------------------------------------------------------
Dennis wrote:
********************************
I.M. of the First Folio Shakespeare and Other Mabbe Problems
Arthur W. Secord

Until the mid- nineteenth century, the I.M whose verses are among those commending the first folio Shakespeare (F1) was assumed to be John Marston...
[Bolton] Corney called attention to two phrases common to Mabbe and I.M., to Mabbe’s reputation as a wit, to his connection with Edward Blount, one of the publishers of F1, and to the fact that commendatory verses were sometimes written in the interest
of the publisher(...) Though Corney misread Blount, other evidence, internal and external supports his general conclusion. The external evidence, which is the more significant, though the internal may have first caught Corney’s eye, consists of a
series of facts linking Mabbe with Edward Blount, Leonard Digges and Ben Jonson, all three of whom had a part in both Mabbe’s The Rogue and F1. There is the additional fact that Mabbe was pretty well known to seventeenth century readers and that a
number of dedications and title-pages refer to him as I.M.

It may clarify the problem to place it in its setting in 1621-23 when the Jaggards with Blount and two other stationers were publishing F1. Blount had for two decades been a power in the trade, and, though he may not, as some have argued, have been the
editor of F1, he was obviously a leader in the project. James Mabbe, grandson of a former chamberlain of London, had spent two decades in Magdalen College, Oxford, had been in Spain as secretary to SirJohn Digby, and had been concerned with several books
Blount had published. Leonard Digges, son and grandson of distinguished mathematicians and brother of Sir Dudley Digges of the East India Company, was like Mabbe an Oxford man, though not of Magdalen, and a devotee of Spanish literature. His connection
with Blount was of more recent origin than Mabbe’s; but it was close enough for Lee to call him and Mabbe Blount’s allies.

Mabbe and Digges must have known each other well. Each had translated a Spanish picaresque novel which Blount published a year or so before F1 but which was in the press simultaneously with it. Digges’s translation was the Gerardo of Gonzalo de
Cespedes y Meneses; it was dedicated to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, sponsors of F1. Mabbe’s was, of course, Aleman’s Guzman, called in English The Rogue. That both Digges and Ben Jonson wrote verses commending The Rogue increases the
likelihood that Mabbe joined with Digges and Jonson in commending F1.

In the light of these facts, it is significant that the verses of Digges and I.M. in F1 were placed as a unit on the recto of a leaf not contemplated when the rest of the preliminary was printed. All bibliographers say that the original plan was for
seven leaves – three sheets of six leaves and the title leaf to be printed separately and inserted between leaves one and two of the quire; and that a fourth sheet was later so printed and folded as to have on the recto of the first leaf the verses of
Digges and I.M. and on the recto of the other a half-title over a list of the actors. Opinions differ about the proper placing of the new sheet, but all agree that it was an afterthought...

The internal evidence that Mabbe if the I.M. of F1 consists principally of two phrases common to Mabbe and I.M. Mabbe, paraphrasing Aleman’s Guzman, *was chiding a haughty cavalier for not considering that he is only a man*,

a representant, a poor kinde of Comedian, that acts his part upon the Stage of this World, and comes forth with this or that Office...and that when the play is done, (which can not be long) he must presently enter into the Tyring-house of the grave...

The verses in F1 read:

Wee wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went’st so soone
From the Worlds-Stage, to the Graves-Tyring-roome.
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went’st but forth
To enter with applause An Actors Art,
Can dye, and live, to acte a second part.
That’s but an Exit of Mortalitie;
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.

The italicized phrases were not unusual in English literature of the seventeenth century. Professor T.W. Baldwin has discussed the almost endless variations of “All the world’s a stage.” He now calls my attention to the use by John Davies of the
other, less common phrase. In the Scourge of Folly (1610) Davies speaks twice of death as a tyring house. Remarkably enough, though critics have not called attention to it, the phrase appears in another of the commendations of F1. Hugh Holland’s sonnet
calls the grave death’s “publique tyring-house.”

