For those whose curiosity was ruffled by the news that a previously unknown
manuscript of the Sidney Psalms was to be sold at Christie's today, and
especially for those who checked their bank balances and thought long and
hard...
Lot 512 in the Sale of the Library of William Foyle (he of Foyle's bookshop
in London) went for a price somewhat in excess of the guide price
(£500-800). Bidding was very rapid and reached the sale price of £10,000
in about 30 seconds flat (factor in the premium and that becomes just over
£12,000). The buyer (Christie's don't disclose names) spent upwards of
£60,000 on a number of items in the first hour. So we might dare assume it
was not an academic, and may have been a dealer.
I had a brief look at the manuscript on Monday. Not enough time to be
thorough, and I was being harangued by a posh woman from Christie's, who
really thought I should spend 30 seconds looking at it like normal people
would. For those with the Clarendon edition of the Countess of Pembroke's
works to hand, turn to the stemma on page 346 of vol. II. The text seems
(and I stress seems - this is highly tentative) to be closely related to D
and O (especially to D) but to be neither copied from, nor copy for,
either. So we might assume that it descends from the conjectural
intermediary theta, perhaps via a further (or prior) intermediary.
Textually, then, it would be about half way down the league table for
accuracy, and ought not to offer any evidence to change the readings in the
Clarendon edition. It is in a transitional italic hand rather like John
Donne's, with Greek e's and many other features in common (and many not).
The hand's apparent date tallies with the note written in the bottom margin
of the final page of text in the very faded red ink used elsewhere for
ruling and Psalm incipits: 'Haec meminisse juvat Apr. 28 1634' (or so it
looked to me but it is practically invisible). The MS is a pleasantly
compact octavo in a modern binding - for more physical details type 'sidney
psalms' in the search box at:
http://www.christies.com/index.asp?action=sale&id=10581
The feature that most attracted me is the literary intelligence of the
copyist. His functional indentation, for instance of the Spenserian sonnet
Psalm 100 or the Sidneian sonnet Psalm 150, is flawless. He quite often
suggests, in the margins, alternative words or phrases where he finds the
text not entirely satisfactory. Sometimes this becomes intelligent silent,
and perhaps unconscious, emendation, but at two points, where one or both
theta MSS are defective, this MS is magical. It shares D's lack of
59.85-90, but does not notice that anything is missing, perhaps as it is
the very end of the psalm. D also lacks 45.53, and this MS is completely
variant in 45.53-56. But where D and O both lack lines 18-25 of the
variant version of Psalm 119G (Clarendon Edition, II.294-95, found in MSS
B, K, and chi derivatives) this MS fills the gap with 9 lines found, as far
as I can tell, nowhere else. The Psalm is in four 8-line stanzas. So MSS
D and O lack stanza 3 and the first line of stanza 4. Either the copyist
of this MS, or somebody else if we posit a further intermediary, comes up
with this:
Pale horror doth possess my heart
because of those
which from thy sacred lawes depart
& Thee oppose.
Thy statutes bee
all my songs glad harmonie
my cares t'assuage
in this house of Pilgrimage.
I mind when night hath vail'd the skye
instead of sleep
thy awfull name & soundly I
thy doctrine keep:
The spring I know
whence to me all blessings flow:
I firmly stand
in the deeds thy words command
So it elides perfectly with the last seven lines (from 'instead of sleep'
we are back with Pembroke) and observes the metrical form (including the
trochaic 6th and 8th lines) flawlessly. It may even be by Pembroke of course.
We may eventually hear who bought this manuscript. Or we may not see it
for another half-century (it was last sold in 1945). If the copyist could
be identified, it might turn out to be of very great interest. As it
stands, it has the potential to tell us more than many of the later MSS
about the ways the Sidney Psalms were read, and further copies produced.
Gavin Alexander
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