THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
 ENDOWED BY 
 
 JOHN SPRUNT HILL 
 CLASS OF 1889 
 
 CB 
 R163r7 
 
i:^U^ ■'^^■ ^-T!^ 
 
 r 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00032703236 
 
 This book may be kept out one month unless a recall 
 notice is sent to you. It must be brought to the North 
 Carolina Collection (in Wilson Library) for renewal. 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 AND OTHERS 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 AND OTHERS 
 
 EDITED 
 
 BY THE REV. JOHN HANNAH M. A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE OXFORD 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WILLIAM PICKERING 
 
 1845 
 
CHARLES MHiniNGUAM, CIIISWICK. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I XTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. Sir Henry Wotton. 
 
 1. Genei-al account of Wotton's Poems x 
 
 2. Account of Wotton's Prose Works xiv 
 
 3. Account of unfinished Works by Wotton . . . xviii 
 II. Sir W^alter Raleigh. 
 
 1. List of Poems ascribed to him by Brydges . . xxiv 
 
 2. Additional Poems printed inhisWorks,ed. 1829 xxxiv 
 
 3. Poems by Raleigh not previously collected . . xxxvii 
 
 4. Classification of all the Poems ascribed to Ra- 
 
 leigh xliii 
 
 III. General Remarks. 
 
 1. On the diflficulty of ascertaining the real authors 
 
 of such Poems as those ascribed to Raleigh Iviii 
 
 2. On the traditions annexed to some of these 
 
 Poems Ixviii 
 
 3. On the state of their text Ixxii 
 
 Index I. Poems ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh . Ixxiv 
 
 Index II. Poems by Wotton and others Ixxvi 
 
 Part I. Poems by Sir Henry Wotton. From Reliqui.e 
 
 WoTTONIAN^E, ED. 1685. 
 
 I. A Poem Written by Sir Henry Wotton in his Youth 3 
 n. Sir Henry AVotton and Serjeant Hoskins riding on 
 
 the way 6 
 
 I- 
 
VI COXTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 III. On his ]Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia 12 
 
 IV. To a Noble Friend in his Sickness 16 
 
 V. A short Hymn upon the Birth of Prince Charles . 18 
 
 VI. An Ode to the King, at his returning from Scotland 
 
 to the Queen, after his Coronation there 21 
 
 VII. Vponthe sudden Restraint of the Earl of Somerset, 
 
 then falling from Favour 25 
 
 VIII. The Character of a happy Life 28 
 
 IX. On a Bank as I sate a Fishing. A Description of 
 
 the Spring 32 
 
 X. A Translation of the CIV. Psalm to the Original Sense 36 
 XI. Tears at the Grave of Sir Albertus Morton (who was 
 
 buried at Southampton) wept by Sir H. Wotton . 40 
 XII. Vpon the Death of Sir Albert. jMorton's Wife ... 44 
 XIII. This Hymn was made by Sir H. Wotton, when he 
 was an Ambassador at Venice, in the time of a 
 
 great Sickness there 45 
 
 XIV. A Hymn to my God in a Xight of my late Sickness 49 
 
 Part II. Poems found among the Papers of Sir Henry 
 
 Wotton. From Reliqui^ Wottonian.e, ed. 1685. 
 
 I. A Description of the Country's Recreations [Zo-Hofo] 55 
 
 II. Imitatio Horatianae Odes ix. Donee grains eram tibi. 
 
 Lib. iii. A Dialogue betwixt God and the Soul 
 
 [Ignoto'] 60 
 
 III. Doctor B[rooke] of Tears 63 
 
 IV. By Chidick Tychborn (being young and then in the 
 
 Tower) the Night before his Execution 68 
 
 V. " Rise, oh my Soul, with thy desires to Heaven" 
 
 llgnoto] 71 
 
 VI. Sir Walter Raleigh the Night before his Death ... 73 
 
 VII. The World [Fra. Lord Bacoiil 76 
 
 VIII. De Morte [Ignoto'] .• 81 
 
 IX. Epigram 83 
 
 x. John Hoskins to his little Child Benjamin from the 
 
 Tower v 84 
 
 Part III. Poems from various sources chiefly by Sir 
 Walter Raleigh. 
 
 I. The Lie [By Sir Walter Raleigh] 89 
 
 II. Sir Walter Raleigh's Pilgrimage 104 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 vu 
 
 Page 
 
 in. A Farewell to the Vanities of the World 109 
 
 IV. " Water thy plants with Grace divine" [Ascribed to 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh] H^ 
 
 V. A A^ision vpon this Conceipt of the Faery Queene. 
 
 [By Sir Walter Raleigh] .115 
 
 VI. A Poesie to prove Afifection is not Love [By Sir 
 
 Walter Raleigh] • • H'' 
 
 VII. " As you came from the holy land" [Ascribed to Sir 
 
 Walter Raleigh] 120 
 
 VIII. " If all tlie World and Love were young" [Ascribed 
 
 to Sir Walter Raleigh] • l'-^5 
 
 IX. " Passions are likened best to flouds and streames" 
 
 [By Sir Walter Raleigh] IjO 
 
 Additions and Corrections 1^5 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 HE First and Second Parts of this Volume are 
 reprinted from the fourth edition of Reliquiae 
 Wottonianae, a collection of Sir Henry Wotton's 
 smaller pieces, which was published by Izaak 
 Walton some years after their author's death : * — the one 
 contains such poems as were known to be Wotton's own 
 compositions; — the other, some miscellaneous poems by 
 various writers which were found among his papers. As 
 several pieces contained in the Second Part have been as- 
 cribed to Sir Weaker Raleigh without sufficient reason, it 
 
 • The first edition of Rel. Wotton. was published, with Walton's Life of 
 Wotton prefixed, in 1G51, and was dedicated to Mary, Baroness Wotton 
 (widow of Wotton's nephew, Thomas, second Lord Wotton of Marley), 
 and her three daughters, Ladies Stanhope, Tulton, and Hales. — The second 
 edition appeared in 1654, with the same Dedication. — The third, in 
 which many additions and improvements were introduced, was published 
 in 1672, and dedicated to Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, son of the Lady 
 Stanhope named above. — In the fourth, which was published in 1685, 
 the edition of 1672 was reprinted, page by page, without any material 
 alteration ; and a Collection of Wotton's early Letters to Lord Zonch 
 (1591-3) was added at the end. — The ed. of 1685 is always used in this 
 volume, except where any other is specified. 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 seemed proper to annex, as a Third Part, a few of the other 
 poems to which Raleigh's name has been appended, mostly 
 on much better grounds, with as complete a statement of 
 the evidence in each case as I could supply. It formed no 
 portion of my plan to collect the whole of Raleigh's Poems ; 
 hxxi an examination of the remainder will be found in a later 
 part of this Introduction. 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 IN reprinting the Poems contained in Rel. Wotton., I 
 have followed the order of the original editions, except 
 that the last piece in Parti, is taken from among the Letters. 
 Mr. Dyce, who has lately edited Wotton's own Poems for 
 the Percy Society, in a separate form, has adopted an ar- 
 rangement which comes much nearer to the order in which 
 they would be composed; but we have not sufficient infor- 
 mation to determine the exact date of every poem.* 
 
 None of Wotton's extant poems have been traced to an 
 earlier date than 1602 : but when very young, he wrote a 
 tragedy called Tancredo, which is now lost, for the " private 
 
 * The following is a summary of the chronological facts already known, 
 — No. i was printed in 1602, and was perhaps written some years earlier. 
 N°. ii may also be regarded as a youthful composition. N". xiii could not 
 be written till after 1604, and may have been composed at a much later 
 date. No. viii is said to have been printed in 1614, and can be traced 
 soon afterwards. If No. iv was really addressed to Buckingham, it falls 
 later than August, 1616, when he was raised to the Peerage. It would be 
 lading too much stress on the MS. title to fix it after he was made a Duke 
 in 1623. No. vii was written either in 1615 or 1621, probably the former; 
 No. iii about 1620 ; No. xi in 1625 ; and N". xii in 1627. If N°. x was 
 ■written in pursuance of the design mentioned in the Introduction to it, we 
 must place it in or after 1627. No. v was written in 1630 ; N". vi in 1633 ; 
 No. ix after Wotton was seventy years old, as Walton tells us, — therefore 
 in 1638 or 1639; and No. xiv in one of the same years, probably in 1638. 
 — Mr. Dyce arranges them thus: — i. ii. iv. viii. xiii. vii. iii. xL xii. v. vi. 
 ix. X. xiv. 
 
INTRODUCTION. *! 
 
 use" of the members of Queen's College, Oxford.* He 
 also speaks himself in one place of the pain it gave him to 
 "re-visit the Fancies of [his] Youth," which his "judgement*' 
 told him were " all too green ;" and in another, of his 
 " Lines" having " serv'd [his] Youth to vent some wanton 
 crres."f If these expressions refer to any "Amatory" 
 songs, they may be still concealed among the many scat- 
 tered poems of the Elizabethan age to which no author's 
 name can be attached with certainty. No such inference, 
 however, can be drawn from the following Epigram, which 
 was addressed to him in or before 1598 : — 
 
 " EPIGR. 4. AD HENRICUM AVOTTONUM. 
 
 " Wotton, the country and the country swayne, — 
 
 How can they yeelde a Poet any sense 1 
 
 How can they stirre him vp, or heat his vaine? 
 
 How can they feede him with intelligence? 
 
 You haue that fire which can a witt enflame. 
 
 In happy London, Engiands fayrest eye: 
 
 Weil may you Poets haue of worthy name, 
 
 Which haiie the foode and life of poetry. 
 
 And yet the country or[e] the towne may swaye, 
 Or beare a part, as clownes doe in a play." 
 
 (Bastard's Chrestoleros, 1598, Lib. ii. p. 29.) 
 
 Zouch thought that Wotton was here addressed " as a poet ;" 
 
 * See Walton's Lives, p. 125, ed. 1796. (That edition is always used in 
 the following references.) The remarks in the Introd. to N". i should not 
 have been confined to Bastard's Epigram ; for though I was not referring 
 to the Tragedy, Wotton's own expressions ought to have been mentioned. — 
 Mr. Gilchrist had a volume entitled " A Courtlie controversie of Cupid's 
 Cautels," «&c. " translated out of French by Henry Wotton," 1578 (Cens. 
 Lit. X. 318, ed. 1815); but the future Sir Henry was then only ten years 
 old. There were others who bore the same name at an earlier period. 
 (See Wood's A. O. i. 227, and Fasti, i. 149, 161, 180.)— Sir Henry's half- 
 brother, John, (who was born April 11 : 1550: and wasknighted by Queen 
 Elizabeth, and whose " death in his younger years," says Walton," put a 
 period to his growing hopes,") is supposed by Brydges to have been the 
 author of two poems in England's Helicon (pp. 49, 65, repr.), which bear 
 the signature of " John [and I.] Wootton." 
 
 t See this vol. pp. 23, 41. — Wotton seems to speak of another unknowa 
 poena, written at a much later date, in Rel. Wotton. pp. 444, 566. 
 
:^11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 — Warton puts it, more correctly, "as a scholar and a pa- 
 tron."* Bastard says nothing of his being a Poet, but that 
 those who lived in London might expect to " haue Poets of 
 worthy name," because they had " the foode and life of 
 poetry." 
 
 The First Part does not contain all the extant poems 
 which were composed by Wotton; but the others which 
 have been ascribed to him bear traces of maturer age, — with 
 the exception, perhaps, of his share in " a Dialogue between 
 Sir Henry Wootto7i and Mr. Donrie," which was printed 
 among Donne's Poems.f Wotton may have written some 
 of the pieces in Part II. of which Walton only knew that 
 they were found among his papers ; — in one case especially, 
 the " Description of the Country's Recreations," this seems 
 very probable; — and it is also possible that he was the 
 author of one poem in Part III., the '* Farewell to the Van- 
 ities of the World," though it was never included among 
 his Remains.! The following lines, which were prefixed to 
 Howell's Dodona's Grove, must be ranked among his latest 
 compositions, as the book (which would be submitted to him 
 in MS.) was not published till the year after his death : — 
 
 " TO THE RARELY ACCOMPLISh'd, AXD WORTHY 
 
 OF BEST EMPLOYMENT, MASTER HOWEL, 
 
 UPON HIS VOCALL FORREST. 
 
 " Beleeve it. Sir, you happily have hit 
 Vpon a curious Fancie, of such wit, 
 That farre transcends the vulgar; for each Line 
 Me thinks breathes Barclay, or a Boccoline. 
 
 ♦ Zouch's Walton, p. 191. Warton's Milton's Minor Poems, p. 119, ed. 
 1791. — Bastard inscribed another Epigram to Henry Wotton, Lib. i%'. Ep. 
 39, p. 102. He had been his contemporary at Ox-ford. See Wood's A. O. 
 ii. 227.— The name of " S^ Henry AVotton" was inserted in the first sketch 
 of Bolton's Hypercritica, among those of " the best Authors for written En- 
 glish." He is there certainly among the Poets, by the side of " Beuiamin 
 Johnson." See Anc. Crit. Essays, ii. 247, note. 
 
 t See this vol. p. 10. Donne addressed three Poetical Epistles to Wotton 
 (pp. 61, 76, 104, ed. 1633. The last is also in Walton's Lite of Wotton, p. 
 144), besides some letters in prose. 
 
 j See the extracts from the Complete Angler in this vol. pp. 55, 110. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIH 
 
 I know you might (none better) make the Vine, 
 
 The Olive, Ivie, Mulberry, and Pine, 
 
 With others, ihuir owne Dialects expose; 
 
 Bat yoii iiave taught them all rich English Prose. 
 I end and envie ; but must justly say, 
 Who makes Trees speak so well, deserves the Bay. 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 Some Poems in Part I. have been claimed for other writers 
 (N*^. i. vi. vii. xiii) ; but Wotton has gained as well as lost by 
 the general confusion of property in these smaller composi- 
 tions. It is not necessary to give a list of all the poems 
 which have been erroneously attributed to him ; but two in- 
 stances may be mentioned, because they are brought forward 
 by better authorities than usual. — Archbishop Sancroft as- 
 signs to him one of the most popular pieces printed among the 
 Poems of Carew ; it has also been given to Lord Pembroke ; 
 but Carew's title will probably be thought most valid, not by 
 any means from the authority of the Collection which bears 
 his name, but from the nature of the verses.* — Mr. Collier 
 has printed, from Ben Jonson's handwriting, a translation 
 of Martial's Vitam qua faciunt bcatiorem, which he thought 
 might be Wotton's, because the same paper contained one 
 of Wotton's pieces which Jonson had transcribed (see p. 29) ; 
 but there can be no doubt that it is Jonson's own, as he told 
 Drummond that he had translated that very Epigram.f 
 
 • In Carew it begins," Aske me no more where Jove bestowes" — p. 129, 
 repr. of 1824. The other copies are in Pembroke's Poems, 1660, p. 92, 
 aud MS.Tann. 465, fol. 60. A fourth is in Wit Restored, 1G58, p. 114. It 
 is curious that no two of these a^ree throu'^hout in the arrangement of the 
 stanzas; but all the others begin with what is the second stanza iu Carew^ 
 — "Aske me no more whither do stray" — . 
 
 f Collier's Life of AUeyn, p. 54. Conversations of Jonson and Drummond, 
 p. 2, Shakesp. Soc. ed. ef. p. 7. — The Epigram (Lib. x. Ep. 4?) was very 
 frequeuily translated, as by Surrey (p. 43, ed. Nutt"), Randolph (p. 61, ed. 
 1668), &c. From one of Howell's Letters, it seems tliat he and Sir Thomas 
 Lake had written rival translations for a wager, and that Sir Kenelm Digby 
 adjudged Lake's to be the better. (Ep. Ho-El. 5 5, p. 31, ed. 1645.) There 
 is another translation in MS. Mai. 14, p. 34. Jonson wa^^ have transcribed 
 a friend's translation, in addition to translating it himself; but the internal 
 evidence, as Mr. Collier remarks, is decidedly iu hit favour. 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A brief account of Wotton's prose writings may be ex- 
 pected here. Most of them were posthumous ; for tiiough 
 he sometimes amused himself with looking after printers,* 
 he seldom committed anything to the press. There were, 
 however, at least three things which were printed during his 
 life-time : — 
 
 (1.) In 1612, he printed a Latin letter to Mark Welser, 
 one of the Chief Magistrates of Augsburg, and dispersed it 
 in most parts of Italy and Germany. This Epistle, in which 
 much excellent vituperation is wasted on a very unworthy 
 object, was occasioned by the results of an indiscretion com- 
 mitted in 1604, when he was on his way to Venice. In the 
 plenitude of his satisfaction at having been recalled from exile 
 to be honoured with knighthoodj-f and entrusted with an im- 
 portant office, Wotton grew facetious about his new dignity, 
 and propounded his famous definition of an Ambassador, — 
 *' an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his 
 Country." The pun might pass in English; for"/o lle^* 
 was the term then used for the residence of an Ambassador. 
 But when he issued it in Latin, for the benefit of the learned 
 abroad, the equivocation vanished ; and Scioppius, who was 
 seeking accusations to bring against the Protestants, pounced 
 upon the plain "ad mentiendum" as the English diplomatic 
 creed.;): More mischief than Wotton had ever dreamt of 
 
 • See Rel. Wotton. pp. 321, 336, 340, 468. 
 
 + Here we meet with a difficnlty in passing. Wotton's name does not 
 occur in the printed list of James's crowd of Knights; and the Records of 
 the Herald's College will not supply the deficiency. Some have conjectured 
 that he was knighted in Scotland, which is flatly at variance with Walton's 
 narrative (p. 142). But it is known that some knighthoods were never re- 
 corded, because the new knights would not pay their fees. 
 
 % Walton, pp. 150-2. Wotton wrote another letter on the subject to King 
 James; and Wood speaks as if two were printed. A. O. ii. 644-5. — Con- 
 temporary allusions occur in Ruggle's Ignoramus, p. 32, ed. Hawkins ; 
 Massinger, ii. 126, ed. 1813; and a second pun on the definition (as if one 
 were not enough) in a Sermon preached by Dr. J. King the younger before 
 the University of Oxford in 1625, p. 6. — Notwithstanding the advice of his 
 early friend Alberto Scipioni (Rel. WoUon. pp. 344, 356, of. pp. 699, 711), 
 
INTRODUCTION. XT 
 
 rose out of this very simple jest; but its effects on his pros- 
 pects have been sometimes overstated.* 
 
 (2.) In 1624, he published a small tract entitled "The 
 Elements of Architecture," which has been frequently re- 
 printed. One copy was presented to the Earl of Middlesex, 
 with the following letter : — f 
 
 " To THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EaRLE OF MIDDLESEX, 
 
 Lord High Thresorer of England. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I humbly present vnto youre Lord? this Pamphlet ; 
 printed sheete by sheete as fast as It was borne, and borne 
 
 Wotton had to learn caution from experience ; for there were three other 
 matters in his first Venetian Embassy for which he has been blamed : first, 
 for "injurious speeches" against the King of France in 1G04 (Camd. Ann. 
 Jac. I. pp. 3,84); secondly, and most unjustly, for delaying to present 
 King James's Book to the Venetian Senate (see the extracts in Bio. Brit.vL 
 4343.); thirdly, for being (as some thought) too zealous for his Master's 
 honour (Winwood, iii. 77; cf. Sketches from Ven. Hist. ii. 319-20).— 
 Chamberlain's occasional attacks upon him (e. g. Winw. iii. 461,469) must 
 have sprung from prejudice. 
 
 • It has been said, that he was kept five years without employment in 
 consequence. Let us see how far this is true. — In 1612, he was Ambassador 
 to Savoy. We have contemporary accounts of his setting out in March 
 and returning in the end of July (Winwood, iii. 353, 367, 384; Nichols's 
 Progresses of James I. ii. 438, 460 ; cf. Letters of F. Paul, 1693, pp. 322-5) ; 
 and among the Ashm. MSS.(1729, Lett. 114-6) are two autograph lettersfrom 
 Wotton to Lord Pembroke written during his absence, one dated from the 
 foot of M. Cenis, May 9: 1612 : (with a journal) the other dated from Tu- 
 rin, May 28: 1612:— The accusation of Scioppius does not appear to have 
 been known till after his return (Winw. iii. 407; Nichols, ib. 468) ; and his 
 letter to Welser is dated Dec. 1612. Within a year after that period (viz. 
 Nov. 16: evidently in 1613), he told Sir Edmund Bacon that the King had 
 expressed a " general purpose" to put him " again into some use." (Rel. 
 Wotton. p. 429.) The result of this I do not know ; but he was again sent 
 abroad before November, 1614, for Mr. Collier has recently printed a letter 
 from him to Spinola which is dated in that month, and endorsed as from 
 the" Embassador to the Estates Netherland." (Egerton Papers,p.466. See 
 also Rel. Wotton. p. 280.) In the following year, he was re-appointed to 
 Venice. — He had been a Member of Parliament in 1614. See this vol. 
 p. 85, note. 
 
 t The original is in Mr. Pickering's possession; but the signature ha? 
 been cut away by the binder. Another copy was given " To Mr Doctor 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 as soone as It was conceived : So as It must needes haue the 
 imperfections and deformities of an immature birth, besides 
 the weakenesse of the Parent. And therefore I could not 
 alio we it so much fauour even from my self as to think e it 
 worthie of dedication to any. Yet my long deuotion to- 
 wardes y"" Lord? and youre ovvne noble love of this Ait 
 which I handle doe warrant me to intertayne you with a 
 copie thereof. And so I rest 
 
 Your LordP* ever 
 
 deuoted Servant." 
 
 Some years afterwards, he presented another copy to Juxon, 
 when he held the same office, with a letter which is printed 
 among his Remains.* 
 
 (3.) His "Plausus et Vota," addressed to King Charles 
 when returning from Scotland after his Coronation in 1633, 
 were printed in that year.-f- 
 
 Goslin, the most worthie Master of Caies CoIIedge. Authoris et Operis Do- 
 Dum." (On that person, see Fuller's Worthies of Norwich, p. 275. Wood's 
 Fasti, i. 350. Warton's Milton, p. 493, ed. 1791.) See too Rel. Wotton. 
 p. 357. 
 
 * Rel. Wotton. p. 338. Wotton's circumstances made the Lord Treasurer 
 a very important officer to him ; and Jiixon seems to have treated him 
 with great kindness. It was very different with his predecessor, Weston, 
 Earl of Portland, as we might have guessed even from one of Wotton's 
 respectful letters to bim (p. 561). In another place, Wotton speaks out, 
 more boldly than he was wont to do, of the way in which Weston had 
 made a scorn of his poverty and a sport of his modesty (p. 468). Con- 
 sidering the obvious design of the letter in which he gave Weston a sketch 
 of his own character (p. 333), the intimations of his faults which it contains 
 are both honestly and skilfully brought in. 
 
 t See this vol. p. 22. The original edition is on folio paper, wiih only 17 
 widely printed lines on a page. Sign, to N 2, with two leaves prefixed, 
 as *! 1 and 2. It was reprinted in 1681 in a Tract entitled " Monarchia 
 Britannica, sub auspiciis Elizabethje Felicis, Jacobi Pacific!, Caroli I. Piin- 
 tissimi,"&c. (That publication included three small pamphlets, the first by 
 Master, the second by Savile, and the third by Wotton.) In addition to 
 the Translation in Rel. Wotton. Zouch (p. 51 1) mentions another " which is 
 very scarce, printed in a very small twenty-fours, on a large type, contain- 
 ing 118 pages, besides the Dedication and Preface." 
 
INTRODUCTION. XVII 
 
 The two following tracts were first published in 1641 and 
 1642 :— (4.) " Of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and 
 Geors:e Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Some Observations 
 by way of Parallel in the time of their estates of Favour ;"* 
 and (5.) "A View of the Life and Death of George Villiers, 
 Duke of Buckingham." These notices of Wotton's two chief 
 Patrons t are his most valuable contribution to the History 
 of his own Times ; and they have attracted more general 
 attention than any others of his writings. Both have been 
 reprinted, the former at the Lee Priory Press in 1814, and 
 the latter in the Harleian Miscellany. Much of the matter 
 (as we might have expected) is common to both ; and they 
 should be compared with the character of Buckingham which 
 Wotton sent to the Queen of Bohemia in 1626 (Rel. Wot- 
 ton. pp. 551-6). 
 
 These five pieces were all inserted in Rel. Wotton. If 
 we add to them, (6.) "The State of Christendom," a folio 
 volume, which, though composed before the death of Eliza- 
 beth, was not printed till 1657, we shall have completed the 
 list of Wotton's finished Works; of those, at least, which 
 we possess; for we know nothing more than Walton has 
 told us (p. 126) of three lectures cle oculo which he deli- 
 vered at Oxford in his twentieth year. 
 
 A perfect catalogue of those which he only designed, or 
 
 • " The DiflFerence and Disparity" between them, which follows this by 
 way of answer in Rel. Wotton. is said in eds. 1672 85 to have been " written 
 by the Earl of Clarendon in his yoiincer dayes." (p. 184.) In the first ed. 
 of Rel. Wotton. it was ascribed to Wotton himself, (and " dedicated to the 
 Earl of Portland") as if W^otton had chosen to display his skill by writing 
 on both sides of the question. In the second ed. there is no name at all. 
 
 + Among Mr. B. H. Bright's MS.S. (N". 276) was a Journal supposed to 
 have been written by Wotton, when in attendance on Lord Essex, from 
 Aug. 14: to Dec. 17 : 1591 : This document must be very curious, as Wal- 
 ton evidently knew noihing of his being in the service of Lord Essex till 
 some years after that date; and it (ills up a cliasm in tlie series of Letters 
 to Lord Zouch (Rel. Wotton. p. 650) which is interrupted from Apr. 21; 
 1591: to May 8: 1592. 
 
XVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which he forsook as soon as he had made a commencement, 
 would be of much greater length ; for he too often wasted 
 his energies in making good beginnings. This may have 
 been what Warton meant, when he called him " a polite 
 scholar, but on the whole a mixed and desultory character," 
 — an account with which Sir Egerton Brydges, perhaps 
 through a feeling of sympathy, was far from satisfied. It is 
 plain that the defect was acknowledged and regretted by his 
 friends; as when Sir Richard Baker, whose "Ancient 
 Friendship" with him (" which was first, and is ever best, 
 elemented in an Academy") is recorded by them both, com- 
 plained that he had " done himself much wrong, and the 
 kingdom more, in leaving no more of his Writings behind 
 him."* 
 
 Many traces of his abandoned plans may still be found. 
 The literary schemes which he mentions in his Letters to 
 Lord Zouch f should scarcely be ranked among them ; for 
 the materials which he was then collecting were probably 
 used in his book on the state of Christendom. But as early 
 as 1606, Camden warned him, that he would rouse up many 
 enemies if he carried out some plans which he had then com- 
 municated, of entering on the stormy warfare of Romanist 
 disputation. |: He was probably quite willing to comply 
 with Camden's advice. — In 1613, Thuanus complained, that 
 Wotton had detained a MS. History, by Father Paul, of the 
 great dispute between Rome and Venice, which Wotton 
 had witnessed and partly shared, on the plea that he meant 
 to undertake the subject himself.§ — Several unfinished pa- 
 
 * Chronicle, p. 424, ed. 1733. It was also quoted by Izaak Walton in 
 the Preface to Rel. Wotton. — Wotton's letter to Baker, which is quoted 
 above, is in Rel. Wotton. p. 351. 
 
 t See Rel. Wotton. pp. 592, 605, 606. 
 
 i Camdeni Epistolae, 1691, p. 70. (Letter from Camden to Wotton, dated 
 Feb. 10: 1606.) Wotton certainly considered that his experience had quali- 
 fied him for such subjects. See Rel. Wotton. pp. 323, 328, 634-5. 
 
