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- 66 VENUS AND ADONIS
Sixth
Edition,
i5oi.
No. X.
Bodleian
copy, 1601.
No. XI.
Macclesfield
copy, 1602,
Prisoners — and therefore To bid the wind a Base, is by using
the Language of yt sport To take the wind Prisoner.'
The Bodleian copy of 1602 (8°. M 9, Art B S) bears the
autograph signature of Robert Burton. It has been in the
Library since 1^40, when it was forwarded in conformity
with the clause of Burton's will : ' If I have any books the
University Library hath not, let them take them.' ' This
copy was the first edition of the poem to pass the portals
of the Bodleian Library. That Burton was well acquainted
with Fenus and Adonis is clear from a mnemonic quotation of
four lines in his Anatomy of Melancholy (id2i).' Burton's
copy is now bound up with five other tracts, only one of
which was his property. The Venus comes second in the
\'olume. Some of the leaves are uncut.^ The measurements
The third surviving copy of the 1602. edition is in the
library of the Earl of Macclesfield at Shirburn Castle,
Oxfordshire. It has, like the Bodleian copy, the < colon '
title-page. It is a perfect copy in admirable preservation,
and has been strongly bound in recent years by Hat ton of
Manchester. It was probably acquired by the first Earl of
Macclesfield, the Lord Chancellor, in the early part of the
eighteenth century. The measurements are {' x y\" , There
'
Macray's A?mals
of the
Bodleia?^^
18^0,
p.
^o.
-
Burton quotes
the four lines
from
memory
(ed.
Shilleto, vol.
iii,
p.
79)
thus
:
—
'
When
Venus
ran
to
meet
her
rose-cheeked Adonis^
as
an
elegant
Poet
of
ours
sets
her out,
The
bushes
in the
way
Some
catch her
[by the] neck,
some
kiss
her
face.
Some
twine about
her legs to
make
her
stay,
And
all
did covet her
for
to
embrace.'
(II.
871-4.)
Burton's allusion to Shakespeare as ' an elegant Poet of ours ' is curious. He
only seems to quote Shakespeare in two other places in his A7iatomy^ once from
Lucrece^ 11. 6i'^-6 (vol. i, p. cji), and once from Rotneo a?id Juliet (vol. iii, p. ii6).
Burton makes several other references to the story of Venus and Adonis, but
only as it figures in classical authors.
^
The opening
tract.
The Devill of
Mascon^from
the Frevch
(Oxford, i6^^),
is
not of
much
interest. But
the
third tract,
Laneham's
Letter^
concerning
the
Kenilworth Entertainment
of
1
575, bears,
like
Ferns and Adonis, the auto-
graph signature
of
'
Robtus Burton
'.
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