Thoſe ſheetes preſent him dead, theſe if you buy,
You haue him living to Eternity,"
refers to the portrait engraved by Martin Droeshout, issued with Death's Duell, in 1632. The whole verse seems to be an apology for the lack of a portrait in this volume. Donne was abundantly figured afterward. The Poems, printed in 1635, and again in 1639, contained his portrait at the age of eighteen, engraved by Marshall; Merian engraved him at the age of forty-two, for the Sermons of 1640; and Lombart produced the beautiful head for the Letters of 1651.
Quarto.
Collation: Title, one leaf; A-Z, Aa-Zz, and Aaa-Fff3, in fours.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
(1605-1682)
26. Religio, | Medici. | Printed for Andrew Crooke. 1642. Will: Marſhall. ſcu.
This is thought to be the earlier of two anonymous editions published in the same year, and without the author's sanction, as we learn from the third edition published in the following year, entitled A true and full coppy of that which was moſt | imperfectly and Surreptitiously printed before | under the name of: Religio Medici. In the preface Browne says over his signature: "... I have at preſent repreſented into the world a ful and intended copy of that Peece which was moſt imperfectly and surreptitiouſly publiſhed before." He repeats the complaint of surreptitious publication in a letter to Sir Kenelm Digby, in which he begs the latter to delay the publication of his "Animadversions upon ... the Religio Medici" which "the liberty of these times committed to the Press."