Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/118

 210 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. iv. SDT. 9, m but, though a poet may not be able to " cor- rupt " his poems, he can certainly alter them for the worse, and in the case of a book of the nature of MR. BEECHING'S ' Selections,' I think an editor may justifiably adopt an eclectic method, and use the text which seems to convey the poet's idea in the purest and least sophisticated form. In the case of Daniel as of many others, I prefer the poet when red-hot than when much hammering has left the iron bar cold. Without being concerned to defend my emendation, I cannot agree with MR. BEECH- ING in his opinion that the conjecture ''pant in" for paint on is " rendered impossible by the fact that the poet in the errata cor- rects a small misprint in this very line, without noticing what would have been a very big one." In the first place, it is very generally known to students of Elizabethan litera- ture that it was not the poet, but the printer, who was responsible for the page of errata, and in the next, it is not improbable that the corrector of the press may have con- sidered " paint" a perfectly correct spelling of "pant." The orthography of the 1592 'Delia' is deplorable, and there are many uncorrected errors which are at least as bad as my conjecture. One curious erratum is "Sonnet 20. Desires, read desiers" the metre requiring that the word should be a tri- syllable. This sonnet, by the way, which is numbered xxii. in the edition of 1623, has been altered beyond recognition in the later text. One very patent erratum—"vanquisht" for vanisht in the last stanza of ' The Com- plaint of Rosamund'—though occasionally corrected in subsequent issues, survived as late as the collected edition of 1623. Not much reliance, therefore, can be placed on inferences drawn from the errata. The reduplication of 'An Ode' may occur in one or more of the collected editions, but MR. BEECHING'S note referred specifically to that of 1623. While agreeing with your valued corre- spondent C. C. B. that some of the sonnets in 'Astrophel and Stella' will bear com- parison with those in the authorized edition, I did not cite them for the reason given by Daniel himself in his dedication of ' Delia' to the Countess of Pembroke :— "Right honorable, although I rather desired to keep in the private passions of my youth, from the multitude, as things vtterd to my selfe, and con- secrated to silence: yet seeing I was betraide by the indiscretion of a greedie Printer, and had some of my secrets bewraide to the world, uncorrected : doubting the like of the rest, I am forced to publish that which I neuer ment." In these circumstances it is impossible to look on the sonnets in ' Astrophel' as authori- tative, or to be sure how much of them be- longs to Daniel "or another." I may add that if further proof were wanted that Daniel's was a feigned passion, it is to be found in the fact that though Delia's locks were changed in one sonnet from "golden" to "sable, in others they were allowed to retain their original hue. In Sonnet xviii. (1592) =xix. (1623) Daniel implores his mistress to Restore thy tresses to the golden Ore, and in Sonnet xxx. (1592) =xxxv. (1623) he sings— I once may see when yeeres shall wrecke my wronge, When golden haires shall chaunge to siluer wyre, yet, strange to say, the "amber locks" of Sonnet xiv. (1592) were altered to "snary locks" in the corresponding sonnet of 1623, which certainly cannot be considered a change for the better. " Snary " is neither a pretty word nor a complimentary epithet. It is good news to learn that MR. BEECHING contemplates the preparation of a critical edition of Daniel's poems, though personally I should prefer that he should take up Mr. Hooper's unfinished task, and give us a really good edition of Drayton, who had far more of the true spirit of poetry in him than " well- languaged Daniel. W. F. PRIDEAUX. PARISH REGISTERS (9th S. iv. 149).—J. S. BURN, in his ' History of Parish Registers in England,' records the following case of forgery in a church register, given as it appears :— "Charles Dudley, the titular Duke of North- umberland, was found guilty, in 1658, of forging an entry of marriage in the register - book or East Greenwich, in Kent, and was nned 200 marks. The dictum of Chief Justice Glyn, on that occasion, as recorded in Siderfin's Reports, is, in the language of that day, as follows: ' Glyn, Chief Justice. Un Register Boke pur Pentry del Marriage, Births, &c. [sic], est un evidence per nostre Ley et. la falsify- ing de ceo soit el iier conspiracy ou nemy ne doit estre unpunished. MR. BURN alsogave in']Sr.& Q.' (2nd S. in. 181) particulars of the forgeries in parish registers in the following instances :— In the Stafford peerage case, tried in the House of Lords in 1825, the parish register of St. Andrew's, Worcester, was produced in evidence. Fortunately, a transcript had been transmitted to the registry at Worcester which showed that the original register had been interpolated by the insertion of the marriage in question: " 1686. Edward Raw- lins and Anne Howard, daughter of the Hon- ourable Henry Howard, April 2nd." A second entry was produced referring to a marriage in the parish register of Eves-