Note 397 — APPENDIX

Many other instances of initials figuring in dedications under slightly different circumstances will occur to bibliographers, but all, on examination, point to the existence of a close intimacy between dedicator and dedicatee. R. S.’s [i.e. possibly Richard Stafford’s] ‘Epistle dedicatorie’ before his Heraclitus (Oxford, 1609) was inscribed ‘to his much honoured father S. F. S.’ An Apologie for Women, or an Opposition to Mr. D. G. his assertion . . . by W. H. of Ex. in Ox. (Oxford, 1609), was dedicated to ‘the honourable and right vertuous ladie, the Ladie M. H.’ This volume, published in the same year as Shakespeare’s Sonnets, offers a pertinent example of the generous freedom with which initials were scattered over the preliminary pages of books of the day.