GRAD UNTERSUCHUNGEN UND TEXTE AUS DER DEUTSCHEN UND ENGLISCHEN PHILOLOGIE, 69 THOMSON'S SEASONS CRITICAL EDITION Being a reproduction of the original texts, with all the various BY OTTO ZIPPEL PH. D. BERLIN MAYER & MÜLLER 1908. Vorliegendes Werk bildet die Ergänzung zu der 1907 erschienenen Berliner Inauguraldissertation des Herausgebers: Entstehungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte von Thomsons Winter'. Nebst historisch - kritischer Ausgabe der 'Seasons'. (Teil I: Abhandlung.) Dedication (1728) 8 p. Argument (1730) p. 7 Text of Spring A (1728) with of Summer A (1727) with the variants of B (1730), and of Summer C (1744) with the variants of D (1744) p. 60 Autumn Argument Title-page of first ed. (1730) p. 183 Winter. Title-page of first ed. (1726, March) p. 235 Dedication (1726, March) p. 237 Preface to second ed. with three commendatory poems on Thomson (1726, June) p. 229 Argument (1730) p. 247 Text of Winter A (1726, March) with the variants of B (1726, June) p. 248 Parallel texts of Winter C (1730, 4to) with the variants of D (1730, 8vo), and of Winter E (1744) with the variants of F (1746) p. 264 183 235 A Hymn 334 Text A (1730) with the variants of text B (1744) Addenda and Corrigenda 339 192029 INTRODUCTION A variorum edition of The Seasons, a task often promised but never fulfilled, would be a boon to studentsof English literature. EDMUND GOSSE. THE present edition of Thomson's "Seasons" is the first to reproduce the original texts of the Seasons together with all the various readings of the later editions. Efforts to accomplish such a work had been made long ago, e. g. by Wordsworth, Dyce, Bell, Peter Cunningham, and others, but as the enormous mass of alterations grafted upon the first texts by the author in later years checked any attempt of appending all the variants to a single text, the task was invariably abandoned. Indeed, if the somewhat unusual difficulties were to be surmounted, an apparatus not commonly employed in ordinary editions was required. In order to enable the student to obtain a clear idea of the development of the texts and of the innovations peculiar to each revision, it has been thought advisable to reprint the first texts in full and to add the alterations of the various later publications under separate historically arranged headings (B, C, D etc.), instead of throwing the whole matter into one continuous footnote and leaving to the reader the trouble of putting together for himself the variations belonging to the respective texts. According to the scheme adopted in the present edition authorised, it might be claimed, by Thomson's own way of emendating his "Seasons", viz. of always executing his corrections on the last text without ever referring to an earlier one the various readings occurring in the later editions are quoted only once, in reference to text where they first appear. It is, therefore, understood that those variants which were not replaced by - |