 § Camdeni Epistolae, p. 139. (Letter from Thuanus to Camden, dated 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 pers on various points in Venetian History are found among 
 his Remains * — He had also collected many materials for a 
 Life of Luther, with a general History of the Reformation 
 in Germany ; but it was laid aside, after he became Provost 
 of Eton College, at the request of King Charles, who wished 
 him to direct his attention to the Ancient History of En- 
 gland. To further this design, a pension of 200/. a year, 
 which had been settled on him by the King, was augmented 
 to 500/., that he might be able to provide " the amanuenses 
 and clerks necessary to be employed in that work."f 
 " Little, however, appears to have been written," says Mr. 
 Lodge, " and probably less was paid." The one fact is cer- 
 tain, whatever may be thought of the other. In " A Con- 
 ceipt of some Observations" on remarkable passages in 
 English History, which were to extend from the Norman 
 Conquest to the time of Charles I., he advanced no farther 
 than the reign of the Conqueror ; and of a Latin account of 
 Henry VI., we have only three broken pages. | — At the close 
 
 Easter, 1613.) — That Wotton was engaged on that subject, we know from 
 other sources (see Winw. iii. 43'2); but the MS. to which Thnanus alludes 
 was entrusted to Bedel, not Wotton. See Letters ot'F. Paul, pp. 339, 393. 
 
 • His accounts of "The Election of the New Duke of Venice, after the 
 Death of Giovanni Bembo" (March 16: 1618:) and of "The Election of 
 the following Duke after the death of Niccolo Donato'' (May 8: 1618:) 
 are prefaced by a dedicatory letter dated May 25: 1618: (Rel. Wotton. 
 pp. 253-264.) Part of a Latin Introduction to a more general History of 
 Venice was sent to the King with a letter dated Dec. 9: 1622: (Rel. W'ot- 
 ton. pp. 247-250. A difficulty occurs in that brief Preface, of which the 
 greater part is evidently lost. He dates it " Anno unici Mediatoris supra 
 Millesin)um sexcentesimum vicesimo secundo, ^tatis meae quinquagesimo 
 tertio jam labente." Now if Wotton was born, as Wood states. Mar. 30: 
 1568: his 53rd year would close Mar. 30 : 1621 : i. e. nearly twelve months 
 before 1622 would then begin, Mar. 25: 1622: and more than 20 months 
 before the date of his letter to the King. Yet Wood's date for his birth is 
 confirmed by the account of his a?e when he died, and in particular by 
 some Pedigrees in the Herald's College, which Mr. Courlhope has kindly 
 examined for me.) There is also an unfinished " Letter concerning the 
 Original of Venice," Rel. W^otton. pp. 2.')0 2. 
 
 t See Zouch'8 Walton, pp. 176,510. Cf. Rel. Wotton. p. 562. 
 
 X Rel. Wotton. pp. 100-110. A copy of the former is printed (from a 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of his Treatise on Architecture, he announced that he in- 
 tended to publish another work, which he had "long de- 
 voted to the service of [his] Countrey," namely, " A Philo- 
 sophical Survey of Education, which is indeed a second 
 Building or repairing of Nature, and, as I may term it, a 
 kind of Moral Architecture.'' This design he kept in view 
 at Eton, where " he was pleased constantly to breed up one 
 or more hopeful youths, which he picked out of the school, 
 and took into his own domestic care, and to attend him at 
 his meals : out of whose discourse and behaviour he gathered 
 observations for the better completing of his intended work 
 of education : of which, by his still striving to make the 
 whole better, he lived to leave but part to posterity."* 
 
 Some still smaller fragments may be enumerated in a 
 note ; f but even those will probably leave our list imperfect. 
 Wood mentions two of Wotton's unpublished MSS. which 
 he had seen ; J and he had heard of several others. Some 
 perished altogether; for Walton tells us (p. 187), that in 
 
 Tann. MS.) in Gutch's Collect. Cur. i. 215-222, with a Preface which is 
 not in Rel. Wotton. 
 
 * Walton, p. 165. Rel. Wotton. p. 71. The commencement of this pro- 
 jected Treatise is in Rel. Wotton., together with" The Aphorisms of Edu- 
 cation," pp. 73-99. 
 
 + His" Character of Ferdinando di Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany," 
 was dedicated to the King (Rel. Wotton. pp. 243 6). It confirms Walton's 
 account of Wotton's introduction to King James. — A few remarks on " the 
 Great Action between Pompey and Ca?sar" were to be dedicated to Sir 
 Edmund Bacon (ib. pp. 239-242). This may be the commencement of the 
 work which he mentioned in a letter to Sir Edmund written in 1637 (ib. 
 p. 468). — There are aho two Religious Meditations, one on Gen. xxii., 
 and the other on Christmas-Day (ib. pp. 265-272). 
 
 i The first was, a " Journal of his Embassies to Venice. MS. fairly 
 written in the library of Edw. Eurd Conway." The second, "Three Pro- 
 posi'ions to the Count d' Angosciola in Matter of Duel," &c. This had been 
 in Sheldi^n's Library, and is " now," says Wood, " among the books in the 
 Coll. of Arms." (A. O. ii. 646.) 1 am told that it cannot be found in the 
 Herald's College. It seems that some of Sheldon's MSS. wiiich were in- 
 tended for that Library never reached it; and probably Wood only knew 
 that this MS. had been Sheldon's, and staled its subsequent destination as 
 a matter of couree. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 his last illness, he burnt " many papers that had passed his 
 pen, both in the days of his youth, and in the busy part of 
 his life ;" and it must not be forgotten, that both in his Life 
 of Donne, and in his Complete Angler, Walton professed to 
 be merely doing what Wotton meant to have done, '* had not 
 death prevented him." To the specimens of his Table-talk 
 which Walton has preserved, many might be added from 
 other sources.* 
 
 His Letters and Journals, of which many were printed in 
 Rel. Wotton., are often of considerable value, even to the 
 general Historian. From these documents, the best illus- 
 trations of Walton's beautiful biography have been drawn ; 
 and his future commentators might furnish some important 
 additions from papers which have never been collected.f 
 
 • For example : — " Sir Henrie Wotton vsed to say ; That Critlicks are 
 like Bnishers of Noble-mens cloatlis." Bacon's Apoth. ]So. 64, p. S3, ed.' 
 1625. (A letter from Lord Hacon to Wotton, wiih the reply, is in Rel. 
 Wotton. pp. 297-302. Wotton is said to have written the famous inscrip-. 
 tion on Bacon's monument, " Franciscus Bacon.... Sic sedebat," &c.) 
 Park, in liis MS. notes to Rel. Wotton. quotes another saying from Frag- 
 menta Aulica, 1662, p. 127. — A story which Wotton related to King James, 
 in illustration of the sagacity of the fox," perhaps deiived," as Mr. Thorns 
 says, "from dear old Izaak Walton," was no doubt to!d with all po.ssible 
 gravity. (Anecd. and Trad. p. 25.) It was quite as characteristic of Wotton 
 to repeat it as of James to believe it. 
 
 f Some of these have been already mentioned ; viz. the Journal of 1591, 
 two letters to Lord Pembroke in 1612, a letter to Spinola in 1614, and a 
 letter to Lord Middlesex in 1624. Many others are mentioned in the cata- 
 logues of Public Libraries, especially that of the Harl. MSS. ; but these I 
 need not specify, as they will be readily found by those who want them. — 
 Mr. Pickering has an unpublished letter of Wotton's dated June 5: 1604: 
 — One which is printed in Winwood, ii. 24, dated Dover, July 19: 1604: 
 marks the period of his leaving England. — Some of his letters written to 
 Prince Henry, during his first Venetian embassy, were quoted from Harl. 
 MS. 7007, by Birch, in his Life of Prince Henry (pp. 99, 106, 114, 171). 
 One of them has been lately printed at length by Sir Henry Ellis (Orig. 
 Letters, I Ser. iii. 98; Birch, p. 114). In another occurs the expression 
 "a poor counterfeit Italian," which is quoted by Zouch (p. 141; Birch, 
 p. 107). — 1 have been kindly informed that there is a letter of Wotton's 
 among Mr. Dawson Turner's MSS. dated Venice, Mar. 9: 1607: and signed 
 Ottavio Baldi. — Collins printed two letters wrilteu at Venice in 1617, in 
 
XXll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Notwithstanding the affectionate sedulity with which Walton 
 recorded the chief occurrences of his life, and the labour 
 which has been expended on it by various modern writers, 
 there are several points in his character which mightbe placed 
 in a still clearer light by a more extensive examination of 
 contemporary letters and publications; but as this volume 
 is designed to trace the history of poems rather than of men, 
 it would be impossible to enter on the subject here. Any 
 elaborate details of dates and pedigrees would be still less 
 appropriate ; and I must therefore content myself by ap- 
 pending a note on his connection with Sir Albertus Morton, 
 to redeem a promise which I have made elsewhere.* 
 
 his Histor. Collect, on Noble Fam. pp. 266-7, whence they were copied by 
 Brydges (Peers of James I.) and from Brydges by Miss Aikin. — The letters 
 iu Cabala (pp. 364-7, ed. 1691,) are all in Rel. Wotton. — There are two 
 letters from Wotton to Wentworth among the Strafford Papers (i. 45,48); 
 as well as two from Wentworth to Wotton (i, 5, 6). The rough sketch of 
 one of Wotton's is printed among his Remains, p. 373, 
 
 * See this vol. p. 40. — Thomas Wotton, the father of Sir Henry, was 
 twice married; by his first wife, Elizabeth Rudstone, he had six sons and 
 three daughters, some of whom died young. By his second, Eleanor, daugh- 
 ter of Sir W. Finch, and widow of Robert Morion, esq., he had only two 
 sons, William, who was born Apr. 14: 1566: and died in the July of the same 
 year; and Henry, who was born March 30: 156S: — George Morton, esq., 
 the father of Sir Albertus, was ihe son of Sir Henry's mother by her for- 
 mer husband. (Pedigrees of Wotton and Motion, communicated by W. 
 Courtiiope, esq., Rouge-Croix, to whom I am indebted for this and many 
 other favours.) Sir Albertus is mentioned in one of Wotton's Venetian 
 Letters cited by Birch (Life of Pr. Henry, p. 171); and I think in one of 
 those to Lord Pembroke, preserved among the Ashm. MSS. ; though only 
 the first and last letters of his name can be now decyphered. His appoint- 
 ment to a clerkship of the Council seems to have taken place in 1613 (Rel. 
 Wotton. pp. 42] -5; Winwood, iii. 469); and his future advancement may 
 probably be ascribed to the influence of Buckingham, whose " singular Love" 
 for him is recorded by his uncle, as " concurring with" the Queen of Bo- 
 hemia's "inestimable affection." (ib. p. 552.) His name is mentioned 
 in the list of candidates for the vacant Provoslship of Eton, at the time when 
 it was given to Sir Henry (Zouch,p. 160). Wood thought that he left "a 
 son of both his names, who was elected scholar of King's Coll. [Cambridge] 
 in 1638; but left that house soon after, and became a lieut. col. in the wars 
 in Ireland." But this person must have been the " second son to Sir Eo- 
 bert Morton, Knight, late deceased" (brother to Sir Albertus), who was one 
 of Wotton's executors. That Sir Albertus died without issue, is proved 
 
[NTRODUCTION. 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 
 
 |lGHTEEN of the poems contained in this vo- 
 lume have been ascribed to Raleigh :* but I 
 have not discovered any direct evidence which 
 extends to more than eleven ; and even that 
 number contains some much disputed pieces.f Of the other 
 seven, two have apparently been assigned to Raleigh by 
 mere mistake ; and his claim to five, though there is nothing 
 to give it a positive contradiction, has not hitherto been sa- 
 tisfactorily established.]: But several other pieces to which 
 his name is generally annexed have been incidentally quoted 
 or referred to ; and as the whole number of his reputed 
 poems is but small, I will give such a list of them as my 
 present materials enable me to furnish. 
 
 by the disposal of his property after the death of his widow in 1627. 
 (See also Carlwrighl's Rape of Braniber, p.243. Hasted's Kent, iii. 136.) 
 Wotton's "Nephew Colonel Morton," or, as he elsewhere calls him, "my 
 Sir Thomas Morton," was another of Sir Albertus Morton's brothers (Rel. 
 Wotton. pp. 479, 578). 
 
 • Namely, one in Part I. ; six in Part II. ; all the nine poems in Part 
 III.; and two short pieces printed on pp. 74, SI. 
 
 + They are. No. vi. in Part II.; all Part III. except No. iii.; and the two 
 short pieces just mentioned, one of which (p. 81) rests only on the testi- 
 mony of a single MS. — Of these, The Lie ( III. i.) and the piece beginning 
 " Passions are likened best," &c. (III. ix.) have been most disputed ; but 
 I believe that Raleigh wrote them both; tlie Reply to Marlow (III. viii.) 
 is not a very certain case, but the general opinion is in Raleigh's favour; 
 the four lines containing a pun on his name (III. iv.) read more like an 
 attack upon him; and the Ballad on a Pilgrimage to Walsingham (III. 
 vii.) must be regarded as exceedingly doubtful. — Seven of the eleven 
 were in tiie Lee Priory ed.; two were among the Addit. Poems in the 
 Oxford ed.; one is taken from Davison; and one from MS. 
 
 i The two are, Wotton's Hymn at Venice (I. xiii.),and Tychbourne's 
 Verses (II. iv.) The five are, those pieces in Part II. which are signed 
 Jgiwto (i. ii. V. viii.), and the Farewell to the Vanities of the World (III. 
 iii.). The four signed Igtwio in Part II. are in the Lee Priory ed. of Ra- 
 leigh. The other three are not claimed by bis modern editors. 
 
XXIV ~ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In the Life of Raleigh which Oldys prefixed to his edition 
 of the History of the World (1736), about seventeen poems 
 ■were mentioned;* but his references were sadly wasted on 
 his successors. In Birch's edition of Raleigh's Minor Works 
 (1751), only nine poems were ascribed to him; — Cayley 
 (1805), though he made some additions, merely repeated the 
 titles of other poems from Oldys ; — and when Sir Egerton 
 Brydges published a thin quarto volume at the Lee Priory 
 Press, in 1813, as "The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh now. 
 first collected," he did not even try to exhaust the materials 
 which had been previously brought together, while he filled 
 up his book by reprinting all the poems in England's Heli- 
 con and Reliquiae Wottonianae which bore the signature Ig- 
 noto. The following is the Table of Contents prefixed to 
 the Lee Priory edition; — f 
 
 I. A Description of the Country's Recreations. — Ignoto. 
 — Keliquia Wottoniana. 
 
 II. Dispraise of Love and Lovers' Follies. — Ignoio. — 
 England's Helicon. 
 
 * Eight of the nine in Birch had been named by Oldys (the other being 
 The Lie, or, as Birch called it, the Farewell). So had one which Brydges 
 took from Cayley. Oldys had also mentioned seven of the Addit. Poems 
 given in the Oxford ed., two of which were also in Cayley, but not in 
 Brydges. A lost Poem (Cynthia, known from Spenser) makes up the 
 number. — But as he referred with an "&c." to an Ashni. MS. from which 
 another of the Oxford additions was taken, he may be said to have pointed 
 out eighteen in all. 
 
 t I have added the numbers, for convenience in reference; and have 
 marked by an asterisk the nine poems which were printed by Birch. (Of 
 the two pieces omitted in the numeration, one, which Birch also gave, is 
 professedly by Marlow; it was introduced, because the Answer is ascribed 
 to Raleigh; the other is only a second copy of that which precedes it.) — 
 The authorities appended to each title (as well as the titles themselves) are 
 exactly copied from the original Table; and they are preserved here, be- 
 cause they are the only testimonies which Brydges thought fit to supply. — 
 His Collection was reprinted in London the year after it was published 
 at the Lee Priory Press ; but w ithout any additional pieces. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 *III. On the Snuff of a Candle.— Dr. Birch. 
 
 IV. A Dialogue betwixt God and the Soul. — Ignoto. — 
 Reliq. Wott. 
 
 V. Phillida's Love-call to her Coridon, and his Reply- 
 ing. — Ign. — JSwg. Hel. 
 
 *VI. Sir Walter Raleigh the Night before his Death. — 
 W. R,—Rel. Wott. 
 
 VII. The Shepherd's Slumber.— £?igZ. Hell. 
 
 VIII. De Mone.—Ignotu.— Reliq. Wott. 
 
 IX. A Nymph's Disdain of Love. — Ignoto. — Engl. 
 Heli. 
 
 X. The Shepherd's Description of Love. — Ignoto. — Engl. 
 Heli. 
 
 XI. Hymn. — Ignoto. — Reliq. Wott, 
 
 Song. — By Christopher Marlow. — Dr. Birch. — Engl. 
 Heli. 
 
 *XII. The Answer.— By Sir Walter Raleigh.— Dr. 
 Birch. — Engl. Heli. 
 
 The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd. — Ignoto. — Engl. 
 Heli. 
 
 XIII. Another of the same Nature made since. — Ignoto. 
 —Engl. Heli. 
 
 XIV. An Heroical Poem. — Ignoto. — Engl. Heli. 
 
 XV. The Shepherd to the Flowers. — Ignoto. — Engl. 
 Heli. 
 
 *XVI. Upon Gascoigne's Poem, called "The Steel- 
 Glass."— Dr. Birch. 
 
 XVII. Thirsis the Shepherd to his Pipe. — Ignoto. — 
 Engl. Heli. 
 
 XVIII. Love the only Price of Love. — Ignoto.— Engl. 
 Heli. 
 
 XIX. The Shepherd's Praise of his Sacred Diana. — Ig- 
 noto. — Engl. Heli. 
 
 *XX. The Silent Lover.— Dr. Birch. 
 *XXI. A Vision upon the Fairy Queen. — Spenser. 
 *XXII. On the same. — Spenser. 
 c 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXIIT. The Lover's Absence Kills me, her Presence 
 [CuresJ me. — Ign. — Eng. Hel. 
 
 XXIV^ A Defiance to Disdainful Love. — Ignoto. — Engl. 
 EelL 
 
 XXV. Dulcina. — Cayleyh Life of Raleigh. 
 
 XXVI. His Love admits no Rival. — Cuyley's Life of 
 Raleigh. 
 
 *XXVII. His Pilgrimage.— 1);-. Birch. 
 *XXVIII. The Farewell.— Dr. Birch.— Davison s Rhup- 
 sody. 
 
 After all the inquiries which have been made upon this 
 subject, I fear that we cannot substantiate Raleigh's claim 
 to any poems in this list, except the nine which are marked 
 by an asterisk, as having been previously ascribed to him 
 by Birch. Seven of those are reprinted in this volume ;* 
 another is quoted and described (N". xxii. see p. 116); and 
 the ninth is the poem prefixed to Gascoigne's Steele-Glass, 
 in 1576 (N*>. xvi), about which there is some difficulty. 
 Two objections have been raised; namely, that the writer's 
 name is spelt in an unusual manner, and that he describes 
 himself as " of the Middle Temple," while Raleigh declared 
 on his trial, that he had never " read a word of the law or 
 statute before" he " was prisoner in the Tower."f The first 
 cannot be allowed much weight (see p. 95) ; to the second, 
 it has been answered, that he may have been merely a re&i- 
 
 • No. iii. oil p. 74. — No. vi=ll. vi. p. 73. — No. xii=III. viii. p. 125. 
 —No. x.x=III. i.x. p. 130.— No. .\xi=Ill. v. p. 115.— No. xsvii=lll. 
 ii. p. 104. — No. xxviii=III. i. p. 89. 
 
 t Works, i. 669. Wood's statement (A. 0. ii. 236,) was no doubt bor- 
 rowed from the signature. Naunton says, " His approaches to the Univer- 
 sity and hms of Court - - - - were rather excursions than sieges or settings 
 down ; for he stayed not long in a place." Fragm. Reg. p. 216, ed. 1694. 
 See Oldys and Birch in vol. i. of the Oxford ed. pp. 21-3, 572. (Add, 
 Cayley, i. 10. Muses Library, p. 269. Ritson, Bibl. Poet. p. 307. B'ls- 
 raeii, Cur. of Lit. p. 258, ed. 1839.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXVU 
 
 dent in the Middle-Temple, which seems the most probable 
 solution. As to the internal evidence, the critics are at va- 
 riance. Oldys and Brydges assume that it is completely in 
 Raleigh's favour; Mr. D'Israeli, also, though he hesitates 
 about the spelling, says that " tiiese verses, both by their 
 spirit and signature, cannot fail to be his ;" while Mr. Tyt- 
 ler says, that " although written in the quaint style of his 
 age, their poetical merit is below his other pieces, and it is 
 difficult to believe that they flowed from the same sweet 
 vein which produced the answer to Marlow's Passionate 
 Shepherd."* Such are the advantages we gain by turning 
 to internal evidence. 
 
 Two other poems in the list (N^ x. xix.) are said to have 
 the very dubious authority of Raleigh's obliterated initials 
 in England's Helicon. To what I have elsewhere said on 
 this pointjf I have only to add, that a very different copy of 
 N**. X. was printed anonymously in Davison's Rhapsodic ; 
 and that Brydges, in his reprint of Davison, included it 
 among Raleigh's Poems, but confessedly without any au- 
 thority. That copy therefore, gives us no assistance. As 
 to the change of signature, the new one of Innoto is so 
 
 * Life of Raleigh, p. 22, ed. 1840. Perhaps we may venture to remark, 
 that it is somewhat doubtful what zvere Raleigh's other pieces, and even 
 wliether he wrote the Reply to Marlow (III, viii.) at all. Some may 
 also think that the " solid axiomatical vein" which Oldys observed in the 
 lines on Gascoigue.is more characteristic of Raleigh's style than the " sweet 
 vein" which Mr. Tytler discovers in the other poem, which was meant for 
 a grave and earnest rebuke to all " sweet" Pastorals. 
 
 t See this vol. p. 125, note +, and p. 13G. The two copies of No. x. 
 are so much varied, that I doubt whether their real identity has been ob- 
 served. In E. H. the poem is entitled, "The Sheepheards Description of 
 Loue," and it is printed in the form of a Dialogue between Melibeus and 
 Faustus, beginning," Melibeus, Sheepheard, what's Loue, I pray thee tell" 
 — (Sign. L. 2). In Davison, it is entitled, " The Anatomic of Loue;" the 
 Dialogue is not marked ; and it begins," Nu7v what is loue, I pray thee tell" 
 — . (P. 147, ed. 1621, =ii. Q7. Lee Priory ed. of Davison,= p. 295, ed. 
 Nicolas. — The stanza which appears to conclude this piece in ed. 1621 is 
 really a separate fragment by A. W.,of which I shall have to speak again.) 
 
XX Vm IXTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 firmly fixed in the case of N°. x. in Steevens's copy of E. H., 
 that I cannot tell whether it really conceals the initials of 
 Raleigh. In the case of N°. xix., however, they are per- 
 fectly legible (Sign. N. 4); and I will therefore subjoin the 
 poem : — 
 
 " THE SHEEPHEARDS PRAISE OF HIS SACRED DIANA. 
 
 •' Piaysed be Dianaes faire and harmelesse light; 
 Praised be the devves, wheie-with she moists the ground ; 
 Praised be her beames, the glory of the night; 
 
 Prais'd be her power, by which all powers abound: 
 
 " Prais'd be her Nimphs, with whom she decks the woods; 
 Prais'd be her Knights, in whom true honour Hues; 
 Prais'd be that force, by wliicii she rnooues the floods: 
 Let that Diana shine which all these giues. 
 
 " In heauen Queene she is among the Spheares ; 
 She Mistresse-like makes all things to be pure; 
 Eternity in her oft change she beares ; 
 
 She beauty is ; by her the faire endure. 
 
 "Time weares her not; she dooth his Chariot guide; 
 Mortality below her Orbe is plast; 
 By her the vertue[s] of the starres downe slide; 
 In her is vertues perfect Image cast. 
 
 "A knowledge pure it is her woorth to know: 
 With Circes let them dwell that thinke not so. 
 
 Finis. [S. \V. R.] Ignoto." 
 
 Brydges justly calls this " fulsome adulation of the 
 Queen ;" but theUnes are nevertheless dignified and state- 
 ly; and we should value them more highly if we could for- 
 get both the allegorical meaning and the utter paganism of 
 the poem. 
 
 With respect to the two poems taken from Cayley (N"*. 
 xxv-vi), Brydges says that he is ignorant of Cayley's autho- 
 rity, and that he has " strong doubts whether" they " are 
 really to be attributed to Raleigh's pen." His doubts are 
 not unreasonable ; but Cayley's authority can be found 
 without much difficulty. The two poems were printed in 
 the Appendix to his Life of Raleigh (pp. 105-8), together 
 with a third which Brydges has omitted. " Dulcina" (N^ 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 xxv) was probably taken from Ellis ;* — for the piece entitled 
 " His Love admits no Rival" (N°. xxvi), he distinctly quoted 
 the London Magazine for August, 1734, p. 444, a reference 
 which Oldys had supplied ;t — and tiie other piece, which is 
 entitled " The Excuse," had been printed at length by 01- 
 dys, from whom Cayley unquestionably copied it4 This 
 last is one of the best authenticated of all Raleigh's poems, 
 as Oldys shewed ; and Brydges was very unfortunate in 
 transferring from Cayley only those two poems which were 
 most doubtful, while he omitted the other, about which there 
 can be no doubt at all. 
 
 All the remaining fifteen are given to Raleigh because 
 they have been found with the signature Jgnoto, — four in 
 Rel. Wotton., and eleven in England's Helicon. The for- 
 mer are reprinted in this volume ;§ and it will therefore be 
 sufficient to say a few words on the latter. 
 
 By combining the two editions of England's Helicon 
 (1600 and 1614),|| we obtain sixteen poems which were 
 
 * Specimens, ii. 189, ed. 1801.— In that edition, Ellis gave to Raleigh both 
 " Dulcina" and "The Soul's Errand." The former was afterwards ex- 
 cluded from his Collection; and the latter, as the reader knows, was trans- 
 ferred to Sylvester. I do nut know why he ever ascribed " Dulcina" to 
 Raleigh. It is in Percy, iii. 151, ed. 1767. Cf. Chappell's Nat. Engl. 
 Airs, ii. 48, &c. — Cayley seems to have taken from Ellis all the poems 
 which he did not find in Oldys. 
 
 t Oldys, p. 423, note. The title in the London Mag. is merely " A Poem 
 by Sir Walter Raleigh." It will be more easily recognized as an answer 
 to Wither's verses, " Shall I, wasting in despair" — , beginning, " Shall 
 I like a hermit dwell" — . Ritson also mentions it, Bibl. Poet. p. 308. 
 But it seems as improbable that Raleigh wrote this reply to Wither a.s 
 that Jonson wrote another. (See Gifford's Life of Jonson, p. cxlix. and 
 on various other imitations, see Brit. Bibl. i. 18.5, note.) — Both " Dul- 
 cina" and this piece are given to Raleigh by Campbell, p. 78. 
 
 i An inferior copy of it was printed in tiie Oxford ed, of Raleigh. See 
 below. No. xxxii, p. xxxv, where a fuller account of the evidence is given. 
 
 § No. i = II. i. p. .55. — No. iv=II. ii. p. 60.— N^. viii=II. viii. p. 81. 
 — No. xi = Il. V. p. 71. 
 
