The only text of The Golden Age Restored is in the 1616 folio , where it occupies sigs. 4Q1v-4r, pages 1010-15. These are the folio’s final pages; the type used for ‘The end’ on 4Q4 is from the large font that the printer drew on for some titles, and which he immediately went on to use in the next material that he set, the header ‘The Catalogue’ in sig. ¶3r of the prelims (Riddell, 1994, 152 ). 4Q4v is blank.
The text of the masque probably derives from a scribal transcript; it is generally clean and needs little emendation. There are no clear indications of Jonson’s own hand, and one elision, ‘t’appeare’ (75), reverses normal Jonsonian habits, which would have produced ‘to’appeare’. One distinctive feature is the text’s preference for SDs situated in the margin; this goes against the folio’s typical practice, and may well reflect a scribal ‘improvement’ of the manuscript. A further anomaly is that, of the masques printed for the first time in F1, this is the only one to be dated; this may indicate that it originates in a transcript prepared for independent circulation. The only signs that the manuscript gave the compositors any technical difficulty come on the first opening to be set; 4Q2v-3: there is some irregular lineation in the song at 88-95 (4Q2v), and some compression on 4Q3r, where a desire to save space is reflected in reduced leading and the awkward conflation of two lines at 137-8. However, the remaining pages are all quite generously set. There are extensive signs of space-saving in quires 4N-4P, either by using double column text (for Oberon and Love Freed) or by running on successive masques without commencing each new text with a new page (Love Restored, A Challenge at Tilt, The Irish Masque, Mercury Vindicated). The benefit of this was achieved in The Golden Age Restored, where the space saved allowed the final quire of the volume to be reduced from three leaves to two.
A major error occurred in the printing of the masque’s two last songs, 176-215. In most copies, the masque ends with Pallas’s song, but in some Astraea’s song and the ensuing SD are printed last, lines 176-94 being exchanged with 195-215. The Oxford editors took this to be a sign of authorial revision. They argued that Astraea/Pallas was the uncorrected order and that Pallas/Astraea was a correction made by Jonson himself, introduced, they suggested, ‘to give a more significant ending to the Folio’ (H&S 7.420; and compare 9.72 ). However, James Riddell has demonstrated that the alteration was made the other way round, the printers setting up the Pallas/Astraea version first then correcting it to Astraea/Pallas. The principal evidence is type-damage to the comma in ‘unsold,’ (192), which became dislodged in the process of printing the corrected state, broke, and eventually worked its way into the preceding letter (Riddell, 1994, 151 ). This is confirmed by Kevin Donovan’s intricate analysis of F1’s headlines, which shows (contrary to what the Oxford editors believed) that the printers machined the large-paper sheets first and the small-paper sheets after (Donovan, 1987, 108-9 ). In The Golden Age Restored, the Pallas/Astraea setting occurs in the large-paper copies and a few small-paper copies; the bulk of the small-paper copies have the Astraea/Pallas arrangement. This suggests that the incorrect Pallas/Astraea arrangement was printed off first, and changed to Astraea/Pallas at some point early in the machining of the small-paper sheets. At this point, the compositors also changed ‘THE END’ at the foot of 4Q4, in small caps, to ‘The end’ in a large font more in keeping with the overall design of the volume.
