Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/346

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. A, ss, im

should have contained it ; but Jonson was dead when that edition appeared. The 'Underwoods' have a separate title-page dated 1640, and include, as Gifford says, all the scattered verse that could be found by editor or publisher. It is strange that lines to the memory of one so eminent as Prince Henry should have disappeared ; but MR. CURRY'S parallel from the poem on the death of Queen Anne disposes of any scruple that might be felt on that account. He is, how- ever, wide of the mark in what he says about the omitted poems generally. My "singu- larly unfortunate" statement that Jonson did not hide his light under a bushel is, of course, quite sound a truism rather than a truth, as most people acquainted with the poet's writings and the temper displayed in some of them would expect. What proof has MR. CURRY that the poems to which he refers were deliberately omitted by Jonson him- self?

Omissions due to accident do not touch my contention, and, with few exceptions, the omissions will be found to be accidental. Jonson twice suffered loss from fire, which would fully account for the editor of the 1640 folio not finding copies of the scattered poems among Jonson's papers. The following poems, of earlier date than 1611, constitute the chief omissions from the folio of 1616 omissions for which Jonson was personally responsible : Verses prefixed to Thomas Palmer's 'The Sprite of Trees and Herbes,' 1598-9; Nicholas Breton's ' Melancholike Humours,' 1600 ; Thomas Wright's 'The Passions of the Minde,' 1601 ; Hugh Holland's ' Pancharis,' 1603 ; Coryat's 'Crudities,' 1611 (but entered in the Stationers' Register 26 November, 1610) ; and some poems afterwards printed in 'Underwoods,' notably the ode to the Earl of Desmond (44 in Gifford) ; the ' Epigram on the Court Pucell,' Mrs. Boulstred, who died in July, 1609 (68) ; and the epigram ' To

the Honour'd Countesse of (69). Can

these omissions be accounted for ? Three of the above writers Palmer, Wright, and Hol- land were Catholics, and Jonson's verses to them were written in his Catholic days, attribute the suppression to an estrangement on his reverting to Protestantism. Breton has been claimed as a Catholic, but without proof. The coincidence is curious, but it may be an accident. Personal feeling probably dictated the omission here ; the sneer at " Nicholas' Pasquils "in the ' Execration upon Vulcan ' is levelled at Breton. The verses to Coryat would be pointless in a separate re print ; the chief copy is a description of the engraved title-page of the 'Crudities.' Al"

}he references to Coryat in Jonson's works are contemptuous. The ode to Desmond was ' writ in Queene Elizabeth's time, since lost, and recovered," the folio tells us. It is to 3e hoped that a sense of decency prompted Jonson's suppression in 1612 of the foul attack on Mrs. Boulstred, and therefore ihat it was not his hand that revived it
 * or the second folio. The unnamed Countess

was the Countess of Rutland; the allusion her as a "widowed wife" could hardly lave been printed in her husband's life- ime, and he died in 1612. A few other Doems in * Underwoods ' can be conjecturally dated earlier than 1611 ; but I have preferred
 * o deal with pieces the date of which is cer-

tain. Two lyrics, 'The Phoenix Analysde' and * Ode ei'flouo-iao-rt/oj ' in R. Chester's migmatic work 'Love's Martyr,' 1601, were ightly assigned to Jonson by Gifford. They were preceded in Chester's work by the ' Prse- .udium ' and ' Epode ' which Jonson reprinted in 'The Forest' (1616 folio). Any one who will read the four poems together will see that the two reprinted admit of separate pub- lication, while the two omitted would not have been intelligible. There remains the tribute 'To the Worthy Author, M. John Fletcher,' in the quarto of ' The Faithful Shepherdess.' Mr. Fleay assigns these lines to the first quarto, 1609, and Dyce also says they are found in all the quartos. If so, Jonson's suppression of them is inexplicable. But I believe they were first published in the quarto of 1629. The first quarto has four leaves of preliminary matter with the signature IT. Jonson's verses are not in these in any copy which I have seen ; and Hazlitt does not record them in this edition. In the 1629 quarto they appear at sig. A 3. That closes my case, for the length of which I apologize.

A last point about the poem on Prince Henry. The resemblance to other epitaphs by Jonson is, as I noted, in its favour. He was fond of ringing the changes on any phrase or turn of thought which pleased^ him I suppose on the Greek principle of Sis >)

MR. CURRY'S remark that he has " not lost much

naive

" by not knowing Chetwood is rather . The credit of recovering and assign- ing the poem belongs primarily to Chetwood, and the absence of this knowledge can hardly be reckoned gain by ordinary methods of valuation. Nothing is scored by citing Steevens ; his remark is as unfair as it is brutal. As for the supercilious Gifford, he- appropriated Chetwood's results, and was equally careless about " mentioning his authority " (see ante, p. 25). Personally I am