Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/329

 ii s. in. APRIL 29, wit.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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for he had a most brilliant imagination where Surrey was concerned, though otherwise a sane and very acute critic. He is not to be trusted when he is dealing with Surrey, because he reasons one way for his idol and another for outsiders.

Take the case of the poem which I re- claimed for the elder Harington in my former paper, and in which Surrey is not concerned. Dr. Nott agrees that ' The Paradise of Daintie Devices ' made a mis- take when it signed " D. S." to that poem, which, he says, " we know on positive authority was written by Sir John Haring- ton." What " positive authority " does Dr. Nott refer to ? He refers to ' Nugse Antiquse,' for he could not refer to any other source for his statement. Why did Dr. Nott forget his " positive authority " in the case of the poem commencing,

O Happy dames, that may embrace, &c. ?

Tottel, pp. 15-16.

Was it because he preferred Tottel to Harington ? That could hardly be, because in several cases he acknowledges that the Harington MSS. are more authoritative than Tottel and render his author more faithfully. Again, in the case of the poem,

Brittle beautie, that Nature made so fraile, &c., he throws Tottel over altogether, alleging that the occurrence of double rimes in the sonnet, which Surrey always avoided, was good ground for its rejection. When one wishes to beat a dog, a staff is quickly found. Now, the truth of the whole matter is that Dr. Nott was confronted by the " positive " statement in the Harington MS. that this poem was by Lord Vaux, and his discovery of double rimes in the sonnet enabled him to make a dignified retreat.

But Dr. Nott was not so tender with Sir John Harington, 1 and, as he could not decently deny the authority of the Haring- ton MSS., he thought his best plan was to forget that the poem,

Happy dames, that may embrace, &c., was claimed as his very own by Sir John, and to rest on Tottel. And it would have been such a loss, too, to give away this sonnet to Harington, for was not Dr. Nott engaged in constructing his wonderful story of the loves of Geraldine and Surrey, and was not this very poem one of his main supports ? He clung so tenaciously to the poem that he actually went to the length of perverting its title, all to make it fit in with his remarkable romance. I say once again that Dr. Nott is not to be trusted when he is under the spell of Surrey, especially when the

lovely Geraldine is by Surrey's side, and therefore we must appeal from Philip drunk to- Philip sober, and fasten him down to his- " positive authority," which cannot be gainsaid, because we know for whom the poem was written as well as the year in which Harington wrote it. Parke threw this poem headlong out of ' Nugse Antiquse,' Harington' s version of which prints it thus :

Sonnet HI. By John Harington, 1543, for a Ladie

moche in Love. O Happie dames ! that may embrace, &c.

It cannot any longer be claimed for Surrey,, and must be given back at once to Sir John. Harington.

Restitution is the order of the day, and necessity compels me now to give to Haring- ton a sonnet which ' The Paradise of Daintie Devices ' assigns to Lord Vaux :

When I looke backe, and in myselfe behold, &c.

We have seen that the signatures in ' The- Paradise of Daintie Devices ' are not always to be trusted, and now I will correct another of its errors as a preliminary to proving that it is also wrong in regard to the poem as- signed to Lord Vaux.

Above the signature " G. G.," ' The Paradise of Daintie Devices ' prints five stanzas of six lines each, commencing,

What is this world ? a net to snare the soule, &c. The title given to these verses is ' A Descrip- tion of the World,' and " G. G." stands for George Gascoigne. Now these verses were written by George Whetstone, and they form stanzas 35 to 40 of his elegy on the death of Gascoigne. Arber prints the elegy with Gascoigne's ' Steele Glas,' ' The Complaint of Philomene,' &c., ed. 1901 (" English Re- prints").

The authority of ' The Paradise of Daintie Devices ' is nil when contradicted by ' Nugse Antiquse,' where the heading and commencement of the poem appear as follows :

Sonnet wrote in the Tower, 1554. I.

When I looke back, and in myself behold, &c.

' Nugse Antiquse ' prints only four stanzas r whereas ' The Paradise of Daintie Devices ' has six. The poem is not in Tottel, but it is indubitably by Harington, and not by Lord Vaux.

Another poem in Tottel's " Uncertain Authors " which was written by Harington, and which Parke omitted from his edition of ' Nugse Antiquse,' is,

Lyke as the rage of raine, &c.

Pp. 190-91,