P. 540, l. 19. ""Tis Love inflicts it, whose seraphic flame Felt in the soul is happiness supreme" MS. "That gloomy scene" MS. P. 540, 1. 23. P. 540, 1. 24. P. 540, 1. 26. "Then neither tempests howl nor billows roll" MS. Bull's reading, has been erased. P. 540, 1. 27. P. 540, 1. 28. P. 540, 1. 29. P. 540, 1. 31. P. 540, 1. 32. MS. I am not something else. P. 541, 1. 1. P. 541, 1. 5. P. 541, 1. 7. P. 541, 1. 9. P. 541, 1. 10. "Disperse the night" MS. "Abyss of darkness where I lie " MS. "Makes (?) me and leaves me weary, sick, and faint" sure whether the first word is "makes "What, leave me, when" MS. "While humbly I adore" MS. or breaks or "The award is just and I applaud the blow" MS. `P. 541, l. 17. P. 541, 1. 21. P. 541, 1. 32. P. 542, l. 13. P. 542, 1. 15. "Fresh perplexities occur " MS. P. 542, 1. 28. P. 543, 1. 12. P. 543, l. 16. P. 543, 1. 17. P. 543, 1. 19. P. 543, 1. 20. P. 543, 1. 21. P. 543, 1. 25. P. 544, 1. 13. P. 544, 1. 18. Bull gives "my P. 545, 1. 9. P. 545, 1. 10. P. 545, 1. 21. P. 546, l. 1. P. 546, 1. 23. P. 547, 1. 14. P. 547, 1. 15. P. 547, 1. 18. P. 547, 1. 33. Trust. "Wish the hours of light away" MS. "How I love this peaceful season MS. "Its discourses grieve and hurt me" MS. "Of the Lord's inspiring" MS. "My spirit" MS. This is probably the true reading. spirits." "Is the soul's estate" MS. "That thwarts" MS. "Let reason sleep the livelong night" MS. "Obedient to thy love's sweet force My rapid hours pursue their course" MS. "And all beside" MS. "That deathless flame " MS. "" "Which thou inspir'st alone" MS. The MS. has no title to this poem. Bull heads Simple P. 549, 1. 10. P. 549, 1. 20. P. 549, 1. 36. "Was become my sole employ" MS. "Passes all his sins beside" MS. P. 551. Scenes Favourable, etc. :—There is a MS. of this poem in the British Museum (Add. MSS., 24,155, fol. 148). In the notes below BM. refers to this MS., Ash to the Ash MS. P. 551, 1. 27. "Here freely contemplate" BM. "Love wastes me and wears me away" BM. P. 552, 1. 2. P. 552, 1. 6. “My sorrows are safely rehearsed," the reading of Bull's 1801 edition, is plainly right, though many of the editors have followed the edition of 1806 in giving "sadly" instead of "safely." "Whether owing to sorrow or joy" Ash. P. 552, 1. 20. P. 552, 1. 21. P. 552, 1. 25. P. 552, 1. 35. "I am weak, there is nothing I seem to discern" Ash. "I live and yet seem" BM. "For where among all I have left" Ash. P. 553. The translations of Milton's Latin and Italian verses were undertaken in connection with the edition of Milton which Cowper was to have done for Johnson the publisher. It was to be a sort of rival to Boydell's Shakespeare. The only part of the work which was completed, except a few notes, was the English rendering of these poems, which was made during the winter and spring of 1791-2, and revised with Hayley during Cowper's visit to Eartham in the summer of 1792. The translations were left unpublished by Cowper and were first printed by Hayley at Chichester in 1808, in a volume entitled Latin and Italian Poems of Milton translated into English verse, by the late William Cowper, Esq. The book is a beautiful quarto, with designs by Flaxman. It contains the translations, then the Latin and Italian originals; then Cowper's commentary on Paradise Lost, intended for the edition which was never accomplished; and finally notes on the Latin and Italian poems by Cowper and Hayley, as well as some taken from the editions of Todd and Warton. The MS. of the translations is in the British Museum (Add. MSS., 30,801). I have carefully collated it throughout, and record below the instances in which the printed text varies from it. It gives four renderings which Hayley did not print; two of the epigrams on Morus and Salmasius ("Galli ex concubitu" and "gaudete scombri") which one may feel sure neither Milton nor Cowper would wish to see reprinted; and two of a couple of small Greek pieces by Milton which I have inserted at the end of the translations from the Latin poems, on p. 596. The MS. is in Cowper's hand, with many corrections in Hayley's hand, many of these being again corrected by Cowper. In a good many of the cases in which Hayley's correction has been allowed to stand it appears to me markedly inferior to Cowper's original rendering. For instance, the original in p. 556, 1. 