Neither Williams nor Eglesfield was a bookseller of importance, and the printer is entirely unknown. He may have withheld his name for fear of the judgment suggested by Herrick at the head of his column of Errata:
"For theſe Tranſgreſsions which thou here doſt ſee,
Condemne the Printer, Reader, and not me;
Who gave him forth good Grain, though he miſtook
The Seed; ſo ſow'd theſe Tares throughout my Book."
Copies vary in the imprint, some reading London, Printed for John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, and are to be ſold by Tho. Hunt, Bookſeller in Exon, 1648; and several differences of spelling, capitalization and punctuation also occur. These variations have given rise to a discussion that aims to determine the sequence of issues; but thus far it serves only to prove that constant editorial tinkering took place at the press-side.
William Marshall, whose prolific graver (Strutt says he used only that tool) produced portraits, frontispieces, title-pages, and other decorations of a certain charm, even if dry and cramped in style, had in Herrick a subject of more than usual difficulty. As if conscious of his shortcomings he attempts to make atonement by the emblematic flattery of Pegasus winging his flight from Parnassus, the Spring of Helicon, loves and flowers, which he adds to lines signed I. H. C. and W. M.
Octavo.
Collation: Four leaves (without signatures): B-Z and Aa-Cc, in eights, Aa-Ee, in eights.