Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624). Linche Richard

of Philos and Licia, along with many of his other books, to the Bodleian Library in 1639. Under the terms of his will the Bodleian was to have first choice of his books, unless it already had duplicates, and Christ Church, Burton's college, second choice. Along with Philos and Licia, the Bodleian received the following other minor epics from Burton's collection: Pigmalion's Image (1598), Venus and Adonis (1602), Samacis and Hermaphroditus (1602), and Hero and Leander (1606).[31] Burton regularly wrote his name in full, some abbreviation thereof, or at least his initials, on the title page of his books, usually across the middle. In Philos and Licia, Burton's heavily and distinctively written initials RB are written a bit below the middle of the title page, on either side of the printer's device.[32] Also in its typical location at the bottom of the title page is found "a curious mark, a sort of hieroglyphic or cypher," which Burton almost always affixed to his books. The significance of this device remains obscure; it "has usually been supposed to represent the three 'R's' in his name joined together."[33]

Although the dedication of Dunstan Gale's Pyramus and Thisbe is dated November 25, 1596, no copy of an earlier edition than that printed in 1617 for Roger Jackson is extant. The unsophisticated, highly imitative style of the piece, the date of the dedication, and the fact that the printer's device in the 1617 edition is an old one, used previously in 1586–87 by Ralph Newbery,[34] to whom Jackson was apprenticed from 1591–99,[35] suggests that the poem was originally published by Newbery about 1596. Probably this first edition had the same device as the edition of 1617, and a similar title page. According to Newbery's will, Roger Jackson and John Norcott were to receive his stock of books on Fleet Street, but McKerrow, citing the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 30, Hudlestone as his authority, says the offer seems not to have been taken up.[36] Gale's poem would seem to constitute an exception to this generalization.

Pyramus and Thisbe was also issued with Greene's Arbasto in 1617. On Jan. 16, 1625/26 Gale's poem was transferred from Roger Jackson's widow to Francis Williams,[37] who had it printed for the last time in 1626.

      Nothing of note has been turned up with regard to the first and only early edition of Lynche's Dom Diego and Ginevra (1596).

According to their first modern editor, A. B. Grosart, the first and only early editions of Mirrha and Hiren are notorious for their wretched typography and printing errors of various kinds.[38] He writes, "In all my experience of our elder literature I have not met with more carelessly printed books. Typographical and punctuation errors not only obscure the meaning but again and again make places absolutely unintelligible."[39] Their author Barksted must share the blame, Grosart opines, for some of the poem's errors would seem to show that he was "ill-educated and unpractised in composition."[40] Henry Plomer agrees with Grosart that Edward Allde, the printer of Mirrha, was guilty of poor type and workmanship.[41] Perhaps the grossest example in Mirrha of the kind of thing Plomer may have had in mind is the tipping of the type on the title page of the two copies of this poem which have come to my attention.[42] Another example would be the awkward separation of the "A" in "Adonis" on one line of the title page from the rest of the word on the next.

But although Mirrha is indeed a printer's nightmare, it strikes me that Grosart is far too severe in his strictures against Hiren, which was quite attractively and reasonably accurately printed, probably by Nicholas Okes,[43] who also printed The Scourge. Indeed Grosart has "corrected" a number of details of punctuation in the poem which might better have been left standing, in view of the generally light punctuation of Barksted's day. In two instances Grosart has even "corrected" details which, as "corrected," follow the unique copy of Hiren, the Bodleian copy which he consulted.[44]

Page's Amos and Laura was first published in 1613,[45] a second time in 1619. Finally, in 1628, a second impression of the edition of 1613, with slight variants from it, was printed.

In the nineteenth century Amos and Laura was remarked upon chiefly for its dedicatory verses to Izaak Walton in the unique copy of the 1619 edition at the British Museum, verses found neither in the then only known, imperfect British Museum copy of the 1613 edition, nor in the impression of 1628. These verses have long been thought to constitute the first reference to Walton in print. But three additional copies of the 1613 edition have by now come to light, at the Folger, the Huntington, and at the British Museum.[46] All three copies, though variously imperfect, contain the dedicatory verses.[47]

A word remains to be said about the way in which the second impression of the 1614 Scourge, "corrected, and enlarged, by H. A." differs from the first edition of 1613. Though long thought to be identical with the first edition,[48] the second impression, besides being corrected in a number of details, is "enlarged" by the following two stanzas after the line on p. 252, "Helpe Nurse, else long I cannot live."[49]

      Some say (and you can tell the truth likewise)

       When women once have felt that they cal sport,

       And in their wombe a Tympanie doth rise

       For things peculiar they do oft import:

       And though most odious it do seeme to some,

       Yet give it them or they are quite undone.

       And so my case most desperate standes you see,

       I long for this yet know no reason why,

       Unlesse a womans will a reason bee,

       We'le have our will although unlawfully,

       It is most sweete and wholsome unto mee,

       Though it seeme bad and odious unto thee.

      The third impression of 1620 follows the edition of 1613 but prints three stanzas to a page instead of four.

      LITERARY VALUE

Much of the literary value of these poems, it should be recognized, is historical. Like Henry Petowe's romance, The Second Part of Hero and Leander (1598), they are fully as interesting as reflections of the poetic genius of Marlowe and/or Shakespeare, mirrored in the works of their less gifted contemporaries, as they are in themselves. Apart from their historical significance, however, all these poems have intrinsic interest, and several, including Dom Diego, Mirrha and Hiren as well as Philos and Licia, have a considerable degree of literary merit as well. Whoever the author of Philos and Licia may have been, he was one who had thoroughly assimilated the conventions of the minor