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- ¹ Dibdin writes somewhat mysteriously of Jolley’s copy, despite its imperfections, thus: ‘The history of the acquisition of the Jolley copy is one of singular interest, almost sufficient to add another day to a bibliographical decameron. The copy is in pristine condition, and looks as if snatched from the press.’ Bound up with the *Venus and Adonis* of 1594 (see *Venus and Adonis*, Census No. II, British Museum copy), it was acquired by Jolley for a few pence in a Lancashire ramble.
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SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE 69
the first of five leaves and the second of ninety-two. The first part, of five leaves, is supplementary to the rest of the work. On the third and fourth leaves are respectively the signatures *2, *3, a form of signature which indicates that the sheet to which it is attached was prepared and printed after the rest of the volume was ready for the press. These supplementary pages contain a frontispiece facing the title, presenting a carefully-elaborated cut of the Droeshout engraving of the First Folio signed ‘W. M. Sculpsit’. The engraver was William Marshall, an artist of repute. The lower half of the plate is occupied by eight lines of verse, of which the first six consist of three couplets drawn at haphazard from Ben Jonson’s eulogy in the First Folio. The concluding couplet—
For ever live thy fame, the world to tell,
Thy like no age shall ever parallel.
alone seems original.¹ The title-page of the supplementary leaves runs:—
Poems: | Written | by Wil. Shake-speare | Gent. | [Printer’s device with motto ‘Heb. Ddim. Heb. Ddiev.’] Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and are | to be sold by John Benson, dwelling in | St. Dunstan’s Church-yard. 1640.
On leaf *2 begins ‘Address to the Reader’, signed I. B., i. c. John Benson, the publisher and bookseller. On leaf *3 begins a piece of commendatory verse ‘Vpon Master William Shakespeare, the Deceased Author, and his Poems’ occupying three pages and signed ‘Leon. Digges’. On the back of leaf *4 are seven commendatory couplets headed ‘Of Mr. William Shakespeare’ and signed John Warren. There the first part of the volume ends.
The second and substantive portion of the volume follows immediately. It begins with a second title-page, identical at all points with the first, save for the omission of the date, 1640, in the last line. This title is printed on
¹ The first three couplets are respectively Jonson’s lines 17, 18, 47, 48, and 3, 4.
POEMS OF 1640.
The supplementary opening pages.
The substantive portion of the book.
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70 SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
POEMS OF 1640.
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