interminable stanzas without the hope of worldly gain. But it is certainly neat enough for the work of a professional copyist.
In many instances the Malone MS. corrects misprints and mis-readings in the printed editions; and while it lacks the terrible acrostic preface, it contains three stanzas addressed to the Countess of Devonshire which were omitted on its publication. The omission was assuredly not due to their poor quality—for they are no worse than many others in this immense elegy—but was doubtless dictated merely by motives of prudence; the stanzas were perhaps deemed to be too fervent in their defence of the virtue of the fallen and scandal-smirched lady whom Ford (though only in the MS.) extols for patiently bearing “spleenes unjust disgrace.”[1]
The following are the suppressed stanzas:[2]
Lyue thou untoucht forever aboue fare,
more happie yt thou canst not be more haplesse!
The wordes of malice are an usuall game,
whose mouth is lawless, whose intention saplesse,
Their breast of hony tornes to poison paplese.
Still be thine eares to sufferance tun’d readie,
in mynde resolu’d, in resolution steadie.
What hee amongst the proudest of contempt
Whites as thy sunshine lasted, did not bend
Unto thy posture. Flattery redempt
Wth service on their seruice did attend,
all stryving to admire, protest, commend,
Wch now by imputation black as hell
they seme to derogate from dooing well.
Thy virtue caus’d thy honor to support thee
in noble contract of undoubted merit.
His knowledge to his Credence did report thee
a creature of a more then female sperit;
Concord of musick did thy soule inherite.
Courtiers but counterfeit thy rarity
for thy perfections brook’t no parity.
Among the minor differences between MS. and printed copy is the name of the poet’s “flint-hearted” mistress, whom he upbraids as “Lucia” in the former, whereas she appears in print as “Lycia.”[3] But it is possible that this lady was introduced merely for fashion’s sake, much as Daniel not many years previously had dragged his cruel “Delia” into the famous Complaint of Rosamond, which was certainly read by Ford.
- ↑ Lady Rich was divorced for adultery in 1605, and married the Earl of Devonshire (her co-respondent) shortly before his death in 1606.
- ↑ Their place if printed would have been after stanza 3 on p. 308 of vol. iii. of Ford’s Works (edn. 1895, ed. by Gifford and Dyce).
- ↑ Ford’s Works, edn. 1895 (vol. i pp. 297 and 322).
