Per Hayward, 304, “It [i.e., the ordinary issue] was preceded by a limited issue of twenty-five copies, signed by the poet. After these had been printed off, the first and last gatherings were re-imposed and, among other things, the capital letters at the beginning of the lines were altered throughout.” It is easy to see why this re-setting was done for these “special” copies, the first printed, which use small caps for the line openings instead of the conventional capitals, giving a rather unsettling effect. One wonders whether this issue made a virtue out of necessity, and offered a way of using up the sheets of a rejected edition: one would also very much like to know the role of Herbert Horne in the affair: among the evidence is a letter from Johnson to Mathews: “As to the caps., I leave the question to you and Horne: at first, I did not altogether take to them: but my reading through the whole proofs, many times, I grew to like them, and hardly to notice anything odd or unusual in them. And the public would probably do the same. In these matters, I trust Horne completely: he may sometimes do unfamiliar things, but never any thing unscholarly or affected. But it is for you to decide.” Nelson, EM, 1895.4, notes that the first and last gatherings were revised, as well as reset.
In Men and Memories (New York: Tudor, n.d.), Will Rothenstein discusses Mathews’s request that he draw a frontispiece portrait of Johnson for this book and presents Johnson’s 24 October 1894 letter to Will declining the honor, which reads in part: “Too great an honour! Or shall I say premature?… . a portrait in my book would be too great a vanity, even for me… . I am explaining to Mathews, that the very portrait itself would blush: which is undesirable for a lithograph by you… . Seriously, in a first volume of verse, it would be a little absurd… .” (P. 157). Title-page and Chiswick Press colophon by Herbert Horne. A brilliant, perfect copy in cloth clam-shell box with morocco spine labels.