 Ii This account is taken from Steevens's copy of England's Helicon, ed. 
 16 ;0 (among Malone's books in the Bodleian^, in which MS. transcripts of 
 the pieces added in the second ed. are inserted. The same copy was ex- 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 subscribed Jgnoto in that Miscellany, two of which are re- 
 signed by Brydges to Shakespeare and Barnfield.* The 
 fourteen others are all given to Raleigh ; but as three have 
 received a separate consideration (N°^ x, xii, and xix), we 
 are now only concerned with eleven. Against Raleigh's 
 title to six of these, there is direct evidence in favour of 
 other writers; for one of them (N°.xvii) occurs in an earlier 
 part of England's Helicon with the initials of Sir Edward 
 Dyer ;f and five (N°*. ii, xiv, xviii, xxiii, and xxiv) must be 
 resigned to the unknown A. W., to whom a very consider- 
 able portion of Davison's Poeticall Rhapsodie belongs, on 
 the conclusive evidence of a Catalogue of his Poems, which 
 was printed in the Lee Priory edition of Davison's Collec- 
 tion, from a MS. in the handwriting of Francis Davison 
 himself.J Now when our only guide has failed us in no 
 
 amined for the reprint of E. H. The list in Cens. Lit. increases the num- 
 ber to seventeen, by subscribing Ignoto to one of the additional poems, 
 which was only marked so in the Index; and Ritson reduces it to tiftcen, 
 by stating that there were only ten (inste.td of eleven) in the first edition. 
 
 * Preface to reprint of E. H. p. xxiv. The poems are N"*. 35, 36, Sign. 
 H. (pp. 58-9, repr.) Both were in the Passionate Pilgrim (Collier s 
 Shakesp. viii. 572, 577); but Shakespeare probably had as litUe to do 
 with the one as with the other. " Shakespeare certainly wrote none of this 
 wretched piece," says Mr. Dyce, speaking of that which Brydges (after 
 Malone) gave up to him. Shakesp. Poems, p. 258. 
 
 t This was observed by Ritson, p. 255. The copy marked S. E. D. is 
 entitled, "The Sheepheards Dumpe" (Sign. N. 4.). As the other copy is 
 rather different (Sign. A a. 4.) it has been thought that it was inserted to 
 amend the former ; but it was more likely t<> be a mere mistake; for the 
 former copy is preferable. One strange misprint in the latter (»' honors" 
 for " horrors" in line 13) which runs through tlie rcpr. of E. H. and the Lee 
 Priory, London, and Oxford eds. of Raleigh, is not in the original edition. 
 
 I Not in the writing of the author, as Brydges thought, — unless Davison 
 was himself A. W., which is altogether unlikely. See Nicolas's ed. of 
 Davison, pp. cxxv-viii. — It is not luuch more probable that Raleigh was 
 A. W. ; and therefore, as the List contains tiie first lines of N"*. ii, xiv, 
 xviii, xxiii, and xxiv, those pieces must be at once excluded from Raleigh's 
 Poems. — Ellis and Cayley had preceded Brydges in giving to Raleigh 
 two of the five, viz. N"^* xiv. and xxiv. — In the Preface to his repr. of E. 
 H., 1812, Brydges mentioned that Davison's Collection contained copies of 
 them; but he was not then acquainted with the MS. which proves that 
 A. W. wrote them, nor did he know of it when he inserted them in the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 less than eight cases out of sixteen,— for we have seen that 
 two were given up by Brydges himself, — we are not disposed 
 to trust it any longer. We may therefore say at once, that 
 the five which still remain unmentioned (N•'^ v, vii, ix, xiii, 
 and xv) have been printed among Raleigh's Poems without 
 any evidence at all.* Besides, if Igiwlo had any special 
 significance in the body of the book, it must have had the 
 same in the Table of Contents, which was inserted in the 
 second edition of England's Helicon ; but that Table would 
 
 Collection of Raleigh's Poems in 1813. Ritson also was ignorant of that 
 document when he compiled his Bibl. Poet., as is plain from his article on 
 A. W., p. 382. When, therefore, he affirmed that N". ii was "ascertained 
 to be the composition of Francis Davison'" (ib. p. 255), it can scarcely have 
 been because he had any reasons for regarding A. VV, as a signature used 
 by Davison himself. It is more likely that this was the only one of the five 
 which he had observed in Davison's Collection, and that he assigned it to 
 the editor as a matter of course, just as he seems to have done in the case 
 of a more famous poem (see this vol. p. 91). Steevens had pencilled Da- 
 vison's name at the foot of his transcript of N". ii. — It should be observed, 
 as a further indication of what was meant by Ig7ioeo , that all the five poems 
 to which this note relates were added, with four others, in the second ed. 
 of E. H., which was published after three eds. of Davison had appeared ; 
 and as seven out of the nine additions had been in Davison, tliey were 
 probably transferred to E. H. from that Collection. 
 
 * Ellis and Cayleyhad led the way by ascribing two of these five poems 
 also to Raleigh on the evidence of the signature Ignuto ; viz. N^^. xiii and 
 XV ; and a third, N". ix, has since been reprinted as Raleigh's by Camp- 
 bell, no doubt on Brydgcs's authority. The Muse's Library contains copies 
 of N"s. vii and xiii from E. H., but they are properly printed as anony- 
 mous.— There are other ancient copies of some of the five (as one of N" xv 
 in the Phoenix Nest, 1593, Cens. Lit. ii. 120, and one of N'o.v in the Crowne 
 Garland of Golden Roses, 1612, p. 63, Percy Soc. reprint); but they sup- 
 ply no evidence. — Only one of them requires further notice, viz. N". xiii, 
 which is the Imitation of ISIarlow's Passionate Shepherd, mentioned third 
 in the list on p. 126 in this volume. Warton expressly gave this Imitation 
 (as well as the Reply) to Raleigh, but without adducing any evidence except 
 the signature Ignoto (see below). He thus began the system of trusting to 
 that subscription, which Ellis and Cayley carried a little further, and which 
 Brydges completed. The Reply to Marlow rests on other tes'imony. — I 
 may add, that a MS. remark of Dr. Farmer's is cited in Cens. Lit. i. 162, 
 as assigning this Imitation of Marlow to Shakespeare; but that note must 
 have belonged either to the original Song, or to the Reply, which immedi- 
 ately preceded the Imitation in E. H., and which were printed (imper- 
 fectly) as Shakespeare's in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599. 
 
XXXll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 add eight or nine fresh pieces* to our list; for it appears 
 that the word is there affixed to twenty-four poems, if not to 
 twenty-five. 
 
 This, then, appears to be a sufficient answer to Brydges's 
 assertion, that " he who looks to its actual application at 
 this time will give little credit to" the objection, " that this 
 subscription of Ignolo must be taken as no more than equal 
 to Anonymous."-}- It plainly meant no more than that in 
 England's Helicon; and we find it just as difficult to dis- 
 
 * A brief account of these will complete our proof that Ignoto was really 
 an indeiinite signature in England's Helicon. — One was at first subscribed 
 M. F. G., but a blank was pasted over the initials (Sign. P.). — Two were 
 sung before the Queen on Progresses, " the Authors name vnknowne to me"' 
 (Sign. Q. and Q. 2). — Three were taken from " Maister lohn Dowlands 
 booke of tableture for the Lute, the Authours names nut there set doicne & 
 therefore left to their owners" (Sign. V. 4 — X. 2). They are in Mr. Collier's 
 recent publication of Lyrical Poems from old Music Books (pp. 63,61,57); 
 the second of them is among Lord Brooke's Poems, 1633, p. 197, and has 
 been chosen as a specimen of his poetry by Mrs. Cooper, Ellis, and others ; 
 the third has been ascribed to Shakespeare on the authority of initials in a 
 MS. at Hamburgh ; but Steevens has pencilled M. F. G. (the initials of 
 Lord Brooke) at the foot of this, as well as the other. — A seventh has no 
 signature at all in the body of the book (Sign. V. 4); but Mr. Collier (p. 
 65) prints it fiom the same vol. ofDowland's from which he took the three 
 just mentioned. — An eighth was also taken from a Music Book (Sign. Z. 
 3). — The only one not mentioned is entitled " An Inuectiue against Loue" 
 (a distinct poem from N". xxiv) which was by A. W. It was one of the 
 pieces added to the second ed. of E. H., which, as I have said, were pro- 
 bably borrowed from Davison. — (The reason why I speak doubtfully of the 
 number may be seen from the repr. of this Table of Contents, or from Stee- 
 vens's transcript of it.) 
 
 t Notes to Raleigh's Poems, p. 69. " These signatures," he adds," when 
 once seized, become appropriate." If he refers to such cases as ihe Immerito 
 of Spenser, and the Lifortnnio of Ralph Starkey, they are not parallel in- 
 stances ; for those words have an obvious meaning ; but why sliould Raleigh, 
 or any one else, monopolize the title of the Unknozvn Poet ? — Some of 
 Brydges's remarks in that place betray a strange forgetfulness of his Pre- 
 face to the reprint of E. H., which appeared before the publication of Ra- 
 leigh's Poerns. '' To one of these poems in the first edition of the ' Helicon,' 
 the name of Ignoto was pasted over the initial letters W. R." In that 
 Preface, he said the same of three poems. Again; " Once, if I recollect, 
 Ignoto was misapplied in the * Helicon;' but probably under a mistaken 
 apprehension that the piece was Raleigh's." In the reprint of E. H., he 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXUl 
 
 cover any recondite signification from the manner in which 
 it is employed in Davison or Rel. Wotton. If we turn to 
 other publications, the indefinite character of the signature 
 becomes still more apparent.* When Warton called it 
 " Raleigh's constant signature," he probably meant only 
 that Raleigh frequently used it, as others might do like- 
 wise.f But an occasional or even a frequent use of it 
 would give us no information, unless it was also exclusive, 
 which cannot any longer be maintained. 
 
 said that two which were so marked belonged to Shakespeare and Barn- 
 field ; and that a t/iird was given, in another part of the same volume, to 
 Sir Edward Dyer. " The major part of these poems," he concludes, " pos- 
 sess also the internal evidence of traits of Raleigh's genius." We will listen 
 to arguments from internal evidence, when those who use them will couie 
 to some agreement on it. 
 
 • Thns Sir John Harington applies it to the author of the Arte of En. 
 glish Poesie, whom we now know to be Puttenham (Anc. Crit. Essays, ii. 
 123); and uses it in his Additions to Godwin of "an English gentleman" 
 who scribbled verses on a wall (Nug. Ant. ii. 140, ed. Park). — Ritson re- 
 marked that the signatures W. R. and Ignoto were sometimes found to- 
 gether in the very same publication, where different persons were obviously 
 meant, as in the Commendatory Poems on Spenser's Faery Queen, and 
 on Lithgow's Pilgrim's Farewell (Bibl. Poet, pp. 255, 307).— Both the 
 signatures are also used in Davison ; and a MS. note of Dr. Farmer's on 
 the Ig/wto appended to one poem, which Brydges gave to Raleigh in his 
 reprint of that collection, is curious enough : — " Perhaps Spencer, since he 
 frequently signed himself so; as did Shakespear also." But he afterwards 
 drew his pen through this observation. 
 
 + H. E. P. iii. p. 354, ed. 1840. (The note appended by Warton's 
 editors, professedly from Cayley, was borrowed by Cayley from Ellis. ) 
 Warton had been speaking of Marlow's Passionate Shepherd ; and after 
 quoting Izaak Walton, he proceeded : " In England's Helicon .... it is 
 printed w ith Christopher IMarlow's name, and followed by the Reply, sub- 
 scribed Ig7wto, Raleigli's constant signature. A page or two afterwards, it is 
 imitated by Raleigh." If he had any " good reasons for his opinion," we 
 can only regret that he " neglected to adduce them;" but he was probably 
 thinking only of the poem before him, which most agree to treat as Ra- 
 leigh's, on Walton's authority, though it is only signed Ignoto in E. H. ; 
 and of those cases in which there was some confusion between W. R. and 
 Jgnoto. But by giving Raleigh the Imitation of Marlow as well as the 
 Reply, he certainly set the example of assuming that Ignoto was evidence 
 in Raleigh's favour. 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This was afterwards conceded by Brydges himself; but 
 as he did not follow up his general acknowledgement, in 
 any of his numerous publications with which I am ac- 
 quainted, by a minute examination of the evidence, it has 
 failed of its effect. His Collection, with the exception of a 
 single piece (N". iv), has been admitted into the best edition 
 of Raleigh's entire Works, to which those who wish for 
 specimens of his poetry most naturally turn; and hence 
 poems to which Raleigh has no kmd of title are perpetually 
 ascribed to him on the authority of that publication. 
 
 Eleven "Additional Poems'' were given in that edition 
 (which was published at Oxford in 1829), with the follow- 
 ing titles and references. I have prefixed the numbers, as 
 before, carrying them on from the former list : — 
 
 XXIX. The Lover's Maze. — From Le Prince d^ Amour. 
 
 XXX. Farewell to the Court. — From Le Prince d' Amour. 
 
 XXXI. The Advice. — Fi'ojn Le Prince d^ Amour. 
 
 XXXII. Verses by Sir Walter Ralegh. — From the Ash- 
 mole.an MSS. 
 
 XXXIII. Moral Advice. — F7-om the Ashmolean MSS. 
 
 XXXIV. A Lover's Verses. — From the Bodleian MSS. 
 
 XXXV. False Love and True Love. — From the Bodleian 
 MSS. 
 
 XXXVI. The Answer to the Lie. — From the Ashmolean 
 MSS. 
 
 XXXVII. Erroris Responsio. — Fro?n the Ashmolean 
 MSS. 
 
 XXXVIII. Epitaph on Secretary Cecil. — See Osborne's 
 Traditional Memoires, 1658, p. 89, and Oldj/s's Life, p. 
 424. 
 
 XXXIX. A Riddle. — F7-ofn a MS. in the Bodleian writ- 
 ten about 1589. 
 
 Ten of these poems need not detain us long. Two of 
 them are printed at length in this volume, and four others 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 are quoted and described ;* the rebus on the name iVoe/, 
 which is all that belongs to Raleigh in N°. xxxix, has been 
 ascribed to him by other authorities, but it is sometimes 
 given to no less a personage than Queen Elizabeth herself ;t 
 and as to the three which are taken from the Collection of 
 Poems appended to Le Prince d'Amour, 1660, though the 
 evidence is not so unimpeachable as might be wished, it is 
 right to give Raleigh the full advantage of it, till better can 
 be found.]: 
 
 But the other poem in the list (N". xxxii) is a very differ- 
 ent matter. Though the only authority cited here is that of 
 the Ashmolean MSS.,§ the piece was expressly ascribed to 
 Raleigh by Puttenham as early as 1589, when he quoted 
 
 • N°. xxxiii = III. iv. p. 114, and N". xxxv = III. vii. p. 120. — On N". 
 xxxiv, see p. 121, note. — On N°^ xxxvi-vii, see pp. 95, 96. — On N". 
 xxxviii, see p. 122, note. 
 
 t Manniugham,who entered both riddles in his Diary under the date of 
 Dec. 30: 1602: reverses the order of tiieni, beginning " Sir W. Rawly 
 made this rime upon the name of a gallant, one Mr, Noel;" and then 
 adding " Noel's answere." (Collier's Hist. Dram. P. i. 336, note.) They 
 are arranged as in the Oxford ed. in MS. Mai. 19, p. 42. — The two are 
 often found apart; as that on Razvly in Aubrey, Letters from the Bod!, ii. 
 512; and D'Israeli, Cur. of Lit. p. 259 (with a different second line): — 
 and that on Noel in Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, i. 85, ed. Park 
 (from Collins), where it is ascribed to Queen Elizabeth; and Halliwell's 
 Nursery Rhymes, N". ccxxxvii, where no author's name is given. 
 
 X They were mentioned by OldySj p. 423, note. — The signature to each 
 of the three poems is W. R. (Pr. d'Am. pp. 131-3). There is a more com- 
 plete copy of No. xxix in Davison's Rhapsodic, in the earlier editions of 
 which it was entitled " A Reporting Sonnet;" but afterwards " In the 
 grace of wit, of tongue, and face," (P. 144, ed. 1621^i. 102, Lee Priory 
 ed.) — There is also another copy of N^. xxxi in MS. Rawl. Poet. 85, 
 fol. 116, subscribed only," Finis. Written to M"s A. V," 
 
 j That is, I presume, MS. Ashm, 781, p. 138. Signature, " S' Wa: Ra- 
 leigh." — Oldys (pp. 130-1) mentioned another copy in Wit's Interpreter, 
 1671, p. 205, where it is headed, "By Sir Walter Raleigh."— There is an 
 anonymous copy of this poem also in MS. Rawl. Poet. 85, fol. 104, vo. — 
 I have remarked above, that Cayley inserted it in the Appendix to his Life 
 of Raleigh (p. 107) between two poems which Brydges took on his autho- 
 rity, when this was overlooked. — This omission on the part of Brydges is 
 the more inexplicable, because he had given it at length from Oldys in his 
 ed. of Phillips, p, 314; but indeed I am equally at a loss to understand 
 why he borrowed so little from Oldys in 1800 (for he missed his most im- 
 
XXXVl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the concluding couplet of it as an instance of " Ploche^ or 
 the Doubler," — "a speedie iteration of one word, but with 
 some little intermission by inserting one or two w^ords be- 
 tweene, as in a most excellent dittie written by Sir Walter 
 Raleigh these two closing verses : 
 
 ' Yet when I sawe my selfe to you was true, 
 
 I loued Jiiy selle, bycause my selfe loued you.'"* 
 
 This evidence was mentioned by Oldys, who printed a 
 much better text than that in the Oxford edition, from a 
 transcript which was traced originally to Lady Isabella 
 Thynne, with the title, " The Excuse. Written by Sir Wal- 
 ter Ralegh in his younger years." 
 
 This completes our examination of the poems ascribed to 
 Raleigh in the largest Collection of his Works. Had it not 
 been for the discovery, that most of the anonymous poems 
 in Davison were written by A. W., the list would have been 
 much longer; for their " internal evidence" led Brydges to 
 announce a design of reprinting them as Raleigh's, in the 
 form of a second volume of his Poems.f Of the eight pieces 
 which he did assign to Raleigh, with considerable hesitation, 
 in his reprint of Davison, one only need be added to our 
 enumeration, viz.: — 
 
 portant references); and why even tlint little was forgotten when he col- 
 lected Raleigh's Poems in 1813. 
 
 * Arte of English Poesie, p. 168, repr. — A Madrigal in Davison (p. 205, 
 ed. 1621) closes with a couplet of somewhat similar construction : — 
 
 " And if my life I loue, then must I too 
 
 Loue your sweete selfe, for my life Hues in you." 
 
 + There is no intimation of such an intention in the Lee Priory Collection 
 of Raleigh's Poems; but it was announced a few months afterwards. — The 
 Catalogue of A. W.'s Poems was printed in the second volume of the Lee 
 Priory Davison : when Ihe first vol. of that work was published, Brydges 
 still intended to give Raleigh the anonymous poems. In one case especially, 
 that of the poem begini;ing "It chanced of late a shepherd's swain," lie 
 mentioned his suspicion that Raleigh wrote it (p. 40) ; but it was afterwards 
 found to be by A. Vv'. (ii. 70. Cf. Exc. Tudor, ii. 123. The poem is in 
 Percy, i. 310, ed. 17ti7, and Ellis, iii. 18, ed. 1811.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXVH 
 
 XL. A Poesie to prove Affection is not Love. — W. R* 
 
 There are several other poems by Sir Walter Raleigh 
 which have never been collected. The two following were 
 mentioned by Malone : — f 
 
 XLI. " An Epitaph vpon the right Honourable Sir Fhil- 
 lip Sidfiej/ knight : Lord gouernor of Flushing," among those 
 appended to Spenser's Astrophel (Sign. K. 2). 
 
 XLLL " To the Translator :" Fourteen lines prefixed to 
 Sir A. Gorges' Translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, folio, 
 1614, with the signature " W. 11." 
 
 The Epitaph on Sidney, which consists of sixty lines in 
 fifteen stanzas, has no signature ; but the last stanza supplies 
 evidence that Raleigh wrote it : — 
 
 "That day their Hamiiball died, our Scipio fell, 
 Scipio, Cicero, and Petrarch of our time, 
 Whose vertues, wounded by my wortblesse rime. 
 Let Angels speake, and heanen thy praises tell." 
 
 Sir John Harington is supposed to be alluding to these 
 lines, when he speaks of "our English Petrarke, Sir Philip 
 Sidnei/, or (as Sir Walter Rmdegh in his Epitaph worthely 
 calleth him) the Scipio and the Petrarke of our time."J 
 
 * It is in this volume, III. vi. p. 117. Two of the other.«, which had no 
 signature, answer to N"* x and xxviii in our list. The rest were all marked 
 Ignoto in one or other of the four editions of Davison. They are, two siiort 
 pieces entitled "A Dialogue betwixt the Louer and his Lady;" — "An In- 
 uectiue against Women;" — "The True Loues knot;"— and an Eclogue, be- 
 ginning "Come, gentle heardraan, sit by me" — (pp. 57, 145, 216, 187, ed. 
 1621). 
 
 t Shakespeare by Boswell,ii. 580,— Malone also referred to the " Poesie 
 to prove Affection is not Love," and "The Lie;" but he thought the latter 
 doubtful, because it has no signature in Davison. Of Raleigh's Cynthia, 
 too, which is mentioned by Spenser, he adds another notice; viz. that Ga- 
 briel Harvey, in some MS. notes on Chancer, called it " a fine and sweet 
 invention." 
 
 I Translation of Ariosto, 1591, p. 126. (In the notes on Book xvi.)— So 
 also Drummond,in his Character of several Authors, says, " S. W. R., in an 
 
XXXVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This quotation (which supplies a different reading) seems 
 sufficiently close to establish the fact of Raleigh's authorship ; 
 and if so, the following stanza (which is the third) deserves 
 the notice of his Biographers: — 
 
 "And I, that in tliy time and iiuing state, 
 
 Did onely praise tliy vertues in my tiiought. 
 
 As one that seeld the rising swi hath sotight, 
 
 With words and teares now waile thy tinielesse fate." 
 
 The lines prefixed to Gorges' Translation of Lucan are 
 too remarkable to be omitted :* — 
 
 " Had Lucan hid the truth to please the time, 
 
 He had beene too vn worthy of thy Penne, 
 Who neuer sought, nor eiier car'd to clime 
 
 By flattery, or seeking worthlesse men. 
 For tliis thou hast been bruis'd ; but yet those scarres 
 
 Do beautifie no lesse then those wounds do, 
 Receiu'd in iust and in religious warres; 
 
 Though thou hast bled by both, and bearst them too. 
 Change not : to change thy fortune tis too late : 
 
 Who with a manly faith resolues to dye, 
 May promise to himselfe a lasting state. 
 
 Though not so great, yet free from infamy. 
 
 Such was thy Lucan, whom, so to translate, 
 Nature thy Muse (like Lvcans) did create. 
 W. R." 
 
 £pitaph on Sidney, calleth him our English Petrarch."' (Appendix to 
 Conversations of Jonson and Diummond, p. 49, Shakesp. Soc. ed. The 
 editor, who seems to have overlooked the Epitaph quoted above, says, 
 " An Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney, attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, is 
 included in the Roxburghe volume, ' Sidneiana,' published by Dr. Butler, 
 Bishop of Lichfield, in 1837. This, however, is not the epitaph that Drum- 
 niond refers to." Zouch says, that " Sir Walter Raleigh, in ayi epigram 
 written on Sidney, calls him our English Petrarch." Life of Sidney, p. 
 304, ed. 1809.) — The Elegy which immediately follows Raleigh's in Astro- 
 phel is entitled "Another of the same;'" and as this expression is more 
 likely to mean the same writer than the same subject, we should suspect 
 that Raleigh wrote it also. Malone (who remarks that there is another 
 copy in the Phoenix Nest) thought, from the metre, that it was Sir Edward 
 Dyer's; but Raleigh sometimes used that metre, as in his second poem 
 on the Faery Queen. It begins thus: — 
 
 " Silence augmenteth grief; writing encreaseth rage; 
 
 Staid are my thoughts, which lou'd, & lost, the wonder of our age;" &c. 
 
 * They have been previously reprinted in Brit. Bibl. i. 455, in an account 
 
INTRODUCTION-. XXXIX 
 
 A piece of the same length, and signed by the same ini- 
 tials, but of immeasurably ini'erior value, was prefixed to 
 Lithgow's " Pilgrimes Farewell," (Edinburgh, 1618,) with 
 the heading, " To his singular Friend, William Lithgow." 
 We are told, that " from the initials, this piece is usually 
 attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh;"* but it is impossible to 
 suspect him of it. 
 
 Raleigh's name has been so often misapplied in old MS. 
 Collections, that we are unwilling to ascribe any pieces to 
 him on that kind of evidence, except where several accounts 
 are found to coincide. It is moreover so exceedingly diffi- 
 cult to bear in mind the countless little pieces which were 
 written and printed in the seventeenth century, that we are 
 in constant danger of producing as a novelty some perfectly 
 familiar fragment, whenever we trust to the table-books of 
 old transcribers. It is therefore with great diffidence that I 
 venture to add two other articles to the list, on the evidence 
 of single MSS.f One of them is printed in this volume; 
 the other is only a set of sprightly nonsense-verses (sprightly. 
 
 of Sir A. Gorges' Lucan. Compare some very manly verses, addressed by 
 Sir Arlliur to King James, and printed in Restituta, iv. 509: — 
 
 " Of many now that sounde with hopes consort 
 
 Your wisdome, bonutie, and peace-blessed raygne. 
 My skyll is least; but of the most import. 
 
 Because not school'd by favours, gyfts, or gaine: 
 And, that which more approves my iruthfuU layes, 
 
 To sweete my tunes I straine not Flattrye's stringe; 
 But holde that temper, in your royall prayse. 
 
 That longe I did before you weare my Kinge, 
 As one that vertue for itselfe regards. 
 And loves his Kinge more then his King's rewards. 
 10 lanua : 1G09." 
 
 * Brit. Bibl. ii. 142, where there is an account of Lithgow's Book, of 
 which Malone had a copy (Bodl. Mai. 717). It was also mentioned in 
 Ritson, p. 307, note. 
 
 + There are several others which I might have mentioned ; but I am not 
 sufficiently acquainted with the great mass of old poetical MSS. preserved 
 in our various Libraries to give anything like a complete list; and nothing 
 
xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 though "the hangman" plays a prominent part in them) 
 written to amuse a child. 
 
 XLIII. " What is our Life? theplay of passion;" &c. — 
 S-- W: U:— See this vol. p. 81 . 
 
 XLIV. "Sir Walter kauleigh to his Sonne."— MS. 
 Malone 19, p. 130. 
 
 On looking back over this list of poems, it is mortifying 
 to observe, that scarcely half of them can be attributed to 
 Raleigh without fear of contradiction. That he wrote more 
 poems than we now possess, is beyond dispute. We may well 
 wonder, with Malone, that his *' Cynthia" has been allowed 
 to perish ; but many others of his compositions must have 
 shared its fate ; for there is little left to account for the quaint 
 commendations of Puttenham, jNIeres, and Bolton, still less 
 to justify the glorious praise of Spenser. It is some consola- 
 tion, however, to remember, that the stores of Elizabethan 
 poetry are not yet exhausted ; and that those who are not 
 debarred, by the confinement of a country residence, from 
 free access to our Public Libraries, may yet find many relics 
 of his poetry which I have neither seen nor heard of. Few 
 discoveries of the kind would be more pleasing than one 
 which should authorize us to conclude, that Raleigh himself 
 was the anonymous friend of Francis Davison, who is now 
 known only by the unexplained initials A. W.; but this is 
 more than we can venture to anticipate. Yet Brydges was 
 not merely guessing in the dark, when he thought that those 
 
 short of that would be permanently useful. I may refer to one piece, how- 
 ever, which is mentioned in the Catalogue of Mr. B. H. Bright's MSS.,for 
 the oddity of its title : " The despairinge complainte of wretched Rawleighe 
 for his treacheries wrought against the worthie Essex." (No. 190. In the 
 same number was " Rawleigh's Caveat to secure Courtiers." See too the 
 accounts of N^s. 189,207.) — The poem ascribed to Raleigh in the Topo- 
 grapher (see this vol. p. 45) is only one instance out of many of the risk we 
 run by trusting MS. authorities when they stand alone. 
 
