I have departed from the punctuation of 1596 only where it seemed likely to puzzle or mislead a modern reader. These departures, which are all recorded, are not very numerous. Spenser’s punctuation, though by no means sacrosanct, is less arbitrary than might at first appear; but, as Mr. Gregory Smith says of the punctuation of Addison, it has a rhetorical rather than a logical value. We feel its force best when we read the poem aloud. Two peculiarities are so common that the reader may be warned of them here. One is the absence of punctuation with vocatives: the other is the single comma after qualifying phrases. With this warning I leave these peculiarities, as a rule, unchanged. In the treatment of capitals and in the distribution of roman and italic type I have followed the same principle of adhering, wherever possible, to the original text. I have regularized the spelling of proper names wherever the variation seemed to be due to the printer rather than the poet. And this is generally the case with double letters. But for many variations in proper names Spenser was himself responsible. He varied them sometimes for the sake of the metre, as _Serena_, _Serene_; or of the rhyme, as _Florimell_, _Florimele_. In two instances he seems actually to have wavered or changed his mind. _Braggadocchio’s_ name is generally spelt thus in Book II; in Books III and IV it varies; in V. iii it is regularly _Braggadochio_. So we generally find _Arthegall_ in Book III, but _Artegall_ regularly in Book V; 1609, however, returns to _Arthegall_. II. Aiming not at a reprint but a true text, I have not hesitated to depart from 1596 wherever I believed it to be in error and the error the printer’s. But it is no part of an editor’s duty to correct, though he may indicate, mistakes made by the author himself. There are many such in the _Faerie Queene_. (1) There are mistakes of fact, of literary allusion, of quantity in classical names, hardly to be avoided by a poet writing far from libraries. (2) There are confusions of personages, or of names of personages, within the poem itself. Sir _Guyon_ is confused with the _Redcrosse Knight_ in III. ii. 4, and with Prince _Arthur_ in II. viii. 48 (but not in 1609); _Æmylia_ with _Pœana_ in IV. ix. Arg.; _Calepine_ with _Calidore_ in VI. vi. 17; while over _Serena_ Spenser’s confusion becomes comical--he calls her _Crispina_ in VI. iii. 23,[1] and _Matilda_ in VI. v. Arg. (3) Some lines are hypermetrical; some are short by a foot; and there are two or three broken lines. One of these last (III. iv. 39, l. 7) is certainly intentional, and all may be so; the supposed example of Virgil may have influenced Spenser in this. (4) Imperfect rhymes and concords are numerous, especially in Books IV, V, and VI. (5) There is one form of imperfect rhyme so singular as to deserve a fuller discussion. Its nature will be best seen in an example:--