Page:Shakespeare of Stratford (1926) Yale.djvu/28

12 ''Right Honorable: I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen; only if your Honor seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honored you with some graver labor. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear [plough] so barren a land for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honorable survey, and your Honor to your heart’s content, which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.''

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Venus and Adonis was entered for publication, April 18, 1593, by Richard Field, son of a tanner of Stratford. Field, who was three years older than Shakespeare, had left Stratford in 1579 and become a member of the Stationers’ Company in London.

Dedication of Lucrece.

To the Right Honorable Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield.

''The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honorable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part''