I hasten to make two admissions. The first volume of 1596 was not reset afresh from Spenser’s manuscript. It was printed from a copy of 1590. In the nature of the case, while it escapes some of the blunders of its original, it reproduces others, and perpetrates some new. Nor did Spenser do more than glance at the proof. The 1596 volumes, as we have seen, were printed rapidly; the poet was busy,[11] and such time as he had for proof-reading was given to the new books. I infer that the alterations which he made in 1590 were made not on the proof, but on the copy. In no other way can we account for that combination of author’s corrections with printer’s errors which marks the first volume of 1596. And this conclusion is strengthened by another consideration. It is one of the worst faults of 1596 that it so often ignores F. E. But the significance of the fault has been overlooked. Making corrections on the copy, Spenser did not trouble himself about errors that he had already noted in F. E.; had he made his corrections on the proof, they could not have escaped him.
I believe this to be a true account of the relations of these two texts. But when all is said there remain many places where we cannot pronounce on mere inspection whether an alteration is the author’s or the printer’s, but must be guided by a calculation of probabilities, inclining (e. g.) to the author where there is clear evidence of his hand in the neighbourhood of the vexed passage, to the printer where the ductus litterarum in both readings is suspiciously alike. The most important of these places are discussed in the Critical Appendix to Vol. III.
Has 1609 any independent authority? In the main a reprint of 1596, it is certainly a respectable piece of work, in punctuation especially far more logical and consistent than either of the quartos: the editor seldom fails to show exactly how he understands his text. Our respect for 1609 would be enhanced if we could believe that the editor was Gabriel Harvey, as Todd at one time fancied. But that notion is untenable, and Todd himself abandoned it. We may go further: the editor of 1609 did not belong to the generation of Harvey and Spenser. For this conclusion I will adduce only one piece of evidence, but it is decisive. In the last decade of the sixteenth century syllabic -es in possessives and plurals still lingered even in verse not deliberately archaic. But it was strange to the editor of 1609. Sometimes he remarks it, and signalizes his discovery by printing it -ez, as ‘woundez’, ‘beastez’, ‘clothez’. Sometimes he fails to remark it, and fills up the syllable by conjecture: thus ‘Nightes children’ becomes ‘Nights drad children’ (I. v. 23); ‘th’Earthes gloomy shade’ becomes ‘the Earthes gloomy shade’ (III. x. 46). He seems, moreover, to have made little or no use of 1590. When, as sometimes happens, a word has been dropped in 1596, he emends by conjecture: thus at I. ii. 29:—
‘For the coole shade him thither hastly got’ 1590;
‘For the coole shade thither hastly got’ 1596;
‘For the coole shadow thither hast’ly got’ 1609.
Cf. also III. ix. 13, l. 9, III. xi. 26, l. 7, &c. The few instances in which 1590 and 1609 agree as against 1596 may fairly be set down to coincidence.
Yet I am disposed to assign some independent authority to 1609.[12] The grounds for this view are slight, and may be stated in full:—
(1) At I. x. 20, l. 5, 1609 adds the missing line, ‘Dry-shod to passe, she parts the flouds in tway.’
(2) At II. viii. 48, l. 8, it corrects ‘Sir Guyon’ to ‘Prince Arthur’.