Paris’s Choice (1670) by Charles Davenant: A Seventeenth-Century Play Preserved in a University Manuscript Miscellany

The purpose of this article is to analyse and discuss a seventeenth-century University play, Paris’s choice by Charles Davenant, and provide bibliographical information about the only manuscript copy extant. The piece has been preserved in a miscellany of poems and songs, MS Rawlinson poetical 84, held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. Based on its contents, the miscellany seems to have been compiled at New College, Oxford, and it may have been originated by a member of the Paulet family. The manuscript then came into the possession of an Oxford student named Giles Frampton, who was at Balliol College at the same time as Charles Davenant. The manuscript play is preceded by a sort of title-page, featuring a cast of actors and the date 1670, which might be the date of the original performance. Whereas the MS Rawlinson poet. 84 has drawn the interest of some scholars, Paris’s choice has hitherto received minor attention. Thus, this paper contains a detailed description of the miscellany, a discussion of its compilation and ownership, the play’s context of composition and stage history and a semi-diplomatic transcription of the play-text. My study is intended to contribute to our knowledge of Charles Davenant’s literary production and will also be relevant to scholars working on the contents of the miscellany or on university amateur drama.


Introduction
Our understanding of seventeenth-century English drama has benefitted from the burgeoning interest in manuscript culture in recent years, which has resulted in revised methodological approaches to scholarly editions, informative case-studies of early dramatic composition, performance, and reception, and an expansion of the corpus of dramatic manuscripts. In Early modern playhouse manuscripts and the editing of Shakespeare (2012), Paul Werstine challenged some of the methodological principles of the new bibliography and its fundamental categories of dramatic manuscripts (Greg's differences between foul paper manuscripts and prompt books). 1 He provided insight into playhouse practices in Shakespeare's time by drawing on extant dramatic manuscripts and annotated quartos, 2 and argued for varied possibilities for the nature of printers' copies: "authorial MS, MS by a theatrical scribe, or MS by a non-theatrical scribe" (231). A further revision of editorial practices was put forward by James Purkis in Shakespeare and manuscript drama (2016). Purkis discussed the composition of theatrical texts and their revision for performance, with an emphasis on collaborative dramatic writing, by examining palaeographical evidence in sixteenth and seventeenth-century manuscripts. 3 More recently the collection of essays edited by Tamara Atkin and Laura Estill, Early British drama in manuscript (2019), has shed light on manuscript plays by addressing questions pertaining to dramatic composition, performance and reception, as well as presenting technological advances in the study of these texts. 4 Furthermore, a number of scholars have broadened the formerly relatively stable corpus of plays, showing that the field of seventeenth-century manuscript plays is copious and deserves further study: some recent incorporations are two plays by Cosmo Manuche, The banished shepherdess (c. 1659-1661) and The feast (1664); Thomas Heywood's The destruction of Hierusalem; Feniza or the ingeniouse mayde (c. mid-1660 s), possibly by George Digby, second earl of Bristol; Aphra Behn's The Dutch lady (c. 1670 s); and a manuscript fragment of an undated play by Sir Thomas 1 The new bibliography, pioneered by W. W. Greg, R. B. McKerrow and A. W. Pollard, dominated editorial theories and practices during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Their approach was based on the prevailing confidence in the ability of scholars and editors to infer the authors' original conceptions of their works from physical evidence (i.e. the surviving printed texts and manuscripts). For an introduction to new bibliography and its basic tenets, see Murphy (2021). 2 Werstine offers detailed descriptions of nineteen manuscripts and three annotated quartos (pp. 234-400). 3 The manuscripts Purkis analysed were Anthony Munday's John a Kent and John a Cumber (Huntington MS 500), Thomas Heywood's The captives (British Library, MS Egerton 19994), Thomas Middleton's The second maiden's tragedy (The British Library, MS Lansdowne 807 and Sir Thomas More (British Library MS Harley 1703:7368). Purkis's ultimate intention was to reappraise Shakespeare's involvement in More, in an attempt to reconsider "what constitutes Shakesperean dramatic writing" (2) and "what defines the Shakespeare canon" (18). 4 The volume considers manuscript plays made in Britain between 1400 and 1700 and is divided into three sections: "Production" (textual), "Performance," and "Reception." It comprises twenty-one contributions by scholars of bibliography, paleography, history of the book, medieval and early modern drama. of the texts copied by a single contributor to a miscellany can be informative of how poems and literary texts were compiled and transmitted within coteries.
Charles Davenant's Paris's choice (1670) seems to have been composed and performed while Davenant studied at Oxford. The text can cast light on Restoration university plays, a dramatic subgenre which has generally been left outside the time scope of early modern university drama studies. In fact, the two most comprehensive projects of transcription of dramatic activity linked to the universities, Alan H. Nelson's Records of Early English Drama: Cambridge (1989) and John R. Elliott, Jr, et al.'s Records of Early English Drama: Oxford (2004), contain texts dated before 1642. 10 One of the few critical editions of post-Restoration university drama is Joshua Barnes' The academie, dated 1675, by Alan Swanson (2011). Research on university and other forms of amateur drama is a flourishing field, but most scholars do not taken into consideration the second half of the seventeenth century. 11 With the aim of contributing to the study of manuscript transmission and amateur university play production, in this article I provide information on the Bodleian MS Rawlinson poet. 84, a discussion of Paris's choice, its plausible context of composition and stage history, and a semi-diplomatic transcription of the play-text. My transcription and analysis can be of interest to the fields of textual studies, authorship and play composition, and early modern theatre history.

