LONDON.
36 lines✦
rinted by _M. F._ for IOHN MARRIOT,and are to be sold at his shop in S^t '_Dunstans_Church-yard in _Fleet-street_. 1633. The first eight pages (Sheet A) are numbered, and contain (1) _ThePrinter to the Understanders_,[4] (2) the _Hexastichon Bibliopolae_,(3) the dedication of, and introductory epistle to, _The Progresse ofthe Soule_, with which poem the volume opens. The poems themselves,with some prose letters and the _Elegies upon the Author_, fill pages1-406. The numbers on some of the pages are misprinted. The order ofthe poems is generally chaotic, but in batches the poems follow theorder preserved in the later editions. Of the significance of this,and of the source and character of this edition, I shall speak later.As regards text and canon it is the most trustworthy of all the oldeditions. The publisher, John Marriot, was a well-known booksellerat the sign of the Flower de Luce, and issued the poems of Breton,Drayton, Massinger, Quarles, and Wither. The printer was probablyMiles Fletcher, or Flesher, a printer of considerable importancein Little Britain from 1611 to 1664. It would almost seem, fromthe heading of the introductory letter, that the printer was moreresponsible for the issue than the bookseller Marriot, and it isperhaps noteworthy that when in 1650 the younger Donne succeeded ingetting the publication of the poems into his own hand, John Marriot'sname remained on the title-page (1650) as publisher, but the printer'sinitials disappeared, and his prefatory letter made way for adedication by the younger Donne. (See page 4.) It should be added thatcopies of the 1633 edition differ considerably from one another. Insome a portrait has been inserted. Occasionally _The Printer to theUnderstanders_ is omitted, the _Infinitati Sacrum &c._ followingimmediately on the title-page. In some poems, notably _The Progresseof the Soule_, and certain of the _Letters_ to noble ladies, the textunderwent considerable alteration as the volume passed through thepress. Some copies are more correct than others. A few of the errorsof the 1635 edition are traceable to the use by the printer of acomparatively imperfect copy of the 1633 edition. POEMS, _By_ J. D.
✦