irrha= and =Hiren= are notorious for their
wretched typography and printing errors of various kinds.[38] He
writes, "In all my experience of our elder literature I have not met
with more carelessly printed books. Typographical and punctuation
errors not only obscure the meaning but again and again make places
absolutely unintelligible."[39] Their author Barksted must share the
blame, Grosart opines, for some of the poem's errors would seem to
show that he was "ill-educated and unpractised in composition."[40]
Henry Plomer agrees with Grosart that Edward Allde, the printer of
=Mirrha=, was guilty of poor type and workmanship.[41] Perhaps the
grossest example in =Mirrha= of the kind of thing Plomer may have had in
mind is the tipping of the type on the title page of the two copies of
this poem which have come to my attention.[42] Another example would
be the awkward separation of the "A" in "Adonis" on one line of the
title page from the rest of the word on the next.

But although =Mirrha= is indeed a printer's nightmare, it strikes me
that Grosart is far too severe in his strictures against =Hiren=, which
was quite attractively and reasonably accurately printed, probably by
Nicholas Okes,[43] who also printed =The Scourge=. Indeed Grosart has
"corrected" a number of details of punctuation in the poem which might
better have been left standing, in view of the generally light
punctuation of Barksted's day. In two instances Grosart has even
"corrected" details which, as "corrected," follow the unique copy of
=Hiren=, the Bodleian copy which he consulted.[44]

Page's =Amos and Laura= was first published in 1613,[45] a second time
in 1619. Finally, in 1628, a second impression of the edition of 1613,
with slight variants from it, was printed.

In the nineteenth century =Amos and Laura= was remarked upon chiefly
for its dedicatory verses to Izaak Walton in the unique copy of the
1619 edition at the British Museum, verses found neither in the then
only known, imperfect British Museum copy of the 1613 edition, nor in
the impression of 1628. These verses have long been thought to
constitute the first reference to Walton in print. But three
additional copies of the 1613 edition have by now come to light, at
the Folger, the Huntington, and at the British Museum.[46] All three
copies, though variously imperfect, contain the dedicatory verses.[47]

A word remains to be said about the way in which the second impression
of the 1614