Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/89

 INTRODUCTION Ixxxv ���size, its heavy calf binding, its fine, strong paper, its careful arrangement, and its expert, clerkly penmanship are a dis- tinct advance in dignity and stateliness of form over the fine-lady elegance of the earlier volume. And there was justification for this advance, for, to the contents of that vol- ume, Ardelia is now ready to add sixty-five new poems, two long plays, an important preface, and two commendatory poems. The book was not made up from time to time as poems were written, for poems susceptible of dates do not appear in chronological order. The arrangement is rather according to subjects from the mass of poems on hand, the religious poetry making one group, the songs another, the fables a third, and the plays a fourth. The poems of gen- eral or biographical interest, however, are not so classified, but appear in different portions of the book. It is difficult to assign an exact date to this manuscript, but it probably belongs early in the eighteenth century, for it contains at least one poem, that on the death of James II., written after, and probably very soon after, 1701. This fact, together with the omission of so important a poem as the one on The Hurricane in 1703, would seem to date the manuscript about 1702. The title-page of this volume was not repro- duced in the printed form, but is more interesting than the printed one because of the characteristic quotation from Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, June: �I never list presume to Parnass Hill But piping low, in shade of lowly grove I play to please myself, albeit ill. �A note in pencil at the foot of the page says, "Ardelia was Anne, Countess of Winchilsea. See her poems, printed by John Barber on Lambeth Hill ; and sold by John Mor- phew, near Stationer's Hall, London, 1713." The title given is, Miscellany Poems with two Plays by Ardelia, neither the title nor the note being like the corresponding items on ��� �