13, was:— 66 They suit not me these bare unshadowed plains, which is certainly not improved by being altered into:"Nor aught of pleasure in these fields have I That to the musing bard all shade deny." And in p. 561, 1. 19, Hayley's "My friend and favourite inmate of my heart is no improvement on Cowper's— "My friend, my other self-alas, my heart— And Cowper's original rendering of p. 564, 1. 33: "Night creeps not now, but runs a shorter race is free from the obscurity of Hayley's printed version : "Night creeps not now, yet rules with gentle sway These, and other cases, might have tempted me to restore Cowper's original rendering throughout, but for the fact that in an immense number of cases Cowper has struck out Hayley's corrections and made a final translation himself. For instance, the text as printed by Hayley 1808, which is that followed in the later editions, is in all the following cases, as well as many others, that substituted by Cowper for Hayley's version: P. 555, 11. 35, 36; p. 558, 11. 94, 95; p. 563, 11. 89, 90; p. 563, 11. 93, 94; p. 563, 11. 99-102, 121, 122; p. 564, ll. 47, 48; p. 565, 11. 55-57; p. 567, 11. 25-35; p. 568, ll. 49-52; p. 568, 11. 77, 78; p. 581, 1. 99; p. 582, 11. 121-123; p. 584, 11. 17-23; p. 585, 11. 33-36; p. 585, 11. 52-55; p. 587, 11. 8-10; p. 590, 11. 175-178. These numerous final corrections by Cowper, followed in all cases by Hayley when he printed the translations, must be allowed to give Cowper's authority to the whole. However inferior, therefore, Hayley's corrections, have appeared to me to be to Cowper's first renderings, where Cowper left them, I have left them, except in one case, p. 596, on which a special note is given. It is true that John Johnson, in a letter written from Weston to his sister in 1792 or 1793 (Letters of Lady Hesketh concerning William Cowper, p. 22) speaks with great indignation of Hayley's alterations, and justly objects to the substitution of Hayley's "flimsy tinsel lines" for "the bold and forcible language of our dear Bard." But it is evident from what he says that the text as he saw it at that time had not received Cowper's final corrections, for he says nothing of them and implies that all Hayley's alterations stood untouched, and that he accordingly had reluctantly to insert them in the fair copy he was making for the press. But this fair copy, if, as is probable, it is that in the Museum to be mentioned presently, was made before Cowper revised the translations. And the fact that John Johnson when he reprinted the translations in 1815, followed the text as given by Hayley in 1808, seems to show that he, who is almost certain to have known the truth, believed that Hayley had printed the translations as Cowper meant them to be printed. This text has been followed by all subsequent editors, with no variations, so far as I know, except those due to misprints. Bruce, who so often gives varieties of reading, here gives no textual notes, and does not appear to have seen the original MS. which, indeed, did not come into the possession of the British Museum until 1878. The present is, I believe, the first collation of the MS., and its readings, where they differ from the printed text, are here given for the first time. The MS. also contains the notes appended by Cowper to his translations, which Hayley published in the 1808 edition. There are also a few notes in Lady Hesketh's handwriting which is not unlike Cowper's. They may be found, for instance, at foll. 69, 83, and 98, of the MS. Only one is of any interest, that in which she says she knows "by the writing that the alterations were made lately." This refers to the fact, related by Hayley in the Preface to the 1808 edition, that "during the last sad years