_Introductory Note_
When the complete works of Samuel Rowlands were issued by the
Hunterian Club in 1872-1880, in an edition of two hundred and ten copies,
the Editor was obliged to omit from the collection the poem entitled
"The Bride." No copy of this tract was supposed to be extant. Twenty
years later, in the article on Rowlands in the Dictionary of National
Biography, Mr. Sidney Lee also names this poem as one of the author's
lost works. All that was known of it was the entry in the Stationers'
Register: [Footnote: _Arber's Transcript, vol. iii. p. 609_.]
"22 [degrees] Maij 1617
"Master Pauier. Entred for his Copie vnder the handes
of master TAUERNOR and both the wardens, A Poeme
intituled _The Bride_, written by SAMUELL ROWLANDE vj'd."
While all of Rowlands's works are classed by bibliographers as "rare,"
this one seemed to have disappeared entirely. No copy was to be
found in any of the large libraries or private collections, nor was there
any record of its sale.
Last spring a copy was discovered in the catalogue of a bookseller in a
small German town, and was secured for the Harvard College Library,
being purchased from the Child Memorial Fund. The copy is perfect,
except that the inner corner at the top of the second and third leaves
has been torn off, with the loss of parts of two words, which have
been supplied in manuscript. From this copy the present reprint is
made. As in the Hunterian Club edition of Rowlands's Works, to which
this may be considered a supplement, the reprint is exact. The general
makeup of the book as to style and size of type has been followed as
closely as possible; and the text has been reproduced page for page
and word for word. The misprints, which are unusually numerous, even
for a book of this period, have been left uncorrected. The title-page
and the two head-pieces have been reproduced by photography.
Of the poem itself, since it is now before the reader, little need be
said. It cannot be claimed that it presents great poetical merit.
Rowlands at his best was but an indifferent poet,--hardly more
than a penny-a-liner. In his satirical pieces and epigrams, and in
that bit of genuine comedy, "Tis Merrie vvhen Gossips meete," his
work does have a real literary value, and is distinctly interesting as
presenting a vivid picture of London life at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. In "The Bride," it must be confessed, Rowlands
falls below his own best work. Yet the poem is by no means wholly
lacking in interest. If not his best work, "The Bride" is by no means
his worst. Like most of his poems, it is written in an heroic stanza
of six lines, and, as is not so common with him, is in dialogue form.
The dialogue for the most part is well sustained and sprightly. The
story of the birth of Merlin, it is true, seems to have been inserted
mainly to fill out the required number of pages; but this digression has an
interest of its own, in that the name here given to Merlin's mother,
"Lady Adhan," does not appear in the ordinary versions of the legend.
Of Rowlands's life almost nothing is known: that little is told in the
Memoir by Mr. Gosse prefixed to the Hunterian Club edition, and by
Mr. Lee in the Dictionary of National Biography, and need not be
repeated here. All that is known with certainty is that Samuel
Rowlands was a writer of numerous poems and pamphlets, published
between the years 1598 and 1628. During this period there appeared
almost every year a pamphlet bearing his name or the well known initials,
"S. R." Twenty-eight separate works, of which many passed through
several editions, are known to have been written by him. All of these
early editions are rare; at least two of the works have been lost; several
are extant only in the second or later editions; and of at least ten, only
single copies are known to exist. Beside the edition of the Works already
referred to, a number of Rowlands's tracts have been separately reprinted,
in limited editions, by Sir Walter Scott, by S. W. Singer, by
E. V. Utterson, by Halliwell-Phillipps, by J. P. Collier, and by
E. F. Rimbault in the publications of the Percy Society; to this series
of reprints, "The Bride" is now added.