INTRODUCTION. ^xU 
 
 poems bore strong internal evidence of Raleigh's genius. 
 *' A. W./' he remarks, " almost always begins his poems 
 well, so as to make his initial lines striking and full of inte- 
 rest by their animation and harmony ;" and this was surely 
 one of Raleigh's chief characteristics. Indeed he often begins 
 much better than he ends. Among other instances, Brydges 
 mentions " Smooth are thy lookes ; so is the deepest streame" 
 — a line which at once reminds us of the commencement of 
 a poem which we may safely regard as Raleigh's.* Another 
 instance of resemblance is not a little singular. Puttenham, 
 when giving examples of " Anaphora, or the Figure of Re- 
 port," quotes "this written by Sir Walter Raleigh of his 
 greatest mistresse in most excellent verses : — 
 
 ' In vayne mine eyes, in vaine you wast your teares; 
 In vayne my sighs, the smokes of my despaires; 
 In vayne you search the earth and heanens aboue; 
 Id vayne ye seeke; for fortune keeps my loue.' "f 
 
 Compare the following fragment, the first line of which 
 occurs in the Catalogue of A. W.'s Poems: — 
 
 * See this vol. III. ix. p. 132. The same thought occurs in other poems 
 by A. W. ; as in the " Inuectiue against Loue," which has been already men- 
 tioned — "The deepest streames aboue doe calmest flow" — (Dav. p. 124, ed. 
 lG21=ii. 31, Lee Pr. ed.). Again, — "The deepest streames do flow full 
 calme to sight" — (ib. p. 186=i. lOO). Also in a poem which A. W. an- 
 swered, — "Where riuers smoothest run, deepe are the fords" — (ib. p. 134 
 = ii.56. This last piece is in Mr. Collier's volume of Lyrical Poems, p. 71). 
 
 + Arte of English Pocsie, p. 1G5, repr. Another fragment quoted by 
 Puttenham has been identified. See above, p. xxxvi. The following is also 
 preserved by him (p. 167); — " that of Sir Walter Raleighs very sweet: — 
 ' With wisdomes eyes had but blind fortune scene, 
 Than had my looue, my looue for euer beene.' " 
 
 A few other fragments of Raleigh's are still in existence; such as the 
 line " Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall," which, according to Fuller, 
 he wrote on a window, where Qneen Elizabeth might see it; and which 
 she was pleased to answer. (Worthies of Devon, p. 261.) — Mr. Tytler 
 has called attention to the short metrical translations which occur in his 
 History of the World. Life of Raleigh, pp. 298-300.— There are also some 
 lines which he is said to have addressed to Q'leen Anne shortly before his 
 execution. — His poems were used in the Garden of the Muses, a compila- 
 tion of single lines and couplets, 1600 and 1610; but his property cannot be 
 distinguished from the rest. 
 
 d 
 
Xlii INTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 " In vaine 1 Hue, such sorrow Hues in me; 
 
 In vaine Hues sorrow, since by her I Hue ; 
 
 Life workes in vaine, where death will Master be; 
 
 Death striues in vaine, where life (loth vertue giue : 
 Thus each of vs would worke anothers woe. 
 And hurls himselfe in vaine, and helpes his foe." * 
 
 Another very similar stanza is printed in Cens. Lit. (ii. 
 101, ed. 1815) from Este's Madrigales, &c. 1604 : — 
 
 " In vaine, my tongue, thou begst to ease my care ; 
 
 In vaine, mine ties, yon gase or looke for aide ; 
 In vaine, my eares, you listen after aire ; 
 
 In vaine, my thoughts, you thinke what hath beene said ; 
 In vaine my hope, when truth is not rewarded. 
 In vaine my faith serues where 'tis not regarded." 
 
 As the poems of A. W. have been so much mixed up 
 with those of Raleigh, I will annex a brief specimen of them, 
 from Davison's Collection, — the only publication in which 
 any of them are known to have been originally printed: — 
 
 " Eternall Time, that wastest without wast. 
 
 That art, and art not, — diest, and Huest still; 
 
 Must slow of all, and yet of greatest hast; 
 
 Both ill and good, and neither good nor ill : 
 How can I iuslly praise thee or dispraise .'' 
 Darke are thy nights, but bright and cleare thy daies. 
 
 "Both free and scarce, thou giu'st and tak'st againe; 
 Thy wombe, that all doth breede, is Tombe to all; 
 What so by thee hath life, by thee is slaine; 
 From thee do all things rise, to thee they fall: 
 
 Constant, inconstant; mouing, standing still; 
 
 Was, is, shall be, doe thee both breede and kill. 
 
 " I lose thee, while I seek to find thee out; 
 The farther off, the more I follow thee; 
 The faster hold, the greater cause of doubt ; 
 Was, is, 1 know ; but shall, I cannot see: 
 
 All things by thee are measured, thou by none; 
 All are in thee; thou in thy selfe alone." 
 
 (p. 137, ed. 1621^ii. 62, L. P. ed.) 
 
 * In the later eds. of Davison (p. 148, ed. 1621) these lines were printed 
 as if they formed the conclusion of the poem beginning " Now what is 
 lone, I pray thee tell" — (see above, on N^. x); and as that was obviously 
 a blunder. Sir H. Nicolas, who printed from the third ed., 1611, threw 
 them into a note (p. 297). But in ed. 1608, from which the Lee Priory 
 reprint was taki n, they appear to have been properly marked as a separate 
 Poem (^see that rtpr. i. 114, and Pref. p. 27, ii. 70). Brydges reads, in the 
 first line, ' sith sorrow.' 
 
INTRODUCTION. xliii 
 
 It is now time to sum up the evidence wliich has been 
 brought together, by making it the basis of a new classi- 
 tication of Raleigh's reputed poems. I have hitherto ex- 
 amined them in the order presented by his editors : and any 
 attempt to m.ike a better arrangement must necessarily be 
 defective, as I cannot suppose that all the evidence has 
 been exhausted. But the enquiry has been already pursued 
 to a much greater extent than I intended ; and it would 
 therefore be improper to stop short of its legitimate con- 
 clusion. Moreover, a revision of the subject will give me 
 the opportunity of furnishing complete copies of several 
 poems, which have been only alluded to elsewhere. 
 
 In the case of any man but Raleigh, this would be, in the 
 main, a question of degrees of evidence, — whether it were 
 more or less conclusive in each particular instance. But 
 the Collection published by Sir Egerton Brydges was made 
 in such a predatory spirit, that we must be content, in 
 Raleigh's case, with a ruder mode of classification ; and 
 must ask only, — whether there be any positive evidence^br 
 him, or any positive evidence against him, or simply no 
 evidence at all. The poems, then, will fall into three 
 classes, answering to these, though in a slightly different 
 order. In the first, we must place all those pieces which 
 can be assigned to Raleigh with any kind of probability, 
 even if it often falls far short of certainty. The second may 
 include those which are altogether uncertain, — of which we 
 know nothing at all, either one way or the other. To the 
 third will belong those poems which we know for certain 
 that Raleigh did not write, chiefly because we can shew 
 that others have a better-founded claim to them. 
 
 Of the whole number of forty-four poems, we may per- 
 haps arrange twenty-three in the first class, which will leave 
 thirteen for the second, and eight for the third. But each 
 class may be a little enlarged by the addition of scattered 
 poems and fragments, which have been mentioned without 
 being included in the list. 
 
Xliv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. Of the twenty-three poems placed in the first class, 
 nine are found in the Lee Priory edition; nine among the 
 Additional Poems in the Oxford edition ; and Jive in the 
 concluding numbers of the list, which have never been col- 
 lected by the editors of Raleigh. 
 
 1. The nine in the Lee Priory edition are, N°^ iii, vi, xii, 
 xvi, XX, xxi, xxii, xxvii, and xxviii. Seven of these having 
 been reprinted elsewhere in this volume,* it is only neces- 
 sary to add the other two, viz. N°*. xvi and xxii. 
 
 N°. xvi is the piece in commendation of George Gas- 
 coigne's Steele-Glass, 1576 : — f 
 
 " WALTER RAWELY OF THE MIDDLE-TEMPLE 
 IN COMMENDATION OF THE STEELE-GLASSE. 
 
 " Swete were the sauce would please ech kind of last: 
 The life likewise were pure that neuer swerued; 
 For spyteful tongs, in cankred stomackes plaste, 
 Deeme worst of things, which best (percase) deserued. 
 
 But what for that? this nied'cine may suflfyse 
 
 To scorne the rest, and seke to please the wise. 
 " Though sundry mindes in sundry sorte do deeme, 
 Yet worthiest wights yelde prayse for euery payne : 
 But enuious braynes do nought (or light) esteme 
 Such stately steppes as they cannot attaine : 
 
 For who so reapes renowne aboue the rest. 
 
 With heapes of hate shal surely be opprest. 
 
 " Wherefore, to write my censure of this booke. 
 
 This Glasse of Steele vnpartially doih shewe 
 
 Abuses all, to such as in it looke, 
 
 From prince to poore, from high estate to lowe. 
 As for the verse, who list like trade to trye, 
 I feare me much, shal hardly reache so high." 
 
 N". xxii is the second poem on Spenser's Faery Queen 
 (see p. 116). As it is tolerably certain, both from the 
 initials appended to these verses, and from their position in 
 the original edition of Spenser, that they were really written 
 by Sir Walter Raleigh, they may be used as an additional 
 argument to corroborate his claim to the lines on Gascoigne. 
 
 * See the references on p. xxvi, note *. 
 
 + The controversy on this poem has been stated above, pp. xxvi-xxvii. 
 — The piece is here printed from ed. 1587. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 For though internal evidence, as we have seen, is but a 
 doubtful guide, when we are dealing with such scanty ma- 
 terials, it can scarcely be denied, that the commendation 
 of the Steele-Glass, which has just been quoted, and this 
 second commendation of the Faery Queen, bear a very close 
 resemblance to each other, in the quaint judicial gravity 
 with which the writer in each case sums up the merits of 
 the work before him, and then delivers his "censure" 
 according to the law he has laid down: — * 
 
 " ANOTHER OF THE SAME. 
 
 " The prayse of meaner wits this worke like profit brings. 
 As doth llie Cuckoes song delight, when Philunieua sings. 
 If thou hast formed right true vertues face herein, 
 Vertue her selfe can best discerne, to whom they writen bin: 
 If thou hast beauty praysd, let her sole lookes diiiine 
 ludge if ought therein be amis, and mend it by her cine: 
 If Chastitie want ought, or Temperannce her dew, 
 Behold her Princely mind aright, and write thy Queene anew. 
 Meane while she shall perceiue how far her vertnes sore 
 Aboue the reach of all that Hue, or such as wrote of yore : 
 And thereby will excuse and fauour tlij' good will ; 
 Whose vertue can not be exprest, but by an Angels quill. 
 Of me no lines are lou'd, nor letters are of price, 
 Of all which speak our English tongue, but those of thy deuice. 
 
 W. R." 
 
 2. The following are the nine pieces admitted to this class 
 from the Oxford edition : — N°^ xxix, xxx, xxxi, xxxii, xxxiv, 
 XXXV, xxxvii, xxxviii, and xxxix. They have been much 
 
 * The lines on Gorges' Lucan (above, p. xxxviii) are of a similar charac- 
 ter; but they are less quaint, and are written in a graver spirit, with a still 
 more pointed application. — It should be remembered, that the name and 
 initials, by which these Commendatory poems are recognized as Raleigh's, 
 receive strong confirmation from his intercourse with the persons so com- 
 mended. Oldys, at least, thought that he had found " the links, if not the 
 perfect chain, of some acquaintance" between Raleigh and Gascoigne : — 
 of his friendship with Spenser, there are ample records: — and Sir Arthur 
 Gorges was Raleigh's kinsman ; had been captain of Raleigh's own ship in 
 the Islnnd voyage, when he was wounded by his side in the landing at 
 Fayall ; and has left a history of that expedition, which is of material im- 
 portance in the Biography of Raleigh. (See Oldys's Life of Raleigh, pp. 
 267-306; and for a further account of Gorges, see Malone's Shakesp. by 
 Bosw. ii. pp. 245-248; Mitford's Life of Spenser, p. xxviii, note.) 
 
Xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 less fully represented in this volume than those in the Lee 
 Priory edition, partly because the evidence, in regard to 
 most of them, is very unsatisfactory, and partly because their 
 merit is more slender. But as we must be content to take 
 both evidence and merit as we find them, I will add some 
 further specimens. 
 
 The most important of them is N". xxxii, which, as we 
 have seen,* was quoted as Raleigh's by Pultenham in 1589. 
 The earliest complete copy of it which I have met with in 
 print appeared in 1593, in a Miscellany called "The Phoenix 
 Nest" (p. 72); but it is anonymous. The following is the 
 text which Oldys printed : — 
 
 « THE EXCUSE. 
 
 WKirrEN BY SIR WALTER RALEGH IN HIS \OLNG£R TfEARS. 
 
 " Calling to mind, my eyes went long about 
 To cause my heart for to foi sake my breast. 
 
 All in a rage, I sought to pull them out. 
 As who had been such traitors to my rest: 
 
 What could they say to win again my grace ? — 
 
 Forsooth, that they had seen my mistress' face. 
 
 " Another time, my /teart I call'd to mind. 
 Thinking that he this woe on me had brought. 
 
 Because that he to love his force resign'd. 
 When of such wars n)y fancy never thought : 
 
 What could he say when I would him have slain ? — 
 
 That he was hers, and had foregone my chain. 
 
 " At last, when I perceiv'd both eyes and heart 
 Excuse themselves, as guiltless of my ill, 
 
 I found myself \he cause of all my smart. 
 And told myself, that I jnyself would kill : 
 
 Yet when I saw myself to you was true, 
 
 I lov'd myself, because myself lov'd you." 
 
 The only evidence which justifies us in assigning to 
 
 » See above, pp. xxxv-xxxvi. — The evidence for Raleigh, in addition 
 to Puttenham's citation, is the name given in Oldys's MS., in MS. Ashm. 
 781, and (a testimony of much less consequence) in Wit's Interpreter. 
 The copy in MS. Rawl. Poet. 85 is anonymous, like that printed in the 
 Phoenix Nest. Most of these old copies differ materially from that which 
 is given above ; but some parts of that printed in the Oxford ed. are made 
 quite unintelligible by one or \.\\o unlucky mistakes. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlvil 
 
 Raleigh N**. xxix, xxx, and xxxi, consists in the initials 
 " W. R." annexed to them in a small collection of poems 
 printed in 1660 ;* for though much older copies of all three 
 poems are still in existence, they have no author's name 
 subjoined. The text of N". xxix which is preserved in the 
 Oxford ed. seems to have been taken by the editor of Le 
 Prince d'Amour from a copy in the Phoenix Nest, 1593 
 (p. 71); but it was printed more at length in Davison's 
 Poeticall Rhapsodic, 1602; and is now reprinted from the 
 fourth ed. of that Miscellany (1621, p. 144): — 
 
 " IN THE GRACE OF WIT, OF TONGUE, AND FACE.+ 
 
 " Her face, her tongue, her wit, so faire, so sweet, so sharpe, 
 First bent, then drew, now hit, mine eye, mine eare, my hart: 
 Mine eye, mine eare, my heart, to like, to learne, to loue. 
 Her face, hir tong, hir wit, doth lead, doth teach, dolh inoue : 
 Her face, her tong, hir wit, with beams, with sound, with art. 
 Doth blind, doth charme, doih rule, mine eie, mine eare, my heart. 
 " Mine eie, mine eare, my hart, with life, with hope, with skil. 
 Her face, her tong, her wit, doth feed, doth feast, doth fill : 
 O face, o tong, o wit, with frowns, with checks, with smart. 
 Wring not, vex not, wound not, mine eie, mine eare, my hart: 
 This eie, this eare, this hart, shal ioy, shal bind, shal sweare, 
 Your face, your tong, your wit, to sei ue, to loue, to feare." 
 
 No. XXX was also printed in the Phoenix Nest (p. 70) ; 
 and the text of that volume is adopted here : — X 
 
 * See above, p. xxxv, note j. — I am inclined to regard this evidence as 
 peculiarly doubtful. 
 
 t It has been remarked before, that there are i/iree titles to this poem; 
 viz. " A Reporting Sonnet," in Dav. eds. 1602 and 1608; that given 
 above in Dav. eds. 1611 and 1621; and "The Lover's Maze" in Le Prince 
 d'Amour. The copies in the Phoenix Nest and Le Prince d'Amour are 
 arranged so as to set forth more plainly the intricacies of the poem ; but 
 four of the lines in Davison are altogether omitted, and there are con- 
 siderable variations throughout. 
 
 :; Title in Le Prince d'Amour, " Farewell to the Court." In the Phoenix 
 Nest there is none. The copy in Le Pr. d'Am. is rather mutilated : thus, 
 in line 10, it has ' I onely wait the wrongs'— ; in line 11,* whose W7<n<f well 
 nigh w done' — in line 13, * ere care or Winters cold' — . These readings 
 are retained in the Oxford edition. — Oldys thought that " from the sub- 
 ject" of this and the next piece "especially," they were " manifestly" 
 written by Raleigh, — " the one just before his first Guianian expedition; 
 the other to the lady that was his wife." 
 
xlviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " like truthles dreames, so are iny ioyes expired. 
 And pasc retuiiie are all my dandled daies, 
 My lone misled, and fancie quite retired ; 
 Of all which past, the sorow onely stales. 
 
 " My lost delights, now cleane from sight of land, 
 Haue left me all alone in vnknowne waies. 
 My minde to woe, my life in fortunes hand; 
 Of all which past, the sorow onely stales, 
 
 " As in a countrey strange without companion, 
 
 I onely waile the wrong of deaths delaies. 
 
 Whose sweete spring spent, whose sonimer wel nie done ; 
 
 Of all which past, the sorow onely stales ; 
 
 " Whom care forewarnes, ere age and winter colde, 
 To haste me hence, to tinde my fortunes folde." 
 
 N". xxxi consists of three stanzas, of which I shall subjoin 
 tlie first and second, — following, in this case, the text of Le 
 Prince d'Amour : — 
 
 " THE ADVICE. 
 
 " Many desire, but few or none deserve 
 
 To win the Fort of thy most constant will : 
 
 Therefore take heed ; let fancy never swerve 
 
 But unto him that will defend thee still: 
 
 For this be sure, the fort of fame once won. 
 Farewell the rest: thy happy dayes are done! 
 
 " Many desire, but few or none deserve 
 To pluck the flowers, and let the leaves to fall : 
 Therefore take heed ; let fancy never swerve 
 But unto him that will take leaves and all : 
 
 For this be sure, the flower once pluckt away, 
 Farewell the rest : thy happy days decay !" 
 
 N°. XXXV is printed in this volume (p. 122) ; and it seems 
 needless to add anything to what has been elsewhere said 
 of N^ xxxiv (p. 121, note), of N°. xxxvii (p. 96), and of 
 N**. xxxviii (p. 122, note) : but I will insert Manningham's 
 version of N°. xxxix from Mr. Collier, who remarks, how- 
 ever, that it " does more credit to his adversary than to Sir 
 W. Raleigh, but not much to either" : — * 
 
 * See above, p. XXXV, note t. — The judgment passed on such trifles as 
 these depends very much on the persons to whom they are ascribed. Wal« 
 
INTRODUCTION. xHx 
 
 " Dec. 30 : 1602 : 
 " Sir W. Rawly made this rime upon the name of a gallant,one Mr. Noel : — 
 " Noe L. 
 " The word of deniall, & the letter of fifty 
 Makes the gent[lenian]'s name, that will never be thrifty. 
 " And Noel's answere. 
 " Raw Ly. 
 " The foe to the stomacke, & the word of disgrace 
 Shews the gent[lenian]'s name wiih the bold face." 
 
 3. The five remaining poems placed in this class are, N°*. xl 
 (printed on p. 118), xli (from which extracts are given on 
 pp. xxxvii-viii), xlii (printed on p. xxxviii), xliii (printed on 
 p. 81), and xliv, which I now subjoin: — 
 
 " SIR WALTER RAULEIGH TO HIS SONNE. 
 
 " T[h]ree thinges tiiear bee, that prosper all apace. 
 
 And flourish, while they are a sunder farr; 
 
 But on a day, they meet all in a place. 
 
 And when they meet, they one another marre. 
 
 " And they be these : the Wood, the Weed, the Wagge : 
 The Wood is that that makes the gallowes Tree ; 
 The Weed is that that strings the hangmans bagge; 
 The Wagg, my pretty knaue, betokens thee. 
 
 " Now marke, deere boy : while these assemble not, 
 Greene springes the tree, hempe growes, the wagg is wild: 
 But when they meet, it makes the timber rot. 
 It fretts the halter, and it choakes the child. 
 God blesse tub Child!"* 
 
 To this class belong also the fragments mentioned on 
 p. xli. 
 
 II. All the thirteen poems which were placed in the 
 second class are found in the Lee Priory edition. They are, 
 N°*. X and xix, where the signatures were changed in Eng- 
 
 pole, quoting the couplet here given to Raleigh, says, " There cannot be a 
 sillier species of poetry than rebuses; yet of that kind there artt few better 
 than the following, which qjieen Eiizabeth made on Mr. Noel :" &c. 
 
 • Although it is quite possible that Raleigh never wrote these rhymes 
 at all (see p. xxxix), there is no difficulty in supposing that he may have 
 strung them together, when in the Tower, as a momentary relief to his 
 weariness. Even his energy must have sometimes needed a lighter relax- 
 ation than he could find iu writing the History of the World. 
 
1 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 land's Helicon ;* N*'*. xxv and xxvi, which Brydges copied 
 from Cayley ;f N°^ i, iv, viii, and xi, which were signed 
 Ignoto in Rel. Wotton., and are all in this volume; and 
 N*^. V, vii, ix, xiii, and xv, which were subscribed Ignoto in 
 England's Helicon, and which differed from others marked 
 by the same signature in that volume, in that no other facts 
 of consequence were known about them (see p. xxxi). I 
 add one of these last (N". xv), as a specimen of a class of 
 poems which has had considerable influence on Raleigh's 
 poetical character : — 
 
 "the shbepheard to the flowers. + 
 
 " Sweete Violets (Loues Paradise), that spread 
 Your gracious odours, whicii you couched beare 
 
 Within your palie faces, 
 Vpou the gentle wing of some calme-breathing-winde 
 
 * See above, p. xxvii. — I can find only two reasons why these changes 
 were ascribed to Raleigh's wish to be concealed, rather than to the more 
 obvious cause, that the printer found himself mistaken in his original 
 account (see p. 126). The first is the supposed analogy of a similar change 
 in the case of the Reply to Marlow, added to Walton's assertion that 
 Raleigh wrote that poem. The second is the belief that Ignoto was 
 Raleigh's own peculiar signature. As the first is found to rest on an 
 erroneous statement (see p. 136), and as the second has been sufficiently 
 disproved above, we are now driven to the other alternative. But this 
 would be so contrary to Raleigh's claim, that it would almost justify ns in 
 arranging the two poems in the t/iird class. It seems as well, however, to 
 leave them here. — Both were printed anonymously in the Phoenix Nest 
 (pp. 69, 90); and No. x also in Davison, as I have remarked already. 
 No. xix has been printed on p. xxviii. Nott quotes N°. x as Raleigh's 
 (Surrey, p. 246) ; but only from " ed. 1814." 
 
 t See above, pp. xxviii-ix. — The authority of the London Magazine will 
 scarcely be thought sufficient to transfer N". xxvi to Class I. 
 
 j Reprinted from England's Helicon, Sign. T. ed. 1600; where it is 
 printed in Italics. Nearly the same text was given some years earlier in 
 the Phoenix Nest, p. 95. — "There are some beautiful images in this poem," 
 says Sir Egerton Brydges, "clothed in very elegant language; but its con- 
 struction is altogether involved and obscure, uhkh makes me donht if 
 it be really Raleigh's.'" (Notes to Lee Priory ed., p. 67.) His doubts soon 
 vanished ; for in a note on the poem in Ceus. Lit. ii. 120, ed. 1815, he says, 
 " This is one of Sir Walter Raleigh" s Poems. See Raleigh's Poems, printed 
 at the private press of Lee Priory, 1814." If Brydges himself could so 
 easily forget the uncertain nature of his evidence, we need not wonder that 
 others have often done the like. 
 
INTRODUCTION. H 
 
 That playes amidst the Plaine; 
 
 If, by the fauoiir of propitious starres, you gaine 
 Such grace as in my Ladies bosome place to fiiuie, 
 
 Be pioude to touch those places ! 
 And when her warmth your moysture foorth dooth weare. 
 Whereby her daintie parts are sweetly fed, — 
 
 You, honours t of the flowrie Meades, I pray, 
 
 You, prettie daughters of the earth and Sunne, — 
 
 With mild and seetnely breathing straite dij^play 
 
 My bitter sighs, that haue my hart vndone ! 
 
 "Vermillion Roses, that, with new dayes rise. 
 Display your crimson folds fresh looking faire. 
 
 Whose radiant bright disgraces 
 The rich adorned rayes of roseate rising morne ; 
 
 Ah, if her Virgins hand 
 
 Doo pluck your pure,; ere Pluebus view the land. 
 And vaile your gracious pompe in louely Natures scorue; 
 
 If chaunce my Jlistres traces 
 Fast by your flowers to lake the Sommers ayre; 
 Then wofull blushing tempt her glorious eyes 
 
 To spread their iewc?-, Adonis death reporting; 
 
 And tell Loues torments, sorrowing for her friend. 
 
 Whose drops of blood, within your leaues consorting. 
 
 Report faire Venus moanes to haue no end !§ 
 Then may remorce, in pittying of my smart, 
 Drie vp my teaies, and dwell within her hart. 
 
 FINIS, IGNOTO." 
 
 We may arrange here most of the poems ascribed to Ra- 
 leigh in Brydges's edition of Davison (see pp. xxxvi-xxxvii) ; 
 the lines addressed to William Lithgow (see p. xxxix); and 
 the Farewell to the Vanities of the World (p. 111). 
 
 III. Of the eight poems referred to the third class, six 
 were printed in the Lee Priory Collection; and two in the 
 Oxford edition. 
 
 1. The six in the Lee Priory edition are, N°^ ii, xiv, xviii, 
 xxiii, and xxiv, which were written by A. W. (see p. xxx); 
 and N°. xvii, to which both Dyer and Lodge have better 
 
 + ' Yinir honours' — Engl. Hel. and Phoen. Nest ; and so the eds. of Ra- 
 leigh. The reading adopted in the text is given in Ellis and Cens. Lit. — 
 A little above, Ellis reads 'you find — .' 
 
 ; ' your ;>!<;.>«' (!),repr. of E. H.; and so the eds. of Raleigh. — 'yowpwra' 
 — Cens. Lit. — Just below, the eds. of Raleigh have 'Fast by Me flowers' — . 
 