The case remains complicated, however, because Donovan’s detailed analysis of the headlines – notwithstanding its general drift – concludes that Pallas/Astraea was the ‘corrected’ order. Donovan argues (1987), 118 , that although in most quires the large-paper copies were machined first, 4Q – the quire that contains the text of Golden Age Restored and the last page of Mercury Vindicated – was the exception to this rule and that in this instance the large-paper copies came second. However, his analysis is influenced by a strong presumption that on literary grounds Pallas/Astraea ought to have been correct, and it also overlooks some technical evidence that bears on the question. The issue can be followed by analyzing the printing of 4Q more closely. The following is a table of variants based on examination of forty-five copies, principally at the Huntington, Houghton, and Beinecke libraries, with Bodleian Library Douce I.302 as the control copy. The chart is simplified for the sake of manageability; it tabulates the reversed printings of Pallas/Astraea and Astraea/Pallas on 4Q3v and 4Q4 schematically, indicating the differences between the two versions simply as altered wording at the beginnings and ends of the reversed sections of text. In 4Q1r I have used ‘A’ and ‘B’ to distinguish the two sets of headline rules that in Donovan’s analysis are called ‘Skeleton 7’ and ‘Skeleton 2C’:
| STATE 1 | STATE 2 | |||
| 4Q2.3 | (inner) | |||
| 4Q3 | (1013) | |||
| 16 | yeelds | yeeld | ||
| STATE 1 | STATE 2 | STATE 3 | ||
| 4Q2.3 | (outer) | |||
| 4Q2 | 1011 | |||
| 1-30 | [ranged left] | [centred] | ~ | |
| 4Q3v | 1014 | |||
| r.t. | [5mm right] | ~ | [centred] | |
| 31 | PALLAS | ASTRAEA | ~ | |
| c.w. | That | I feele | ~ | |
| 4Q1.4 | (inner) | |||
| 4Q1v | 1010 | |||
| page no. | [left] | [2mm right] | [left] | |
| 4Q4 | 1015 | |||
| rules | [5mm right] | [centred] | ~ | |
| 1 | That by your vnion | I feele the Godhead | ~ | |
| 32 | Galliards and Coranto’s. | QVIRE. | ~ | |
| 33 | THE END. | The end. | ~ | |
| 4Q1.4 | (outer) | |||
| 4Q1 | 1009 | |||
| rules | [A] | [B, 5mm to left] | [B, centred] | |
| [4Q4v is a blank] | ||||
Distribution of variants:
4Q2.3 (inner)
state 1: 5
state 2: all other copies
4Q2.3 (outer)
state 1: 4, 5, 10, 14, 43
state 2: 20, 28, 29, 32, 33, 38
state 3: all other copies
4Q1.4 (inner)
state 1: 4, 10, 14, 43
state 2: 5, 21 [copy 5 lacks 4Q4]
state 3: all other copies [though in copy 25, the r.t. ‘Masques’ on 4Q4 is moved left; and there is a unique variant in copy 41, in which the apostrophe has been removed from the title word ‘RESTOR’D’ and the ‘D’ replaced]
4Q1.4 (outer)
state 1: 4, 5, 10, 14, 21, 43
state 2: 20, 24, 28, 29, 32, 33, 38, 39
state 3: all other copies
The first point to note about this table is that, with the exception of the very rare variant on 4Q3, all the changes it traces relate solely to the reversed text at the end of the masque. In the previous quire, 4P, the complex variants that appear in the headlines were caused by a counting error that necessitated the reimposition of these pages (see Mercury Vindicated, Textual Essay), but no such problem affects 4Q. Further, although the text of 4Q1 (the final page of Mercury Vindicated) was unaffected by changes to Golden Age Restored, 4Q1 (with its forme-mate 4Q4v, a blank) perfected 4Q1.4 inner, and had to be reimposed with new headlines at the same time as the other changes were made.
Secondly, it will be clear from the single but very substantial variant on 4Q2, a substantial realignment of thirty lines of verse, that two kinds of textual change were in fact made. No previous editor has noticed this change; all discussions observe that the Pallas/Astraea speeches were reversed, but it is clear that in the same operation an adjustment was made to the centring of text on 4Q2. This passage (lines 39-68 of the masque) comprises the major portion of Iron Age’s speech, which occupies much of the page conjugate with that on which Pallas’s final speech originally began. In the Pallas/Astraea version, Iron Age’s lines are printed flush left, set asymmetrically against the left-hand margin. In the copies with the Astraea/Pallas arrangement, the opportunity has been taken of correcting the misalignment, so that Iron Age’s speech appears centred on the page. This change is a strong pointer to the direction in which the sequence of corrections took place. The misaligned state of 4Q2 is so clearly wrong that it is unimaginable that the printers can have regarded it as the ‘corrected’ version. Moreover, the fact that the rare variant on 4Q3 is found only in a copy with the Pallas/Astraea ending is a good indication that this particular example of sheet 4Q2.3 was perfected at the very outset of the presswork.
