[81] Mr. C.H. Herford, to whom I showed the MS., writes as follows:— "The first two words make it highly probable that the whole inscription is, like them, in Italian. In that case the first two Greek letters give very easily the word 'fideltà' (=phi, delta), which combines naturally with the nella. The second part is more difficult, but perhaps not hopeless. [Greek: fnr] may, perhaps be read phi ny (as Latinised spelling of [Greek: nu]), rô, or finirô. Then, for the 'La B.,' suppose that the words form, as emblems often do, a rhymed couplet; then 'B.' would stand for Beltà, and naturally fall in with 'la.' The whole would then read—
'Nella fideltà, Finiro la Beltà.
This does not seem to me very excellent Italian, but we need not suppose the author was necessarily a good scholar; and in that case we might extract from it the fairly good sense: 'I will make fidelity the end (the accomplishment) of beauty.'" This explanation seems to me very satisfactory.
["'La Bussa' suits my explanation as well as, if not better than 'La Buffa.' The meaning now is, 'I will end my task faithfully, with an equivoque on 'I will end La Busse, or the play containing him as a character, faithfully.' There is no shadow of reason for supposing a rhyme, or for Field's thinking that any reader would interpret La B. by la beltà. Moreover no other name but Field's out of the 200 known names of dramatic writers anterior to 1640, can be found in the letters. There are other works of Field than those commonly attributed to him still extant, as will be seen in a forthcoming paper of mine." —F.G. FLEAY.]
[82] So the MS., but I suspect that we should read "ruyne," which gives better sense and better metre.
[83] The next line, as in many instances, has been cut away at the foot of the page.
[84] "The close contriver of all harms."—Macbeth, iii. 5.
[85] "The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire."—Hamlet, i. 5.
[86] "Blacke and blewe," i.e., first as a kitchen-drudge and afterwards as a personal attendant. Blue was the livery of serving-men.
[87] It is not always easy to distinguish between final "s" and "e" in the MS. I printed "blesseing_e_" in the Appendix to vol. II.