written by

Mr WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

ABannerman sculp.

Reprinted for

THOMAS EVANS, No. 50, Strand, near York Buildings.

To

SAMUEL FOOTE, Esq.

this Edition

of Shakespear's Poems

is infcribed

by his obliged humble Servant,

The Editor.

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Several editions of the Poems of Shakespear have been printed, but the eager defire to be poffeffed of the complete works of the nobleft of poets, have rendered them fcarce; it was therefore imagined, an elegant and correct edition would be very acceptable to every admirer of the author. The poems of Venus and Adonis, Tarquin and Lucrece, were published by Shakespear, and dedicated by him to his great patron, the Earl of Southampton; the remainder, Mr. Gildon remarks, are evidently genuine; there is not one that does not carry its author's mark and ftamp upon it; not only the fame manner of thinking, the fame turn of thought, but even the fame mode of drefs and expreffion; the decompounds, his peculiar fort of epithets, which diftinguifh his from the verses of all his cotemporaries or fucceffors.