Addison

No. 470

Friday, August 29, 1712

Turpe est difficiles babere nugas,
Et stultus est labor ineptiarum.

Mart.

I have been very often disappointed of late Years, when upon examining the new Edition of a Classick Author, I have found above half the Volume taken up with various Readings. When I have expected to meet with a learned Note upon a doubtful Passage in a

Latin

Poet, I have only been informed, that such or such Ancient Manuscripts for an

et

write an

ac

, or of some other notable Discovery of the like Importance. Indeed, when a different Reading gives us a different Sense, or a new Elegance in an Author, the Editor does very well in taking Notice of it; but when he only entertains us with the several ways of spelling the same Word, and gathers together the various Blunders and Mistakes of twenty or thirty different Transcribers, they only take up the Time of the learned Reader, and puzzle the Minds of the Ignorant. I have often fancied with my self how enraged an old

Latin

Author would be, should he see the several Absurdities in Sense and Grammar, which are imputed to him by some or other of these various Readings. In one he speaks Nonsense; in another, makes use of a Word that was never heard of: And indeed there is scarce a Solecism in Writing which the best Author is not guilty of, if we may be at Liberty to read him in the Words of some Manuscript, which the laborious Editor has thought fit to examine in the Prosecution of his Work.

I question not but the Ladies and pretty Fellows will be very curious to understand what it is that I have been hitherto talking of. I shall therefore give them a Notion of this Practice, by endeavouring to write after the manner of several Persons who make an eminent Figure in the Republick of Letters. To

this

end we will suppose that the following

Song

is an old Ode which I present to the Publick in a new Edition, with the several various Readings which I find of it in former Editions, and in Ancient Manuscripts. Those who cannot relish the various Readings, will perhaps find their Account in the Song, which never before appeared in Print.

My Love was fickle once and changing,
Nor e'er would settle in my Heart;
From Beauty still to Beauty ranging,
In ev'ry Face I found a Dart.

'Twas first a charming Shape enslav'd me,
An Eye then gave the fatal Stroke;
'Till by her Wit Corinna sav'd me,
And all my former Fetters broke.

But now a long and lasting Anguish
For Belvidera I endure;
Hourly I Sigh and hourly Languish,
Nor hope to find the wonted Cure.

For here the false unconstant Lover,
After a thousand Beauties shown,
Does new surprizing Charms discover,
And finds Variety in One.

Various Readings.

Stanza the First, Verse the First.

And changing

.] The

and

in some Manuscripts is written thus,

, but that in the

Cotton

Library writes it in three distinct Letters.

Verse the Second,

Nor e'er would

Aldus

reads it

ever would

; but as this would hurt the Metre, we have restored it to its genuine Reading, by observing that

Synæresis

which had been neglected by ignorant Transcribers.

Ibid

In my Heart

Scaliger

, and others,

on my Heart

Verse the Fourth,

I found a Dart

.] The

Vatican

Manuscript for

I

reads

it

, but this must have been the Hallucination of the Transcriber, who probably mistook the Dash of the

I

for a

T

Stanza the Second, Verse the Second.

The fatal Stroke

Scioppius, Salmasius

and many others, for

the

read

a

, but I have stuck to the usual Reading.

Verse the Third,

Till by her Wit

.] Some Manuscripts have it

his Wit

, others

your

, others

their Wit

. But as I find

Corinna

to be the Name of a Woman in other Authors, I cannot doubt but it should be

her

Stanza the third, Verse the First.

A long and lasting Anguish

.] The

German

Manuscript reads

a lasting Passion

, but the Rhyme will not admit it.

Verse the Second.

For

Belvidera

I endure

.] Did not all the Manuscripts reclaim, I should change

Belvidera

into

Pelvidera; Pelvis

being used by several of the Ancient Comick Writers for a Looking-glass, by which means the Etymology of the Word is very visible, and

Pelvidera

will signifie a Lady who often looks in her Glass; as indeed she had very good reason, if she had all those Beauties which our Poet here ascribes to her.

Verse the Third.

Hourly I sigh and hourly languish

.] Some for the Word

hourly

read

daily

, and others

nightly

; the last has great Authorities of its side.

Verse the Fourth.

The wonted Cure

.] The Elder

Stevens

reads

wanted Cure

Stanza the Fourth, Verse the Second.

After a thousand Beauties

] In several Copies we meet with a

Hundred Beauties

by the usual Errour of the Transcribers, who probably omitted a Cypher, and had not Taste enough to know that the Word

Thousand

was ten Times a greater Compliment to the Poet's Mistress than an

Hundred

Verse the Fourth.

And finds Variety in one

] Most of the Ancient Manuscripts have it

in two

. Indeed so many of them concur in this last reading, that I am very much in doubt whether it ought not to take place. There are but two Reasons which incline me to the Reading as I have published it; First, because the Rhime, and, Secondly, because the Sense is preserved by it. It might likewise proceed from the Oscitancy of Transcribers, who, to dispatch their Work the sooner, use to write all Numbers in Cypher, and seeing the Figure 1 following by a little Dash of the Pen, as is customary in old Manuscripts, they perhaps mistook the Dash for a second Figure, and by casting up both together composed out of them the Figure 2. But this I shall leave to the Learned, without determining any thing in a Matter of so great Uncertainty.

C.

Footnote 1:

Song, which by the way is a beautiful Descant upon a single Thought, like the Compositions of the best Ancient Lyrick Poets, I say we will suppose this Song

return to footnote mark

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