“This is the book I have mentioned in the preface to my edition of Shakspeare, and such is the variation in prices of pieces of this kind, that if it were now to be produced at an auction, it would undoubtedly be sold for three or four guineas.
“The very rare copy of Shakspeare’s Venus and Adonis, 1596, originally made part of this volume, but on re-binding it I took out that piece in order to place it with my other early editions of Shakspeare’s pieces. I have also changed the place of Constable’s Sonnets, which originally did not stand in the front of this little volume.
This curious miniature rarity is numbered 436 in Malone’s contribution to the Bodleian. A pencil note attached to the Tragedie of Sir Richard Grinville, says—“This poem alone was purchased by Mr. Grenville at Mr. Bindley’s sale for 40l. 19s.” Though termed in the title Tragedie, it is a poem in one hundred and seventy-four Spenserian stanzas. The subject, the engagement near the Western Islands of Sir Richard with the Spanish Armada; his heroic conduct, wounds, and death. Of two or three introductory Sonnets, one is to “Henrie Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton and Baron of Tichfield,” whom he addresses as—
Whose eyes doth crowne the most victorious pen,
Bright lampe of Vertue, in whose sacred skill,
Lives all the blisse of eares—inchaunting men.”
A visit to Beaconsfield gives us a sketch from authority of Abbé Raynal, reputed author of a one
