COURTSHIP BY POEM
[HABINGTON, William.]
Castara … the second Edition. Corrected and augmented.
London, Printed by B.A. & T.F. for Will: Cooke, 1635.
12mo, pp. [16], 167, [1]; a very good copy in early nineteenth-century half green morocco with marbled sides; bookplate and monogram stamp of Sir William Grace, Baronet, purchase note(?) referring to the Hill sale of 1811, the Bradley Martin copy.
Second edition, adding to the contents of the first edition (1634) a commendatory poem that reveals Habington’s identity; a ‘second part’ with twenty-six new poems; and three prose characters: ‘A Mistris’ and ‘A Wife’ to introduce the two parts, and ‘A Friend’ to introduce the section of elegies on George Talbot at the end.
‘Castara’ was Lucy Herbert, daughter of William Herbert, first Baron Powis, and the wife of the author, the metaphysical Catholic poet and playwright William Habington (or Abington), a figure on the fringes of the ‘Sons of Ben’. Most of the rather chaste poems here are addressed to her, written during their clandestine courtship (they married in 1633). Others are addressed to friends at the court of Charles II, such as Endymion Porter, patron of Dekker, Herrick and others. This is the issue with the title-page to the second part dated 1635 rather than 1636. Leaf F12 is superfluous, interrupting the poem ‘The Reward of Innocent Love’ which starts on p. 118 and ends on p. 121 and repeating content printed elsewhere in the volume. The Grolier catalogue suggests that consequently it was ‘probably cancelled in some copies’, though we can find no evidence that this is the case.
Provenance: From the library of American bibliophile H. Bradley Martin (1906–1988), perhaps best known for his collections of ornithological books and of Romantic and early twentieth-century French literature (Sotheby’s, 30 April 1990, vol. VIII, lot 2889).
ESTC S103609; STC 12584; Hayward 69.