The Manuscript and the Copyist of Paris's Choice
Charles Davenant was born into one of the leading families of the Restoration theatrical scene: he was the eldest son of Sir William Davenant by his third wife, Henrietta Maria du Tremblay (Hoppit, 2006). Davenant Junior is known to have followed in his father's footsteps only briefly before turning to political economy. He wrote a dramatic opera, Circe, which was staged by the Duke's Company in May 1677 at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London (Van Lennep, 1960, 256-257). This is the only Footnote 9 (continued) approaching a tool of political analysis," although he concedes that the lack of information on manuscript compilers hinders full understanding of this phenomenon (1998:391). 10 The Records of Early English Drama (REED) is a monumental collaborative project, founded in 1975, which collects and transcribes evidence of regional performance of plays, masques and different forms of entertainment in England from the Middle Ages until the closure of the theatres in 1642. With twentyeight volumes in print, REED has recently launched an open source online database (https:// ereed. libra ry. utoro nto. ca/). 11 Following Frederick S. Boas's pioneering University drama in the Tudor age (1914), a number of scholars have contributed to this field: Christopher Marlow's research on university drama at Oxford in 1566 and his monograph Performing masculinity in English university drama, 2008English university drama, , 2013English university drama, :1598English university drama, -1636; the collection of essays edited by Jonathan Walker and Paul D. Streufer (Early modern academic drama, 2008), which considers university plays written or performed in England between the mid-sixteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries; and Alan H. Nelson's study on the designs of university theatres at Cambridge. An example of the fruitfulness of turning to amateur plays for researching contemporary theatrical practices and audience expectations is Matteo A. Pangallo's Playwriting playgoers in Shakespeare's theater (2017), which explores plays by working-and middle-class amateurs, who composed their works based on their experiences as playgoers.
1 3 Paris's Choice (1670) 12 The play is nonetheless mentioned in Madan's nineteenth-century descriptive catalogue of the Bodleian manuscripts, Waddell's doctoral thesis on Davenant's works on politics and economics (1954), and Larson's recent monograph on early modern songs. 13 The miscellany, Bodleian MS Rawlinson poet. 84, has been studied by manuscript scholars. It appears multiple times in Beal's Index of English literary manuscripts, 1450-1700Beal, P. et al. (1980-1993 under the works of different authors, those of Charles Davenant's not being included. Based on internal evidence, Beal claims that the manuscript was tied to the Paulet family and that it came into the possession of "one Egigius Frampton" in 1659 (see, for instance, 1.1.93). Hobbs has analysed its contents and the inclusion of these in other early seventeenth century manuscript miscellanies, concluding that the collection was gathered at New College, Oxford (Verse miscellany manuscripts 1992, 90). 14 The link to the Paulets is based on the inclusion of an anagram on the name Francis Pawlet, who might have been the originator of the miscellany. Perhaps this was Francis Poulett, son to John, Baron Poulett, who enrolled at Exeter College on April 20th, 1632 (Foster, 1891(Foster, 3: 1188, a date concordant with the contents of the volume. 15 Moreover, the 14 New College was founded by William Wykeham in the late fourteenth century and gave preference to scholars issuing from another Wykeham foundation, Winchester School (Partner, 2018). As Hobbs explains, New College was known to encourage the writing and compilation of vernacular poetry (Verse miscellany manuscripts 1992, 89). Following Hobbs, Colclough has also suggested that the manuscript was collated by a Wykehamist at Oxford (1998:381 (Foster, 1891(Foster, 4: 1434; George Ryves, subscribed to New College, from November 7th 1655 (Foster, 1891(Foster, 3: 1295; Thomas Poulet, of Dorset, joined Brasenose College on June 27th 1606 (Foster, 1891(Foster, 3: 1188, although it is hardly possible that this is the one participating in the compilation. John Williams is more difficult to identify with certainty, due to the commonness of the name: there were two students named John Williams who matriculated at Oxford in June 1651 (one at Jesus, the other at University College), and ten more enrolled at different colleges between the 1650 s and the early 1670 s (Foster, 1891(Foster, 4: 1641. The name Selden Tilsley does not appear in the records of the University (even though there are several students bearing this family name) and neither does, of course, the name Katherine Stroode, since women were not accepted as full students at Oxford until the 1920s. 12 Although Harbage's Annals and Van Lennep's The London stage do consider amateur plays, the fact that Davenant's Paris's choice is not included in neither catalogue can be explained because there is no external evidence that the piece was performed, and it was certainly not staged in London, which obviously accounts for its absence in Van Lennep's. Also, since the only extant copy is in a verse miscellany, Paris's choice has not been an easy to access text. For this reason, a transcription of the play is provided in this article. 13 Madan lists the text among the contents of the MS. Rawl. poet. 84. and calls it a "masque" (1895:300), a term that Larson also uses when commenting on the miscellany and discussing the songs included in the manuscript (2019:117). In Waddell's (1954) there is no discussion whatsoever of the play. manuscript contains a poem by William Cartwright celebrating Lady Powlet's needlework ("To the right vertuous the ladie Elizabeth Powlet," f. 90v-r rev.), although her identity remains unknown. 16 The identification of the compiler is hindered by the presence of two dated signatures on the last page, which most probably point to other owners and contributors of the miscellany: one is by Giles Frampton, dated 1659, and the other by a certain "R. N.," dated 1663 (f. 123v). 17 Significantly, both Frampton and Davenant were students at Balliol College (Oxford), even possibly at the same time according to the information provided in Clark's lists (which is based on the Registers and Bursars' Books of Balliol College). Frampton was admitted in August 1661 and Davenant in July 1671, but Frampton's name occurs on Clark's Lists until 1672. 18 The miscellany can be considered a fair copy, for most texts are neatly copied, and insertions and errors are rare. It is written from both ends, although with several blank leaves in the middle, in at least four different hands. 19 These are seventeenthcentury secretary and mixed hands, which suggests that several scribes contributed to the collection, most probably at different stages, for some pages contain texts written in several hands, as if another had filled the space left by the first (examples of this can be found in ff. 1r-v, 9r, 10v, 23r-v, 22v, 39r, 43r, 46r, 49r and 123r). 20 Hand A writes a rapid, careless seventeenth-century mixed hand and is responsible for a flyleaf with a fragment of a poem on the inside of the front cover and the texts on ff. 1r-v, 4v-7v, 9r-10r, 22r-24v, 37r-40v, 43r, 44r-47v, 49r, 122v and 123r. He filled in the blanks left by hand B, even those in the margins, such as on f. 10r. Hand A uses common abbreviations and, even though his handwriting seems hasty, the texts are neat and written in straight lines. Hand B, who seems to have been the first contributor, copied the largest number of texts, from f. 1r-4r, 46r-120v. 21 He writes in a late secretary hand and a round italic for headlines, with ornate capital letters. There are no abbreviations and the texts are also neat and the lines straight. Hand C 16 Cartwright studied at Christ Church from 1628 until 1635 (Flynn, 2004). Six other poets-all of New College-wrote pieces celebrating the needlework, which was offered to the university on 9 July 1636 and attracted many visitors to Oxford (Canavan and Smith, 2017: 119). These poems were copied in different manuscript miscellanies (for example Bodleian MS Eng. poet. e. 4,p. 34;Bodleian MS Rawl. poet. 153,Bodleian MS Eng. poet. e. 4) and printed verse collections (the earliest dating to 1651), which attests to their popularity. 17 These are ownership inscriptions, which indicated to whom the item belonged and which could be written by the owner or not (Beal, A dictionary, 2008 275). The inscription by Frampton reads: "Egigius Frampton hunc librum jure tenet non est mortale quod opto: 1659" (f. 123r). See Fig. 1 in Appendix A: Figures of hands and ownership inscriptions. The poems and songs included in the miscellany relate to the years 1618-1670, which agrees with the dates of the inscriptions by Giles Frampton and "R. N.". 18 One should not be surprised by the fact that Davenant entered Balliol at age fourteen: records of matriculation at Oxford show that the median age of freshmen in the seventeenth century was 16.9 years, with 16.5% of matriculants aged 15 and 8.7% being under 15 (Porter, 1997:56 uses a careful seventeenth-century mixed hand that looks almost professional and is responsible for the text of Paris's choice. The lines are straight, the writing is neat and abbreviations are limited. He contributed the texts on ff. 8r-44v and left some blank spaces in some pages which were filled in by hand A (ff. 9r-v). Hand D intervenes only once in the volume (f. 121r.) and writes a late secretary hand. The text is clean, except for a few corrections and insertions, but it has been crossed out. The inside of the back cover contains a flyleaf by Richard Rawlinson, who writes in a round hand, and Giles Frampton wrote at least a short inscription on f. 123r.
The text of Paris's choice is copied on ff. 33v-29r and it is surrounded by other contemporary texts in the same hand (hand C's). The handwriting is neat and clean: insertions and deletions are brief and scarce, although abbreviations become more frequent towards the end, as if the writer was eager to finish the task. Therefore, it seems that the text was not written from scratch but copied. The play-text is preceded by a sort of title-page, featuring a cast of actors, the name of the author and the date 1670, which might be the date of composition. 22 When copying other texts (for example, when reproducing the two other dramatic texts, The humours of Monsieur Galliard and Jenkin's love-course and perambulation) hand C does not provide a date. Given the inclusion of a cast of actors, one of them being Davenant himself and the other names coinciding with students at Oxford, it is likely that Paris's choice was produced for a university festivity not long after this date. The dating is also consistent with the biographical facts known about Giles Frampton.
We may wonder if hand C corresponds to Charles Davenant himself, although it would seem rather surprising that he had such an expertise in the use of the quill at the age of thirteen. An examination of his correspondence did not prove determinant, since all his extant letters date from the 1700s. Figure 6 in Appendix A shows Davenant's final salutation and signature of a letter sent to his son in 1703 (Lansdowne MS 773/1, 1703; British Library), in which the letters e in "affectionate," "father" and "Davenant" are characterised by a curving stroke going upwards, similar to a flourish. However, this distinctive feature does not appear in the name "Davenant" written on the first page of Paris's choice ( Fig. 4 in Appendix A). Yet, even if these hands seem very different from one another, the large time span separating the texts needs to be taken into account. 23 All aspects considered, a plausible hypothesis regarding the provenance of Bodleian MS Rawl. poet. 84 and the identity of its contributors is that the miscellany was started by Francis Poulett sometime after 1632, then owned by Giles Frampton, an Oxford student, who later handed it down to "R. N." 24 The fact that Frampton 22 f. 33v reads "Composed by Charles D'Avenant son to Sr Will. D'Avenant (Anno Aetatis 13) 1670". See Fig. 4 in Appendix A. 23 As Daybell has noted, "individual hands might develop and change over time, and it seems to have become accepted that hands practised in adolescence matured and settled with age" (The material letter, 2012(The material letter, , 2014. Therefore, the possibility that Paris's choice might be a holograph manuscript cannot be fully discarded. 24 Manuscript compilation was one of the preferred leisure activities of Oxford and Cambridge students, as a means to indicate their membership in "a social as well as an intellectual elite" (Marotti 1995:34), for these pieces were sometimes not available in print. coincided with Davenant at Balliol college accounts for the inclusion of Paris's choice, its copyist being Frampton, Davenant himself or someone else. What is certain is that in February 1728 the manuscript came into the hands of Richard Rawlinson, who bequeathed it to the Bodleian Library at some point during his lifetime or after his death with the rest of his collections in the mid-1750s. 25