More complex are the variations that can be found in the headlines. Donovan’s account of the F1 headlines (1987), 117, says of 4Q that ‘The positions of the speeches were changed without any disturbance to the surrounding text, and the headlines of these two pages and of their forme-mates are invariant’. But this is not entirely true, since technical adjustments were made to the arrangement of the headlines after the printing of these corrected pages had started, in one case to the first of the altered pages itself (4Q3v), in the other to the page conjugate with that on which the substantive alterations had been made (4Q1v). Furthermore, concurrent corrections were made to 4Q1 which suggest that it too underwent parallel correction in this part of the machining process. As can be seen from the table, a very few copies of 4Q2.3(o), 4Q1.4(i), and 4Q1.4(o) were printed off in which the headlines were out of register, and the press seems to have been stopped early in this part of the run to readjust the alignment either of page numbers, running titles, or headline rules. These variants also point strongly to the sequence of change between states being in the direction laid out above. It is likely that a small number of copies would survive which carry the misaligned headlines and that these were put right early in the process. It is improbable that a few copies should have had these changes introduced into them towards the end of the run, and that the formes should have been unlocked shortly after when the position of the two blocks of text was altered.
To these bibliographical arguments, it can be added that the Astraea/Pallas arrangement is a more logical conclusion to the masque on grounds of custom and convention. Many masques end with a song of departure, underlining the theme of the masque and exhorting the participants to uphold the values which the masque affirms. Mercury Vindicated, Pleasure Reconciled, Pan’s Anniversary, and Time Vindicated all conclude in this fashion. It is also more typical for the masque to end with singing from the Choir rather than the solo voice of Astraea. Further, the Pallas/Astraea arrangement is incorrect in terms of the customary sequence of dances, for it places the social dances or revels (‘Galliards and corantos’, 194) at the very end of the masque, instead of after the dances with the ladies, which is where they belong. The correct arrangement presents the first dance, main dance, dance with the ladies, and social dancing in sequence, each set of dances being separated by a song; the whole is rounded off with the departure of Pallas, who instructs the masquers to make their farewells. In the Pallas/Astraea version this (entirely conventional) structure is lost. It is inconceivable that the evening would have ended with the revels, or that the song of departure would have been performed before the action had finished; no other Jonson masque ends this way. And one can further add that the Astraea/Pallas version situates Pallas as the controlling presence of the whole evening, since she both opens and closes the masque.
Needless to say, there is no indication that Jonson either contrived or endorsed the Pallas/Astraea sequence, or – as some critics have felt – wished Astraea to appear last for ideological reasons. On the contrary, the Astraea/Pallas arrangement seems to have been restored as soon as the mistake was noticed, most probably by the printers themselves. The explanation may simply be that the two sections were written on different sheets of the copy and somehow became muddled in the printing house. Unfortunately, this mistake was perpetuated in the editorial tradition because F2(1) was set up from a copy of F1 that had the reversed ending, and the error was continued in F3 , which was set up from F2, and in the 1716-17 Booksellers’ edition , which reprinted F3. Whalley was the first editor to supply the correct reading (he reprinted the 1717 edition, but had access to a copy of F1 with these pages in the second state, and emended 1717 accordingly), and he was followed by Gifford. However, Percy Simpson returned to the Pallas/Astraea arrangement in the mistaken belief that the large-paper copies were printed last, and so represented authorial final thoughts. Simpson had spotted this change as early as 1904, and concluded that it was a sign of Jonson’s personal involvement in the production of the folio, telling Oxford University Press that he intended to follow it as one of the ‘last surviving touches’ that Jonson had given to the folio (OUP Archives, 811352.8, Simpson to Charles Cannan, 20 February 1904). He still clung to this idea when OUP printed the masque volume of his edition in 1947, despite his realization by this time that Jonson had made virtually no other corrections in this part of the folio, even though it had many errors (see my essay on Herford and Simpson in the Textual Database).
