that of the B-version text, British Library Harley MS 7319, fols 4r — 6v) are as follows:

1 — 16, 29 — 32, 17 — 24, 24.1 — 24.8, 57 — 60, 36.1 — 36.4, 49 — 56, 〈4 unique lines〉, 73 — 76, 61 — 64, 〈4 unique lines〉, 65 — 72, 28.25 — 28.32, 33 — 36, 40.1 — 40.4, 81 — 92, 〈4 unique lines〉, 92.1 — 92.4

171

Decimalized numbers are those that do not appear at all in the B version. The order of Powis up to its l. 64 (which is also l. 64 of the base text) is in effect that of the Haward MS, section one, with two quatrains interpolated. One of these, 36.1 — 36.4, also present in the Haward "Additions," interrupts a sub-narrative involving the Earl of St Albans and three court ladies who are disturbed by his departure with the signior: this is clearly misplaced. (The B version also violates this sequence; but by reversing the order of the stanzas. Harley 7317 interpolates different material without reversal.) The second interpolation is unique to the Powis MS, and comes between ll. 56 and 73 in the numeration of the base text (Powis, ll. 53 — 56). The order of the lines in the remainder of the poem has no particular resemblance to either Haward section two or to Harleian 7317, as can be seen from the following:

Haward "Additions": 33 — 36, 36.1 — 36.4, 25 — 28, 28.1 — 28.32, 81 — 92, 92.1 — 92.4, 65 — 72, 41 — 44, 37 — 40, 40.1 — 40.4

Harley 7317 (entire): 1 — 24, 24.1 — 24.8, 29 — 32, 25 — 28, 57 — 60, 33 — 36, 45 — 48, 41 — 44, 49 — 56, 65 — 72, 61 — 64, 73 — 76

The similarities in order between Powis and Haward suggest that they derive from a common source in which the order of the earlier stanzas was reasonably stable, but the later stanzas were recorded on stray fragments of paper which might be placed in any order for copying. But it is also clear that text was gained during subsequent transcription, namely that which is unique to the two manuscripts (base text lines 28.1 — 28.24 in the case of Haward and ll. 53 — 56, 65 — 68 and 105 — 108 in Powis's own lineation).[6] Harley 7317 stands closer to both the order and the content of the B version and like it fails to indicate that the poem was for singing.

This transcription is based on copies supplied by the National Library of Wales and has been prepared with the help of Meredith Sherlock. The manuscript is written in a hurried, careless hand which at times represents the final and middle letters of words by minimal undulations of the pen. Words are frequently run into each other with the final letter of the first word almost disappearing and final "m" becoming indistinguishable from "n." Minuscule "o" is written several times as a single inclined stroke or shallow loop resembling a careless italic "e." Italic, secretary and Greek forms of "e" are used indiscriminately. There is virtually no punctuation. It is often quite impossible to tell whether the first letter of a word is capital or minuscule. In the absence of any other way of discriminating between the two, I have assumed that the first letter of a line and of a proper name is a capital unless its form clearly indicates otherwise, reversing the rule for other words. For reference, the lineation of the base text is given, in parentheses, after that of the current version.