(3) At III. iii. 50, l. 9, it completes the imperfect Alexandrine by adding ‘as earst’.
(4) At III. vi. 45, l. 4, it adds a broken line, ‘And dearest loue,’ to an eight-line stanza.
(5) At IV. xii. 13, ll. 1, 2, 1596 reads:—
‘Thus whilst his stony heart with tender ruth
Was toucht, and mighty courage mollifide’;
1609 reads:—
‘Thus whilst his stony heart was toucht with tender ruth,
And mighty courage something mollifide.’
(6) At V. Proem 11, l. 2, it reads ‘stead’ for the non-rhyming ‘place’.
Of these changes, (2) and (3) are not beyond the capacity of an ordinary editor; yet it is worth noting that 1609 does not correct other confusions of names almost as obvious as (2). Even the missing line (1), Spenserian as it sounds, might conceivably be editorial. But to add a broken line, like (4), seems to me a touch beyond an editor. And (5) is most easily explained by supposing that Spenser altered the text, meaning to omit ‘tender’, but left that word standing. (6) is an instance of a phenomenon that has already been discussed. The significant point is that this is the only instance of that phenomenon which is corrected in 1609. An editor who corrected one of these mistakes might be expected to correct others; but the author who perpetrated these non-rhymes would more easily overlook them.