The Contents of the Manuscript
The Bodleian MS Rawlinson poet. 84 is "predominantly New College in its contents" (Hobbs, Verse miscellany manuscripts 1992, 90), for it comprises poems by several alumni, such as John Selden, Ralph Bathurst, Dr. Alexander Gill and the earl of Clarendon. It also contains an elegy ("To the eternall memory of that patterne of puritie of life, charitye, candour, & learning, the most infinitely lamented Mr Humphry May Lately fellow of Wiston Coll.," f. 99v-r rev.) by Thomas Flatman, who was a student at Winchester College (22nd September 1649) and New College (11th September 1654), and an anonymous translation of the Anacreontea 35 set to music by William King, organist of New College ('Cupid once a-weary grown,' f. 27v). 26 Some texts are concerned with events related to the college, such as a fragment entitled "On the wall in New Colledge cloyster" (f. 1v) and the anonymous "On the bells of New Colledge in Oxon. lately were molded, and from 5 turn'd into eight" (f. 105v rev.). 27 The texts which were included in printed collections were first issued in the mid-1650 s and 1660 s. A small proportion of poems were published in the 1630 s and 1640 s, although they were easily accessible in the following decades. Other poems allude to events which took place in the first half of the seventeenth century, such as the assassination of the duke of Buckingham in 1628 (f. 70r rev.; ff. 74r-73v rev.), or the execution of the marquess of Montrose in 1650 (ff. 109v-r rev.), while others can be dated to the second half of 1660 s, for instance, a poem praising the Lady Frances Stuart, duchess of Richmond, and the prologue to the anonymous play The four hours' adventure (1663). 28 25 A flyleaf attached to the inner cover reads: "Wednesday 14. Feb. 1727/8 Recd then this ms with two printed Books-Nevillus defuroribus Norfolciensibus 1575 4to.-R Kemys second voyage to Guiana Lond. 1590 4to. RR." Rawlinson was one of the greatest collectors of the time and bequeathed a collection of 5000 manuscripts to the Bodleian library in 1756 (Clapinson, 2004). 26 Flatman became a fellow at New College in 1656 but had resigned by 1658 (Murdoch). His elegy was not printed in his collections of verse: the anonymous Naps upon Parnassus (1658) and Poems and songs (1674). King was appointed organist in 1664 (Thompson, 2021). King's musical version was first printed with the title "Cupid's complaint" in Poems of Mr. Cowley and others (Oxford, 1668, pp. 12-14). 27 There are also several texts by William Strode, who attended Christ Church from 1617 until 1638, He had a sister born in 1599, although her Christian name is unknown (Forey, 2008). She might have been the Katherine Stroode mentioned in the miscellany. 28 The manuscript contents that have been identified are listed in Appendix B: Bibliographical description.

