Where shall we find another English poet who has given us such honeyed verse wedded to so much lofty thought, and expressed in such a perfect and pure taste? Fit tribute to a beautiful and virtuous Lady! from one who is the Chevalier BAYARD of our history.
IX.
A word or two on the Bibliography of the Poems and we have
done. It appears from the following entries in the Registers
at Stationers' Hall, that NEWMAN'S first edition was called
in at once, if we may not regard it as surreptitious.
Item paid the xviijth of September [1591] for carryeinge of NEWMANS bookes to the hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iiijd. Item paid to JOHN WOLF [the Beadle of the Stationers' Company] when he ryd with an answere to my Lord Treasurer beinge with her maiestie in progress for the taking of bookes intituled Sir P[HILIP] S[IDNEY] ASTROPHELL and STELLA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XVS. Transcripts 6-v. i. 555. Ed. 1876.
Three Quartos, all printed in 1591, have come down to us. Two printed
for THOMAS NEWMAN, the other for MATTHEW LOWNES. The question
arises which of the two published by NEWMAN was the surreptitious one.
We think the one, the title page of which we have reproduced on page 493; and for the following reasons.
1. There is a greater general divergence in the text from the authorized Arcadia version, than in NEWMAN'S other Quarto.
2. It alone includes the Introductory matter between pages 495 and 502; and all the poems between pages 580 and 600.
3. It was evidently unauthorized, for NASH writes at page 498:—
Which although it be oftentimes imprisoned in ladies'
caskets, and the precedent books of such as cannot see
without another man's spectacles; yet, at length, it breaks
forth in spite of his keepers, and useth some private pen,
instead of a pick-lock, to procure his violent enlargement.
This being the case, NEWMAN'S other edition, the title page of which will be found at page 494, would be the second Quarto. The Songs are printed after the Sonnets in both editions, as we have printed them here. The FIFTH SONG could never have been written of a married woman, and therefore confirms the other internal evidence that these Songs (to be
