20Thy faith, to faiths as false as thine.
Yet, if thou choose
On such thy freedom to bestow,
Affection may excuse,
For love from sympathy doth flow.
The Loss.] Still good. But I have once more to demur to Miss Guiney's opinion that 'Thy' in l. 20, though found in all texts, should 'almost certainly' be 'Their'. In the first place, conjectural emendations in the teeth of text-agreement are never to be made without absolute necessity. In the second, the hackneyed observation about the less obvious reading is never so true as of the Caroline poets. In the third, this particular correction, if obvious in one sense, is but specious in another, and 'Their faith' will be found on examination to make less, not more, sense than 'Thy'. The meaning is, 'Such faith as thou mightest repose in them after being false to me', i.e. 'They would leave thee for other light-o'-loves'.
The Self-Cruel.
Cast off, for shame, ungentle Maid,
That misbecoming joy thou wear'st;