264 Lawrence Mason, 



thirty-eight pages of Additional Elegies are affixed. Otherwise, in 

 all essential matters, all copies are identically the same throughout. 

 The original volume of King's poems was so "very rare" a century 

 ago that Bliss thought it worth while to add a specimen from it to 

 Wood's account of Henry King ; ^ naturally, the book is not less rare 

 to-day, and therefore a brief census of the copies examined in the 

 course of the present investigation may not be unacceptable. 



(a) With the 1657 title-page ; in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford ; 

 shelf-number, Arb. 8** A 16 BS. On the title-page is written in 

 contemporaneous MS., "by Phil: King vid. p. 83." [On page 83 

 occur the lines "To my Sister Anne King."] * This copy is in good 

 condition. 



(b) With the 1664 title-page ; in the Bodleian ; shelf-number, 

 Malone 443. "Edmond Malone" appears in MS. on the fly-leaf, and 

 several textual emendations in MS. occur throughout the book. 

 This is a poor copy : the printing on many pages (especially among the 

 additional Elegies) is badly askew, the ink is badly blotted or blurred 

 on several pages, corners are missing, etc. 



(c) With the 1664 title-page ; in the Bodleian ; shelf -number, 

 Douce K. 6. This copy is in excellent condition. 



(d) With the 1657 title-page ; in the Library of the British Museum, 

 in London ; shelf-number, 1076 b. 13. On the title-page these words 

 are written, in early attempted black-letter script : "by, Dr. Henr}- 

 King." There are several MS. comments scattered through the 

 volume. This is an exceedingly poor copy : it is much damaged by 

 water throughout, both covers are loose, the pagination is hopelessly 

 awry, and many pages are missing. 



(e) With the 1657 title-page ; in the British Museum ; shelf-number, 

 E. 1656. The volume is bound up with Howell's " Som Sober In- 

 spections made unto the . . . Late-long Parlement," etc., 1655.2 This 

 is a perfect copy, except for certain depredations in the lower margin 

 committed by book-worms ; but in no case is the text injured. 



(f) With the 1664 title-page ; in the British Museum ; shelf-number, 

 11,623. ^ci. 26. Many interesting and valuable MS. notes are include<l 

 in this copy ; aside from a lengthy investigation of the identity of the 

 anonymous author, which finally concludes in favor of Henry King, 

 the following are the most striking items: the inscription "Ann 

 Howe King" at the top of the second fly-leaf, verso, with this comment 



1 "Athen. Oxon.," ed. Bliss. 1815, III, 842—3. 



2 Sidney Lee gives only two dates for this work, viz. first publication in 

 1653 and re-issue in 1660. ("Diet. Nat. Biog." xxviii, in.) 



