Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/15

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To the Right Honourable
Henry Wriothesly,
Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

Right Honourable,

I Know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolisht Lines to your Lordship, nor how the World will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen: only if your Honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed,

I