Paris's Choice (1670) by Charles Davenant
The copyist of Davenant's Paris's choice, hand C, was one of the major contributors to the miscellany. His handwriting first appears on f. 8r, although it sometimes coexists with a different hand in subsequent folios, for example on ff. 9r-v, and 10r (see Fig. 7 in Appendix A). Some of the texts that he copied are related by date or content, which reinforces the hypotheses of the dating of the play and the ownership of the manuscript. Davenant's play is followed by several poems, although the ink of these texts is slightly faded when compared to the play, which suggests that they might have been copied at a different time. The first poem-which is on f. 28v-is Waller's "To a Lady" ('Nothing lies hid from radiant eyes'). 29 Waller's poem is contemporary with Davenant's play and it was first printed in 1668, although the version in Bodleian MS Rawl. poet. 84 presents minor differences. 30 This poem is followed by a brief extract from a pastoral dialogue of unknown author ('Welcome, sweet deity whose irradiant eyes'). The third text is Thomas Flatman's elegy, "To the eternall memory of that patterne of puritie of life" ('Weep Reader! And begone, cease gazeing here').
Two other texts by unknown authors are copied in the same hand on f. 28r, an anagram on Edward Seymour ('Exact must be y e art whose fancy can') and a catch ('In a season all oppressed'). As for the texts that precede Paris's choice, these are three unknown poems all appearing on f.34r and the third occupying the upper part of f.33v too: "A prophesy y t was lately founde written in a plate of brases in Tolestoone in Kent" ('When Britton bold of Spanish race'), "Written over y e whispering place at Glocester church" ('Doubt not but God who sits on high') and "A call to death" ('Come, come y u King of terrors, for I crave'). Hand C is also responsible for the translation of the Anacreontea 35, and this is its only known copy.
As for the texts copied by other hands, it is worth mentioning one by hand A headed "A song by Charles Davenant" ('If Cupid e'er my heart doth steal', on ff. 22v-23r), this being the only known copy. 31 The same hand is responsible for a poem ('Go, turn away your cruel eyes', f. 123r), which is inscribed "I, Captaine Cooke, Mrs Barbara Syms," this also being the sole witness. Moreover, a poem on ff. 39r-40v is entitled "Mrs Ba. Syms's song" ('Doe thy worst spitefull Love'), which was also set to music by Captain Cooke. Captain Henry Cooke was master of the Children of the Chapel Royal until his death in 1672 and Henry Purcell was among his pupils (Dennison and Wood, 2021). Cooke had formerly collaborated with Sir William Davenant in The siege of Rhodes (1656), for which he composed the score, together with Henry Lawes, Matthew Locke, Charles Coleman and George Hudson. The inclusion of these songs by Captain Cooke, together with the text of Paris's choice and the song by Davenant, suggests that the copyist (hand C) was familiar with the production of both of them and might have been close to them too. In fact, since these are the only extant copies of the texts, hand C might have obtained them from the authors, or from someone close to them.

The Play
Paris's choice is a comic play representing the judgement which triggered off the abduction of Helen and the War of Troy. The piece is brief: the text occupies less than five complete folios and the first is intended as a title-page. It is written for the most part in verse (in rhyming couplets), except for the first scene and part of the last one, which are in prose and have a more comical and sarcastic tone. 32 Young Davenant shows a concern for balance as regards the number of characters: there are seven main characters and fourteen secondary characters. The first include Paris, three goddesses (Juno, Pallas and Venus) and three gods (Jupiter, Vulcan, and Momus). The second group comprises eight cyclops, Cupid, the three Graces, and the cup-bearers of the gods, Ganymede and Hebe. The role of the latter in the plot is minimal: they appear only for the final scene and they are given no speeches. The cyclops sing a song (whose lyrics are included in the text) and dance to it, and they are afterwards joined by the other secondary characters.
Although the play contains no explicit division into acts or scenes, according to the stage directions and the changes in time and setting, Paris's choice can be divided in three acts plus the epilogue. In the first act, the incident which initiates the main conflict is introduced: when asked about the deafening sounds, Vulcan explains to Momus that the goddesses Juno, Pallas and Venus are quarrelling about who is the most beautiful. The entrance of Jupiter and the goddesses brings about a change from prose to verse. Juno requests that Jupiter be the judge, hoping that, being his wife, he will choose her. But the father of the gods refers the decision to someone who can be impartial and instructs Momus to take the goddesses to Mount Ida so that Paris can judge.
The second act introduces the rising action. It opens with the appearance of the youthful Paris, who is daunted by the task conferred upon him. One after another each goddess attempts to influence his decision by offering him special gifts. Juno endeavours to captivate him with the prospect of overwhelming dominance: "the powerfulst Monarchs shall not dare oppose / to wear the yoke which Paris shall impose" (f. 31v). Pallas tries to tempt him with wisdom: she will reveal to him "the unknown nature of the Gods" and "the cause Neptune does eb [sic] and flow: / problems which mortals never could resolve" (f. 31r). Finally, Venus's turn comes: she wittily begins her speech by pointing to the pains that the offerings of the others will cause Paris: "wise men and kings their joyes / can fearcely taste … The one is troubled with perpetuall fear of looseing what already by his sword / He has attain'd … What profitts wisedome? … wise men the more they know, they thinck they know less than before" (f. 31r-30v). Then she lures him with the love of Helen, "the fayrest Nymph great nature ere hath form'd" (f. 30v). The climax comes without delay: Paris makes his choice by weighing, not the enticement of the goddesses' rewards, but rather their prospective reprisals. He decides to award the golden ball to Venus, out of fear that she would blind him and, as he observes: "make me captive to a face by time Ruined; the subject of the poet's rime" (f. 30v).
The third and final act presents the denouement and takes place in Vulcan's forge. Vulcan is overjoyed by Paris's verdict, because the fact that his wife has been preferred over the goddesses indicates his own superiority: "why not Vulcan before all the gods?" (f. 30r), he argues. He prepares an entertainment to celebrate this triumph: once he has gathered his guests, the cyclops sing and dance. Then, at Venus and Jupiter's request, Cupid, the three Graces, Ganymede and Hebe join them and they all dance. The epilogue is spoken by Momus in the company of Vulcan, who was acted by Charles Davenant himself. It is intended to propitiate the audience through humour. Indeed, Momus apologises in Vulcan's name explaining that "his verses like himself are lame" (f. 29r), "lame" meaning "halting," but also alluding to the characterisation of the god as limping in Homer's works.
Davenant is faithful to the myth, although he makes certain changes in the plot and the characters for comical purposes. One of these concerns the role of the messenger of the gods, which in Davenant's version is not given to Hermes but Momus, the Greek god of mockery and sarcasm. The substitution is quite significant since Momus and Vulcan are the prime sources of amusement and laughter: through them, the author conveys a combination of epigrammatic humour building on mythology and wordplay. In addition to the joke at the expense of Vulcan in the epilogue, this can be illustrated briefly by the manner in which Momus refers to the goddesses in the first scene: Vulcan. Why there's Juno the Queen of heaven. MoMus. Oi [,] there is a thundering tongue indeed. Shee'l spit fire and lightening as scoulds use to doe. But who is there besides? Vulcan. That's Pallas too. MoMus. What! Jove's brain-born-bratt, the Goddess of war. Does she let her squibs and crackers flie about here? But are there noe more? Vulcan. Yes, there's my monkey too, the Goddess of beauty forsooth.

MoMus. What[!]
That sea-born-salt-salatious-flutt? Vulcan[,] you two agree like fire and water, what didst it mean to take such a hollow bubble, a frothyfoaming-slutt? Her birth shews what her beauty is a mere bubble, toucht and 'tis broken, but let it pass, what is this noise among 'em? (f. 33r) The association between Juno and thunder plays on her relationship with Jupiter, while the jokes on Pallas and Venus rely on their mythological births. These instances show that knowledge of classical mythology is presupposed on part of the audience (which at the time was relatively common among the educated), and the misogynistic humour was certainly intended for a male audience.
Davenant's Paris's choice has been labelled a "masque" in the descriptions of the MS Rawlinson poet. 84 (the Summary catalogue and CELM) and also by Larson, probably on account of its mythological setting and the inclusion of a dancing scene at the end. 33 However, this term does not match the humour and tone of Paris's choice, and a number of factors point to a university play instead. Davenant's piece lacks a solemn message of intellectual or political significance aimed at celebrating and reinforcing royal authority. Even though there is a speech in which the image of the powerful conquering monarch is evoked, with stress on the political and intellectual significance of royal authority, and another praising the superiority of reason over corporeal passions, 34 these discourses are contradicted by Paris's decision, for he refuses Juno's offering to dominate any opposing army, as well as Pallas's, who tries to win him with universal wisdom. In the end, love and desire triumph over political ambition, power, wealth, and wisdom, and the denouement is not moralising, but comic in intention. Paris's decision to appoint Venus as the winner of the contest is made out of fear of public ridicule: he fears that the goddess of love will subject him to mockery, making him choose an old, ugly woman for a wife. Furthermore, the play does not feature a character representing authority, for the one who could have assumed this role, Jupiter, chooses to delegate it to Paris, as a means to avoid the potential consequences of his decision. Neither is there textual evidence pointing to a lavish entertainment featuring impressive scenery. In fact, some of the more complex scenes and changes of setting have been eliminated, such as the journey to Mount Ida. The settings are limited to three spaces: Vulcan's forge (Act 1), Mount Ida (Act 2) and the Parnassus (Act 3), where the trial takes place. Moreover, stage directions are minimal, which seems to point to a lack of an elaborate scenery, and there are no indications about the choreography of the final dancing scene.
The differences become more evident if we compare Davenant's play to an earlier masque on the same mythological subject: George Peele's The arraignment of Paris, which was written for the Children of the Chapel and performed at court before Queen Elizabeth between 1581 and 1584. Peele's play, written in rhyming couplets, combines mythological and pastoral elements to represent the legend of the judgement of Paris and was intended to celebrate the queen's beauty and virtue. In Peele's work, Paris's decision prompts Juno and Pallas to accuse him of unfair bias and they take him to trial before the Roman gods. However, the debate cannot be resolved and Paris is sent to Troy to his tragic destiny. In the final scene, the dispute is referred to Diana, who evades the choice by awarding the golden apple to the nymph Eliza, who represents the queen herself. The play culminates with Diana's encomium of the queen, which is charged with patriotic themes: the praise of the monarch, the greatness of her kingdom or the legendary link between England and 34 The lines "He may be said to reigne who in his soule / His base and lustfull passions can controll. All men are kings, their wills their subjects are" (f. 31r) echo Erasmus's words in Enchiridion Militis Christiani (Handbook of the Christian soldier, 1503): "Reason in humanity serves as king," controlling the lower, corporeal passions (quoted in Kircher 2020:102).
Troy. By choosing Eliza as the solver of the discord, Queen Elizabeth is portrayed as the guarantor of order and the protector of her subjects. Peele's masque includes a more numerous cast than Davenant's, with twelve gods and goddesses, thirteen minor divinities, eight mortals and several secondary characters; the action takes place in Mount Ida is divided into five acts and multiple scenes. The play includes dancing, music, songs, lyrical interludes, set speeches, and the tone is more elevated, with a language filled with "rhetorical flourishes and metaphorical adornments" (Clemen, 2011: 264). Peele resorts to this mythological episode to introduce an ethico-political debate through allegories of love, power and chivalry, and produces a nationalist discourse: "Elizabeth's new Troy reverses the tragic doom of the old because her chastity embodies that national inviolability against which it had been Paris' crime to transgress" (Butler, 1990: 133). The differences between Peele's and Davenant's versions of this mythological episode are manifold, to the extent that it may be doubted that Davenant resorted to Peele's masque as a direct source.
Davenant's Paris's choice is a hybrid play: despite the mythological subject, the inclusion of songs and a dance, the type of humour is more consistent with university drama and it seems to be based on a tradition different from masques. Most college plays were influenced by Italian neoclassical comedy and their purpose was to educate and entertain. Davenant's piece includes several features to delight an audience of university men-the songs, the dancing, the combination of light and witty humour, the mythological allusions-, while offering elements of an exemplary discourse, despite the fact that in the end the hero acts against reason, moved by desire and the prospect of loving the most beautiful woman.
Even though the legend of Troy was widely known in educated circles through different versions and adaptations, based on the subject and the tone of the play, Davenant may well have used Lucian's The judging of the goddesses as his main source. The satirist from Samosata (ca. 120-190 CE) approached the subject with sardonic humour, exposing human faults and follies through mythological characters who are deprived of their supernatural grandeur and instead become the target of general ridicule. Following criticism of the gods by major authors, such as Homer, Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns, Lucian seeks to amuse his readers with lively dialogue and absurd behaviours, which he combines with some touches of mythological culture (see MacLeod, 1991: 10-14). 35 Davenant resorts to similar literary strategies: the Olympian gods are portrayed with human frailties (the goddesses, for instance, are envious, proud and malicious), the dialogue is filled with puns (as the previous examples show), the mythological subject is treated with noveltyfor, even if Lucian offers a model, Davenant displays originality to some extent by reworking a classical episode and resorting to irreverence.
Davenant introduces a number of changes, possibly due to theatrical necessities. The first comic scene in which Momus and Vulcan complain about the noise of the gossiping, with the comic references to the English having "codpieces good enough" (f. 33r) and the puns on the birth of the goddesses, is Davenant's invention. In Lucian's original, the story begins when Jupiter (Zeus) asks Hermes to fetch Paris 35 Very few of Lucian's writings can be dated accurately.
to make his judgment, whereas in Davenant's play Momus is the one who suggests choosing Paris as judge. In the original, Paris is chosen for similar reasons: he is "handsome … and also well schooled in all that concerns love," "ingenuous and unsophisticated" (385). Overall, the humour of Davenant's piece is less coarse and cleverer: for instance, Paris does not ask the goddesses to undress to inspect them individually before making his decision. The reasons argued by the goddesses to tempt Paris are similar, although Davenant expands on the details of Hera's (Juno) and Athena's (Pallas) offerings, but not on Aphrodite's (Venus). In Lucian, the goddess of love elaborates on the description of Helen of Sparta, mentioning that she was the daughter of Leda and Zeus, that as a girl she had been captured by Theseus and then was married to Menelaus; Aphrodite even reassures Paris that, with the help of the gods of love and desire, Helen will fall in love with him and agree to elope. Paris only chooses Aphrodite once the goddess has promised him to help him seduce Helen and the dialogue ends abruptly with Paris giving her the apple.
Despite the differences in the plot and tone, it is possible that Davenant relied on a French contemporary translation of Lucian's Dialogues by Perrot d'Ablancourt (1654), which contains the episode. 36 The first editions of Lucian's writings in English are Jasper Mayne and Francis Hicks's, which were printed jointly in 1664, but The judgement of the goddesses is not included. 37 Lucian's works became widely available after the first edition of 1496 and particularly after Aldine's version of his dialogues in 1503. The latter was used by Erasmus and Sir Thomas More for their Latin translations (albeit incomplete) and it had an influence on their own pieces, such as Erasmus's Praise of folly (1511) and Colloquies (1522-1533) and More's Utopia (1516). Davenant may well have read Lucian's dialogue in a translation or an English adaptation and was most likely well familiarised with Greek themes and myths, given its influence on seventeenth century literature and his later literary production. 38

The Performance
Internal evidence suggests that the play was produced at Oxford in the early 1670 s. First, the text indicates that Davenant composed it in the year 1670 and that the author himself played the role of Vulcan. Given that he matriculated in Oxford only a year later and that all the characters (even the goddesses) were performed by men, it must have been a university production. 39 It seems likely that Davenant wrote Paris's choice for academic purposes, perhaps for a university occasion. At the universities, there were revelling traditions, which included the staging of plays and 36 Davenant's mother was issued from an ancient family in Anjou, France, and most probably she introduced her son to the language. 37 For a complete list of Lucian's translations and editions, see Sheldon (1919). 38 Davenant's Circe (1677) is based on Euripides's story of Iphigenia in Tauris. 39 Davenant may well have been at Oxford already in 1670, for students often attended classes before formally matriculating.
Paris's Choice (1670) by Charles Davenant masques, sometimes as part of a Christmas feasting (Butler, 1990: 152). Other occasions for such entertainments were royal visits, but these were not very frequent.
Although the scope of Davenant's studies at Oxford cannot be determined because he left without taking a degree, he was a resident student at Balliol for four years and he was able to obtain an LL.D. from Cambridge, by incorporation from Oxford (Hoppit, 2006). The writing of Paris's choice may have been the product of a course assignment, as the study of the humanities was an important requirement for students in civil law: according to the university statutes, before starting the study of law, students had to apply themselves for two years "to logic, moral philosophy, and politics, and other humane literature" (Ward, 1845:115). John Elliott explains that, even though drama had no formal faculty at Oxford, art students were compelled to write a play in order to obtain their BA (180). 40 These plays were quasi-curricular in colleges such as Christ Church, whose undergraduates were required to give annual performances of two comedies and two tragedies, one of each pair in Latin and the other in Greek. As Elliott (1995) argues, these plays "reflected the humanist conception of the practical value that drama was thought to have in the training of young men for public life, either in the church or the state" (180). The educational function of drama consisted in broadening the skills of preachers, orators and statesmen in the classical style.
The inclusion of the actors' names suggests that Davenant's piece was acted, most probably on one of the two annual festive occasions for which plays were written and produced by students in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as described by Elliott. The first of these social events were the festivities for the Christmas holidays which took place in the colleges and served to occupy the students, given that travel was difficult and even limited by the colleges' rules (Elliott, 1995: 182). 41 There is evidence in the text of Paris's choice to support this hypothesis, such as the song of the cyclops, which deals with the need for rest. What is more, another of the names in the cast, John Parks (Pallas), is listed as a student at Balliol college in the early 1670 s. Therefore, it is possible that Davenant's play was intended for a holiday celebration that took place at Balliol between 1671 and sixteen 1673, although five names in the cast remain unidentified. 42 The second occasion for amateur dramatic entertainments, yet more ambitious and ceremonial than the first, were official royal visits. At such times, Elliot explains, "actors … were usually drawn from all the colleges combined" (184). There are no records of royal visits to Oxford in the 1670 s, at least officially, but when the search 40 Elliot offers the example of Edward Watson, a bachelor who was admitted to master's status in 1512 and allowed to teach in the School of Grammar provided that he wrote a comedy and 100 songs in praise of the university (179). 41 Elliot has found evidence that the Christmas season of plays sometimes began as early as November and often extended to Candlemas or Shrovetide (181). These performances were very popular in the colleges with large numbers of undergraduates, such as Christ Church, Magdalen, and St. John's. Moreover, being part of the curriculum, the plays were supported financially and regulated by the governing bodies of the colleges. 42 John Parks matriculated on 29 October 1667 at Balliol College, aged 18, and obtained his BA in 1671 (Foster, 1891(Foster, 3: 1118. His name appears in the Clark's annual lists until 1673. for the actors in Paris's choice is enlarged beyond Balliol, two other names can be identified: William Langston (Juno) and William Smith (Jupiter). According to Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, Langston matriculated at Christ Church in June 1673 (2: 622). The identity of William Smith is more difficult to ascertain due to the commonness of the name: out of the many William Smith in Foster's records, there is one student at University College who obtained his BA in 1672 (4: 1383-1384). Perhaps theatre performances casting students from different colleges could be organised under other circumstances, and not necessarily for an official visit of the monarch.
Considering his family's tight links to the theatre, it is only to be expected that young Charles Davenant should have taken an interest in drama and aspired to imitate his father. In fact, before becoming a political economist, he wrote an English opera inspired on a Greek legend, Circe. Given the emphasis on the study of the humanities and the writing of drama at Oxford, Davenant seized the opportunity to cultivate his literary interests by writing a short play and songs. The writing of Paris's choice gave him the chance to explore Greek mythology and adapt it to a different context by introducing theatrical features (dialogues, dance and music) and modifying its humour and tone to suit the taste of his audience. Moreover, Davenant participated actively in his creation by playing one of the main characters, which for sure gave him a fuller perspective of writing and staging a spectacle, which he later used only six years later in his more developed work Circe (1677).

Transcription of Charles Davenant's Paris's Choice (1670)
In the following semi-diplomatic transcription, original scribal abbreviations are retained; i/j and u/v have been regularised; ff at the beginning of a word is transcribed as F. Square brackets show editorial additions, noting folio numbers, and occasionally clarifying an odd spelling or punctuation. Minuscule letters at the beginning of a sentence have been replaced with the corresponding majuscule without using brackets. A limited number of editorial notes have been added. The line numbers are editorial: these restart at the beginning of each scene and include stage directions. The act and scene number is indicated at the first line of each scene. MoMus. The tempest of their tongues is able to shake every orange and lemmon from all the trees in Spain, but here is another kind of noise [Exeunt] 43 A fair held annually the 24 th of August from 1133 to 1855, at West Smithfield, London (OED). 44 Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology) was born when the sexual organs of her father, Uranus, were cut off by Cronos and fell into the sea (Grimal, 1997: 46). 45 A name originally referring to wines of yellowish or light red color, but from 1600 onwards it came to be used for red wines in general (OED). The Greek goddess of disaster and a daughter of Zeus (Lurker 23). 48 A mountain in Anatolia, near the ancient city of Troy, from where the gods witnessed the war. It also held a shrine where Paris judged the beauty of the three goddesses (Britannica concise encyclopedia 2006). 49 One of the sons of Tros and Callirhoe, who himself later married Eurydice; they had five sons and three daughters, one being Laomedon, Paris's grandfather. Ilus was the founder of the town Ilion, which came to be known as Troy (Grimal, 1997: 230). 46 "When the gods met for the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Eris (Strife) threw a golden apple into their midst, saying that it should be the prize of the most beautiful among three goddesses: Athene [Pallas], Hera [Juno] and Aphrodite" (Grimal, 1997: 345). (1670)  The youngest of the sons of Laomedon and Paris's father. He was known for being the king of Troy during the war, which took place when he was already elderly (Grimal, 1997: 390). 51 Priam's second wife and Paris's mother (Grimal, 1997: 183 They cannot yet obtain, noe they alone Are truly kings, who can dispise a throne [f. 31r] He may be said to reigne who in his soule His base and lustfull passions can controll All men are kings, their wills their subjects are,

40
Their fancy is an empire greater farr Than all poor earthly Monarchies if they Knew but to teach these subjects to obey: Man in himselfe has all man should desire They search when they at empires doe aspire 45 Things much below themselves, if men can reigne entirely over y e world, which they contain Within themselves, all earthly kings may say That power does far exceed y e power w ch they Bear hear on earth. O lift thy princely minde 50 From such mean objects, and let nobler finde Roome, youth in thy heroick heart, and then Aspire to y t which differs Gods from men Aspire to wisedome, noble youth reject Those glories, which with blood man must protect: Of fayrest: youth, let others break their sleepe To view w ch course y e lamps of heaven keep Trojan [,] let y e ambititous toyle and sweat And become nothing, striveing to be great I'le make thee master of a treasure farr 90 Great y n those mortalls esteeme most deare A treasure able to subdue y e hearts of y e most stubborn kings, by pleaseing arts: The fayrest Nymph 52 great nature ere hath form'd Shall yield her fort, w n 'tis by Paris storm'd: 95 Great Monarchs shall, while ages wayt in vain For favours w ch my Paris shall obtain At y e first view-Paris. Sheapherd y u must create One of these 3 protectress of thy Fate, 100 2 I must needs refuse, if I reject Pallas and Juno, I must ne're expect That Juno will unrip my mother earth To shew me where hott Phoebus 53 does give birth To fatall gold: nor will shee make me Lord 105 52 The most beautiful woman in the world was Helen, the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Her abduction by Paris will lead Menelaus and his brother, King Agamemnon, to engage the Greeks in a ten-year war against the Trojans (see Grimal, 1997: 184-188). 53 Apollo's Latin name, meaning 'the bright or pure one' (Lurker 16). He is the son of Zeus and Leto and Artemis's brother. Other than being the god of music and poetry, Apollo was also a warrior god, like Artemis (Grimal, 1997: 47-50, 369 Vulcan. Why, you must entreat y e rejected Goddesses y t they would not take Paris's judgement soe much in dudgeon, w ht need they care for gold? is not one y e Mistris of Mynes, and y e other Mistris of y e Elixar, w ch (as men say) turns all things into gold[?] But I thinck beauty is y e true Elixar, for it has turn'd many a Gallants 1000 acres of land into gold 5 MoMus. Well, I'le endeavour to appease their rage Vulcan. And tell e'm I desire their company at my forge. But acquaint y m y t it is not to furnish them with thunderbolts, to revenge them on y e young Trojan's head, but to shew them such sport, as y e flames of my Anvill can make them 10 54 An epithet for Pallas (Athena), the daughter of Zeus and Metis, who was born on the shore of Lake Tritonis in Libya (Grimal, 1997: 66). A later legend records a different Pallas, daughter of the god Triton, who was brought up with Athena, who accidentally killed her (Grimal, 1997: 339 55 Thetis was one of the Nereids or sea-nymphs (immortal divinities of the sea), daughter of Nereus and Doris. She was known for being the mother of Achilles, the Trojan hero (Grimal, 1997: 453). 56 In Homer, the Cyclops were man-eating giants with one single eye in their foreheads. In Hesiod, they are the sons of Gaia and forge thunderbolts for Zeus (Lurker 46). 57 Mount Etna is an active volcano in the east coast of Sicily, Italy, whose name comes from the Greek Aitne, from aithō, "I burn" (Everett-Heath, 2005). One of its most violent eruptions took place in 1669, when the lava flow engulfed the city of Catania and nearby villages (Britannica concise encyclopedia 2006). The name has also been used to refer to an "intensely explosive or passionate person, emotion, etc." (see OED). Yet sometimes men are pleasd to fix their eyes in shows, to laugh at their absurdityes: 'Tis y t retains you here, you'le say. I know Vulcan has basely hamerd out this show And y t his verses like himselfe are lame, 5 or that they halt, who can your censur's blame? Yet pardon our poore Vulcan if you finde too many things ill wrought, let each be blinde To see his faults, I'le tell him in pure love (instead of makeing thunderbolts for Jove)