(Had Mabbe not liked these phrases, he would not have used them in The Rogue, as they are not very close to the original...)
******************************** ------------------------------------------------------
Digges commendatory poem to the 1640 edition of Poems:
Written by Wil. Shakespeare, Gent. (1623? - 1635):
. . . . http://tinyurl.com/l2s76f3
.
.... UPON MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
.... THE DECEASED AUTHOUR, AND HIS POEMS.
.
Poets are borne not mad{E}, wh{E|N} I w{O|U|L}d p{R|O}ve
This *TRUTH* , the glad r[E]memberance I must lo[V]e
Of n[{E}V{E}R] {D}y{I}ng Shak[E]speare, who alone,
Is a[R]gument enough to mak[E] that one.
First, that he was a Poet none would doubt,
That heard th'applause of what he sees set out
Imprinted; where thou hast (I will not say)
Reader his Workes for to contrive a Play:
To him twas none) the patterne of all wit,
Art w{I}thout Art unparalel{D} as yet.
Next Nature on{E}ly helpt him, for look{E} thorow
This whole Booke, thou shalt find he doth not borrow,
One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate, .....................................................
. . . . . . <= 18 =>
.
. T h i s *T .R. U. T . H* t h e g l a d r [E]
. m e m b. e .r. a. n . c. e I m u s t l o [V]
. e O f n[{E} V {E} R] {D} y{I}n g S h a k [E]
. s p e a. r .e, w. h . o. a l o n e,I s a [R]
. g u m e. n .t. e. n . o. u g h t o m a k [E]
. t h a t. o .n. e. F . i. r s t,t h a t h. e
. w a s a. P .o. e. t . n. o n e w o u l d. d
. o u b t, T .h. a. t . h. e a r d t h'a p. p
. l a u s. e .o. f. w . h. a t h e s e e s. s
. e t o u. t .I. m. p . r. i n t e d;w h e. r
. e t h o. u .h. a. s . t (I w i l l n o t. s
. a y)R e. a .d. e. r . h. i s W o r k e s. f
. o r t o. c .o. n. t . r. i v e a P l a y: T
. o h i m. t .w. a. s . n. o n e)t h e p a. t
. t e r n. e .o. f. a . l. l w i t,A r t w {I}
. t h o u. t .A. r. t . u. n p a r a l e l {D}
. a s y e. t. N. e. x . t. N a t u r e o n {E}
. l y h e. l. p. t. h . i. m,f o r l o o k {E}
.
{I.DEE} -2,18
[E.VERE] . 18 : Prob. near top ~ 1 in 95 ............................................................ ............................................................
Yet these sometimes, even at a friends desire
Acted, have scarce defrai'd the Seacoale f{I}re
An{D} door{E}-keep{E}rs: when let but Falstaffe come,
Hall, Peines, [T]he rest [Y]ou scar[C]e shall [H]ave a ro[O]me .......................
. . . . <= 6 =>
.
. . S. e. a. c. o. a
. . l. e. f {I} r. e
. . A. n {D}.d. o. o
. . r {E} k. e. e. p
. .{E} r. s: w. h. e
. . n. l. e. t. b. u
. . t. F. a. l. s. t
. . a. f. f. e. c. o
. . m. e, H. a. l. l,
. . P. e. i. n. e. s,
. .[T] h. e. r. e. s
. . t [Y] o. u. s. c
. . a. r [C] e. s. h
. . a. l. l [H] a. v
. . e. a. r. o [O] m
.
{I.DEE} 5
[TYCHO] 6
-------------------------------------------------------------- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Digges