Finally, in two copies examined (in the Library of Congress, and Beinecke Library 1977+422 [the Westmoreland copy]) 4Q is entirely reset. The explanation appears to be that the sheets for 4Q were printed short, and had to be replenished when the final copies of F1 were bound together (a similar shortfall happened with Q3.4, 2X1.6, 2M1.6, 3A1.6 and 3L3.4, leading to resetting). This resetting produced a plentiful quantity of u/v spelling differences, and a few substantive variants, notably the following:
17 ‘enjoyd’ for ‘enioy’d’
31 ‘showing of’ for ‘shewing but’
89 ‘the ‘ earth’ for ‘the earth’
120 ‘QVIRE’ for ‘THE QVIRE’
All of these appear to be simple compositorial variations. Their main historical significance is that some (including ‘showing of’ at 31 and the related reading ‘th’earth’ at 89) passed into the 1640 folio reprint and thence into F3 and 1717; they were finally corrected by Whalley. Percy Simpson believed that these pages were reset from the reprint in F2(1) to supply defective copies of F1, and hence were printed at some time after 1640, on the basis that the spelling was more ‘modern’. It is more likely, though, the resetting was done in 1616, and that F2(1) was set up from a copy of F1 which had these variant pages (see Gerritsen, 1959, 55 ).
For the sake of completeness, these variants are listed below in the right-hand column, but they have no textual authority:
| 4Q2:3 (o) | SETTING A | SETTING B |
| 4Q2 1011 | ||
| 1 | vp | up |
| 2 | Auarice | Avarice |
| 15 | vnder | under |
| 16 | Wee . . . ſkyes | We . . . ſkies |
| 17 | lyes | lies |
| 21 | euen | even |
| 22 | heere | here |
| 24 | heauen | heaven |
| 27 | begins | beginnes |
| 34 | knowing, | knowing. |
| 35 | gods … vow: | Gods . . . vow, |
| 37 | liues | lives |
| 42 | belou’d | belov’d |
| 43 | loue | love |
| 45 | diuide | divide |
| 4Q3v 1014 | ||
| 2 | verie . . . Balſame | very . . . balſame |
| 4 | haue | \have |
| 18 | beautie | beauty |
| 19 | euerie | every |
| 21 | loue | love |
| 22 | iealous | jealous |
| 25 | liu’d | liv’d |
| 33 | leaue | leave |
| 34 | haue | have |
| 35 | ſiluer . . . roots, | ſilver . . . ~. |
| 39 | heau’n | heaven |
| 4Q2:3 (i) | ||
| 4Q2v 1012 | ||
| 1 | off, | off^ |
| 4 | ASTRAEA | ASTRÆA |
| 6 | liue | live |
| 8 | the earth | the ‘ earth |
| 12, 19 ASTRAEA | ASTRÆA | |
| 28 | we | wee |
| 30 | Leaue | Leave |
| 33m | Shee | She |
| 33 | farre-fam’d . . . happie | farre ^ fam’d . . . happy |
| 34 | haue | have |
| 36 | AEgyptian [swash AE] | Aegyptian |
| 39 | waite vpon | wait upon |
| 4Q3 1013 | ||
| 2 | far | farre |
| 3 | Elyſian bowres . . . ſeates | Eliſian bowers . . . ſeats |
| 4 | liuing good, | living good^ |
| 6 | ioyne | joyne |
| 7 | iuſtice | juſtice |
| 8 | THE QVIRE | QVIRE |
| 10 | neuer | never |
| 11 | haſte | haſt |
| 17 | ASTREA | ASTRAEA |
| 18 | loue . . . increaſe^ | love . . . increaſe, |
| 20 | ſtrife^ | strife, |
| 20m | A pauſe | [omit] |
| 26 | Moue, moue | Move, move |
| 28 | giue | give |
| 29 | Genij | Genii |
| 30 | dance; . . . which^ | dance, . . . which, |
| 32 | ASTRAEA | ASTRÆA |
| 33 | haue enioy’d | have enjoy’d |
| 36, 27, 28, 44, 45 | euery | every |
| 40 | vnplough’d | unplough’d |
| 4Q1:4 (i) | ||
| 4Q1v 1010 | ||
| 1 | RESTORD. | RESTOR’D, |
| 2 | Court, . . . Lords | Court^ . . . Lords^ |
| 7 | reioyce, . . . wonder! | reioyce. . . . wonder! |
| 10 | him, | him. |
| 11 | endure | indure |
| 12 | inuade | invade |
| 13 | Or, | Or^ |
| 14 | vnto | unto |
| 18 | age | Age |
| 20 | euen enuie | even envie |
| 21 | enioy’d | enjoyd |
| 23 | conſserueth | conſerveth |
| 24 | honors | honours |
| 25 | heau’n | heav’n |
| 26 | deſerueth | deſerveth |
| 27 | caue | cave |
| 29 | Nature, | Nature^ |
| 30 | vp . . . armes! | vp . . . armes! |
| 33 | ſpirits, . . . counſels, | ſpirits^ . . . counſells |
| 34 | all, with ſhewing but | all^ with ſhowing of |
