He may have been
encouraged
to
do so by the fact that the copy from which he printed had dropped the
'have', or he may himself have dropped the 'have' to adjust the verse
to his alteration.
John Donne
129. _foggie Plot._ The word 'foggie' has here the in
English obsolete, in Scotch and perhaps other dialects, still known
meaning of 'marshy', 'boggy'. The O.E.D. quotes, 'He that is fallen
into a depe foggy well and sticketh fast in it,' Coverdale, _Bk.
Death_, I. xl. 160; 'The foggy fens in the next county,' Fuller,
_Worthies_.
l. 137. _To see the Prince, and have so fill'd the way._ The
grammatically and metrically correct reading of _G_ appears to me to
explain the subsequent variation. 'Prince' struck the editor of
the 1633 edition as inconsistent with the subsequent 'she', and he
therefore altered it to 'Princess'.
He may have been
encouraged
to
do so by the fact that the copy from which he printed had dropped the
'have', or he may himself have dropped the 'have' to adjust the verse
to his alteration.
The former is, I think, the more likely, because
what would seem to be the earlier printed copies of _1633_ read
'Prince': unless he himself overlooked the 'have' and then amended
by 'Princess'. The 1635 editor restored 'Prince' and then amended the
verse by his usual device of padding, changing 'fill'd' to 'fill up'.
Of course Donne's line may have read as we give it, with 'Princess'
for 'Prince', but the evidence of the MSS. is against this, so far
as it goes. The title of 'Prince' was indeed applicable to a female
sovereign. The O.E.D. gives: 'Yea the Prince ... as she hath most of
yearely Revenewes ... so should she have most losse by this dearth,'
W.
