12668- English Reprints. GEORGE PUTTENHAM. The Arte of English Poesie. [June ?] 1589. CAREFULLY EDITED BY EDWARD ARBER, Affociate, King's College, London, F.S.A., F.R.G.S., & ... LONDON: AUGUSTINE ROAD, CAMDEN SQUARE, N.W Ent. Stat. Hall.] 10 April, 1869. [All Rights reserved. 3 The Arte of English Poesie. INTRODUCTION. T muft ever be remembered that this Ladies' book was first published anonymously; that the printer was or feigned to be in ignorance of its Author; that fimilarly Sir John Harington, in 1591, only refers to him as 'that vnknowne Godfather, that this last yeare faue on, viz. 1589, fet forth a booke called the Arte of English Poefie,' and again as that 'fame Ignoto;' and laftly, that the authorship of the work was never openly claimed by any of Elizabeth'?> contemporaries. The treatise appears to have been written between.. June 1584, and November 1588 when it was first er tered at Stationers' Hall. This is proved not only by the general tenour of contemporary allufion, as by the following particulars, among other. 1. John Soowthern's 'Pandora. The Mufyque of the beautie of his miftreffe Diana,' has on its title page the date 20. June 1584. Mr. J. P. Collier-in Bibl. Cat. ii. 367, ed. 1865-gives the refult of his examination—while it was in the poffeffion of the late Mr. Heber-of the only perfect copy of this intrinficly worthless work. He quotes paffages to fhow that Puttenham meant, though he does not name, Soowthern in his defcription, at p. 259, of our minion' with his vice of Mingle-Mangle. That being the cafe; the prefent work was written after June 1584. 2. There is at p. 206 of fome of the copies of the original edition, a remarkable fubftitution of one paffage for another, refpecting the Netherlanders. We have reprinted both paffages at pp. 252-3. This fubftitution tells this tale. The work was compofed at a time when the Netherlanders were in bad odour; wlien indecifion marked the Queen's counfel, as to whether the long peace should be broken and they should be affifted in the war against Spain. The first paffage is, therefore, ftrongly anti-Dutch. This would accord with the history of 1585. But the work came to the prefs about March-April 1589. Meanwhile, the Armada had been defeated-the Dutch had proved themselves worthy confederates, and had helped much in the victory. So a more friendly though fomewhat patronizing paffage is substituted for the former one-but not before fome |