in Norfolk Johnson induced Cowper to retouch a few passages, and that one of them was the last four lines of the Ode to Rouse, which were written as they now stand on August 22, 1798." These lines are in fact traced in a weak and broken hand; and, in pencil, in John Johnson's writing, the date "August 22, 98, after dinner" is added. Another of these corrections made during the last months of Cowper's life is the passage beginning "We only, an obdurate kind," line 149 of the Elegy on Damon, which also betrays the feebleness of the hand that wrote it, and also has its date appended by Johnson " August 21, after supper.” Bound up with the MS. is a fair copy of them, part of which is in John Johnson's hand. It is, however, of no authority, as it frequently gives Hayley's versions where in the MS. these have been struck out and rewritten by Cowper. This occurs, for instance, in the following passages among others: P. 585, 1. 29; p. 585, 11. 33-36; p. 590, 11. 167, 168; p. 590, 11. 175-178. In the last case it even gives two of the lines in Cowper's original version before the first correction by Hayley. It was therefore evidently made before the final revision and is of no importance. P. 555, l. 1. It has not, so far as I know, been pointed out that a stanza of the original is omitted here. The MS. shows that it was translated, and that the version was erased and no correction substituted. The stanza is the seventh of the Italian original, that which begins: "Di bella gloria amante Milton, dal ciel natio." P. 555, l. 12. The MS. here gives, in Cowper's hand, "That not themselves can boast a richer store" but the line is two syllables short of the number required. I have, therefore, followed the printed text. P. 555, 1. 42. Here again Cowper, in a final correction of Hayley, though not in his original rendering, got the metre two syllables short by leaving out the word "falt'ring." P. 559. On the Death of the Bishop of Winchester :-The Bishop, on whose death this was written, was Lancelot Andrewes. P. 564, 11. 7, 8. "Seems and "themes" in the common text, but the "seem" and "theme" of the MS. is certainly right. P. 564, 1. 20. in the MS. P. 564, 1. 35. "Tartarean gulfs" in the printed text, but "depths" "This" is the common text, but "his" is that both of the MS., and of the original edition 1808. This is the only case I have noticed of the common text differing from that of 1808. P. 565, 1. 80. "plunging" MS. P. 566, 1. 136. P. 568, 1. 40. P. 568, 1. 74. P. 570, 1. 44. P. 575, 1. 26. P. 577, 1. 36. "Playing in the western deep" printed text; "Thunder" printed text. "Reach" printed text. "Where thou canst not appear" printed text. letter of the original P. 578, 11. 74, 75. and Adonis. That is, as Cowper explains in a note, Hyacinthus P. 582, 11. 121-123. This is one of the cases where Cowper made a final correction of Hayley, and he has written opposite it in the MS. "Sure this is a happy alteration." text. P. 582, 1. 144. "Your master's funeral, not soon absorbed" printed P. 583, 1. 11. Here Cowper originally wrote: "Where Eurus, fellest wind, no pause allows Hayley then corrected to : "Where Eurus, harbinger of plagues and death, Scatters perdition with his baleful breath," which Cowper again erased and wrote the present text. P. 584, Manso. 17. "Nor this contented thee" etc. :-Here, again, the version ultimately printed is a correction in Cowper's hand of that by Hayley. It is indeed the last correction of many, some of which are in Hayley's hand, and some in Cowper's. The fair copy gives yet another which does not appear to agree with any exactly, but follows in the last lines Hayley's version erased by Cowper. P. 587. On the Death of Damon :-Of this beautiful piece in which Milton poured forth his sorrow for the death of his greatest friend, a far deeper and more personal sorrow than that which was the occasion of Lycidas, Cowper was a great admirer, boldly calling it "a pastoral in my judgment equal to any of Virgil's Bucolics." (Letter of December 10, 1791.) |