<<After the death of his father, Thomas Digges (c. 1546 – 24 August 1595) grew up under the guardianship of {I}ohn {DEE}. {I}ohn {DEE} (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was a friend of [TYCHO] Brahe and familiar with the work (translated into English by
his ward and assistant, Thomas Digges) of Nicolaus Copernicus. Digges was an English mathematician and astronomer. Digges attempted to determine the parallax of the 1572 supernova observed by Tycho Brahe, and concluded it had to be beyond the orbit of
the Moon. This contradicted Aristotle's view of the universe, according to which no change could take place among the fixed stars. He was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars
to postulate infinitely many stars at varying distances. He was also first to postulate the "dark night sky paradox". Digges married Anne St Leger (1555–1636). In his will he named two surviving sons, Sir Dudley Digges (1583–1639), politician and
statesman, and Leonard Digges (1588–1635), poet, and two surviving daughters, Margaret and Ursula. After Digges's death, his widow, Anne, married Thomas Russell of Alderminster in Warwickshire, "whom in 1616 William Shakespeare named as an overseer of
his will".>>
-------------------------------------------------------------- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Digges_(writer)

<<Leonard Digges (1588 – 7 April 1635) was an accomplished Hispanist and minor poet, a younger son of the astronomer Thomas Digges (1545–95). After his father's death in 1595, his mother married Thomas Russell of Alderminster, now in Warwickshire,
who was named by William Shakespeare as one of the two overseers of his will. Leonard Digges matriculated at University College, Oxford in 1603, the year of his mother's remarriage, and graduated BA in 1606. He may have traveled to Spain with fellow
Hispanist James Mabbe, whom he knew from Oxford, for he wrote a note on the flyleaf of a book which Mabbe sent from Madrid to Will Baker, also a friend from Oxford days. The book was a copy of Rimas by Lope de Vega (published in 1613); it still survives,
in the library of Balliol College. Digges's inscription reads:

. . Will Baker: Knowinge
. . that Mr Mab: was to
. . sende you this Booke
. . of sonets, wch with Spaniards
. . here is accounted of their
. . lope de Vega as in Englande
. . wee sholde of or: Will
. . Shakespeare. I colde not
. . but insert thus much to
. . you, that if you like
. . him not, you muste neuer
. . neuer reade Spanishe Poet

. . . . Leo:Digges

Digges translated Claudian's The Rape of Proserpine (printed 1617). His translation of Varia fortuna de soldado Píndaro, by Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, was published in 1622 as Gerardo, the Unfortunate Spaniard, and was used by John Fletcher as a
source for his plays The Spanish Curate and The Maid in the Mill. Digges's publisher was Edward Blount, a close friend of Mabbe's and one of the syndicate which published Shakespeare's First Folio in 1623. Digges and Mabbe both contributed prefatory
poems to the Folio, as did Ben Jonson – also published by Blount. The previous year, Digges and Jonson had both contributed commendatory verses to a work translated by Mabbe and published by Blount. Commendatory verses by Digges were also included in
an edition of Shakespeare's Poems, published by John Benson in 1640, five years after Digges had died. Freehafer suggests that since these verses refer to Shakespeare's plays rather than to his poems, they may have been intended for the Second Folio.

Anthony à Wood said of Leonard Digges that "upon his supplication made to the venerable convocation" of University College Oxford, Digges was made M.A. in 1626, "in consideration that he had spent many years in good letters in transmarine universities".
He lived in the College from then until his death in 1635, and was buried in the College chapel (no longer standing).>>
----------------------------------------------------------
. . . . First Folio (1623)
TO THE MEMORIE of the deceased Authour
. . *MAISTER W. SHAKESPEARE*

SHake-speare, at length thy pious fellowes giue
The world thy Workes: thy Workes, by which, out-liue
Thy Tombe, thy name must: when that {STONE} is rent,
And Time dissolues thy {STRATFORD MONIMENT},
Here we aliue shall view thee still. This Booke,
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodegie
That is not *S[H]AKE-SPEARES* ; eu'ry Line, each Verse
Here shall reuiue, re[D]eeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, a{S N|A]so said,
Of his, {T}hy wit-fraught B{O}oke shall once i{N}vade.
[N]or shall I {E}'re beleev{E}, or think{E} thee dea{D}.
(Though m{I}st) [U]ntill our bankrout Stage be sped
(Impossible) with som[E] new straine t' out-do
{P}assions of Iuliet, and her Romeo;
{O}[R] till I heare a Scene more nobly take,
{T}hen when thy half=[S]word parlying Romans spake.
{T}ill these, till any of thy (v)olumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be expr{E}st,
Be sure, our Shake=spear{E}, thou canst n[EV{E}R DYE],
But cr{O}wn'{D} with Lawrell, l{I}ue eternally.

