which he had no hand were published with his name or initials on the
title-page while his fame was at its height. With only one publisher of
his time, Richard Field, his fellow-townsman, who was responsible for the
issue of 'Venus' and 'Lucrece,' is it likely that he came into personal
relations, and there is nothing to show that he maintained relations with
Field after the publication of 'Lucrece' in 1594.

In fitting accord with the circumstance that the publication of the
'Sonnets' was a tradesman's venture which ignored the author's feelings
and rights, Thorpe in both the entry of the book in the 'Stationers'
Registers' and on its title-page brusquely designated it 'Shakespeares
Sonnets,' instead of following the more urbane collocation of words
invariably adopted by living authors, viz. 'Sonnets by William
Shakespeare.'

The use of initials in dedications of Elizabethan and Jacobean books.

In framing the dedication Thorpe followed established precedent.
Initials run riot over Elizabethan and Jacobean books. Printers and
publishers, authors and contributors of prefatory commendations were all
in the habit of masking themselves behind such symbols. Patrons figured
under initials in dedications somewhat less frequently than other sharers
in the book's production. But the conditions determining the employment
of initials in that relation were well defined. The employment of
initials in a dedication was a recognised mark of a close friendship or
intimacy between patron and dedicator. It was a sign that the patron's
fame was limited to a small circle, and that the revelation of his full
name was not a matter of interest to a wide public. Such are the
dominant notes of almost all the extant dedications in which the patron
is addressed by his initials. In 1598 Samuel Rowlands addressed the
dedication of his 'Betraying of Christ' to his 'deare affected _friend_
Maister H. W., gentleman.' An edition of Robert Southwell's 'Short Rule
of Life' which appeared in the same year bore a dedication addressed 'to
my deare affected _friend_ M. [_i.e._ Mr.] D. S., gentleman.' The poet
Richard Barnfield also in the same year dedicated the opening sonnet in
his 'Poems in divers Humours' to his '_friend_ Maister R. L.' In 1617
Dunstan Gale dedicated a poem, 'Pyramus and Thisbe,' to the 'worshipfull
his verie _friend_ D. [_i.e._ Dr.] B. H. {397}

Frequency of wishes for 'happiness' and 'eternity' in dedicatory
greetin