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"No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrancy of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language. In Shakespeare's Poems, the creative power and the intellectual energy wrestle as in a war embrace. Each in its excess of strength seems to threaten the extinction of the other. At length in the drama they were reconciled, and fought each other with its shield before the breast of the other. Or like two rapid streams that, at their first meeting within narrow and rocky banks, mutually strive to repel each other, and intermix reluctantly and in tumult, but soon finding a wider channel and more yielding shores, blend and dilate, and flow on in one current and with one voice."

COLERIDGE.

Preface.

Early Editions. "Venus and Adonis " was first printed in Quarto, in 1593, with the following title-page:

VENVS

AND ADONIS

Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flauus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua

PRINTER'S

DEVICE :

An anchor with

the motto
'Anchora spei'

LONDON:

Imprinted by Richard Field, and are to be sold at
the signe of the White Greyhound in

Paules Churchyard.

1593.

The text of "Venus and Adonis" is remarkable for its accuracy, and there can be little doubt that the poet himself superintended the printing of the poem, and was responsible for the wording of the title-page. A significant fact is Shakespeare's choice of the printer: Richard Field was the son of Henry Field, a tanner of Stratford-on-Avon; he was apprenticed to a printer in London in the year 1579, and took up his freedom in 1587. Amongst his earliest enterprises was a beautiful edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, 1589. In 1592 Shakespeare's father, at Stratford, was engaged in appraising Henry Field's goods; in 1593, in London, Richard Field was engaged in printing William Shakespeare's first poem: the copyright was registered by the printer, for himself, on April the 18th. The publisher of the first three editions was Field's friend, John Harrison. The popularity of the poem is attested by the issue of no less than twelve subsequent editions between 1593 and 1636*; of some of these editions only single copies have come down to us, and it is probable that some editions have been thumbed out of existence. The famous Isham unique copy of the 1599 issue was by mere chance discovered in 1867+; similarly, evidence may be found of other editions, more especially between the years 1596 and 1599, 1602 and 1627.

Date of Composition.

Shakespeare, in his Dedication to the Earl of Southampton‡, describes the poem of "Venus and

* 1594; 1596; 1599; (?) 1600; 1602 (British Museum); 1602 (Bodleian); 1617; 1620; 1627; 1630; (?) 1630; 1636.

+ Cp. Charles Edmond's reprint of his precious "find," 1870. A fac-simile of the First Edition is among Dr Furnivall's Quarto Fac-similes (No. 12). The Earl of Southampton was at this time about twenty; he was born

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