The Bride

by Samuel Rowlands

Produced by David Starner, Phil Petersen, and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team

Editorial note: Long s's have been turned into s's, and the occasional use of a macron over a vowel to express a following n or m has been replaced with the following n or m. Otherwise, the spelling is as in the original edition of 1617, as difficult and inconsistent as it may be.

THE BRIDE

By Samuel Rowlands

With an Introductory Note by Alfred Claghorn Potter

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.