Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/303

 popularity (copies in Capell collection at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Rowfant and Huth libraries). An undated and anonymous reprint, ‘newly augmented,’ was printed by H. L. for William Leake, doubtless in 1596, and it added several pieces (Brit. Mus., Jesus College, Oxford, and Britwell). Other editions, still anonymous, dated respectively 1597, 1599, and 1602, were printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for G[abriel] C[awood]. Meanwhile, another undated and anonymous edition was published by Robert Waldegrave at Edinburgh about 1600. This was edited by John Johnston [q. v.], professor of divinity at St. Andrews, who introduced a sonnet of his own, ‘A Sinful Soull to Christ,’ and occasionally modified Southwell's catholic phraseology. A reprint of this edition by John Wreittoun of Edinburgh appeared in 1634 (a copy is in the Britwell Library). All these issues were in quarto.

Meanwhile, the poems, together with the prose tract, ‘Mary Magdalen's Tears,’ were republished at Douay in 1616 (in 12mo, Brit. Mus.), and the name of the author was given on the title-page as ‘R. S. of the Society of Jesus.’ This edition reappeared ‘permissu superiorum’ in 1620 (Brit. Mus.). Almost simultaneously—in 1615—the publisher, W. Barret, caused to be printed at Stansby's press in London another 12mo edition, which he openly assigned to ‘R. S.’ Barret prefixed a dedication of his own composition to Richard Sackville, third earl of Dorset, to whom, when a child, Southwell had addressed his ‘Triumphs over Death,’ and that tract, together with ‘Mary Magdalen's Teares’ and the ‘Short Rule of Life,’ was appended to Barret's new edition of the poems. This 12mo edition reappeared in London in 1620 (by Barret; Brit. Mus.), in 1630 (by John Haviland; Brit. Mus.), and in 1634 (by John Haviland).

Two other volumes of poetry by Southwell appeared separately. One was a supplement to ‘St. Peter's Complaint,’ and was entitled ‘Mæoniæ, or certaine excellent Poems and Spirituall Hymnes omitted in the last impression of Peters Complaint: being needefull there-unto to be annexed as being both diuine and wittie. All composed by R. S. London, by Valentine Sims for John Busbie,’ 1595. John Busbie, the printer, in an address to the reader, acknowledged ‘with what kind admiration’ the former volume had been received. Copies of ‘Mæoniæ’ are in the libraries of Jesus College, Oxford, the British Museum, Rowfant, and of Mr. A. H. Huth. The volume is said to have been twice reprinted within the year. It reappeared with the later editions of ‘St. Peter's Complaint.’ Of two hymns ‘taken forth of S. Thomas de Aquino,’ which appear in ‘Briefe Meditations in the most Holy Sacrament,’ by Lucas Pinelli, S. J. (Douay?, 1600, 8vo), one is described as ‘translated by the Rev. Fa: R. S.;’ it is a reprint from the ‘Mæoniæ’ of ‘Saint Thomas of Aquinas Hymne read on Corpus Christy Daye.’).

Finally, a third volume of Southwell's verse saw the light in ‘A Foure-fould Meditation of the foure last things: viz. of the Houre of Death, Day of Iudgement, Paines of Hell, Ioyes of Heauen. Shewing the estate of the Elect and Reprobate. Composed in a diuine poeme. By R. S. The author of S. Peters Complaint. Imprinted at London by G. Eld: for Francis Burton,’ 1606. The only perfect copy known was in the library of Mr. G. L. Way, and, sold at Sotheby's in 1881, now belongs to Mr. Robert Hoe in New York. A fragment of another copy, discovered in 1867 by Mr. Charles Edmonds at Lamport Hall, the seat of Sir Charles Isham, is now in the British Museum. The dedication, which is addressed to Mr. Mathew Saunders, is signed by one W. H., who says that he became possessed of the poem by an accident. The fragment consists of only six leaves, and breaks off at an early stage of the poem. The whole is preserved, under a different title, to which no author's name is attached, in two manuscripts—respectively in the library of St. Mary's College, Oscott, Birmingham, and among the Rawlinson MSS. at the Bodleian Library. With the help of the Rawlinson manuscript, the better text, Mr. Edmonds issued a complete version of the poem in his series of ‘Isham Reprints,’ No. iv. (1895). The fragment in the British Museum was reprinted in the ‘Month,’ edited by the Rev. H. Thurston, in 1894.

It is improbable that Southwell was the ‘R. S.’ who contributed a commendatory sonnet to Spenser's ‘Faerie Queene’ (1590).

Francis Godolphin Waldron appended in 1783 a few of Southwell's poems to a reprint of Ben Jonson's ‘Sad Shepherd,’ and Headley transferred Waldron's selections to his ‘Select Beauties of English Poetry,’ published in the same year. Collected editions of Southwell's poetical works were edited by W. J. Walter in 1817 and by W. B. Turnbull in 1856. Both editors included a few poems previously unprinted (from Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 10422, which contains inter alia the only complete manuscript copy extant of ‘St. Peter's Complaint;’ and from Harl. MS. 6921). But the text in both cases is imperfect. Dr. Grosart, in his collected edition in the ‘Fuller's Worthies Library’ (1872), obtained a somewhat better text by