The song in your second number, furnished by a correspondent, and
considered to be in the style {134} of Suckling, is of a class common
enough in the time of Charles I. George Wither, rather than Suckling, I
consider as the head of a race of poets peculiar to that age, as "Shall
I wasting in Despair" may be regarded as the type of this class of
poems. The present instance I do not think of very high merit, and
certainly not good enough for Suckling. Such as it is, however, with a
few unimportant variations, it may be found at page 101. of the 1st vol.
of _The Hive, a Collection of the most celebrated Songs_. My copy is the
2nd edit. London, 1724.
I will, with your permission, take this opportunity of setting Mr. Dyce
right with regard to a passage in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, in which he
is only less wrong than all his predecessors. It is to be found in the
second scene of the fourth act, and is as follows:--
"Here Love himself sits smiling:
Just such another wanton Ganymede
Set Jove afire with," &c.
One editor proposed to amend this by inserting the normative "he" after
"Ganymede;" and another by omitting "with" after "afire." Mr. Dyce saw
that both these must be wrong, as a comparison between two wanton
Ganymedes, one of which sat in the coutenance of Arcite, could never
have been intended;--another, something, if not Ganymede, was wanted,
and he, therefore, has this note:--"The construction and meaning are,
'With just such another _smile_ (which is understood from the preceding
'smiling') wanton Ganymede set Jove afire." When there is a choice of
nouns to make intelligible sense, how can that one be understood which
is not expressed? It _might_ be "with just such another _Love_;" but, as
I shall shortly show, no conjecture on the subject is needed. The older
editors were so fond of mending passages, that they did not take
ordinary pains to understand them; and in this instance they have been
so successful in sticking the epithet "wanton" to Ganymede, that even
Mr. Dyce, with his clear sight, did not see that the very word he wanted
was the next word before him. It puts one in mind of a man looking for
his spectacles who has them already across his nose. "Wanton" is a noun
as well as an adjective; and, to prevent it from being mistaken for an
epithet applied to Ganymede, it will in future be necessary to place
after it a _comma_, when the passage will read thus:--
"Here Love himself sits smiling.
Just such another wanton," (as the aforesaid smiling Love) "Ganymede
Set Jove afire with," &c.