Page:Complete Poems of Richard Barnfield.djvu/36

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ii
Preface.

various rare books and for useful references and suggestions, as well as for the pains he has taken in drawing up the tabular-statement of the Barnfield and Skrymsher Pedigrees from my materials. To the Custodians of the unique or extremely rare originals in Sion College Library, London, and the Bodleian, Oxford; and Sir Charles H. Isham, Bart. Lamport Hall, Northampton, we would offer our best thanks for the use of their several treasures. The Notes and Illustrations at close, as in nearly all our works on our early literature, are not a little indebted to Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, Woodlands Road, Redhill.

In our critical examination of Mr. J. P. Collier's erroneous (attempted) withdrawal of "As it fell upon a day," &c., from Barnfield, effective aid has been found in Mr. Charles Edmonds's most valuable and careful Introduction to his charming little fac-simile (in his Isham Reprints) of the 1593 Venus and Adonis. The fac-similes of the original title-pages and of Barnfield's autograph and monogram, and of the arms from a Harleian MS. (1241), may be accepted as literally faithful. Other points are elsewhere noticed.

ALEXANDER B. GROSART.

St. George's Vestry,
Blackburn, Lancashire.