AIMBOLIAO 17 16672 Seven Hundred and Fifty Copies MAIN printed on Linen-rag Paper at the Clarendon Press Oxford, England DMW OL THE text of Annus Mirabilis depends upon the first edition, 1667, here reprinted, and upon the edition, probably piratical, of 1668 (see Mr. Percy Dobell's John Dryden: Biblio- · graphical Memoranda, 1922). There are two important variations: (1) Stanza 67, sig. C 1. Most copies of 1667 read (a) Berkley alone who neerest Danger lay Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet. Some copies read (b) Berkley alone, not making equal way,' Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet. There is no doubt that (b) is the earlier reading; for in some of the copies which give the reading (a), it is manifest that CI is a cancel. (Some copies with this reading have no obvious trace of a cancel; but if the stub has been removed by a binder it is very difficult to prove a cancel by physical evidence in a small octavo.) The 1668 edition gives the earlier reading (b). (2) Stanza 105, sig. C 6. All copies of 1667 that have been examined have the leaf in the same state, which in most copies is manifestly a cancel. The reading is For now brave Rupert from afar appears, No copy is known (but see below) of 1667 which has any other reading in stanza 105. But both known copies of 1668 (Mr. Dobell's and Mr. G. Thorn Drury's) give what is no doubt the earlier reading: |