 5 ' Report faire Venus mones ivitlwuten end' — Phaenix Nest. 
 
lii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 claims than Raleigh * It is almost superfluous to add any 
 specimen of these ; but as Brydges distinctly refers to the 
 following poem (which is by A. W., N°. xiv) in some remarks 
 which will be quoted presently, it may be admitted on the 
 same grounds as " The Sheepheard to the Flowers:" — 
 
 " TPON AN HEROICALL POEM WHICH HE HAD BEGUN (iN IMITATION 
 
 OF VIRGIL) OF THE FIRST INHABITING THIS FAMOUS ILK 
 
 BY BRUTE AND THE TROYIANS.t 
 
 " My wanton Muse, that whilome vont to sing 
 
 Faire Beauties praise and Venus sweete delight, 
 
 Of late had chang'd the tenor of her string 
 
 To higher tunes then serue for Cupids fight: 
 
 Shrill Trumpets sound, sharp swords, & Lances strong, 
 Warre, bloud, and deatii, were matter of her song. 
 
 "The God of loue by chance had heard thereof, — 
 
 That I was prou'd a rebell to his crowne: 
 
 Fit words for warre ! quoth he, with angry scofiFe; 
 
 A likely man to write of Mars his frowne ! 
 
 Well are they sped whose prayses he will j write, 
 Whose wanton Pen can nought but loue indite ! 
 
 "This saide, he whiskt his party -colour'd wings. 
 
 And downe to earth he comes, more swift then thought; 
 
 Then to my heart in angry hast he flings. 
 
 To see what change these newes of wanes had wrought: 
 He pries and lookes, — he ransacks eu'ry vaine, — 
 Yet finds he nought, saue lone, and louers paine. 
 
 * As to Lodge, the poem is signed " T. L. Gent." in the Phcenix Nest, 
 1593, p. 59. — As toDyer,seeabove,p. xxx, note+. If the piece was printed 
 twice in E. H. through mere inadvertency (as I fully believe), it comes to 
 this, — that the publisher had one" especiall coppy" to which Dyer's initials 
 were subjoined, and another which he marked Ignoto because it had no 
 name at all. Had it been found that Dyer had no claim to it, his initials 
 would have been obliterated, as in other cases. It seems evident that the 
 publisher of E. H. did not know that it had been previously' given to 
 another writer. He has affixed the initials S. E. D. to two other poems 
 which occur in Lodge's Rosaljnde. Dr. Nott quotes N". xvii as an imi- 
 tation of Wyatt. Notes on W. p. 543. 
 
 t Reprinted from Davison, p. 25. ed. 1621. — In the second ed. of E. H., 
 to which this poem was added for the first time, it was erroneously entitled 
 " An Heroicall Poeme." Though Brydges mentioned the fuller title in his 
 repr. of E. H. (Pref. p. xxxi.) he seems to have forgotten all about it when 
 he collected Raleigh's Poems ; for he says, " This should rather be entitled. 
 Lilies occasioned hy my having undertaken to zirite an Heroical Poem'' (p. 
 67), as if he were merely correcting, from conjecture, the account given iu 
 E. H. 
 
 + ' shair — both the reprints of Davison, from the earlier eds. There are 
 some other small variations, which I need not mention. 
 
INTRODUCTION. liU 
 
 "Then I, that now percciu'd his needlesse feare. 
 With heauy smile began to plead my cause : — 
 In vaine (quoth I) this endlesse griefe I beare; 
 In vaine I striue to keepe thy grieuous lawes; 
 
 If, after proofe so often trusty found, 
 
 Vniust suspect condemne me as vnsound. 
 
 " Is tiiis the guerdon of my faithful! heart ? 
 
 Is this the hope on which my life is staid? 
 
 Is this the ease of neuer-ceasing smart? 
 
 Is this the price that for my paines is paid ? 
 
 Yet better serue fierce Mars in bloudy field, 
 Where death or conquest end or ioy doth yeeld. 
 
 " Long hane I seru'd; — what is my pay but paine? 
 Oft haue I sude; — what gaine I but delay? 
 My faithfuil loue is quited with disdaine; 
 My griefe a game, my pen is made a play ; 
 
 Yea loue, that doth in other fauour find, 
 
 In me in counted madnesse out of kind. 
 
 " And last of all, — but grieuous most of all, — 
 Thy selfe, sweete loue, hath kild me with suspect: 
 Could loue beleeue that I from loue would fall ? 
 Is warre of force to make me loue neglect ? 
 
 No ! Cupid knowes, my minde is faster set. 
 
 Then that by warre I should my loue forget. 
 
 " My muse, indeed, to warre inclines her mind, — 
 
 The famous acts of worthy Brute to write. 
 
 To whom the Gods this Hands rule assignde. 
 
 Which long he sought by Seas through Neptunes spight: 
 
 With such conceits my busie head doth swell ; 
 
 But in my heart, nought else but loue doth dwell. 
 
 "And in this war, thy part is not the least: 
 Here shall my Muse Brutes noble Loue declare ; 
 Here shalt thou see thy double loue increast. 
 Of fairest twins that euer Lady bare: 
 
 Let Mars triumph in armour shining bright; 
 
 His conquerd amies shall be thy tryumphs light. 
 
 " As he the world, so thou shalt him subdue ; 
 And I thy glory through the world will ring. 
 So by my paines thou wilt vouchsafe to rue. 
 And kill despaire. — With that he vvhisk't his wing, 
 
 And bad me write, and promist wished rest: 
 
 But sore I feare false hope will be the best." 
 
 2. The two pieces in the Oxford edition which may be 
 rejected with certainty are, N<>^ xxxiii and xxxvi (see pp. 
 95, 114). It can scarcely be doubted that both are attacks 
 on Raleigh. 
 
liv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Lastly, a poem which was ascribed to him in the Topo- 
 grapher unquestionably belongs to Wotton (see p. 45); and 
 if Tychbourne's verses were printed, as Mr. D'Israeli states 
 (see p. 68, note), " in one of the old editions of Sir Walter 
 Kaleigh's Poems," — a circumstance which I know only from 
 his report, — the claim is equally untenable.* 
 
 Though we have been compelled, in this classification, to 
 take from Raleigh many of the finest poems commonly as- 
 cribed to him, it will, I think, be found, that the outlines of 
 his poetical character become more definite, as the limits of 
 his poetry are more distinctly drawn. In the way in which 
 it has been previously collected, his own peculiar features 
 have been nearly lost, while they were softened down and 
 blended with those common to a whole school of his con- 
 temporaries. The Lee Priory Collection, especially, is cal- 
 culated to give us the most erroneous notions of Raleigh as 
 a poet, — not only because it assigns to him so many poems, 
 amounting to two-thirds of the whole volume, which he never 
 wrote, — but because so many of the most characteristic 
 poems which he did write are excluded. By far the most 
 valuable part of d)at publication is the Biographical and 
 Critical Introduction, which we cannot read without a feel- 
 ing of regret, that the admiration for his author, which 
 Brydges expressed with so much eloquence, was not re- 
 warded with better success. I believe some parts of it were 
 afterwards incorporated in another of his publications, which 
 I have not at hand ; but as it was not retained in the Oxford 
 edition of Raleigh's Works, the following extracts will be 
 nevi^ to many readers, and must be acceptable to all : — 
 
 " Raleigh's mind appears to have been characterized by 
 boldness, and freedom from nice scruples, either in thought 
 or in action. — He was, as Lodge says of Sydney, a poet 
 
 * The arrangemciu of the poems ascribed to Raleigh in these thiee classes 
 will be iindeistood more easily from the table apptuded to ihis lutrodnc- 
 
INTRODUCTION. Iv 
 
 rather by necessity than inclination ; he only indulged in 
 speculation when he was shut out from action : for his head 
 was restless and turbulent. When no overwhelming passions 
 or interests misled him, he was generous, and perhaps even 
 feeling. 
 
 " Difficulties and disappointments gave a plaintive sort of 
 moral cast to his occasional effusions. — Repossessed all the 
 various faculties of the mind in such ample degrees, that to 
 whichever of them he had given exclusive or unproportionate 
 cultivation, in that he must have highly excelled. There 
 are so many beautiful lines in the poem prefixed to Spen- 
 ser's * Fairy Queen,' beginning ' Methought T saw,' &c. [see 
 p. 116] that it is clear he was capable of attaining an high 
 place among poetical writers." 
 
 " — Do I pronounce Raleigh a poet ? Not perhaps in the 
 judgment of a severe criticism. Raleigh, in his belter days, 
 was too much occupied in action to have cultivated all the 
 powers of a poet ; which require solitude, and perpetual 
 meditation, and a refinement of sensibility, such as inter- 
 course with business and the world deadens. 
 
 " But perhaps it will be pleaded, that his long years of 
 imprisonment gave him leisure for meditation, more than 
 enough. It has been beautifully said by Lovelace that 
 
 ' Stone walls do not a prison make. 
 Nor iron bars a cage,' 
 
 so long as the mind is free. But broken spirits, and inde- 
 scribable injuries and misfortunes, do not agree with the fer- 
 vour required by the Muse. Hope, that ' sings of promised 
 pleasure,' could never visit him in his dreary bondage ; and 
 Ambition, whose lights had hitherto led him through diffi- 
 culties and dangers and sufferings, must now have kept en- 
 tirely aloof from one, whose fetters disabled him to follow 
 as a votary in her train. Images of rural beauty, quiet, and 
 freedom might perhaps have added by the contrast to the 
 poignancy of his present painful situation ; and he might 
 rather prefer the severity of mental labour in unravelling the 
 
Ivi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 dreary and comfortless records of perplexing History, in re- 
 mote ages of war and bloodshed. 
 
 " There are times when we dare not stir our feelings or 
 our fancies ; when the only mode of reconciling ourselves to 
 the excruciating pressure of our sorrows is the encourage- 
 ment of a dull apathy, which will allow none but the coarser 
 powers of the intellect to operate. 
 
 *'The production of an Heroic Poem would have nobly 
 employed this illustrious Hero's mighty faculties, during the 
 lamentable years of his unjust incarceration.* But how 
 could he delight to dwell on the tale of Heroes, to whom the 
 result of Heroism had been oppression, imprisonment, ruin, 
 and condemnation to death ? 
 
 " We have no proof that Raleigh possessed the copious, 
 vivid, and creative powers of Spenser; nor is it probable 
 that any cultivation would have brought forth from him fruit 
 equally rich. But even in the careless fragments now pre- 
 sented to the reader, I think we can perceive some traits of 
 attraction and excellence, which perhaps even Spenser wanted. 
 If less diversified than that gifted bard, he would, I think, 
 have sometimes been more forcible and sublime. His 
 images would have been more gigantic, and his reflections 
 more daring. With all his mental attention keenly bent on 
 the busy state of existing things in political society, the range 
 of his thought had been lowered down to practical wisdom : 
 but other habits of intellectual exercise, excursions into the 
 ethereal fields of fiction, and converse with the Spirits which 
 
 • Written doubtless in reference to the poem by A. W. printed above, 
 p. lii. In his note on that poem, Brydges says: — "It well agrees with 
 that which is understood to have been the progress of Raleigh's poetical 
 habits. He began with amorous pieces; he had now, I doubt not, turned 
 his mind to a longer and more important kind of poem ; from which pro- 
 bably the continual scenes of activity that he was engaged in soon withdrew 
 him. It his leisure had permitted such an application of his rich and various 
 faculties, I see no reason why he should not have succeeded in so arduous 
 an attempt." It is very unlucky, certainly, that the piece in question was 
 not written by Raleigh. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ivii 
 
 inhabit those upper regions, would have given a grasp and a 
 colour to his conceptions as magnificent as the fortitude of 
 his soul. 
 
 *' I lament, therefore, that these idlenesses of a passing 
 hour, thrown forth without care, and scattered without an 
 attempt at preservation, are all the specimens that we have 
 of Raleigh's poetical genius. To me they appear to justify 
 the praise which I have thus ventured to confer on that ge- 
 nius : but I am well aware that they will be viewed in a very 
 diiferent manner by many others, who will discover nothing 
 in them but the crude abortions of a jejune wit, never worth 
 collectinor, and now grown tiresomely obsolete by the changes 
 of Time. 
 
 <' To him," he concludes, " whose enlarged taste is alive 
 to excellence in every varying fashion of our literature ; to 
 him, whose mind is not so narrowed by the severity of a cold 
 discipline, as to refuse to throw on the composition some of 
 the interest derived from the character of the man ; to him 
 whose fancy is not too sterile or too cynical to delight in pas- 
 toral poetry ;* to him whose sensibility or ardour can cherish 
 with fondness the very fragments of genius; to him whose 
 love of History is enlightened by imagination and enriched 
 by moral reflection ; I consign this imperfect collection of the 
 Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh, with a glow of satisfaction 
 and triumph : yet not unabated by regret at the imperfect 
 manner in which I have performed my task." f 
 
 * We have no proof that the " pastoral poetry" in the Collection belongs 
 to Raleigh. 
 
 t This Introduction is dated Jan, 16: 1814: The title-page and Dedica- 
 lion bear the date of 1813. 
 
Iviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 jHE various causes of uncertainty, which make 
 it so difficult to draw out a correct list of Ra- 
 leigh's Poems, had so wide an influence on all 
 the Minor Literature of his time, that it is quite 
 impossible to form a proper estimate of them in one case, 
 without subjoining a few illustrations of their more general 
 effect. There is nothing remarkable in the simple fact that 
 such uncertainty existed; for small pieces which are written 
 chiefly for amusement, and passed about in MS. from hand 
 to hand, would in all ages be assigned to different persons 
 at different times, as the information or fancies of trans- 
 cribers varied ; but there were some peculiar circumstances 
 which made these contradictory accounts more perplexing 
 than usual in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. 
 
 This was fully acknowledged at the time. Thus Putten- 
 ham complained, that *' such among the Nobilitie or gentrie 
 as be very well scene in many laudable sciences, and espe- 
 cially in making or Poesie" were often so '* loath to be a 
 knowen of their skill," that if they wrote at all, they either 
 " suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht with- 
 out their owne names to it; as if it were a discredit for a 
 Gentleman to seeme learned, and to shew him selfe amorous 
 of any good Art." In another passage, where Raleigh 
 (among several others) is expressly mentioned, he confessed, 
 that how " excellently well" they had written could only be 
 discovered, " if their doings could be found out and made 
 publicke with the rest."* Even when such poets did not 
 care to conceal their names, they took no measures to secure 
 their rights of authorship ; but were quite content for their 
 poems to be dispersed, as Meres says of Shakespeare's 
 " sugred sonnets," " among (their) private friends." Hence 
 
 • Arte of English Poesie, pp. 16, 49, repriut. Cf. Sidney's Defence o( 
 'oesv. n. 52. ed. Grav. 
 
 Foesy, p. 52, ed. Gray. 
 
INTRODUCTION. Hx 
 
 the praises of their contemporaries, which are sometimes 
 quite unintelligible if we look only to their printed remains, 
 must be constantly understood as referring to poems which 
 have either perished altogether, or are still lying hid among 
 the MS. stores of our public and private Libraries. 
 
 Many others were, however, printed ; and these claim 
 our first attention. But unfortunately the confusion was 
 increased, instead of lessened, by the manner in which they 
 were committed to the press. In the time of Surrey, they 
 were often set forth on broad-sheets, and then " moralized" 
 by some rhymer of greater zeal than knowledge,— a kind of 
 popularity which would not tend to the advantage of either 
 the true text or the permanent reputation of their authors. 
 With that very perishable class of publications we need not 
 now concern ourselves. The books from which our evidence 
 is more frequently obtained, — such as the three entitled the 
 Phoenix Nest, England's Helicon, and the Poeticall Rhap- 
 sodic, with which the reader is sufficiently familiar, — were 
 of a somewhat higher character. But though the publishers 
 of those old Miscellanies, of which several others have been 
 recently reprinted, were generally careful, so far as we can 
 judge, not to affix names on mere conjecture,* they do not 
 yield us much assistance when they give us poems by " Un- 
 certain Authors," or by " a most worthy Gentleman," or 
 by their "dear friends AnouT/moi ;" and it rather shakes 
 our confidence in even the very best of them to find Francis 
 Davison complaining, that his printer had put in the signa- 
 
 • Thus in the Preface to England's Helicon, we are told that no actual 
 names or initials were appended, except on the authority of" some espe- 
 ciall coppy," — an assertion which is considerably modified by the accom- 
 panying remark, that any one who had been "defrauded of any thing by 
 him composed by another man's title put to the same" would have the op- 
 portunity of freely challenging his own in public, by the appearance of 
 that Collection. The occasional substitution of different signatures in that 
 volume proves both the carefulness of the editor and the difficulty he found 
 in getting accurate information. And he made several positive mistakes 
 that were not corrected, to say nothing of the poems marked Ignoto. 
 
Ix INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tures without his privity. We should have been spared the 
 necessity of much laborious arguing, if the true nature of 
 those signatures had been borne more constantly in mind, 
 by some who have seen recondite meanings in the vaguest 
 words, and have found deep mysteries in the merest printer's 
 blunders. The frequent use of doubtful initials, also, has 
 often led to error. We are nevertheless compelled, in ge- 
 neral, to take these volumes as the basis of our enquiries, 
 except in the few cases where we have the still belter evi- 
 dence of contemporary citations. 
 
 The Compilers of a lower grade, who put names upon 
 their title-pages without due authority, occasion still more 
 difficulty. Even during the life-time of an author, an un- 
 scrupulous printer would sometimes hurry through the press 
 a volume (like " The Passionate Pilgrim") which he had 
 collected as he could ; and which he tried to sell by " gracing 
 the forefront" with an attractive name* In such cases, re- 
 clamations and denials often (though not always) followed ; 
 but it was more difficult to rectify the error if the reputed 
 author were no longer living ; and the complaints of a de- 
 spoiled survivor sometimes failed to gain a hearing. Many 
 of the materials for such publications were obtained from 
 Musical Composers, who would often be unable to give a cor- 
 rect account of the various poems which had been entrusted 
 to them years before; and many, which the nominal author 
 of the volume had happened to transcribe, were mixed up 
 with his own productions, if his reputation made it worth 
 while to present the very sweepings of his study to the world. 
 
 * As these remarks are confined to Minor, or (as it is called) Fugitive 
 Poetry, I need not do more than refer generally to the artifices often 
 practised by the booksellers with regard to more important works. — One 
 cuiions instance of a fraudulent alteration, in a book which comes nearer 
 to our purpose, is mentioned in Mr. Collier's Life of Shakespeare, p. 
 cxvi, note. — Theie aie not many instances of bolder fraud on record than 
 one which occurs much later, — when a new title-page was prefixed to the 
 old ed. of King's Poems, in 1700, asciibing the whole volume to Ben 
 Joiiion, 
 
INTRODUCTION. hi 
 
 — The following instances of the mistakes committed in 
 these posthumous Collections are of later date than the Mis- 
 cellanies last mentioned ; but they are chosen from their con- 
 nection with each other, and with some of the poems re- 
 printed in this volume. 
 
 The Collection of Poems published in 1660 by Dr. John 
 Donne the younger,* under the names of Lord Pembroke 
 and Sir B. Rudyard, supplies us with several examples. 
 Four of those pieces are contained in this volume ; and 
 there is evidence enough in every case to shew that the 
 younger Donne's account is incorrect.f Two others were 
 printed in 1657 among the Poems of Bishop Henry King; 
 and as they are also found in two MS. Collections of his 
 pieces which are still in existence, there is every reason to 
 
 • For this person, of whom Wood said that, by reason of his manifold fail- 
 ing*, his memory was even then by many " condemn'd to utter oblivion," it 
 is sufficient to refer to Wood's Fasti, i. 503, compared with A. O. ii. 504, iv. 
 724; Zouch's Walton, pp. xv-vi. 115-6; and Nicolas's Life of Walton, pp. 
 Ixvi-vii, cxlix-I.— Mr. Hallam (Introd. to Lit. &c. iii. 44, ed. 1843) assumes 
 that the editor was his father, the Dean of St. Paul's, who is always un- 
 derstood when only "Dr. Donne" is mentioned; and therefore, as the 
 Dean died in 1631, he argues tiiat there must have been an earlier edition 
 than that of 1660. He adds, in corroboration," the Countess of Devonshire 
 is not called Dowager; her husband died in 1643." Then the copies dif- 
 fer. In that which I have used, the word is plain enough;— "To the Right 
 Honorable Christiana, Countess of Devonshire, Doaager." (That copy is 
 among Malone's books in the Bodleian, 460. The following note-worthy 
 names are written in the beginning: " Izaak Walton" — [his own writing]; 
 " E libris M" Fulman"— ; " T. Warton, Coll. Trin. Oxon. 1759." It was 
 afterwards Park's, and then Malone's. The most objectionable leaf has 
 been torn out, which was probably honest Izaak's doing; but it has been 
 restored in MS. The address "To the Reader," in which it is acknow- 
 ledged that some poems may be wrongly ascribed, is in modern type; bat 
 there is the original Dedication, w hich contains some of the very expressions 
 used by the same Donne in the letter to Lord Craven, which he prefixed 
 to the later editions of his father's Poems. — I have not seen the reprint.) — 
 Mr. Lodge (see below, p. 131, note) does not seem to have observed the 
 chronological difficulty involved in making the Dr. Donne the editor. The 
 younger Donne died in 1662. 
 
 + They are, Wotton's Poem written in his Youth, I. i. p. 3; Dr. Brooke 
 of Tears, II. iii. p. 63; The Lie, III. i. p. 89; and the poem sometimes 
 entitled The Silent Lover, IlL ix. p. 130. 
 
Ixii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 believe that he really wrote them.* The credit of another 
 (such as it is) must be surrendered to Sir Edward Dyer.f 
 Here then we have seven poems which were all inserted on 
 mistaken grounds in one small volume. But the list of con- 
 tradictions is not yet exhausted. I have already mentioned 
 (above, p. xiii) that an eighth has also been ascribed to 
 Carew and Wotton. A ninth occurs among the Poems of 
 Dr. Donne himself, the father of the editor ; but in this case 
 there is some little evidence in Pembroke's favour.* A tenth 
 is Ben Jonson's famous Epitaph on the Countess of Pem- 
 broke, to which a very inferior second part is added, which 
 Gifford was willing to ascribe to the filial affection of her 
 son.§ It is not necessary to seek for any further proofs of 
 the unauthorized character of this publication; but I may 
 add, that the name of" Strode" (or, more briefly, " Str.") 
 is appended, in Fulman's copy, and apparently in his small 
 neat writing, to three other poems which I have not men- 
 tioned. 1| Upon the whole, it must be confessed that this 
 
 • See Biogr. Not. of Bp. Henry King, p. Ixii. 
 
 t See this vol. p. 114, note; Pembroke, p. 29. In that publication, the 
 pnn by which Dyer's claim is snpported is ruthlessly demolished by the 
 printer, who lets the line stand, innocently enough, " Dye ere thou let hi» 
 Name be known" — . 
 
 j It is the song beginning " Soul's joy, when [al. tww] I am gone" — 
 Pembroke, p. 24; Donne,p. 57, ed. 1669. But it was not in the first edition 
 of Donne (1633); and it is ascribed to Pembroke in the MS. from which 
 Brydges printed some of Browne's Poems. Pref. p. 6. 
 
 § GifFord's Jonson, viii. 337; Pembroke, p. 66 (mispr. 96}. See too 
 Park's Walpole, ii. 203, note. As to Gilford's remarks, it should be ob- 
 served, that both parts are found in many ancient copies, — e. g. in San- 
 croft's Collection, MS. Tann. 465, fol. 62; and in MS. Ashm. 781, p. 152. 
 (Both those copies are anonymous.) So also in a copy printed by Brydges 
 (as above, p. 5), who claims it for William Browne. 
 
 II Dr. Bliss has printed one of these as Strode's on the authority of Lawes. 
 A. 0. iii. 152. It begins," Keep on your veile [Mask — Pern br. corrected 
 in MS.] and hide your eye" — Pembroke, p. 109. There is an anonymous 
 copy of it in Clitford's Tixall Poetry, p. 203. — Another of the three, be- 
 ginning " Like to a hand which hath been us'd to play" (Pembr. p. 108) 
 is given by Dr. Bliss to Carew, on the authority of an Ashm. MS. A. O. 
 ii. 659. 
 
INTRODUCTION. IxiU 
 
 " monument" to Pembroke's memory is an egregious failure. 
 It is in the noble, though qualified, eulogy of Clarendon 
 that his best " monument" is found ; and the fame of Rud- 
 yard's *Mearned muse" will live in the pages of Ben Jonson, 
 when this poor volume is again forgotten. 
 
 The poem which is ascribed to Wotton and Pembroke, as 
 well as to Carew, is not the only doubtful piece inserted in 
 the posthumous Collection of Carew's Poems (1640). In 
 that case he may have been the injured party, as he cer- 
 tainly was when his Masque entitled " Coelum Britannicum" 
 was ascribed to Sir William Davenant. But in other cases, 
 his editor was the aggressor; as in regard to three poems 
 which were reclaimed by Shirley in 1646,* and probably to 
 two others which Herrick inserted in his Hesperides in 
 1648.t 
 
 Nor again is Pembroke the only person who can lay claim 
 to compositions which were printed in the various editions 
 (all posthumous) of the Poems of Dr. Donne. Basse's 
 Epitaph on Shakespeare, which was inserted in the first of 
 those editions (1633, p. 165, mispr. 149), was afterwards 
 withdrawn; but the later impressions retained a Translation 
 of Psalm cxxxvii which undoubtedly belongs to Francis 
 Davison,^: and an Elegy which is found also in Ben Jonson's 
 
 * Carew, pp. 130-3, repr. of 1824; Dyce's Shirley, vi. 409-11. See ib. 
 p. 461. There are many variations, — One of them was also stolen by Picke, 
 in 1639. See Restit. iv. 350. 
 
 t Carew, pp. 122, 134 ; Herrick, pp. 120, 243. Herrick's copies are, 
 however, ranch less perfect than those in Carew. Mr. Hallam (Introd. to Lit. 
 iii. 43) appears to think this circumstance in Herrick's favour; but surely 
 it tells the other way, for stolen poems were more likely to be mutilated 
 than mended. The best argument for Herrick is found in the dates and 
 characters of the two publications. 
 
 I Donne, p. 157, ed. I633=p. 322, ed. 1669; Davison's Psalms, p. 27, 
 Lee Priory ed.=p. 358, ed. Nicolas, who mentions the circumstance, p. 
 C31.X. It is marked as Davison's in a copy of Donne, ed. 1G33, belonging 
 to the Library of C. C. C, Oxford, in contemporary handwriting. Even 
 Dr. Cotton enters it in his " List" as Donne's (p. 65); and Mr. Todd 
 avails himself of it to rebut Donne's attack on Sternhold (Observations on 
 the Old Version, p. 90). 
 
Ixiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Works.* Mr. Laing's recent edition of the Conversations 
 of Jonson and Drummond throws still further doubts on the 
 good faith of that Collection. f 
 
 Instances of the same nature might be multiplied to al- 
 most any extent; J but these are enough to shew, that the 
 insertion of a poem among a writer's collected Works does 
 not always prove him to be the author of it, unless (as in the 
 case of Rel. Wotton.) we have good assurance of the editor's 
 honesty and knowledge. Several subordinate circumstances 
 might be also mentioned, which contribute to weaken our 
 confidence in what we might have hoped to find the surest 
 proof of authorship. Thus at times, a facile writer would 
 help a less ready friend upon occasion, by inditing verses 
 for him ; and the borrower and lender would be easily con- 
 founded. jj A favourite poem, again, often called forth many 
 imitations ; and it is not always possible to distinguish be- 
 tween the original and the copy, — still less to distribute dif- 
 ferent variations on the same original among their respective 
 ovvners.§ Indeed it cannot be doubted that a few altera- 
 
 * Donne, p. 300, ed.l633=p. 92, ed. 1669; Giflford's Jonson, viii. 406. 
 Perhaps this is not the only instance. 
 
 t See two cases mentioned on p. 11 of that voL So on p. 36, " Joseph 
 Hall [wrote] the harbenger to Done's Anniversarie." 
 