L. Digges.
---------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . . . . . . . <= 45 =>
.
. when .Posteri. tieS. h .a. llloathwha .tsnewthinkeallispr
. odeg .ieThati. snot *S [H] AKESPEARES* euryLineeachVerseH
. eres .hallreu. iuer. e [D] eemetheefr .omthyHerseNorFiren
. orca .nkringA. geas. N [A] sosaidOfhi .sthywitfraughtBook
. esha .lloncei. nuad. e [N] orshallIer .ebeleeueorthinketh
. eede .adThoug. hmis. t [U] ntillourba .nkroutStagebespedI
. mpos .siblewi. thso. m [E] newstraine .toutdoPassionsofIu
. liet .andherR. omeo. O [R] tillIheare .aScenemorenoblytak
. eThe .nwhenth. yhal. f [S] wordparlyi .ngRomansspakeTillt
. hese .tillany. ofth. y (v) olumesrest .Shallwithmorefirem
. oref .eelingb. eexp. r {E} stBesureou .rShakespearethouca
. nstn [EVERDYE] Butc. r {O} wndwithLaw .rellliueeternally.
.
[H.DANUERS] 45 : Prob. in poem ~ 1 in 192,000 ----------------------------------------------------------
. Amazement : 1640 Benson
.
. MY love is strengthned though more weake in seeming
. I love not lesse, though lesse the show appeare,
. That love is marchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,
. The own[E]rs tongu[E] (DOTH} PUB[L]ISH {E}VER[Y] {WH}E{R}E) .
. Ou[R] lov{E} was [N]ew, and th[E]n but in t[H]e spring, ----------------------------------------------------------
_______ Sonnet 102 (Only Sonnet's *PUBLISH*)
.
. MY LOVE IS Strengthned though more weake in seeming
. I love not lesse, thogh lesse the show appeare,
. That love is marchandiz'd, whose ritch esteeming,
.
. The own[E]rs tongu[E] (DOTH} PUB[L]ISH {E}VER[Y] {WH}E{R}E) .
. Ou[R] lov{E} was [N]ew, and th[E]n but in t[H]e spring,
.
.{WH}en I was wont to greet it with my laies,
. As Philomell in summers front doth singe,
. And stops his pipe in growth of riper daies:
. Not that the summer is lesse pleasant now
. Then when her mournefull himns did hush the night,
. But that wild musick burthens *EVERy bow* ,
. And sweets growne common loose their deare delight.
. Therefore like her, I some-time hold my tongue:
. Because I would not dull you wiTH MY SONGE. ..................................................
. . . . . <= 8 =>
.
. . .T h(E)o w n [E]
. .r s t(O)n g u [E]
. (D O T{H}P U B [L]
. .I S H{E}V E R [Y]
. {W H}E{R}E)O u [R]
. .l o v{E}w a s [N]
. .e w,a n d t h [E]
. .n b u t i n t [H]
. .e s p r i n g,{W H}
.
Sidney friend/Queen's Champion:
[HENRY LEE] -8 : Prob. in any Sonnet ~ 1 in 1765 --------------------------------------------------------------------- https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Henry_Danvers%2C_1st_Earl_of_Danby

<<On the night of the death of the 17th Earl of Oxford [Sun., June 24, 1604] Baron [H]enry [DANUERS], the Earl of Southampton and Sir Henry Neville as
well as the a [LEE] were arrested by order of the king and Privy Council. .......................................................................
Baron [DANUERS] had been employed in Ireland under the Earl of Essex, and Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, successive lords-lieutenant of Ireland.>> -----------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

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