‘Nature had but little clay
Like that of which she moulded him.’
See ‘Letters,’ i. 75, note.
[42] 18 April 1874. Professor Hiram Corson endeavoured to maintain the correctness of the reading of the Folios in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 86-88:
‘For his Bounty,
There was no winter in ’t. An Anthony it was,
That grew the more by reaping.’
Spedding admirably defended Theobald’s certain emendation of ‘autumn’ for ‘Anthony.’
[43] These lines are not to be found in Crabbe, so far as I can ascertain, but they appear to be a transformation of two which occur in the Parish Register, Part II., in the story of Phebe Dawson (Works, ii. 183):
‘Friend of distress! The mourner feels thy aid;
She cannot pay thee, but thou wilt be paid.’
They had taken possession of FitzGerald’s memory in their present shape, for in a letter to me, dated 5 Nov. 1877, speaking of the poet’s son, who was Vicar of Bredfield, he says: “It is now just twenty years since the Brave old Boy was laid in Bredfield Churchyard. Two of his Father’s Lines might make Epitaph for some good soul:—
‘Friend of the Poor, the Wretched, the Betray’d;
They cannot pay thee—but thou shalt be paid.’
Pas mal ça, eh!”