| 35 | Iron ^ age . . . Euills | Iron-age . . . Evills |
| 37 | and, | and^ |
| 38 | vs? | us? |
| 39 | breed^ | breed, |
| 40 | deed^ | deed, |
| 41 | vpon vs. | upon us. |
| 4Q4 1015 | ||
| 2 | he | hee |
| 3 | euery | every |
| 6 | liue | live |
| 8 | vnſold | unſold |
| 9 | giue | give |
| 12 | inough | enough |
| 15 | bountie giues | bounty gives |
| 16 | readie | ready |
| 20 | feruor | fervor |
| 21 | vnion | union |
| 26 | neuer | never |
| 27 | euery | every |
| 29 | liue … euer | live … ever |
| 31 | Ioue [both] . . . giuen | IOVE [both] . . . given |
| 32 | heauen | heaven |
| 33 | The end. | THE END. |
Outside the collected editions, The Golden Age Restored has also appeared in The Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities of James I, ed. John Nichols (1828) ; Ben Jonson: Masques and Entertainments, ed. Henry Morley (1890) ; English Masques, ed. H. A. Evans (1897) ; Ben Jonson: Complete Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (1969) ; Ben Jonson: Selected Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (1970) ; Jacobean and Caroline Masques, vol. 2, ed. Richard Dutton (1987) ; and Court Masques, ed. David Lindley (1995) .
This analysis of F1 is based on the following copies:
1. Boston Public Library
2. The Elizabethan Club, Yale University, Eliz + 13
3. Huntington Library, 62100
4. Huntington Library, 62101 (Hoe copy)
5. Huntington Library, 62104 (Chew copy)
6. Huntington Library, 62105
7. Huntington Library, 495467 (Schlatter-Schaver copy)
8. Huntington Library, 499969 (Penniman copy)
9. Huntington Library, 499967 (J. Barham copy)
10. Huntington Library, 606199
11. Huntington Library, 600687 (Francis Bacon copy)
12. Houghton Library, Harvard University, fSTC 14751 v.1 (Norton Parker
copy)
13. Houghton Library, Harvard University, HEW 6.10.10 v.1 (Widener copy)
14. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Lowell 1479.1 (Amy Lowell copy)
15. Houghton Library, Harvard University, STC 15752(A) (G.H. Fiske copy)
16. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 499968
17. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 499971
18. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606202
19. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606574
20. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606575
21. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606600
22. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606576
23. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606577
24. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606578
25. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606579
26. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606596
27. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606580
28. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606581
29. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606582
30. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606583
31. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606585
32. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606586
33. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606587
34. Riddell Collection, Huntington Library, 606599
35. Beinecke Library, Yale University, Ih J738+B616 copy 1
36. Beinecke Library, Yale University, Ih J738+B616 copy 2 (W. L. Phelps
copy)
37. Beinecke Library, Yale University, Ih J738+B616 copy 3 (E. E. Baker copy)
38. Beinecke Library, Yale University, Ih J738+B616 copy 4
39. Beinecke Library, Yale University, 1978+50 (N. H. Pearson copy)
40. Beinecke Library, Yale University, 1978+15 (R. B. De Beavoir copy)
41. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Douce I.202
42. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Arch. A. d. 28
43. British Library, London, G.11630
44. British Library, London, C.39.k.9
45. Brotherton Library, Leeds, Brotherton Collection, Safe JON