 I No one can doubt that a mistake of this kind was committed when 
 " The Lie" was inserted among the posthumous poems of Svlvester, unless 
 his editor thought that the vile additions made it his. Others in that Col- 
 lection are open to dispute; for two of them are printed as Campion's in 
 Exc. Tudor, (i. 36; Sylvester, pp. 633-4) on the authority of one of the 
 Harleian MSS. — Cleveland was so much disturbed by the insertion of one 
 of his poems among Randolph's, that he wrote a second piece on the oc- 
 casion (Randolph, p. 108, ed. 1668; Cleveland, pp. 25-30, ed. 1677). He 
 ought to have been much obliged to Randolph's brother for taking it away. 
 
 II See Mr. Collier's Shakespeare, viii. 475; Nott's Surrey, p. 262. 
 
 § For one remarkable case of repeated imitation, I may refer to the 
 collection of stanzas on the model of that beginning " Like to the falling of 
 a Starre" in Appendix D to Biogr. Not. of Bp. H. King. — A second in- 
 stance is the series on the model of" Come live with me and be my love." 
 See this vol. p. 126, noie. — A third is mentioned above, in the remarks on 
 No. xxvi in the list of Raleigh's Poems.— A fourth is the set of variations 
 on "My mind to me a Kingdom is" — which I will enumerate here, as I 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tions (often for the worse) sometimes sufficed to satisfy the 
 conscience of a writer, who was willing to enrich his own 
 stores by borrowing from his neighbour's superfluity.* All 
 these things cause great perplexity, even to those who have 
 the original volumes at command : and when we add, that 
 from their rarity, one compiler is often forced to trust to in- 
 formation which has been supplied by another, and that se- 
 veral titles, such as The Farewell, The Invective, A Valedic- 
 tion, The Legacy, &c. were the common stock in trade of 
 editors, who prefixed each of them to distinct poems, we 
 shall be at no loss to understand how so much confusion 
 has arisen. 
 
 If we turn from printed books to those old MS. Collec- 
 
 think it is not generally known that Sir Edward Dyer has some claim to 
 the original poem. There are three copies of verses on that model; two 
 of which, viz. one of four stanzas and another of six, were printed by Byrd 
 in 1583. They have been reprinted from his text in Cens. Lit. ii. 108-10, 
 and Exc. Tudor, i. 100-3. Percy inserted them in the Reliques with some 
 alterations and additions; but he changed his mind more than once as io 
 whether they were two distinct poems, or only the dissevered parts of one 
 (see i. 292-4, 303, ed. 1767 ; and i. 307-10, ed. 1839). The third (containing 
 four stanzas) is among Sylvester's posthumous poems, p. 651 ; and Ellis re- 
 printed it under his name. In Cens. Lit ii, 102, another copy of it is given 
 from a Music Book by Gibbons, 1612. Now the longest, and apparently the 
 earliest, of these poems is signed " E. Dier" in MS. Rawl. Poet. 85, fol. 17. 
 That copy contains eight stanzas, and one of the two which are not in Byrd 
 corresponds with a stanza which Percy added. The following are the rea- 
 sons which incline us to trust this MS. (1.) Because it is the very MS. 
 to which reference is commonly made for several of Dyer's unprinted 
 poems, — as by Dr. Bliss, A. 0. i. 743, and apparently by Mr. Dyce, ed. of 
 Greene, i. p. xxxv, n. and by Park, note on Warton, iii. 230. Park is the 
 only person I can recollect who has mentioned this particular poem in the 
 MS.; and he cannot have read more than the first line, for he only says, 
 " one of them bears the popular burden of ' My mind to me a Kingdom is.' " 
 (2.) Because it is quite possible that Dyer wrote many extant poems of 
 which he is not known to be the author; for, as Mr. Dyce says, none of 
 his (achwwledged) productions " have descended to our times that seem to 
 justify the contemporary applause which he received." (3.) Because I 
 cannot discover that there is any other claimant to this poem. — One of 
 Greene's poems ends with the line, " A mind content both crown and king- 
 dom is." (Works, ii. 288, ed. Dyce.) 
 
 * Sometimes even this poor apology was dispensed with ; as when Was- 
 tvU inserted one of Southwell's poems in his Microbiblion, 1029. 
 
Ixvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tions which it was the fashion for the admirers of Poetry to 
 form for themselves, matters seem at first to grow worse in- 
 stead of better; for transcribers would often make ingenuity 
 supply the place of information, in their eagerness to adorn 
 their scrap-books with distinguished names.* In authori- 
 ties of that kind, therefore, even such as might be thought 
 most trust-worthy, we are met at once by the contradictory 
 accounts which naturally followed from the different notions 
 men would form of style. Thus among the poems which 
 are printed fi^om " Authentic Remains" of the highest cha- 
 racter in Nugae Antiquae, one is ascribed to Lord Rochfordj 
 which is contained in Sir Thomas Wyatt's own MS., and " is 
 signed with his name in his own handwriting ;"f and two 
 are said to have been written by John Harington, the father 
 of the Translator of Ariosto, when he was confined in the 
 Tower in 1554, which were inserted with different signatures 
 (and at greater length) in the Paradyse of Daynty Denises, 
 only twenty-two years after that date. J Again, the authority 
 
 * This volume contains many instances of these conjectural accounts. In 
 one case (p. 76, note), several erroneous ascriptions are enumerated, all 
 of which were superseded on better information. If the transcribers had 
 remained in ignorance (as they often would do) these would have been so 
 many difierent claimants; and if Rel. Wottou. had never reached a second 
 edition, the first signature, Ignoto, would no doubt have added Raleigh to 
 the number. 
 
 t It is the piece beginning " My lute awake" &c. Nug. Ant. ii. 400, ed. 
 Park; Notl'sWyatt, p. 20. (This was one of the two poems moralized by 
 John Hall, Nott's Appendix to Wyatt, N*^*. xxviii-ix; and there are two 
 modern versions of it.) In Park's notes on Walpole (R. and N. Anth. i. 
 275) and Warton (H. E. P. iii. 43, 53, ed. 1840) he seems to be thinking 
 only of Ndtt's incidental remark in his Life of Surrey (p. xx, note), not 
 of the decisive passage in his Notes to Wyatt (p. 545). Wyatt's MS., like 
 the other, came from the Harington Collection. 
 
 X The first begins "The lyfe is longe that lothsomely dothe last" — Nng. 
 Ant. ii. 332; Parad. of D. D. p. 43, repr. (Signature," D. S." It has four 
 additional stanzas.) The second begins "When I looke back, and in my- 
 self behold" — Nug. Ant. ii. 333; Parad. of D. D. p. 11. (Signature, " L. 
 Vaux." It has two additional stanzas). But the copies in N. A. appear to 
 be rather compressed than imperfect. Of course I do not pretend to decide 
 between these conflicting statements. — Some far finer verses in Nug. Ant., 
 viz. those beginning "Whence comes my love? O hearte, disclose" — (ii. 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ixvii 
 
 of the same John Harington and his father is adduced by 
 his son, to piove that two metrical fragments which he sent 
 to Prince Henry were written respectively by Henry VI 
 and Henry VIII ; yet both are found in the Mirror for Ma- 
 gistrates, where they seem perfectly at home.* In another 
 publication of great respectability, Bishop Corbet, on the 
 authority of an Ashmolean MS., is made to address Prince 
 Charles (afterwards Charles I) in the famous Epigram which 
 Sir John Harington presented to Queen Elizabeth in the 
 character of her '* saucy godson." f 
 
 As the conjectures of transcribers would naturally keep 
 pace with the frequency of transcripts, the number of per- 
 sons to whom a poem is ascribed is generally in proportion to 
 the popularity of the poem itself. The most remarkable of 
 those reprinted in this volume has been assigned to no fewer 
 than six different writers, of the most diversified ranks and 
 characters ; and two others have been each attributed to 
 four.\ It is true that some of these claimants are due to 
 
 324), have excited great suspicion. " If these are genuine," says Mr. Hal- 
 lam, " and I know not how to dispute it, they are as polished as any 
 written at the close of the queen's reign." (Introd. to Lit. &c. ii. 120, ed. 
 1843. See also Ellis, ii. 165, ed. 1811 ; Campbell, pp. 39, 40, second ed.; 
 Nott's Surrey, p. cclxxix.) But it is confessed that there is already one 
 mistake in the date (1564); and Park's proposal to substitute an earlier 
 date, as the legend prefixed requires, would only make the marvel greater, 
 
 * Nug. Ant. i. 386-8; Mirror for Mag.ii. 220, 465, repr. 
 
 t Gilchrist's Corbet, p. 82; Nug. Ant. i. 172. — Another of Mr. Gilchrist's 
 additions to Corbet's poems (in which he followed Waldron) is almost as 
 unfortunate. See p. 222, where he confesses that the piece " bears no re- 
 semblance to" Corbet's " acknowledged productions," and adds, that it is 
 ascribed to Herrick in one of the Ashmolean MSS. He should have told us, 
 that Herrick's title rests on far better evidence; for the poem is in his 
 Hesperides, p. 35, with the heading, " A Country life: To his Brother, M. 
 Tho: Herrick." The copy ascribed to Corbet is confessedly imperfect ; that 
 printed by Herrick is complete. — For a third very doubtful case in the 
 same volume, see p. 239; and MS. Malone 21, p. 1. — One of the poems 
 inserted in the old eds. of Corbet belongs to Bp. H. King. See King's 
 Poems, 1843, p. 61. 
 
 X They are. The Lie, — The Farewell to the Vanities of the World,— and 
 the piece known as The Silent Lover. Another guess has produced z fifth 
 claimant to the second of these. See p. 136. 
 
Ixviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 recent conjectures ; but this only shews the tendency of such 
 mistakes to multiply in course of time. 
 
 These old MS. Collections, however, should not be under- 
 valued ; for they must be used, although with caution, as 
 preserving in many cases a truer tradition than has found its 
 way into print. The rage for conjecture would have no 
 influence where an author's name was known ; and an ob- 
 scurer writer would often be revealed to his friends, when a 
 publisher was compelled to affix a name by guess. 
 
 Traditions setting forth when and why a poem was com- 
 posed, of which many examples are cited in this volume, 
 must of course be received with equal caution ; as they 
 would often spring from the same spirit of conjecture which 
 has given rise to so many contradictory claims. Our wil- 
 lingness to believe them, when they are well authenticated, 
 should make us all the more careful, when no evidence is 
 given. We need not doubt, for instance, that Raleigh, like 
 Tychbourne,* wrote a few brief lines the night before his 
 execution (p. 75) ; but when four poems of much greater 
 length are ascribed to the same period (p. 97), we reject 
 the account at once, as arising from confusion and mistake. 
 That a man mwyhave recourse to verse, as the medium of ex- 
 pressing his feelings even in the immediate prospect ofavio- 
 lent death, is no more impossible, than that he should seek 
 the same relief when he is suffering from a disorder which 
 seems likely to prove fatal ; and of this we have numerous 
 examples. Thus Sir Henry Wotton, after an attack of fe- 
 ver, sent his friends " a few poor Lines which [his] pains 
 did beget" (p. 50) : — Dr. Donne, in addition to some other 
 verses written during illness, composed one piece " in [his] 
 
 • The evidence ia support of the tradition is in Tychboiirne's case 
 unusually ample (see pp. 68-70, and Ritson, Bibl. Poet. p. 361); yet be- 
 sides the misappropriation of the lines to Raleigh, which is mentioned by 
 31 r. D' Israeli, I think there is a MS. in existence (to which I cannot now 
 refer) where they are assigned to Francis Throckmorton, who was exe- 
 cuted in 1584. 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ixix 
 
 sickness, March 23: 1630[-l],"* and died on the last day 
 of that month : — Sir Philip Sidney, after he was wounded, 
 '* was able to amuse his sick-bed by composing an ode, un- 
 fortunately now lost, on the nature of his wound, which he 
 caused to be sung to solemn music, as an entertainment 
 that might soothe and divert his mind from his torments." f 
 In cases where a tradition of this kind must be rejected, 
 it may often happen, that the author's name rests on far 
 better testimony. This has been sometimes overlooked ; 
 and the falsehood of an unauthorized legend has been held 
 to involve the denial of a writer's claim. But it does not 
 follow that a person never wrote a poem at all, because it 
 can be proved that he did not write it at a particular time. 
 A well-known passage in Gascoigne's " Epistle'^ prefixed 
 to his collected Works (1575) will assist us in establishing 
 this distinction. When he ridiculed those who thought 
 that Lord Vaux's Verses, beginning '' I lothe that I did 
 love," were written on his death-bed, and that Edwards's 
 " Soulknil" was written in extremity of sickness, he did 
 not mean to deny that Vaux and Edwards really wrote the 
 poems ; and he has been followed by our various antiqua- 
 
 * See Walton's Lives, p. 83, ed. 1790. 
 
 t Gray's Life of Sidney, p. 56. — An imperfect copy of some common- 
 place verses, said to have been written by Sidney " a little before his 
 Death," is found in Winstanley's Poets, 1687, p. 86. I subjoin a better 
 version of them, not because they are genuine,— for as Sidney's parents 
 died a short time before him, the tifth line contains a plain proof of for- 
 gery, — but because they form an apt illustration of these traditions in ge- 
 neral, and because I cannot find that they are mentioned by Zouch or 
 Gray:— 
 
 " S"^ PHILIP SYDNEY LYIXG 
 ON HIS DEATH-BED. 
 
 " It is not I that dy ; I do but leaue an Inne 
 
 Where harboured was with me all filthy kiude of sinne: 
 
 It is not I that dy; I do but now begin 
 
 Into eternall ioyes by faith to enter in. 
 
 Why mourue ye then, my Parents, friends, and kin? 
 
 Lament ye when I lose : why weepe ye when I win ? 
 
 (MS. Cheth. 9012, p. 86; and MS. Ashm. 781, p. 150.) 
 
IXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ries in his recognition of their claims.* The appended 
 stories, indeed, are asserted (and believed) to be false ; but 
 their falsehood has no malign influence on the rights of the 
 two authors in question. 
 
 These two traditions seem precisely parallel to that an- 
 nexed to the poem called " The Lie ; " or, if there is any 
 difference at all, Raleigh's execution makes his case the 
 stronger. For though they had no lack, in that day, of 
 common Malefactors' Ballads, sung to the tune of " For- 
 tune ray Foe," or printed on broadsheets, with a hideous 
 " effigies" of the criminal, and a red-letter description of his 
 crime,-}- something of a higher strain was looked for at the 
 hands of remarkable state-victims ; and if no parting-poem 
 was forthcoming, a ready substitute was found in the first 
 suitable copy of verses which came to hand. Thus, to say 
 
 • Lord Vaux's Ballad, which was first printed in Tottell's Miscellany, 
 and which is quoted, with singular propriety, by the Grave-diggers in Ham- 
 let, is still a tolerably familiar piece, and may be found in most Collections. 
 It is curious that another of his pieces, which is inserted in the Paradyse 
 of Daynty Deuises, is headed " In his extreame sycknesse." — Edwards's 
 " Soulknil" is mentioned below (p. 90). I suppose that it is not known to 
 exist; but there is not a shadow of reason for confounding it with "The 
 Soul's Errand." The title would lead us to expect a burthen, something 
 like those of the songs in the Tempest and the Merchant of Venice, or in 
 " Corydon's Dolefull Knell" (Percy, ii. 263, ed. 1767). It has been ac- 
 cordingly conjectured, that it may have been the poem, " death, rocke 
 me on sleepe," the beginning of which is parodied in 2 Hen. IV. (A. ii. So. 
 iv.) and which has been ascribed both to Lord Rochford and his sister, but 
 to neither on good evidence. See Blackwood's Magazine for Oct. 1838, 
 p. 466. 
 
 + Of course these were never meant to deceive any one. Such Ballads 
 as those ascribed to Luke Hutton (Collier's Old Ballads, p. 117), Mannington 
 (Ritson's Anc. Songs, ii. 47, ed. 1829), «&c., were no doubt produced by scribes 
 of the same kind. It seems to be in reference to this custom that Row- 
 lands makes his pirate speak of coming to the gallows, 
 
 "There, like a swan, to sing my dying hower. 
 That liv'd a raven, onely to devoure." 
 
 (Knaves of Spades and Diamonds, p. 86, Percy Soc. repr.) 
 
 See also Chappell's Nat. Engl. Airs, ii. 141-2, 191 ; Motherwell's Min- 
 strelsy, p. xxvi.— As Molops remarks, "These fetter'd Swans chant it most 
 melodiously before their deaths." (Cartwright's Royall Slave.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ixxi 
 
 nothing of some vague traditions of the kind connected with 
 the names of Queen Anne Boleyn and her brother, Lord 
 Rochford ; or of the four Latin lines said to have been writ- 
 ten with a pin on the walls of her prison by Lady Jane 
 Grey ; we have many such pieces as those entitled " Verses 
 written by the Lord Admiral Seymour the week before he 
 was beheaded, 1549;" and "Verses made by [Robert] 
 Earl of Essex in his trouble," with others " composed in the 
 Tower." * At a later period, we have " Verses said to be 
 made by Thomas, Earl of Strafford, not long before his 
 death," besides " The Lieutenant's [Strafford's] Legend/' 
 which are probably both spurious; and also " Majesty in 
 Misery," which is reported, on very good authority, to be 
 the genuine composition of King Charles.f In some of these 
 cases, it is possible that both name and tradition are cor- 
 rect ; — in others, it is nearly certain that both are alike fic- 
 titious; — but the existence of a double mis-statement in 
 these latter cases will not prove that it exists in all ; nor are 
 we justified in inferring that a name is forged, because a le- 
 gend is erroneous. In the case of a poem like " The Lie," 
 so many things concurred to make it likely that the story 
 would be connected with it, — the subject of the verses, the 
 celebrity and fate of their reputed author, and the report of 
 
 • On a poem said to have been written by his father, Walter, Earl of 
 Essex, " the nighte before he died," see Park's Walpole, ii. 18-21. It is 
 another of the many cases where the old MSS. and the printed copies are 
 at variance. — Ritson records a great number of these so-called dying-verses, 
 besides those which I have mentioned. See Bibl. Poet. pp. 22 (cf. p. 97), 
 117,145, 174, 203, 209, 309, 334, &c.— They were sometimes actually used 
 as Epitaphs. See, for example, those of Richard Carew of Anthony, in 
 Lyson's Magn. Brit. iii. 17. 
 
 + These pieces are all well-known. — A remarkable instance of double for- 
 gery, dififering from those named above, in that the actual death of another 
 person is assumed as the occasion of a poem, and not the impending death 
 of its author, is mentioned by Mr. Dyce, Life of Shirley, p. liii. It is the 
 case of Shirley's Dirge, " The glories of our blood and state" — which was 
 printed in a vol. oi Butler's Posthumous Works, as "a thought upon death, 
 after hearing of the murder of Charles I." 
 
Ixxii INTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 the manner in which some of his latest moments were em- 
 ployed, — that we should have had no reason to be surprised 
 at the tradition, could we prove still more conclusively that 
 Raleigh wrote it, as we can prove that it was written, " more 
 than twenty years before his death." 
 
 These general remarks will serve to explain the origin of 
 those contradictory statements, which we find even in re- 
 spect to some of the poems which Izaak Walton edited ; 
 and their application to the poems reprinted in the Third 
 Part of this volume, as well to those of which we have been 
 speaking in this Introduction, is sufficiently obvious. They 
 will also account for the long lists of various readings which 
 I have appended to most of the separate poems;— and this is, 
 I think, the last subject which seems to require notice here. 
 When a writer has conducted his own compositions through 
 the press, it is mere waste of labour to bring together all 
 the trifling alterations which have been afterwards intro- 
 duced by careless copyists ; but the case is altogether diffe- 
 rent, when poems have come down to us in the very form 
 which most exposed them to corruption. Even in the First 
 Part, we cannot be certain how far the text preserves the 
 very words which Wotton used; for though few men have 
 been so richly endowed as Izaak Walton with the higher 
 qualifications of a faithful and affectionate biographer, it is 
 plain that, as an editor, he cannot always claim the merit of 
 minute and scrupulous fidelity in transcription. Otherwise, 
 we should not have found so many variations between the 
 different copies of poems which he published in different 
 places ; nor would there have been so much agreement in 
 rejected readings as we sometimes observe in copies ob- 
 tained from other sources. It is scarcely necessary to re- 
 mark, however, that the best reading (or what seems to be 
 such) is not always the most genuine ; and the advantages 
 of an established standard are so obvious, that I have never 
 disturbed his text, either in the First or Second Part, with- 
 out great reluctance. The same plan has been followed in 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ixxlii 
 
 the Third Part, in the treatment of the text which has been 
 chosen in each particular case. As to those variations 
 which are obviously erroneous, they have been preserved to 
 supply evidence of the degree of credit which is due to the 
 transcripts from which they were derived. 
 
 J. II. 
 
 COMBE-LONGA, OXON., 
 
 Jan. 18: 1845: 
 
 P.S. The 55th publication of the Percy Society, which 
 was not delivered to the Members till after the preceding 
 sheets were printed, furnishes us (at p. 14) with a different 
 copy of the lines given on p. 114 in this volume, by which 
 their real nature, as I had understood it, is proved beyond 
 dispute.* Another libel on Raleigh, which is printed in 
 the same tract (pp. 15-18), contains a curious parody on 
 the Sonnet addressed to him by Spenser : — 
 
 " I pitty that the sommers nightingale, 
 
 Immortall Cinthia's sometime deare delight, 
 That us'd to singe so sweete a madrigale," &c. 
 
 Spenser's words are : — 
 
 " To thee, that art the Summer's nightingale, 
 Thy sovereign Goddess's most dear deliglit, 
 Why do I send this rustic madrigale," &c. 
 
 The name " Cynthia" was probably chosen with a reference 
 to Raleigh^s poem (now lost) which bore that title. See 
 above, pp. xxiv, n. xxxvii, n. 
 
 March 6: 1845: 
 
 * From the expressions used by the Editor, Mr, Hallivvell, in his Pre- 
 face, I believe he will not be surprised to learn that these lines (to which 
 some others are added in his copy) were printed in the Oxford ed. of Ra- 
 leigh's Works, — "The Lots," which he gives on pp. 5-10, were written by 
 Sir John Davies ; and were printed in Davison's Poeticall Rhapsodic, 
 The two copies, however, are by no means the same; and each supplies 
 some omissions in the other. — The poem which he quotes on p, 47, from 
 the Phffinix Nest, was printed also in England's Helicon and Davison ; 
 and is included in the modern eds. of Raleigh. See above, on N°. x. 
 
 f 
 
INDEX I. 
 
 POEMS ASCRIBED TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH.* 
 
 [The Poems to which no mark is prefixed are arranged above (pp. xliv- 
 xlix) in Class I., i. e. poems which are given to Raleigh with some shew 
 of probability; those which are marked by an asterisk are arranged in 
 Class II (pp. xlix-li) i. e. poems for which no direct evidence has been 
 found, either to substantiate or to refute his claim ; those which are marked 
 by an obelus are arranged in Class III (pp. li-Iiv) i. e. poems which cer- 
 tainly belong to other writers. — The " N"^" appended to each line refer 
 to the detailed list of Raleigh's reputed poems. — Those lines which are printed 
 in Italics belong to poems which are only quoted or mentioned, but not 
 reprinted, in this volume.] 
 
 Page 
 
 * As at noon Dulcina rested (N". xxv. See pp. xxviii-ix.) — 
 
 As you came from the holy land (N". xxxv) 122 
 
 Calling to mind, my eyes went long about (No. xxxii. See also pp. 
 
 xxix, xxxv-xxxvi.) xlvi 
 
 * Come live with me and be my dear (No. xiii. Ignoto in E. H. See pp. 
 xxxi, xxxiii, n. 126, n.) — 
 
 Conceit, begotten by the eyes (No. xl.) 118 
 
 * Coridon, arise my Coridon (N". v. Igrwto in E. H. See p. xxxi.) . — 
 Court's commender. State's maintainer (N". xxxvii. See p. 96.) .... — 
 
 t Cotirfs scor7i, State's disgracing (N". xxxvi. See p. 95.) — 
 
 Cowards [may] fear to die ; but Courage stout (N". iii.) 74 
 
 Even such is Time, that takes on trust (No. vi.) 75 
 
 Fai7i would I, but I dare not (No. xxxiv. See p. 121, n.) — 
 
 Give me my scallop-shell of quiet (No. xxvii.) 106 
 
 Go, Soul, the Body's guest (No. xxviii. Seealsopp. xxix,n. Ixx-lxxil.) 99 
 Had Lucan hid the truth to please the time (N". xlii. See also p. 
 
 xlv, n.) xxxviii 
 
 Here lies Hobinoll, our pastor while ere (No. xxxviii. See p. 122, n.) — 
 Her face, her tongue, her wit, &c. (N". xxix. See also p. xxxv, n.) xlvii 
 
 • This Index is confined to the forty-four poems enumerated in the list 
 given in the Introduction. For some additional fragments by Raleigh, see 
 pp. xi, note, and xli. — Three other poems in this volume have been assigned 
 to him, but incorrectly. See pp. 40, 69, 111.— For other cases of the s;nne 
 kind, see pp. xxxvi, note, xxxvii, note, and xxxix. 
 
INDEX I. IXXV 
 
 Page 
 
 * Iley, doiin a dozen, did Dian sing (N". ix. Igtioto in E. H. See p. 
 xxxi.) — 
 
 If all the World and Love were young (N°. xii. See also p. 136). . 128 
 + Jf Love be life, I long to die (N°. ii. By A. W. See p. xxx.) — 
 
 * In Peascod time, -alien hound to horn (N". vii. Ignoto in E. H. See 
 
 p. xxxi.) — 
 
 t Like desert uoods, uitli darksome shades obscured (N". xvii. Probably 
 
 by Lodge, but ascribed ako to Dyer. See pp. xxx, lii, n.) — 
 
 Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expired (N". xxx. See also p. 
 
 XXXV, n.) xlviii 
 
 * Man's Life's a Tragedy : his Mother's womb (N". viii. Ignoto in 
 
 R. W.) 82 
 
 Many desire, but few or none deserve (N". xxxi. See also p. xxxv, n.) xlviii 
 
 Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay (N°. xxi.) 116 
 
 t My wanton Muse, that whilome wont to sing (No. xiv. By A. W. 
 
 See also p. xxx.) Hi 
 
 t Xoxo have 1 learnt, uith much ado, at last (N°. xxiv. By A. W. See 
 
 p. xxx.) — 
 
 Passions are likened best to floods and streams (N^. xx.) 132 
 
 * Prais'd be Diana's fair and harmless light (N". xix. See also pp. 
 
 1, n. 125, n.) xxvlii 
 
 * Quivering Fears, heart-tearing Cares (N". i. Ignoto in R. W.).. . . 57 
 
 * Rise, oh my Soul, with thy desires to Heaven (N^, xi. Ignoto in 
 
 R. W.) 72 
 
 * Shall I like a hermit dzvell Ctio. XK\i. See p. xxix.) — 
 
 * Shepherd, zihat's Love, I pray thee tell§ (N". x. See pp. xxvii, 1, n. 
 125, n. and 136.) — 
 
 * Sweet violets, Love's Paradise, that spread (No. xv. Ignoto in E. 
 
 H. See also p. xxxi.) 1 
 
 Sweet were the sauce would please each kind of taste (No. xvi. See 
 
 also pp. xxvi-vii.) xliv 
 
 t The fairest pearls that Northern seas do breed (N'>. xviii. By A. W. 
 
 See p. xxx.) — 
 
 + The frozen snake, oppressed uith heaped S7um (N". xxiii. By A. W. 
 
