Properties
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- The second Museum copy (C. 21. c. 44), which measures $7\frac{1}{2}'' \times 5\frac{3}{2}''$, has the title-page and last leaf in a dirty condition, but otherwise it is a good copy. Some pages are mended. It is bound in yellow morocco. It was apparently sold with the library of B. H. Bright in 1845 for £34 10s. od. It has the Wright imprint. It was reproduced in Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles, No. 30, by Charles Praetorius in 1886.
Of the two copies in the Bodleian Library, the one which is reproduced here belongs to the Malone collection and is bound up with the first edition of *Lucrece*. It has the Aspley imprint, and measures $7\frac{3}{2}'' \times 5\frac{3}{2}''$, being inlaid on paper measuring $9\frac{3}{2}'' \times 7\frac{3}{2}''$. Malone acquired the volume in April, 1779, paying twenty guineas for the two quartos. He lent the volume to Steevens in the same year. Malone subsequently inlaid and bound up the two tracts with quarto editions of *Hamlet* (1607), of *Love’s Labour’s Lost* (1598), of *Pericles* (1609 and 1619), and *A Yorkshire Tragedy* (1608). The whole volume was labelled ‘Shakespeare Old Quartos, Vol. III.’ It is now numbered Malone 34.
The second Bodleian copy was presented by Thomas Caldecott, and is now numbered Malone 886. The volume is bound up with 1594 editions of *Venus and Adonis* and *Lucrece*, which it follows. It has several manuscript notes in Caldecott’s handwriting, chiefly dealing with misprints and illustrations from the plays. The copy has been cut down by the binder. It measures $6\frac{3}{4}'' \times 4\frac{3}{4}''$, and the date of the title-page, which bears Wright’s name, has been cut off.
A copy in the Capell collection at Trinity College, No. V.
The Earl of Charlemont’s MSS., i. 343 (in *Hist. Comm. MSS. Report*).
THE EDITION OF 1609.
British Museum (Grenville) copy.
No. II. British Museum (Bright) copy.
No. III. Bodleian (Malone) copy.
No. IV. Bodleian (Caldecott) copy.
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66
SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
**THREEDITION OF 1609.**
Trinity College, Cambridge, copy.
No. VI.
The John Rylands Library copy.
Cambridge, is defective, wanting eight leaves (A1-2, B1, K2-L2) including the title. The missing pages are supplied in manuscript by Capell, who transcribed a Wright title-page. The volume measures 7" × 5".
The John Rylands Library, in Manchester, contains a very fine copy which was acquired with Lord Spencer's Althorp collection, in 1892. It measures 7½" × 5", and has the Wright imprint. Earl Spencer purchased it in 1798, at the sale of Dr. Richard Farmer's library, for £8. It is in excellent condition, and is bound by Roger Payne in green morocco. Two peculiarities give the copy exceptional interest. On the last page of the volume, below the ornament, is the following manuscript note, in a somewhat ornamental handwriting of the early seventeenth century:—‘Comendacons to my very kind & approved ffreind 23: M:’. The numeral and capital at the end of the inscription may be the autograph of the donor in cipher, or may indicate the date of gift, March or May 23. Nothing is known of the history of this inscription, and there is no internal or external evidence to associate it in any way with Shakespeare. The copy was clearly presented by one friend to another about the date of publication. Another manuscript note in the volume is of more normal character. At the top of the title-page—to the left above the ornament—is the symbol ‘5d’ written in the same hand as the inscription at the end. There is no doubt that this represents the cost of the volume, and it is curious to note that Edward Alleyn records in his account-book for June, 1609, that he paid fivepence for a copy of Shakespeare's *Sonnets*. The suggestion based on this fact that the Spencer copy originally belonged to Alleyn seems hazardous.¹
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