Willoby: His Avisa. Burt Franklin Research & Source Works Series 150. The Spenser Society 42

Green cloth covered boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership inscription.reprint of the 1886 edition, 147 pp clean and tight. THE volume now issued to the Members of the SPENSER SOCIETY is printed from a copy in the library of the President. The only copy mentioned by Mr. Hazlitt in his Hand-book of Early English Literature is in the British Museum. This had previously belonged to Mr. Mitford. In the note to Hazlitt's notice of the work it is stated that Mr. Skegg had an imperfect COley of this edition, wanting the title. The volume in the President's collection is not quite perfect, but it has been carefully collated with that in the British Museum. Hazlitt has given the title-page, in which it is described as the fifth edition ("The fifth time corrected and augmented "). The first edition was printed in 1594. Another edition with date 1596 is noticed by Hazlitt, but he says that he has never met with this nor any which was described as the third on the title. He mentions a copy at Britwell, of date 16o, which on the title-page is said to be "the fourth time corrected and augmented," and then notices one of 1609, which is also stated to be "the fourth time corrected and augmented," but which was really, says I-Iazlitt, the fifth edition ; whilst the one now issued of 1635 is also described on the title-page a.s being "the fifth time corrected and augmented." The following remarks on the poem of Willobie are to be found in Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica: "Willobic his Auisa, or the true picture of a modest maid, and of a chast and constant wife, in hexameter verse, the little argument whereof was never heretofore published. Imprinted at London by John Windet 1594, 4to." This poem, of which the verse is remarkably smooth and fluent for its age, appears to have been published in the author's defence, by his friend Hadrian Dorrell. In the fourth edition, 1609, is inserted " The victorie of English chastitie, vnder the famed name of Avisa," subscribed "Thomas Willoby frater Henrici Willoby nuper defuncti "; "The resolution of a chast and constant wife," and " The praise of a contented mind." Dorrell, in his " Apologie showing the true meaning of Willoby his Avisa," dated, Oxford this 3oth of June 1596, says, " This poeticall fiction was penned by the author at least for thirtie and flue yeeres since (1561) and lay in waste papers in his study, as many other prettie things did, of his designing." Prefixed are commendatory verses by Abell Emet, and another, who signs Contraria Contrariis, and mentions Shakspeare's "Rape of Lucrece," but does not, as hath been hastily surmised, celebrate Shakspeare himself: The lines are,--- Tarquync pluckt his glistering grape, And Shak-speare paints poore Lucrece rape. The first edition 1594 was printed in 4t0, 70 leaves ; that of 1596, 16o5, and 1609, also in 4to ; the 1605, and 1609 editions having each 8o leaves. The edition of 1635, the original of this reprint, had 82 leaves, and was printed in 12mo. The name of the reputed author is variously spelt Willoby, Willobie, Willoughby, but who Henry Willoby was, or his friend Hadrian Dorrell, has not been well ascertained, and it is questionable whether the names are not both pseudonyms. As Ritson states, the verses are smooth and fluent, and in some of them there is considerable grace of diction. Under Cantos 45 and 47 are some stanzas by W. S. which have excited much interest as to their possible authorship. The Iines are certainly clever, witty, and piquant, and can have been from the pen of no ordinary writer, but whether they will bear the lofty authorship that has been surmised for them, many will be disposed to doubt. Though this is not the first reprint of Willoby's Avisa, yet it is the first reprint of the edition of 1638, which differs in several particulars from the previous editions, and the Council were of opinion that it deserved to be reproduced in fac-simile, which could fortunately be carried out from the copy in the P.…