 See p. xxx.) — 
 
 The praise of meaner wits this work like profit brings (N°. xxii. See 
 
 also p. 116.) xlv 
 
 The word of denial, and the letter of fifty (N°. xxxix. See also p. 
 
 xxxv, n.) xlix 
 
 Three things there be, that prosper all apace (No. xliv.) xllx 
 
 To praise thy life, or wail thy worthy death (No. xli. See extracts on 
 
 pp. xxxvii-viii.) — 
 
 + WaterthyplantswithGracediviue,&c.(No. xxxiii. Seealsop.lxxiii.) 1!4 
 What is our Life? the play of passion (N". xliii.) 81 
 
 * Whilst my Soul's eye beheld no Light (N". iv. Ignoto in R. W.) . 61 
 
 % Other copies (in Phcenix Nest, 1593, and Davison) begin, " Now what 
 is Love, I pray tliee tell" — . 
 
INDEX II. 
 
 POEMS BY WOTTON AND OTHERS. 
 
 Page 
 
 And now all Nature seem'd in lovef (Wotton) 34 
 
 Believe it, Sir, you happily have hit (Wotton) xii 
 
 Dazzled thus with height of place (Wotton) 27 
 
 Dum puer es, vanze nescisque incommoda vocis (Hoskins) 84 
 
 Eternal Mover, whose diffused glory (Wotton) 4(i 
 
 Eternal Time, that wastest without waste (A. W.) xlii 
 
 Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles (Uncertain. See also p. 135.) Ill 
 
 Go ! bid the world, with all its trash, farewell (Breton) 93 
 
 Go ! Echo of the mind (Unknown) 03 
 
 He first deceas'd: she for a little tried (Wotton, See also p. 136.) . . 44 
 
 Here lies the man was born and cried (Hoskins) 9 
 
 How happy is he born and taught (Wotton) 29 
 
 If breath were made for every man to buy (Unknown) 83 
 
 If life be time that here is lent (Hoskins) 9 
 
 In vain I live, such sorrow lives in me (A. W.) xlii 
 
 It is not I that die, &c. (Ascribed to Sidney) Ixix 
 
 My prime of Youth is but a frost of cares (Tychbourne) 69 
 
 My Soul, exalt the Lord with hymns of praise (Wotton) 37 
 
 Noble, lovely, virtuous creature (Wotton and Hoskins) 10 
 
 O faithless World, and thy most faithless part (Wotton) 4 
 
 Of many now that sound with hope's consort (Gorges) xxxix 
 
 O Tliou great Power ! in Whom I move (Wotton) .51 
 
 Rouse up thyself, my gentle Muse (Wotton) 24 
 
 Silence (in truth) would speak my sorrow best (Wotton) 41 
 
 Sweet Benjamin, since thou art young (Hoskins) 85 
 
 The World's a bubble, and the life of man (Lord Bacon) 78 
 
 The worst is told, the best is hid (Hoskins) 8 
 
 Thy flower of youth is with a north wind blasted (Unknown) 68 
 
 Untimely Fever, rude insulting guest (Wotton) 16 
 
 W^ho would have thought there could have been (Dr. Brooke) 6.'j 
 
 Wotton, the country and the country swain (Bastard) xi 
 
 You meaner Beauties of the night (Wotton. See also p. 135) 14 
 
 You that on stars do look (Wotton) 19 
 
 t Another copy begins, " This day dame Nature seem'd in love"- 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 FROM llELIQUIiE \V0TT0N1AN.E, 
 ED. 1685. 
 
A POEM WRITTEN BY SIR HENRY 
 WOTTON IN HIS YOUTH. 
 
 [This Poem was first printed in Davison's Poetical! Rhap- 
 sodie, 1602, as " An Elegie," and with the signature " H. W." 
 Wotton was then thirty- four years old ; and it is therefore 
 probable that it was written some years before that time. If 
 there were any truth in the assertion that Wotton was ad- 
 dressed as a poet by Bastard in 1598, it would follow that 
 his other youthful compositions are now lost ; for this single 
 piece would scarcely entitle him to the rank of a poet, and 
 the others ascribed to him in Rel. Wotton. and reprinted in 
 this volume, can be referred,— in most cases with certainty, 
 and in all with probability, — to a much later date. But the 
 statement arose from a misapprehension of the meaning of 
 Bastard's Epigram, which will be found in the Introduction 
 to this volume. 
 
 His claim to this piece has been disputed ; for it is as- 
 cribed to Sir Benjamin Rudyard by the Editor of the Poems 
 
4 POEMS BY 
 
 of Pembroke and Rudyard (1660); but the authority of 
 Davison and Izaak Walton will more than counterbalance 
 that of Dr. Donne the younger. 
 
 The Variations are from three copies of the Poem ; viz. 
 A=Davison's Rhapsodic, in the fourth edition of which it 
 has the longer title, " Of a woman's heart," but no signa- 
 ture at all (1621, p. 202.).— B=Rudyard's Poems, p. 34; 
 Title, "Verses made by Sir B. R."— C=MS. Rawl. Poet. 
 147, p. 74. Signature, " H. Wotton." The additional 
 variations, marked D, are borrowed from Mr. Dyce's edition 
 of Sir Henry Wotton's Poems, printed for the Percy Society. 
 They were taken from a MS. in the handwriting of Sir 
 Roger Twysden, and are here retained to corroborate those 
 of other copies, for it will be seen that none of them are pe- 
 culiar to that transcript.] 
 
 FAITHLESS World, and thy [most] 
 A Womans Heart ; [faithless part, 
 The true Shop of variety, where sits 
 Nothing but Fits 
 [o] And fevers of desire, and pangs of love. 
 Which toys remove ! 
 Why was she born to please ? or I to trust 
 
 Words writ in Dust, 
 Suffering her Eyes to govern my despair, 
 [lo] My pain for Air ; 
 
 And fruit of time rewarded with untruth. 
 
 The food of youth ? 
 Untrue she was ; yet I believ'd her eyes, 
 (Instructed spies,) 
 [lo] Till I was taught, that Love was but a School 
 To breed a fool. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 5 
 
 Or sought she more, by triumphs of denial, 
 
 To make a trial 
 How far her smiles commanded my weakness ? 
 [20] Yield, and confess ; 
 
 Excuse no more thy folly ; but, for Cure, 
 
 Blush, and endure 
 As well thy shame, as passions that were vain ; 
 
 And think, 'tis gain, 
 To know that Love, lodg'd in a Womans brest, 
 
 Is but a guest. 
 
 H. W. 
 
 [Variations. — 1. ' most' is the reading of A B C D. In Rel. 
 AVotton. it is 'more' — . I follow Mr. Dyce in this alteration of 
 the text.— 9. 'her looks'— B C B.—' by despair'— C— 15. 'is 
 but' — B C. — 16. After this line, another couj^let is found in 
 BCD, viz. 
 
 ' Or was it absence that did make her strange, 
 Base flower of change?' 
 
 17. ' than triumphs'— A B C D.— 18. ' To see '—A B C D.— 19. 
 jNIr. Dyce inserts ' on after ' commanded,' from D, which is sup- 
 ported by B C. But the line is complete without it, the accent 
 being thrown on the second syllable of 'weakness.' — 21. 'Ex- 
 cuse vot now .... nor her nature' — A B C D. — 23. The recent 
 editors of Davison announce that the second ' as' is omitted in 
 ed. 1621, — a mere accidental omission, if it were so ; but the line 
 has only been disturbed at the press, to the loss of one letter : it 
 runs, ' Aswel thy shames, passions that were vaine' — 24. ' thy 
 gain' — A B C D. — 24. Sir E. Brydges prints 'jest' for ' guest,' 
 without any authority that I know of.] 
 
POEMS BY 
 
 II. 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON AND SERJEANT 
 HOSKINS RIDING ON THE WAY. 
 
 [John Hoskins was originally a Fellow of New College 
 (1584-6), where he graduated as B.A. May 6: 1588: and 
 as M. A. Feb. 26 : 1591-2 : but some sarcasms in which he 
 indulged as Teri-a Fillus for that year, caused him to be 
 expelled from the University without being admitted to his 
 regency. After he had taught a school for some time, and 
 had commenced a Greek Lexicon, a prosperous marriage 
 enabled him to enter at the Middle-Temple, and to become 
 a member of Parliament, where what Sir Henry Wotton calls 
 his " licentiousness, baptized freedom,'' consigned him to the 
 Tower, June 7 : 1614. He was released in about a year, and 
 in 17 Jac. I. (1619) was elected Lent-Reader of the Middle- 
 Temple. In the 21st of the same reign (1623), he was made 
 serjeant-at-law ; but although the title of serjeant is the only 
 mark of time about this dialogue, we can scarcely believe that 
 so youthful a piece was composed by two men, of whom the 
 younger was then fifty-five. Wood adds, that Hoskins was 
 "soon after a judge or justice itinerant for Wales, and one 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 7 
 
 of the council of the Marches thereof." He died Aug. 27 : 
 1638.* 
 
 Some of the strange assertions contained in Wood's ac- 
 count of him must undoubtedly be reckoned among the 
 "folliries and misinformations," by which, as Wood com- 
 plains so grievously, (Life, p. Ix.) John Aubrey would 
 « stuff his many letters sent to A. W," and which " somtimes 
 would guid him into the paths of errour." Aubrey was well 
 acquainted with Hoskins's descendants, and certainly took 
 him for a poet;— the story of his " polishing" Ben Jonson 
 seems to be directly borrowed from Aubrey's MSS.;— and 
 the tradition of the services which he is said to have rendered 
 to Sir Walter Raleigh probably had the same original.f It 
 is certain, however, that Hoskins was familiar with many of 
 his more eminent contemporaries. Wood says that " he was 
 also much respected and beloved by Cambden, Selden, 
 Sam. Daniel, Dr. Joh. Donne, dean of Paul's, Rich. Martin, 
 recorder of London, sir H. Wotton, and sir Ben. Rud- 
 yard ;" and he records his name in a similar manner in va- 
 rious other biographies,— e. g. those of Martin, Rudyard, 
 Jonson, and Sir John Davies.^ Granger has printed an 
 Inscription found under Martin's portrait, which "Chr. 
 Brocus, Jo. Hoskinus, & Hugo HoUandus, obsequii et 
 amoris triumviratu nexi," dedicated in 1620 to Sir Lionel 
 Cranfield, (afterwards Earl of Middlesex,) " amico amicum 
 amici."|| I have somewhere seen an account of a " Convi- 
 vium," in which Hoskins, Brooke, and Donne take part, — 
 the latter two under the titles of Christophorus Torrens and 
 Joannes Factus. 
 
 * Wood's A. O. ii. 624-627. Fasti, i. 242, 255. 
 
 t See (1.) LeUers from the Bodleian, ii. 330, 394, 395, and Mr. Thoms's 
 Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 116. (2.) Letters from the Bodleian, ii. 413. 
 (3.) Raleigh's Works, Oxford edit. viii. 743. (The sentence last referred 
 to is omitted in the copy of Aubrey's Life of Raleigh, which is printed in 
 LeUers from the Bodleian.) 
 
 j Wood's A. O. ii. 626, 250, 401, 612, iii. 456. 
 
 II Biographical History, ii. 14, 
 
<S POEMS BY 
 
 His " book of poems, neatly written, bigger than those of 
 Dr. Donne," which, as Wood tells us, was lent and lost by 
 his son. Sir Benedict, has never, I believe, been recovered ; 
 nor is it likely that any one will ever try to supply its place 
 by collecting his scattered fragments. — Besides the share he 
 may have had in this dialogue, and four lines which will be 
 found in a later part of this volume, Hoskins is known as 
 one of the contributors of verses prefixed to Coryate's Cru- 
 dities, 1611 (Sign. e6 and 7). Dr. Bliss has printed a 
 poem consisting of eighty lines, under the title, " Mr. Hos- 
 kins Dreame," from one of the Ashmole MSS. (781, p. 129); 
 but it is seldom found in so complete a state. In two MSS. 
 which I have seen, it is cut down to fifty-six lines ;* and in 
 a third (MS. Malone 16, p. 20), it is unsparingly abridged 
 to six, a copy which must have been well known, since it is 
 inserted in the Ashmole MS. (p. 131) immediately after the 
 longer piece. This last is brief enough to quote. (I give it 
 from the Malone MS.) 
 
 '' VERSES PRESENTED TO Y^ KIXG BY M^^ HOSKIXS, IN THE 
 BEHALFE OF HER HUSBAND, pSlSONER. 
 
 "The worst is told, the best is hidd; 
 Kings know not all, I would they did ; 
 What though my husband once have errd? 
 Men more to blame haue beene preferrd. 
 Who hath not errd, he doth not liue; 
 Hee errd but once, — once, King, forgiue. 
 
 FFIMS.'- 
 
 * Namely, in MS. Malone 19, pp. 61-63. Title, " M'' Hoskins his 
 Dreame." And in a MS. belonging to Mr. Pickering, fol. 149, v". Title, 
 " M"" John Hoskins bewaileing his owne, his wines, his Mothers, and his 
 Childrens woefull case, y<= one borne, ye other yet vnborne." — Seveial 
 other fragments by him, besides those given above, may be found in MS. 
 Malone, 19, pp. 87, 140, 141, and in the Cheetham MS. 8012, pp. 76-79,— 
 157-159.— There is a jest of his in Mr. Thoms's Anccd. and Trad. p. 45. — 
 On a strange dance said to be given by him by Fuller, (Worthies, Introd. 
 toHeref.)see Nichols's Progr. of James I. vol. i. p. xix. — His" Rhetorick," 
 illustrated from Sir Philip Sidney, was sold among Mr. B. H. Bright's 
 MSS. No. 217. — I will only add, that Hoskins is supposed by Wood to 
 have written some execrable verses, alluded to by Jonson (iv. 55, ed. Gif- 
 ford) in a sufficiently disrespectful manner. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 9 
 
 I will add two other short pieces, which, with several 
 others, are ascribed to him in an old MS. Miscellany in the 
 Cheetham Library at Manchester (8012, pp. 76, 158):— 
 
 I. " OF Y^ LOSSE OF TIME. Per J I HOSKINS. 
 
 " If life be time y* here is [l]ent,* 
 And time on eaitii be cast away, 
 Wlio so his time hath here mispent 
 Hath hastned his ovvne dying day: 
 So it doth prone a killing crime 
 To massacre our living time. 
 
 " If doing nought be like to death. 
 Of him yt doth, Camelion-wise, 
 Take only paines to draw his breath, 
 The passers by may pasquili/.e, 
 
 Not, here he Hues ; but, here he dyes." 
 
 II. " AN EP : ON A MAN FOR DOINGE NOTHINGE. 
 
 " Here lyes the man was borne and cryed, 
 Tould three score yeares, fell sicke, and dyed." 
 
 These fragments are about the best I could find. The se- 
 cond is also in Camden's Remaines (ed. Philipot, 1657, p. 
 399) with some variations, among " a few conceited, merry, 
 and laughing Epitaphes, the most of them composed by 
 Master lohn Hoskins when he was young." It is copied in 
 Fuller's Worthies of London, p. 202. Ben Jonson would 
 have put the thought in rather a nobler way, thus : — 
 
 " Repeat of things a throng, 
 To shew thou hast been long. 
 Not liv'd" — 
 
 And again :- 
 
 "The ignoble never lived; ihey were awhile. 
 Like swine, or other cattle here on earth : 
 
 Their names are not recorded on the file 
 Of LIFE that fall so" — 
 
 * The MS. has 'spent' — which seems to be erroneous. 
 
10 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 Yet Aubrey could persuade himself that Hoskins " polished" 
 Ben Jonson, and that Jonson himself confessed it ! I be- 
 lieve Gifford's terse summary of Aubrey's character will 
 stand for honest truth : — " In short, Aubrey thought little, 
 believed much, and confused every thing." (Life of Jonson, 
 p. XX. note.) 
 
 I may mention here, that among Donne's Poems there is a 
 somewhat similar Dialogue between himself and Wotton, 
 p. 186, ed. 1669.] 
 
 OBLE, lovely, vertuous Creature, 
 Purposely so fram'd by Nature 
 To enthral your servants wits ; 
 Time must now unite our hearts, 
 Not for any ray deserts. 
 
 But because (me thinks) it fits. 
 
 Ho. Dearest treasure of my thought. 
 And yet wert thou to be bought 
 
 With my life, thou wert not dear : 
 [lo] Wo. Secret comfort of my mind. 
 Doubt no longer to be kind, 
 But be so, and so appear. 
 
 Ho. Give me love for love again ; 
 
 Let our loves be clear and plain, — 
 [is] Heaven is fairest, when 'tis clearest ; 
 
 Wo, Lest in clouds, and in differring, 
 We resemble Seamen erring. 
 
 Farthest off, when we are nearest. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 11 
 
 Ho. Thus, with numbers interchanged, 
 [20 J Wotton's Muse and mine have ranged ; 
 
 Verse and Journey both are spent : 
 Wo. And if Hosk'ms chance to say, 
 That we well have spent the day, 
 I, for my part, am content. 
 
 H. W. 
 
12 FOEMS BY 
 
 ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF 
 BOHEMIA. 
 
 [" Let not our readers mistake this excellent little poem for 
 an effusion of the tender passion. [They would be very odd 
 readers if they did.] Sir Henry Wotton was never accused 
 of being a platonic lover, and at the time of its composition 
 was a grave diplomatist of the age of fifty-two. It proceeded 
 from a feeling of chivalrous loyalty; and when connected, 
 as it always should be, with the anecdote of the jewel, forms 
 altogether a trait in his character, which the mind may con- 
 template with unmixed delight.'' (Freeman's Kentish Poets, 
 i. 215.) The " anecdote of the jewel" is well-known to all 
 Izaak Walton's readers. Many state-papers and similar 
 documents, connected with Wotton's employments on the 
 affairs of the Queen of Bohemia, are preserved in Rel. 
 Wotton. as well as some of his letters to the Queen, — one of 
 which begins as follows : " Most resplendent Queen, even 
 in the Darkness of Fortune. That was wont to be my Style 
 unto Your Majesty, which you see I have not forgotten. For 
 though I have a great while forborn to trouble You with any 
 of my poor Lines ; yet the Memory of Your sweet and 
 Royal Vertues is the last thing that will die in me." (p. 336.) 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTOX. 13 
 
 In another, which is commenced in the same way, occurs 
 this passage : — " The last and inwardest Consolation that 1 
 can represent unto your Majesty, is your self, your own 
 Soul, your own Virtues, your own Christian constancy and 
 magnanimity : Whereby your Majesty hath exalted the glory 
 of your Sex, conquered your Affections, and trampled upon 
 your adversities. To conclude, you have shewed the World, 
 that though you were born within the chance, yet without 
 the power of fortune," (p. 556. He often repeats these ex- 
 pressions. Cf. pp. 129, 222, 450.) I believe the date as- 
 signed by Freeman to the Poem (1620) is nearly correct; 
 for the Elector Palatine was not chosen King of Bohemia 
 till September, 1619 : and if it had been written long after 
 that time, the lines would have contained some allusion to 
 the Queen's misfortunes. It was set to music and printed 
 as early as 1624.* 
 
 The Variations are now given from three copies of this 
 Poem ; viz. A=one in Archbishop Sancroft's Collection, 
 MS. Tann. 465, fol. 43. B=one in MS. Malone 19, p. 23. 
 Title, " To the Spanish Lady." (What this title means, I do 
 not pretend to determine. The tune known as " the Spanish 
 Lady" would not suit the metre of this piece. See Percy's 
 Reliques, ii. 246, ed. 1839, and Chappell's Nat. Eng. Mel. 
 No. 24, {his) and Notes, pp. 44, 138.) C=one in Percy's 
 Reliques, ii. 335, where it is "printed from the Reliquice 
 
 * Namely, in Est's Sixt Set of Bookes, &c. with several variations, 
 which are given in Mr. Dyce's edit, of Wotton's Poems. The copy is also 
 mentioned by Haslewood, Pref. to Anc. Crit. Essays, vol. ii. p. xi. Mr. 
 Dyce remarks, that " it is found also, much altered for the worse, and with 
 a wretched Second Part, in So7igs and Fancies, &c. Aberdeen, 1682." I do 
 not know whether the additional verses which I have extracted from the 
 MSS. form any portion of that " Second Part," but they are very inferior 
 to the rest. In Park's copy of Re). Wotton. is inserted " The Disparity, 
 from a hint of Sir Henry Wotton," by Aaron Hill; but the writer has 
 taken rather more than "a hint," and has completely spoiled the piece. 
 Cleveland evidently had it in view in the commencement of his " General 
 Eclipse;"— Poems, p. 72, ed. 1677. 
 
14 POEMS BY 
 
 WottoniancE, 1651, with some corrections from an old MS. 
 copy." Percy's readings have been previously given by Mr. 
 Dyce.] 
 
 jOU meaner Beauties of the Night, 
 That poorly satisfie our Eyes, 
 More by your number, than your light, 
 You Common people of the Skies ; 
 [.5] What are you when the []Moon] shall rise ? 
 
 You curious Chanters of the Wood, 
 That warble forth Dame Natures lays, 
 Thinking your [Passions] understood 
 By your weak accents ; what's your praise, 
 [10] When Philomel her voice shall raise? 
 
 You Violets that first appear, 
 By your pure purple mantles known. 
 Like the proud Virgins of the year, 
 As if the Spring were all your own ; 
 [15] What are you when the Rose is blown ? 
 
 So, when my Mistriss shall be seen 
 In Form and Beauty of her mind, 
 By Vertue first, then Choice, a Queen, 
 Tell me if she were not designed 
 Th' Eclipse and Glory of her kind ? 
 
 H. W. 
 
 [Variations. — 1. ' Ye' — B. — 2. ' Which' — B. ' mens eyes' — 
 A. (afterw^ards corrected.) — 4. * Like common' — A B. — 5. 
 ^ What' altered in A to ' Where' — . ' moon' is the reading- of A 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 15 
 
 B C, Est, and Mr. Dyce. In Rel. Wotton. ' Sun.' — The second 
 and third stanzas are transposed in all the copies but Rel. Wot- 
 ton. — 6. ' Ye' — C. * Yee uandriug chaunt".' — B. ' warbli7ig 
 chanters' — A. — 7. 'That Jill the aire with natures laies' — A. So 
 also B, except ' Which fill' — . 8. ' Passions' is the reading of all 
 the copies but Rel. Wotton. which has ' Voices' — ,and in ed. 1672, 
 a semicolon at the end of the line. — 9. ' By accents weake, what is' 
 — B. ' forc't accents .... where's t/je praise' — A. — 10. ' her notes 
 doe rayse'— B.— 11. ' Fe'— BC— 12. ' Are by your'— A. ' By yo' 
 new' — B. — 15. * What' altered to ' Where' — in A. — A fourth 
 stanza is introduced in A, as well as a sixth, the last in Rel. 
 Wotton. being the fifth in that copy. The fourth is as follows : — 
 
 " 4. You Rubies, that doe gemmes adome, 
 And Saphyres with yo"^ azure hewe, 
 Like to the skies, or blushing morne. 
 How pale's your brightnes in our veiw, 
 When Diamonds are mixt with you ?" 
 
 In B, the last stanza is made up of the one just quoted, and the 
 last of Rel. Wotton. by means which some new variations, not 
 worth marking, ^are introduced. — 16. 'Princesse' — B. A gives 
 both words. — 17. (Not in B.) ' In brightnes of her lookes (Sfmind' 
 — A, altered to ' In sweetnes — ' which is the reading of C. — 18. 
 'For beauty passing loues faire Queene' — A. — 19. ' 6e not' — A. 
 'was not' — C. ' assigned' — B. The following is the sixth verse 
 in A : — 
 
 " 6. The rose, the violett, all the spring 
 Vnto her breath for sweetnes runne ; 
 The Diamond's dark'ned in the ring ; 
 If she appeare, the Moones vndone, 
 As in the presence of the Sunne."J 
 
16 
 
 rOEMS BY 
 
 TO A NOBLE FRIEND IN HIS SICKNESS. 
 
 [In MS. Ravvl. Poet. 147, p. 101, this Poem is entitled, 
 " On y^ Duke of Buckingham sicke of a feaver." It has 
 the signature, " S"". Henry Wotton."] 
 
 NTIMELY Fever, rude insulting guest, 
 How didst thou with such unharmonious 
 
 heat 
 Dare to distune his well-composed rest, 
 Whose Heart so just and noble strokes did beat ? 
 
 [o] What if his Youth and Spirits well may bear 
 More thick Assaults, and stronger Siege than 
 this? 
 We measure not his Courage, but our fear : 
 Not what ourselves, but what the Times may 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 17 
 
 Had not that Blood, which thrice his Veins did 
 yield, 
 [lo] Been better treasur'd for some glorious day, 
 At farthest West to paint the liquid Field, 
 And with new Worlds his Masters love to pay? 
 
 But let those Thoughts, sweet Lord, repose a 
 while ; 
 Tend only now thy vigour to regain ; 
 [15] And pardon these poor Rhimes, that would be- 
 guile. 
 With mine own Grief, some portion of thy pain. 
 
 H. W. 
 
 [Variations in IMS. Kawl. — 2. '■ in such' — . 4. ' Who hart 
 so just so' — . 5. 'W* though .... Spirritt' — . 6. 'A more 
 deepe seige & strong assault then this' — . 9. ' the' for ' that' — . 
 10. ' better day'—. 13. ' tell those thoughts'.—] 
 
18 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 ^^., 
 
 V. 
 
 A SHORT HYMN UPON THE BIRTH OF 
 PRINCE CHARLES. 
 
 [The allusion in the first stanza of this piece, to the noon- 
 day planet which appeared at the birth of Charles II. (May 
 29: 1630:) has been sufficiently illustrated elsewhere.* Be- 
 sides Wotton and King, it was commemorated in verse, di- 
 rectly or indirectly, by Corbet, Cleveland, and Herrick at 
 the time ; and again, after the Restoration, by Cowley and 
 Waller. The figure of a star is found on some of the 
 medals of Charles II. 
 
 The twelfth linej seems to have been a favourite with 
 
 • See notes to Bp. Henry King's Poems (1843) pp. 206-7. (Add, Her- 
 rick's Hesp. p. 250, as well as p. 96, 1648 : and Cleveland, p. 74, ed. 
 1677.) 
 
 t Perhaps Wotton here alludes to the circumstance, that the mother of 
 the new-born Eus;lish Prince had been a French Princess; as Quarles, 
 (Ded. of Divine Fancies, 1632:) "Let the English Rose and the Frenc/i 
 Lilly flourish in thy lovely cheeke." But the passages are not exactly 
 parallel. Compare Jonson, viii. 457, line 3. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 19 
 
 Wotton, as it is repeated, with a slight alteration, in the 
 next piece,— "His Roses and His Lilies [blowne] ;"— the 
 imagery is common also with Jonson; — 
 
 " See how with roses and with lilies shine 
 Lilies and roses, flowers of either sex" — 
 
 and again, on the Christening of James II; — 
 
 " At land she triumphs in the triple shade. 
 Her rose and lily inter-twined have made."* , 
 
 But it is by no means so peculiar as to form any evidence 
 that Jonson wrote either of the pieces. It was the ordinary 
 language of the time.] 
 
 |DU that on Stars do look, 
 Arrest not there your sight, 
 Though Nature's fairest Book, 
 And signed with propitious light ; 
 [5] Our Blessing now is more Divine 
 
 Than Planets that at Noon did shine. 
 
 To thee alone be praise, 
 
 From whom our Joy descends. 
 
 Thou Chearer of our Days, 
 [10] Of Causes first, and last of Ends :f 
 
 To thee this May we sing, by whom 
 Our Roses from the LiHes bloom. 
 
