"Venvs and Adonis. Vilia miretur vulgus: mihi flauus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua. London Imprinted by Richard Field, and are to be sold at the signe of the white Greyhound in Paules Church-yard. 1593." 4to. 27 leaves. The title-page of the edition of 1594, 4to, does not differ in the most minute particular from that of the edition of 1593, excepting that there is a full point after the word "London." It also has 27 leaves. "Venvs and Adonis. Vilia miretur vulgus: mihi flauus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua. Imprinted at London by R. F. for Iohn Harison. 1596." 8vo. 27 leaves. Field's device of the Anchor is found upon each of the above impressions. The edition of 1600, 8vo, only varies from that of 1596 in the imprint, which is "London. Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison. 1600." The imprint of the 16mo. edition of 1602 (there is no change in any other respect from earlier impressions) is this, "Imprinted at London for William Leake, dwelling at the signe of the Holy Ghost in Paules Church-yard. 1602" this is the first time Leake's name is connected with the publication, excepting in the Stationers' Registers. The imprint of the 8vo. Edinburgh edition runs thus: "Edinburgh, Printed by John Wreittoun and are to be sold in his Shop a little beneath the salt Trone. 1627." INTRODUCTION. WE are told by Shakespeare, in his dedication of this poem to the Earl of Southampton, in 1593, that it was "the first heir of his invention;" and as it was the earliest printed, so, probably, it was the earliest written of his known productions. At what time it is likely that he commenced, and completed the composition of it is a question which we have considered in the biography of the poet. The success of it is indisputable: having been originally printed by Richard Field, in 1593, 4to, that edition' seems to have been soon exhausted, and it was republished by the same printer in 1594, 4to, before 25th June, because on that day, according to the Stationers' Registers, he assigned over his interest in it to John Harrison, for whom Field printed an octavo impression in 1596. Field's second edition of 1594 was unknown to Malone and his contemporaries; and as it was not a re-issue of some remaining copies of 1593 with a new title-page, but a distinct re-impression, it affords some various readings, and not a few important confirmations of the correctness of the older text, corrupted, more or less, in all subsequent editions. Harrison published his second edition in 1600, which was the fourth time "Venus and Adonis" had been printed in seven years. It had been entered at Stationers' Hall by W. Leake, in 1596, but no impression with his name, of an earlier date than 1602, has, we believe, come down to our day. After this date it went through the press many times, and copies in 1616, 1620, 1624, &c. are known: in 1627 it was printed by John Wreittoun, at Edinburgh. The popularity of "Venus and Adonis" is established also by the frequent mention of it in early writers'. It is probable that 1 The entry of it in the Stationers' Registers runs thus:"18 April 1593. "Richd Field] Entered as his Copy, licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Wardens, a book entitled Venus and Adonis." 2 Malone adverts to Richard Barnfield's notice of "Venus and Adonis," and Lucrece," in 1598 (reprinted in 1605; see "Bridgewater Catalogue," 4to, 1837, p. 23), as well as to William Barksted's allusion to it in 1607, in his "Myrrha the |