A history of English poetry

Los Angeles William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of California 1953
GENERAL EDITORS H. Richard Archer, Clark Memorial Library Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan Ralph Cohen, University of California, Los Angeles Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles ASSISTANT EDITOR W. Earl Britton, University of Michigan ADVISORY EDITORS Emmett L. Avery, State College of Washington Benjamin Boyce, Duke University Louis Bredvold, University of Michigan John Butt, King's College, University of Durham James L. Clifford, Columbia University Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago Edward Niles Hooker, University of California, Los Angeles Louis A. Landa, Princeton University Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota Earnest Mossner, University of Texas James Sutherland, University College, London H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Edna C. Davis, Clark Memorial Library

Among the unpublished papers of Thomas and Joseph Warton at Winchester College the most interesting and important item is undoubtedly a continuation of Thomas Warton's History of English Poetry . This continuation completes briefly the analysis of Elizabethan satire and discusses the Elizabethan sonnet. The discussion offers material of interest particularly for the bibliographer and the literary historian. The bibliographer, for example, will be intrigued by a statement of Thomas Warton that he had examined a copy of the Sonnets published in 1599—a decade before the accepted date of the first edition. The literary historian will be interested in, inter alia, unpublished information concerning the university career of Samuel Daniel and in the theory that Shakespeare's sonnets should be interpreted as if addressed by a woman to her lover.
Joseph Warton appears, however, to have touched up the present continuation, for a few expansions seem to be in his script rather than in his brother's. It is difficult to be positive in the discrimination of hands here, as Thomas Warton's hand in this manuscript is quite irregular. Pens of varying thicknesses were used; black ink was used for the text and red ink for footnotes, and one note (16) was pencilled. Moreover, certain passages appear to have been written during periods of marked infirmity or haste and are legible only with difficulty if at all. In any case, those additions which were presumably made by Joseph Warton merely expand the original version; they do not alter or modify any of Thomas Warton's statements.