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- Shakespeare's
poem
of
Venus and Adonis
has
a
peculiar
Points of
fascination
alike for
the
poet's
biographer,
critic,
and
biblio-
"^^^'■^"•
grapher.
It
is
sufficient
to
mention
three points
of
interest.
Firstly, the
volume,
alone
in the
great
roll
of Shakespeare's
works, includes
a
precise
personal statement from
the
dramatist's
own
pen
respecting
its
composition.
Secondly,
it
supplies
a singularly illuminating clue to
the
relations
subsisting
between
Shakespeare's early
work
and
the poetic
efforts
alike
of
his
contemporary
fellow
countrymen and
of
the
poets
of the
Italian
Renaissance.
Thirdly,
it
was
the
earliest
of
his writings to
find
its
way
to
the
printing
press,
and,
although
the early
editions
were extraordinarily
numerous,
exceptionally
^o.^
early copies
survive.
Neither
the
intrinsic
nor the
extrinsic
character
of
the
volume
is
to
be
exactly
matched
in variety
of
interest
in
the
whole
range of
Shakespearean
literature.
No more valuable fragment of autobiography exists '■ First heir
than the dedicatory letter bearing the poet's signature, °^™.^ ^"'
which is prefixed to the original edition of Venus and Adonis,
It is addressed to < The Right Honourable Henry Wriothesley,
Earl of Southampton and Baron of Titchfield '. Only one
other of Shakespeare's works, The ^ape of Lucrece^ was
similarly distinguished by a prefatory epistle from the poet's
pen, and that was addressed to the same patron. But the
inscription before the Venus and Adonis^ which is somewhat
fuller and yet at the same time somewhat simpler in ex-
pression than its successor, differs from it, too, in supplyingB 2
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