Complaints : containing sundrie small poemes of the worlds vanitie. VVhereof the next page maketh mention
Complaints is a 1591 London collection of short poems by Edmund Spenser, printed for William Ponsonby in Paul's Churchyard. Its pictures are woodcut printer's ornaments: a central grotesque figure flanked by scrolling brackets, sea-serpent-like volutes, and lion masks, repeated as bands and an initial letter. A designer might take from them the dense symmetrical border strip and the flourished capital as models for decorative framing.
