Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Laura
A Friend’s just Excuse about the Book and [the] Author; in his absence
Robert Tofte (1561–1620)
WITHOUT the Author’s knowledge, as is before said by the Printer; this Poem is made thus publicly known; which, with my best endeavour, the Gentleman himself, suspecting what is now proved too true, at my coming up, earnestly intreated me to prevent. But I came at the last sheet’s printing; and find more than thirty Sonnets not his, intermixt with his. Helped it cannot be, but by the well judging Reader: who will, with less pain distinguish between them, than I, on this sudden, possibly can. To him then, I refer that labour.
And for the Printer’s faults passed in some of the Books; I have gathered them in the next page [these four Corrections have been embodied in the text].
