Note 44 — POEMS

For my analysis of this edition has thrown light upon what of itself is evident—that of some poems or groups of poems 1633 provides a more accurate text than of others, viz. of those for which its source was a manuscript resembling D, H49, Lec, but possibly more correct than any one of these, or revised by an editor who knew the poems. But in printing some of the poems, e.g. The Progresse of the Soule, a number of the letters to noble ladies and others,44 the Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inne, The Prohibition, and a few others, for which D, H49, Lec was not available, 1633 seems to have followed an inferior manuscript, A18, N, TC or one resembling it. In these cases it is possible to correct 1633 by comparing it with a better single manuscript, as G or W, or group of manuscripts, as D, H49, Lec. Sometimes even a generally inferior manuscript like O'F seems to offer a better text of an individual poem, at least in parts, for occasionally the correct reading has been preserved in only one or two manuscripts. Only W among eleven manuscripts which I have recorded (and I have examined others) preserves the reading in the Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inne, p. 143, l. 57: