1 68 HISTORY OF HARTING. 



Harting under the Tankervilles for thirty years.* The 

 true reading of the line " Humbled (not ' humble ') 

 Harting's cottaged vale" would show that the lady was 

 resident here, and well known to all our village folk ; 

 and the mention of the shepherds of Harting probably 

 refers to the Vicar, and would point to the Vicarage as 

 the place in which the lines were written. It is said 

 that Miss Elizabeth Goddard had rejected Collins ; 

 and that, as her birthday was a day before his, he used 

 to say that he was born " a day after the fair" " If 

 Warton's recollection were right," adds Mr. Thomas, 

 " the poem originally contained the line " If drawn by 

 all the lovers art;" but if Collins had really been in 

 love with this lady, Mr. Thomas thinks it is difficult to 

 believe that he would have addressed to her a poem of 

 condolence on the death of his rival. But, on the con- 

 trary, surely we may think that sympathy with the 

 fair on such an occasion was a very clever piece of 

 wooing, and that he who wished to be " next best " 

 could not do better than praise in a feeling poem the 

 best now that he was removed from the arena, and the 

 prize not yet awarded. Shakespeare makes Richard 

 the Third, the murderer of Henry VI. and of his son 

 Edward, the successful suitor to the Princess Anne, 

 young Edward's widow, as she is following her father, 

 Henry VI., to the grave at Chertsey, and cursing his 

 murderer. Richard mingles with praises of the lady 

 his best words for his dead victims. Edward was fitter, 

 he says, for heaven than earth, and Henry is the "noble 

 king whose grave he will wet with his repentant tears." 

 And the Lady Anne gradually yields to him whom 

 she has cursed and scorned throughout a long scene, 

 and whom she has offered to stab with his own sword. 



" Was ever woman in this humour woo'd ? 

 Was ever woman in this humour won ?"f 



e Dr. Durnford was afterwards tutor to Sir Harry Fetherston- 

 haugh. 



t "Richard III.," Act I., Scene 2. 



