Page:Micro-cynicon (1599).pdf/48

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The extraordinary rarity of this work may perhaps afford that justification for the very limited reprint of it, which its poetical merit would fail to offer.

Mr. Payne Collier in his Poetical Decameron, (l. 282 et seq.) has given a valuable Analysis of, and Critique on, this singular volume. The copy there alluded to is designated as unique; and in Mr. Heber's Copy, (which I apprehend was used by Mr. P. Collier) is a note by that gentleman to the same effect. That volume produced at Mr. Bindley's sale, £24! The above observations however, are not quite correct, as Mr. Malone also possessed a copy of the "Micro-cynicon" which is now in the Bodleian Library.

The work notwithstanding, possesses an additional interest as the production of one of our earliest (though unknown) Satirists and it may probably owe its present rarity to the greater part having been committed to the flames, under a Decree of the Hierarchy, with the infinitely more valuable volumes of Hall and Marston.