10
He must invent an engine to refine, his verses and his witt and make y m shine, With greater gloss, before he doth appeare againe before such judges as are here. Finis

Concluding Remarks
Davenant's Paris choice evidences that academic drama continued to be a vital tradition in Restoration Oxford, as a means to add a humanist background to the training of young men for public life. These texts circulated in manuscript among close friends and students, bearing testimony to a rich academic literary culture, which in 58 One of the three Graces, the attendants of Aphrodite and daughters of Zeus and Eurynome. They were regarded as the givers of beauty, charm and artistic inspiration (Grimal, 1997: 99, 175, 442;OED). 59 The second of the three Graces. 60 The third sister. many cases went beyond the boundaries of Oxford. Even though Davenant would only write one piece for the professional stage, it is relevant to know that he had acquired some experience in playwriting during his years in Oxford, and that his first attempt was also based on an episode of Greek mythology. Despite the evident differences between the contexts of performance of both plays, the staging of Paris choice undoubtedly provided Davenant with inside knowledge of play-production, on which he could rely later on when taking over his father's theatre before finally turning to politics. This comical adaptation of the judgment of Paris was performed sometime possibly at Balliol College as part of the Christmas festivities. The evidence collected from Clark's lists and Foster's Alumni regarding the students' names in the cast allows us to tentatively date the performance during the academic year 1673-1674, if the William Langston identified is the one matriculated at Christ Church in June 1673. The text was copied in a manuscript miscellany owned in the 1660 s by Giles Frampton, another student of Balliol, and it was perhaps begun by Francis Poulett in the 1630 s. The contents of Bodleian MS Rawl. poet. 84 deal with public affairs and persons, some on Oxford subjects, which further suggest that it was compiled at Oxford for a college readership.
The relevance of this manuscript also lies in the inclusion of other texts that were not in general circulation (that is, they do not appear in other manuscripts and some of these were not printed, either), such as Davenant's song ('If Cupid e'er my heart doth steal'), and Henry Cooke's poems ('Go, turn away your cruel eyes' and 'Doe thy worst spitefull Love'). Since two of these texts were authored by Charles Davenant, it appears that he was close to the copyist and he may well have provided him with the texts.
Davenant's Paris choice is a minor play which nonetheless combines a rich variety of traditions (Greek mythology, masques, university plays). It is all the more valuable for Restoration theatre studies to have access to an author's first attempt at playwriting and more importantly one written at such a young age. The comparison of this short piece with his opera Circe will certainly provide a rich insight into the development of Davenant's dramatic and spectacular skills. Since the digitalization of early modern manuscripts is understandably being carried out progressively, I have intended to make this text accessible to a wider number of scholars with the hope of facilitating its examination and the potential finding of intertexts. The discussion of this case study, its context of textual production and performance, may well coincide (or contrast) with further analyses of similar texts and perhaps ultimately result in a broader understanting of seventeenth-century manuscript drama.

Bodleian MS Rawlinson poetical 84
A quarto verse miscellany, including fragments from plays and an unpublished hybrid play, which combines features of masques and university drama. The manuscript was originally a blank "paper book" (not a collection of loose papers bound together) and is bound in contemporary calf. Mid-late seventeenth century. Fols. 123 paginated. Foliation seems to be modern, for it has been added in the top righthand corner on ff.  (ff. 2r-7v, 22r-23v, 36v-39r, 44r-120v), some mixed and rounded (ff. 8r-21v, 24r-36r, 39r-43r), and also in italic (f. 1). An anagram on Francis Paulet (f. 1r), and two signatures on f. 123v, one by Giles Frampton, dated 1659, and the other by a certain "R. N.," dated 1663. Annotation by Richard Rawlinson on a flyleaf attached to the inner cover, dated 14. Feb. 1727/8. Contents: the description of the manuscript's contents in the table below is partially based on the identification of the texts provided in Beal's CELM (1998) and Madan's Summary catalogue (1895:299-300). The first lines of the poems in the miscellany have been searched in the Union first line index.

Folio
Hand Let her be noe such lofty Dame As Hellen is described by fame Stately with a majestick brow 15 They figure her as if she were A Champion to make Cupid feare Against her heart to bend his bow [.] 4.
Let her be witty, merry, Fayre Or brown, als' [else] one I doe not care 20 Free of humor I would have her Using no forced affected gaze Nor valuing at so high a rate Herselfe, as if none did deserve her,

5.
To wish I would not have her be 25 Least (which a womans pride) that she Should say by her I did subsist But of all faults that shee[']s possesed I should think richess were the best For that those charmes I'de nere resist [.] 30