VENUS AND ADONIS, LUCRECE, AND OTHER POEMS. EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M., FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. UNIVERSITY 420004 ENGLISH CLASSICS. EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE, A.M. Illustrated. 16m0, Cloth, 56 cents per volume; Paper, 40 cents per volume. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part Copyright, 1883, by HARPER & BROTHERS. PREFAC E. SHAKESPEARE'S Poems have generally received less attention from editors and commentators than his plays, and in some editions they are omitted altogether. It has been my aim to treat them with the same thoroughness as the plays. All varia lectiones likely to be of interest to the student are recorded. The 1599 edition of Venus and Adonis is collated for the first time, so far as I am aware, though it was discovered some fifteen years ago. Certain of the recent editors do not appear to know of its existence. The text is given without expurgation. The Rape of Lucrece needs none, and the Venus and Adonis (like the sonnets on the same subject in The Passionate Pilgrim) does not admit of it without being mutilated past recognition. Of course these poems will never be read in schools or "Shakespeare clubs." In The Passionate Pilgrim, the pieces which are certainly not Shakespeare's are transferred from the text to the Notes. Most of the others are of doubtful authenticity, but I give Shakespeare the benefit-if benefit it be—of the doubt. A Lover's Complaint is generally conceded to be his; and The Phenix and the Turtle has, I think, a better claim to be so regarded than anything in The Passionate Pilgrim. These points, however, are more fully discussed in the Notes. By this, the boy that by her side lay kill'd |