and indeed to collate, every old impreffion from the year 1579, when "The Shepherds Calendar ” was first published, to the year 1679, when the last of the early impreffions of Spenfer's Poems made its appearance. For the original language of the poet, I was, of course, mainly indebted to the two iffues of "The Fairy Queen;" the first three books in 1590, and the whole fix books in 1596: to these authorities I have endeavoured to make my reprint minutely conform.

How faulty the late Rev. H. J. Todd was in this particular may be illuftrated by a few proofs out of many. His edition of "The Works of Edmund Spenfer" appeared in 1805, and has long been out of print: his text has fince been almost univerfally followed; the only exception, I believe, being an impreffion, in five vols. 12mo. published at Boston, U. S. in 1855, under the care of Profeffor F. J. Child of Harvard College, Massachusetts. This able and well-inftructed editor alfo made Todd's text the groundwork of his own, but with various judicious corrections derived from early sources. For instance, Todd so misprinted a line in Book IV. Canto vii. St. 47, (vol. iii. p. 209), as directly to contradict the meaning of the poet : gave the paffage,

he

"Ne ought mote make him change his wonted tenor,
Ne ought mote ceafe to mitigate his paine;"

when the last line ought to run

"Ne ought mote ease or mitigate his paine."

Todd's corruption is not warranted by any of the old copies, not even by the folio 1611, by which in fome other places he was mifled. Here Profeffor Child avoided the blunder, probably by reference to the edition in 4to. 1596, to which he seems to have reforted. Such, however, was not the cafe with a small, but ftill an important, mistake in Canto ix. St. 23, of the fame Book (vol. iii. p. 241), which mistake Todd twice repeated elsewhere, and it has been adopted by all fubfequent editors. The poet, in a fimile, represents Æolus as difplaying his wrath against Neptune for depriving him of his mistress :

"As when Dan Æolus, in great displeasure
For loffe of his deare love by Neptune hent,
Sends forth the winds out of his hidden threasure,
Upon the Sea to wreake his full intent.”

So ftands the paffage in Todd, and so it is repeated in every modern impreffion, although in every old one the last line, as may be easily imagined, is given as follows:

"Upon the fea to wreake his fell intent."

In another place we have "full revenge" for "fell revenge;" but there the folio 1611, upon which Todd too much relied, was to blame. The third repetition by Todd of full for “fell,” (B. v.

C. v. St. 5; vol. iii. p. 374), however, may ferve to show that it was not a mere typographical error; and fuch could hardly have been the fact when, in Book v. Canto v. St. 31, (vol. iii. p. 383), Todd printed "feareful mayd," inftead of "faithfull mayd," a change which entirely perverts the fsense of the poet. boast for "hoast," in "The Ruins of Time,” (vol. iv. p. 299), but in this inftance the compofitor most likely mistook.

The fame may be faid of

We might bring forward various other evidences of Todd's want of care, not want of competence; and he fets out, in his very firft page, with a corruption, which he would affuredly have avoided, had he gone for his text to editions earlier than that of 1611. Spenfer, in the introductory lines to his "Shepherds Calendar," (vol. i. p. 2), addresses Sir Philip Sidney as

"the prefident

Of nobleffe and of chevalree,'

which Todd, and every editor, from first to last after the 4to. 1591, alter to

Of noblenee and chevalree,

rejecting a word sanctioned by Shakespeare, Drayton, Daniel, and by many other writers of their day, befides facrificing the poet's elegance of expreffion in repeating the prepofition. The

In the fame way idlenese was not unfrequently abbreviated

true text is contained in the impreffions of "The Shepherds Calendar" of 1579, 1581, and 1586, and fuch we are bound to preserve it. Todd's re-impreffion of E. Kirke's notes to the laftnamed production, as they imperfectly ftand in the folio 1611, led him into several abfurdities, which he would have efcaped had he gone to better authority. The careless omiffion of connecting words, and other mifprints, have made nonsense of some remarkable paffages.

For these I must be content to refer the reader to the notes at the foot of each page; obferving, with reference to the general body of fuch illuftrations in our volumes, that whenever I have been indebted to preceding editors, I have added their names, and have only fubjoined the initial C. to fuch new matter as appeared to require the acknowledgment of my own refponfibility. I have been anxious not to appropriate a line, or even a word, that belonged to others; and if in any instance I have not affigned to the right owner what is unquestionably his due, it has arisen from accident or inadvertence.c

to

idleffe;" as in Spenfer's line, Book vi. Canto ii. St. 31, (vol. iv. p. 69), though Todd, and all others after him, in oppofition to the old copies, and to the plain requirements of the metre, printed idlenesse, making it a word of three, instead of a word of two fyllables.

• How fcrupulous I have been in avoiding the introduction of

It will be obvious to those who read it, that the biography of Spenser, and the proper elucidation of it by reference to his own works or to those of authors of the time, has coft me confiderable labour and research. As regards facts my industry has not been altogether unrewarded, for I have been fortunate enough to discover feveral points that are either entirely new, or have only been gueffed at by perfons who have hitherto written the Life of the poet. Thus, as to the laft, it was fpeculated upon by Chalmers, that Spenser had had a wife before his avowed marriage about 1594,

be

my own or any other speculative changes in the text may seen from the course I pursued regarding a paffage in " Colin Clout's come Home again," vol. v. p. 53, where the poet, applauding Queen Elifabeth, fays,

"Her deeds are like great glufters of ripe grapes,

Which load the bunches of the fruitfull vine."

Here" bunches " may be, but can hardly be, what the poet wrote, because the "glusters" (or clusters, as we now spell the word) are in fact the "bunches," and clufters of grapes do not load the "bunches," but the branches of "the fruitfull vine." I would therefore read :—

"Her deeds are like great glusters of ripe grapes

That load the branches of the fruitfull vine."

This alteration only fuppofes that the old compofitor mifread branches" bunches," which is much more probable, than that Spenfer fhould have written that the clusters loaded the clusters, i.e. the "bunches." I have, however, left the original text unamended, partly from diffidence in my own judgment, seeing that no editor or critic, however aftute and fhrewd, has yet been ftruck by the faultiness of the paffage. My note ad l. merely gives my individual opinion on the point.