Note 59 — 60 KING ESTMERE

We have paynim four times in the first edition, and only twice in the fourth. And ever I feare that paynim king, b 213, gives place to I cannot blame him if he doe. Laught loud laughters three, b 584, was not (as who needs to be told?) the reading of the folio; but was lough a loud laughter the reading of the folio?

The statement that 'King Estmere' was "unfortunately torn out in sending the... piece to the press" is far from intelligible. Since readings were given from the manuscript in the fourth edition for the first time, one would suppose that the original was still in the editor's hands when that edition was prepared. But the three leaves from the manuscript would have been much less convenient to send to the press than the copy already three times printed in the Reliques; and Percy himself pleads in excuse for his taking out leaves from the manuscript, to save the trouble of transcribing, that he was very young, and "had not then learnt to reverence it." The readings from the manuscript, which first appear in the fourth edition, may possibly be from notes; one would hope that Percy would not trust his memory after the lapse of thirty years. Hales and Furnivall, I, lxxiv, II, 200; also II, 600 ff, where the texts of the first and of the fourth edition are printed in parallel columns.