Willobie His Avisa : With an Essay Towards Its Interpretation (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Willobie His Avisa: With an Essay Towards Its Interpretation

In 1880, the late Dr. Grosart, of Blackburn, printed at Manchester an edition of 62 copies, containing the full text of the 1594 edition of ivillobie, with a most valuable critical intro duction. In an appendix he printed The Apologie, shewing the true meaning of lvillobie his Avisa, and the poem The Victory of English Chastity, signed Thomas Willoby, which appeared in the edition of 1596, of which no copy is known, and also in later editions. To this he added a poem Penelope's Complaint, by Peter Colse, from the unique copy in the library of Mr. A. H. Huth. This poem, printed in 1596, contained a dedication and introductory verses, which imply that certain persons had taken Willobie his Avisa as personally offensive. The only other modern edition of our poems except Dr. Grosart's 62 copies, is that published at Manchester in 1896 by the Spenser Society. It consists of about 200 copies, and is a reprint of the edition of 1635, which differs in several unimportant respects from the text of the edition of 1594. I shall always quote from the latter. Dr. Grosart's introduction, in which he acknowledges the previous work done by J. Payne Collier, Sir Walter C. Trevelyan, Dr. Ingleby, and Miss L. Toulmin Smith, is the basis on which I have worked, and I have acquired from his executors the sole right of reprinting his 1880 volume.

The full title of the poem is as follows 1 - Willobie his Avisa, or the true Picture of a Modest Maid, and of a chast and constant wife. In Hexamiter verse, the like argument whereof, was never heretofore published. The introduction is supposed to be written by one Hadrian Dorrell, writing from his chamber in Oxford, this first of October. The fact is that the poem was entered in the Registers of Stationer's Hall on September 3rd, 1594, while Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece had been entered on May 9th of the same year. Hadrian Dorrell tells us that his very good friend and chamber fellow, Mr. Henry Willobie, a young man and a scholler of very good hope, being desirous to see the fashions of other countries for a time, departed voluntarily to her Majesties'

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