Printed and published in Great Britain by This facsimile first published 1973 ISBN 0 85967 079 I Reproduced (original size) from a copy in the National Library of Wales, by permission of the Trustees. The popularity of Matthew Prior (1664-1721) is amply attested by the number of editions through which his poetry went. Many within his lifetime were simple piracies, but two spurious editions were of particular importance as they prompted him to issue authorised collections. The first of these was published by Burrough, Baker and Curll, London, 1707, in an 8° of 128 pages. Prior complains in the preface to the first authorised edition, which is here reproduced, that the spurious collection ‘has given me the Honour of some things that did not belong to me, and has transcribed others so imperfectly, that I hardly knew them to be mine'. The force of the objection has to be accepted. Prior's verse demonstrates precision of language, metre and argument; the garbled versions of 1707 were ample provocation. A typical extract from the poem on Exodus iii 14 may be compared with stanza IV in Prior's authorised edition. The pirated version runs, Why to its Caverns shou'd it sometimes creep, And with delightful Silence sleep On the lov'd Bosom of his Parent Deep? Prepar'd to meet his High Command: The authorised edition appeared in 1709, and was reprinted in the same year. Tonson published a 12° in 1711, and again in 1713 with two portraits of Prior included. In 1716, J. Roberts put out the second spurious edition, under the title A Second Collection of Poems on Several Occasions, an 8° volume of 71 pages. Prior disowned this in the London Gazette on March 24th 1716, possibly for political reasons, but also because the pieces are of little merit. Some were collected in the 1718 folio which Tonson published two years later. Subsequent piracies during Prior's life were taken from the folio. |