 Upon this Royal Flower, 
 Sprung from the chastest;}: Bed, 
 
 * Gifford's Jonson, ix. 37, 53. 
 
 t Compare Wotton's Medit. on Gen. xxii. "Thou then (Eternal maker 
 and Mover, whose Will is the Jirst of Causes, and whose Glory is the laa of 
 Ends) direct my Feet," &c. (Rel. Wotton. p. 269.) 
 
 i In ed. 1651, misprinted ' Chastesse'—. Corrected in ed. 1654. The 
 signature in both those editions is ' H. W.' 
 
20 POExMS BY 
 
 [15] Thy glorious sweetness shower; 
 
 And first let IMyrtles Crown his Head; 
 
 Then Palms and Lawrels wreath'd between, 
 But let the Cypress late be seen. 
 
 And so succeeding Men, 
 [20] When they the fulness see 
 Of this our Joy, shall then 
 In consort joyn, as well as we, 
 
 To celebrate his Praise above, 
 
 That spreads our Land with Fruits of Love. 
 
 H. WOTTON. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 21 
 
 VI. 
 
 AN ODE TO THE KING, 
 
 AT HIS RETURNING FROM SCOTLAND TO THE QUEEN. 
 AFTER HIS CORONATION THERE. 
 
 [This piece occurs in Ben Jonson's Underwoods, cvii. (Gif- 
 ford's Jonson, ix. 52); where Gifford has the following 
 note : " This is probably Ben's last tribute of duty to his 
 royal master : it is not his worst ; it was perhaps better as 
 it came from the poet, for a stanza has apparently been lost, 
 or confounded with the opening one/' I should be sorry to 
 tind that Jonson wrote it, and that the poor author must re- 
 sign his claim to the rich ; for what to Jonson is only " not 
 his worst," is to Sir Henry one of his best. But the au- 
 thority of the second folio of Jonson's Works is constantly 
 disputed by Gifford. All the papers found in Jonson's 
 study seem to have been hastily published, whether they 
 were originals or mere copies. Gifford tells us more than 
 once, that " there was undoubtedly an intercommunity of 
 verse between" Jonson and Donne (viii. 378, 406); and 
 there are grounds for supposing that a similar "intercom- 
 munity" existed between Jonson and Wotton. (See Introd. 
 
22 POEMS BY 
 
 to No. viii.) It is quite possible, therefore, that Jonson had 
 merely transcribed the poem. — Mr. Dyce says nothing of 
 this double claim upon the piece, either in his edit, of Wot- 
 ton's Poems, or in his Remarks on Gifford's Jonson. 
 
 Archbishop Sancroft has transcribed it on the same page 
 with two others of Sir Henry's, (Nos. vii. and ix.) and as- 
 signs all three to him. (MS. Tann. 465, fol. 61, v*'.) Ano- 
 ther copy in MS. Ravvl. Poet. 147, p. 96, also bears the 
 signature of " S"^ Henry Wotton." Both these MSS. were 
 written in 1647 or 1648, — that is, after it was published as 
 Jonson's, and before it was printed as Wotton's in Rel. 
 Wotton. 
 
 Sir Henry Wotton wrote a Latin tract upon the same oc- 
 casion, with the title, " Ad Regem e Scotia reducem Henrici 
 Wottonii plausus et vota. mdcxxxiii." An English trans- 
 lation of it, by " a Friend of the Authours," was inserted in 
 the two earlier edits, of Rel. Wotton. and the original tract 
 was added in ed. 1672. The motives which he assigned for 
 this composition may be gathered from some of the letters 
 in Rel. Wotton. (pp. 358, 569, 570, ed. 1672.) Garrard 
 speaks of its first publication in a letter to Wentworth, dated 
 Dec. 6: 1633: and says that it had come forth that week. 
 The Parallel between Essex and Buckingham, which he 
 mentions in the same sentence, continued in MS. some time 
 longer. (Straff. Letters, i. 167, 265.) 
 
 Some of the phrases in this Poem are characteristic of 
 Wotton's style ; for example, the second line may be com- 
 pared with the following passage in one of his letters to the 
 Queen of Bohemia's Secretary, John Dinely, under the date 
 of Aug. 12 : 1628 : " I have gotten, with much adoe, some of 
 the Psalms* translated by my late most blessed Master, for 
 
 * The Psalter of James I. was not published till 1631. In fact, it was 
 not finished when its reputed Author died. The Commission which was 
 given to Sir W. Alexander (Lord Stirling) to "consider and revew the 
 meeter and poesie thairof," was doubtless meant to have a much wider 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 23 
 
 the young Prince of Bohemia, (which is one of your Memo- 
 rials that have slept too long by me,) and 1 have ransacked 
 mine own poor Papers for some entertainment for the Queen, 
 which shall be sent together ; — Though it be now a Misery 
 to re-visit the Fancies of my Youth, which my judgement 
 tells me, are all too green, and my Glass tells me, that my 
 self am gray." (Rel. Wotton. p. 558.) Compare also the 
 following expressions with lines 9, 10 : — " methinks not 
 unlike that which Astrologers call a Conjunction of Planets, 
 of no very benign Aspect the one to the other ;" (ib. p. 217.) 
 " I am come hither in a very benign Constellation, and si- 
 lent conspiracy of my chiefest Friends," &:c. (ib. p. 575.) 
 Also compare line 19 with the following: — " who, taking 
 him into his regard, taught him more and more to please 
 himself, and moulded him (as it were) Platonically, to his 
 own Idea;" (ib. p. 163, repeated on p. 210. Cf. p. 333.) 
 Taken separately, these coincidences would be scarcely 
 worth remarking ; but they serve to shew that Wotton was 
 familiar with the phraseology employed in this Poem. 
 
 The Variations are not sufficiently important to quote* 
 except in one instance, viz. in line 17, where both the MSS. 
 read * blowne' for ' bloom' — which is the reading of Rel. 
 Wotton. It is also 'blown' in the first edit, of Jonson ; 
 and GifFord has ridiculed Whalley for first vaunting it as a 
 conjectural emendation, to correct the rhyme, and then sup- 
 porting his conjecture by the early copy. (Life of Jonson, 
 p. ccxxxv.) — The misprint in Rel. Wotton. probably arose, 
 partly from the more familiar idiom, partly from an un- 
 seasonable recollection of a line (12) in the last poem. In 
 Jonson, the tw^o concluding lines are inserted after each 
 stanza ; and though only given once in the MSS. they are 
 marked as " Chorus."] 
 
 application than the terms imply. See Mr. Laing's Notices of Scotch 
 Metr. Versions, in Appendix to Baillie's Letters, (They have been also 
 printed as a separate tract.) 
 
24 POEMS BY 
 
 OUSE up thy self, my gentle JNIuse, 
 Though now our green Conceits be 
 
 gray, 
 And yet once more do not refuse 
 To take thy Phrygian Harp, and Play 
 [5] In Honor of this chearful Day. 
 
 Make first a Song of Joy and Love, 
 Which chastely flame in Royal Eyes ; 
 Then tune it to the Spheres above, 
 When the benignest Stars do rise, 
 [10] And sweet Conjunctions grace the Skies. 
 
 To this let all good Hearts resound, 
 While Diadems invest his Head ; 
 Long may he live, whose Life doth bound 
 More than his Laws, and better Lead 
 [lo] By high Example than by Dread! 
 
 Long may He round about Him see 
 His Roses and His Lilies [blowne] ; 
 Long may His only Dear and He 
 Joy in Ideas of their own, 
 [20] And Kingdoms Hopes so timely sown ; 
 
 Long may they both contend to prove, 
 That best of Crowns is such a Love ! 
 
 [H. W.]* 
 
 * This signature is given, as usual, in ed. 1651. Its omission in ed. 
 1654 and 1672 cannot be regarded as an argument against Wotton's right 
 to the piece, for it seems to have arisen merely from the fulness of the page. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTOX. 
 
 25 
 
 VII. 
 
 VPON THE SUDDEN RESTRAINT OF 
 THE EARL OF SOMERSET, 
 
 THEN FALLING FROM FAVOUR. 
 
 ["The following verses," says Mr. Park,* " addressed 'to 
 the lord Bacon, when falling from favour,' are too good to 
 be immured in the obscure little volume whence they are 
 now extracted." Then, after quoting this present piece 
 from " Bacon's Felicity of Queen Elizabeth, &c. 1651, p. 
 158," he proceeds ; — " Sir E. Brydges has observed to me, 
 that the above verses were collected into Reliquiee Wotton- 
 ianse, and bear a denotation of having been addressed to 
 the earl of Somerset. I might add, however, that those de- 
 notations are of doubtful authority, and that the first edition 
 of the Reliquiae gave it no earlier appropriation than Bacon's 
 Felicity, 5cc. Both books were published in the same year." 
 This is mere trifling. Park is not even accurate; for the 
 
 * Edit, of Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ii. 208, note. 
 
26 POEMS BY 
 
 title in Rel. Wotton. does not say that it was '^addressed to 
 the earl of Somerset," but that it was written " upon his 
 sudden restraint:" — but there are graver faults in the pas- 
 sage ; for first, the assertion that the " denotations" of Rel. 
 Wotton. " are of doubtful authority," is evidently made at 
 random. Park shewed that he had not read that volume 
 with much care, when he forgot that it contained the Poem, 
 and needed to be reminded of it by Sir Egerton Brydges. 
 His own copy of Rel. Wotton. is now before me ; and 
 though it contains several MS. notes, — the reference to Ba- 
 con's Felicity among the rest, — not a single error in the 
 Poetical part is pointed out. — Next, the publication of both 
 books in 1651 goes for nothing ; as the one was prepared by 
 Izaak Walton, with Sir Henry's own papers in his hands ; 
 while the other was an unauthorized translation of Bacon's 
 Latin tract, made, says Archbishop Tennison, by "a person 
 of more good will than ability."* — Lastly, although the 
 lines might be made to apply to Bacon, on the ground that 
 his submission and consequent fall arose from obedience to 
 the King's command, their application to Somerset is far 
 more direct and obvious. 
 
 Bacon's sentence was passed May 3 : 1621 : Somerset was 
 committed into custody, Oct. 18: 1615: and this latter 
 event will give us the probable date of the Poem. Its 
 imagery is singularly confused. 
 
 The Variations are from two MS. copies. A=Archbishop 
 Sancroft's Collection, MS. Tann. 465, fol. 61, V. Title, 
 " On the suddaine restraint of a Favourite." It is given to 
 Wotton. B=MS. Rawl. Poet. 147, p. 97. The title ori- 
 ginally was, " S^ H. W. (on y^ Duke [stc] of Somer.)" but 
 the other title, as in the former MS., was afterwards written 
 in. Signature, " S-". H. W."— The copy printed by Park 
 nearly agrees with that in Rel. Wotton.] 
 
 * See Montagu's Life of Bacon, Note 4 H. 
 
SIR HExVRY WOTTON. 
 
 AZLED thus with height of place, 
 Whilst our Hopes our Wits Beguile, 
 No man marks the narrow space 
 'Twixt a Prison and a Smile. 
 
 [5] Then, since Fortunes favours fade, 
 You that in her Arms do sleep,* 
 Learn to swim, and not to wade ; 
 For the Hearts of Kings are deep. 
 
 But if Greatness be so blind 
 [10] As to trust in Towers of Air, 
 Let it be with Goodness lin'd. 
 That at least the Fall be fair. 
 
 Then, though darkned, you shall say, 
 When Friends fail, and Princes frown, 
 [15] Vertue is the roughest way. 
 
 But proves at Night a Bed of Down. 
 
 H. W. 
 
 [Variations. 1: 'Thus dazzled' — A B. 'w*^ y^ height' — A. 
 —2. ' While' — B.— 3. '■heeds''— &.— 5. ^ fortunes children'— A B. 
 — 9. ' Or if — A B. — 13. ' though broken he may say' — B. ' hee 
 may say' also in A. — 14. ' When freinds doe faile' — A. ' When 
 freinds sinke' — B. — 15. 'hardest way' — A B. — 16. 'Butt at 
 night' — A. ' Yet at night' — B. — JNIr. Campbell has introduced 
 two new variations into this Poem, (Spec. p. 158, second ed.) 
 viz. 5. ' Yet since' — and 13. dark and' — .] 
 
 ♦ " They both slept long hi the arms of Fortune." Parallel of Essex and 
 Bnckingham, Rel. Wotton. p. 182. 
 
29^ 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. 
 
 [According to a MS. note in the copy of Rel. Wotton. 
 which belonged successively to Ritson and Park, this piece 
 was " printed as early as 1614, with the fourth edit, of Over- 
 bury's Wife and Characters;" but it is not found in those 
 copies of either the 4to. or 8vo. edit, of Overbury published 
 in that year, which I have had an opportunity of examining.* 
 Other traces of its existence occur soon afterwards ; for Mr. 
 Collier found a part of the first stanza at Dulwich, in the 
 handwriting of Edward Alleyn, on a scrap of paper which 
 contained, on the other side, a memorandum dated 1616. 
 (Life of Alleyn, p. 54.) Jonson's visit to Drummond of 
 Hawthornden is now known to have ended before January 
 17: 1619: and in his Conversations we find the remark, 
 " Sir Edward [Henry] Wotton's verses of a happie lyfe, he 
 [Jonson] hath by heart." (Laing's ed. p. 8.) Mr. Freeman 
 is therefore in error when he says, "It may be presumed. 
 
 * I do not know when it was first printed with Overbury. In the fir^t 
 ed. of the Reliques (i. 296.) Percy took it from aa edit, of 1C3S. He had 
 not theu seen Rel. Wotton. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 29 
 
 that Sir Henry designed this as a picture of himself in Jtis 
 retiremenV^ (Lives of Kentish Poets, i. 250); for the piece 
 must have been written some time before he withdrew from 
 active employment. 
 
 The Variations in the different copies of these verses are 
 unusually numerous. I have collected those of six, of which 
 the first has been previously collated by Mr. Dyce, I be- 
 lieve that others might have been added; but their number 
 is perhaps too great already. — A=a copy in Ben Jonson's 
 handwriting, which Mr. Collier found among the Dulwich 
 MSS. and printed in his Life of Alleyn, p. 53.— B=MS. 
 Malone 13, fol. 11. Signature, " S^ H. Wotton."— C= 
 MS. Malone 19, p. 138, where it is headed by Wotton's 
 name. — D=an old MS. Collection belonging to Mr. Pick- 
 ering, fol. 115, v°. This copy has neither title nor signa- 
 ture. — E=a copy among the Poems appended to '' Le 
 Prince d'Amour," 1 660. p. 1 34. Title, " Happiness." No 
 signature. — F=Percy's Reliques, i. 333, ed. 1839, where 
 it is printed from Rel. Wotton. ed. 1651, " compared with 
 one or two other copies."] 
 
 OW happy is he born and taught, 
 That serveth not anothers will ; 
 Whose Armour is his honest thought, 
 And simple truth his utmost Skill ; 
 
 [5] Whose Passions not his Masters are ; 
 Whose Soul is still prepar'd for Death, 
 Unti'd unto the World by care 
 Of publick Fame, or private Breath ; 
 
 Who envies none that chance doth raise, 
 [10] Nor Vice [; who never] understood 
 
so POEMS BY 
 
 How deepest Wounds are given by praise ; — 
 Nor Rules of State, but Rules of good ; 
 
 Who hath his Life from Rumours freed ; 
 Whose Conscience is his strong retreat ; 
 [15] Whose State can neither Flatterers feed, 
 Nor Ruine make Oppressors great ; 
 
 Who God doth late and early pray 
 More of his Grace than Gifts to lend ; 
 And entertains the harmless day 
 [20] With a Religious Book, or Friend ! 
 
 This man is freed from servile [bjands 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall : — 
 Lord of himself, though not of Lands, 
 And having nothing, yet hath all. 
 
 H. WOTTON. 
 
 [^'^ARiATioNs. 1. 'or taught' — B C E F. — i. ' And silly truth his 
 highest skill'— A D. It is ^ highest skill' also in B C E F.— 5.' Mas- 
 ter' — E. — 7. ' Untied to the world with care' — A. * with care' 
 also in B C E F, and in E F the line begins, ' Not ty'd unto' — . 
 8. All the copies but Rel. Wotton. have ' vulgar breath' — , but 
 they vary in the commencement of the line. Thus; ^Ofpnnces 
 grace' — AC. ^ Of Princes Loue' — B. *■ Of princes ear' — E F. — 
 In C, the third stanza is omitted altogether ; and in A B E F, 
 the third and fourth stanzas are transposed. In D, the same 
 transposition was intended ; but lines 7, 8, 13, and 14 are acci- 
 dentally omitted. — 9. ' Who envieth none whome chance' — A B. 
 ' whom' also in F. In T>, the line runs, ' Whoe envieth not that 
 shame' — . 10. The punctuation and reading are adopted from 
 the other copies, except that A D F have ' Or vice;' and D, 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 31 
 
 ' and neuer' — . In Rel. Wotton. it stands thus : — ' Nor Vice 
 Lath ever understood;' — . 11. ' How swordes give sleighter 
 wounds than prayse' — A. * How desperate woundes are giuen 
 with prayse' — B. * That .... with' — D E. 'with' also in F. — 
 12. ' A^ot rules' — E. — 13. 'humors — A E. 'rumour' — B. 'hu- 
 mor' — C. The text is doubtless right. The words were fre- 
 quently confused. — 15. ' fauours doth not' — C. — 16, 'accusers 
 great' — all but F and Rel. Wotton. — 17. ' Who late & early 
 doth God pray' — C. — 18. ' to send' — B C D. ' His graces more 
 then gifts to lend' — E. — 20. 'well-chosen book' — all but Rel. 
 Wotton. — 21. 'This man is/ree from servile bandes' — A BCD. 
 'free .... band' — E. It is 'bands' in Rel, Wotton. 1651 and 
 1654; but in ed. 1672 is misprinted 'hands' — . 23. 'though' 
 omitted in B. — ' land' — E.] 
 
32 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 IX. 
 
 ON A BANK AS I SATE A FISHING. 
 
 A DESCRIPTION OF THE SPRING. 
 
 [This piece is inserted in Walton's Angler, (pp. 60, 61, ed. 
 1655,) with some introductory remarks, which I shall quote 
 at length. " My next and last example shall be that under- 
 valuer of money,* the late Provost of Eton Colledg, Sir 
 Henry Wotton, (a man with whom I have often fish'd and 
 convers'd) a man whose forraign Imployments in the service 
 of this Nation, and whose experience, learning, wit, and 
 
 * See Walton's Lives, pp. 159, 177, ed. 1796. A curious anecdote to 
 tiie same effect occurs in Walton's Letter to Fulman about John Hales 
 CFulman's MSS. C. C.C. Oxford, vol. xii. fol. 80) :—" he [Hales] was not 
 good at any continuance to get or saue mony for him selfe; yet he vnder- 
 toke to doe it for his freind S^ H: Wotton, who was a neclecter of mony, 
 and Mr Ha. told me he had got 300/. together at the time of his deth, a 
 some to which S"" H.had long beine a stranger, and wood euer hane beine 
 if he had manag'd his owne mony-buissines: it was hapily got together to 
 bury him, and inable him to doe some offices of honor, and Justice, and 
 gratitude, and charitie." — Wotton's saying about Angling is more briefly 
 given in his Life; p. 1C4. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 33 
 
 cheer fidnesse, made his company to bee esteemed one of the 
 delights of mankind ; this man,— whose very approbation of 
 Angling were sufficient to convince any modest Censurer of 
 it, — this man was also a most dear lover, and a frequent 
 practicer of the Art of Angling ; of which he would say, 
 'Twos an Imphyment for his idle time, which was [theti] not 
 idly spent ; for angling was, after tedious Study, A rest to his 
 mind^ a cheerer of his spirits, a divertion of sadnesse, a calmer 
 of unquiet thoughts, a Moderator of passions, a procurer of 
 contentidnesse ; and, that it begot habits 0/ peace a n(/ pa- 
 tience in those that profest and practiced it. [Indeed, my 
 friend, you will find angling to be like the vertue of Humi- 
 lity, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of other 
 blessings attending upon it.]* — Sir, This was the saying of 
 that Learned man ; and I do easily believe that peace, and 
 patience, and a calme content did cohabit in the cheerful 
 heart of Sir Henry Wotton, because I know, that when hee 
 was beyond seventy yeares of age, hee made this discription 
 of a part of the present pleasure that possest him, as he sate 
 quietly in a Summers evening on a bank a fishing; it is a 
 description of the Spring, which, because it glides as soft 
 and sweetly from his pen, as that River does now by which 
 it was then made, I shall repeat [it] unto you." After re- 
 citing the Poem, Piscator adds, "These were the thoughts 
 that then possest the undisturbed mind of Sir Henry Wot- 
 ton.'' From this passage we can ascertain the date of 
 the piece with sufficient exactness ; for Wotton died in his 
 seventy-second year. Mr. Dyce is therefore correct when 
 he says, that it " was probably composed during his later 
 years ;" but the extracts from Walton's Life of him, and from 
 the Epistle Dedicatory before the Complete Angler, on 
 
 * The words within brackets are added from the third edit, of the An- 
 gler, where, a little above, we have ' a diverter of sadnesse,' and towards 
 the end of the quotation, ' as that river does at this time' — . The extract 
 is printed from the second ed. (1655.) 
 
34 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 which he founds his opinion, might perhaps have been dis- 
 pensed with, when we had this decisive evidence in the Com- 
 plete Angler itself. 
 
 The Variations are from three copies; A=that in the 
 Complete Angler, as above: B=:MS. Rawl. Poet. 147, p. 
 47. C=Archbishop Sancroft's MS. (Tann. 465, fol. 61, V.) 
 In both the MSS. it is entitled, " On the Spring," and signed 
 "S'-H. Wotton."] 
 
 ND now all Nature seera'd in Love ; 
 The lusty Sap began to move ; 
 New Juice did stir th' embracing Vines, 
 And Birds had drawn their Valentines ; 
 [5] The jealous Trout, that low did lie. 
 Rose at a well-dissembled FHe : 
 There stood my Friend,* with patient Skill, 
 Attending of his trembling Quill. 
 Already were the Eves possest 
 [10] With the swift Pilgrims daubed nest : 
 The Groves already did rejoyce 
 In Philomel's triumphing voice. 
 
 The showres were short, the weather mild, 
 The Morning fresh, the Evening smil'd. 
 [1 5] Jone takes her neat-rub'd Pale, and now 
 She trips to milk the Sand-red Cow ; 
 Where, for some sturdy foot-ball Swain, 
 Jone strokes a Sillabub or twain. 
 The Fields and Gardens were beset 
 [20] With Tulip, Crocus, Violet : 
 
 * The biographers of Izaak Walton are doubtless right in treating ihi.'* 
 as a reference to him. Zouch, p. xiii, ed. 1796. Nicolas, pp. xxxv. 7a. 
 
SIR HENRY WOT TON. 35 
 
 And now, though late, the modest Rose 
 Did more than half a blush disclose. 
 Thus all look'd gay, all full of chear, 
 To welcom the New-livery' d year. 
 
 H. W. 
 
 [\'ariations. 1. ' This day dame Nature' — A. — 3. ' Fresh 
 juice' — A. — 7. ' Or else my Friend' — B C. — 8. 'Did early watch 
 the'—B C— 11. 'Already did the groue'— B C. — 13. 'the ayre 
 uas mild' — B C. — 14. ' The mornes were sweet, the meadows smil'd' 
 — B C— 16. 'Sanded'— B. ' Sa7idied'-~C.—18. '5/ie stroakes' 
 — B C— 19. 'Bothfeild and garden'— B C— 20. ' With Crocus, 
 Tulip' — B. 'Tulips' — A. — 23. 'looks ga.y, and' — A. 'was gay' — 
 BC] 
 
36 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 X. 
 
 A TRANSLATION OF THE CIV. PSALM 
 TO THE ORIGINAL SENSE. 
 
 [In the letter in which Sir Henry Wotton announced to the 
 King that he had taken Deacon's Orders (1627), he says, 
 " if I can produce nothing else for the use of Church and 
 State, yet it shall be comfort enough to the little remnant of 
 my life, to compose some Hymns unto his endless glory, who 
 hath called me (for which his Name be ever blessed), though 
 late to his Service, yet early to the knowledge of his truth, 
 and sense of his mercy." (Rel. Wotton. p. 329, ed. 1672.) 
 As N**. XIII. was written before that time, during one of his 
 Venetian Embassies, this Psalm, and the Hymn written 
 during sickness, (N". XIV.) are the only results of this de- 
 sign which we possess. 
 
 Lord Aston, who has inserted the translation among his 
 "Select Psalms in Verse," (1811, p. 185,) calls it "the 
 finest specimen" he has " met with of sacred poetry among 
 our earlier authors."] 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. S7 
 
 Y Soul, exalt the Lord with Hymns of Praise : 
 O Lord, my God, how boundless is Thy 
 might ! [Glorious Rays, 
 
 Whose Throne of State is cloath'd with 
 And round about hast robe'd Thy self with Light : 
 Who like a Curtain hast the Heavens display 'd, 
 And in the watry Roofs thy Chambers laid : 
 
 W^hose Chariots are the thickned Clouds above ; 
 
 Who walk'st upon the winged winds below ; 
 At whose Command the Airy Spirits move, 
 And fiery meteors their obedience show ; 
 
 W^ho on his* Base the Earth didst firmly found, 
 And mad'st the deep to circumvest it round. 
 
 The Waves that rise would drown the highest Hill, 
 
 But at thy Check they flie, and when they hear 
 Thy thundering Voice, they post to do thy Will, 
 And bound their furies in their proper Sphere ; 
 Where surging Floods and valing Ebbs can tell, 
 That none beyond thy Marks must sink or swell. 
 
 Who hath dispos'd, but thou, the winding way 
 
 Where Springs down from the steepy crags do beat, 
 At which both foster'd Beasts their Thirsts allay, 
 And the wild Asses come to quench their heat ; 
 W^here Birds resort, and, in their kind, thy praise 
 Among the Branches chant in warbling lays ? 
 
 * So eds. 1631 and 1654. In ed. 1672, ' this'—. 
 
38 POEMS BY 
 
 The Mounts are vvatred from thy dwelling place ; 
 
 The Baras and Meads are filPd for Man and Beast ; 
 Wine glads the Heart, and Oyl adorns the Face, 
 And bread the staff whereon our strength doth rest ; 
 Nor shrubs alone feel thy sufficeing hand, 
 But even the Cedars that so proudly stand. 
 
 So have the Fowls their sundry seats to breed ; 
 The ranging Stork in stately Beeches dwells ; 
 The climing Goats on Hills securely feed ; 
 The mining Coneys shroud in rocky Cells : 
 
 Nor can the Heavenly Lights their course forget, 
 The Moon her turns, or Sun his times to set. 
 
 Thou mak'st the Night to over-vail the Day : 
 
 Then savage Beasts creep from the silent Wood ; 
 
 Then Lions Whelps lie roaring for their Prey, 
 
 And at thy powerful Hand demand their Food ; 
 
 Who when at Morn they all recouch again. 
 
 Then toyling Man till Eve pursues his pain. 
 
 O Lord, when on thy various works we look. 
 
 How richly furnish'd is the Earth we tread ! 
 Where, in the fair Contents of Nature's Book, 
 We may the Wonders of thy Wisdom read : 
 Nor Earth alone, but lo ! the Sea so wide, 
 W^here, great and small, a w^orld of Creatures glide. 
 
 There go* the Ships that furrow out their way ; 
 Yea, there of Whales enormous sights we see, 
 
 * So eds. 1651 and 1654. la ed. 1672, it is misprintedj' Tliere go to tUe 
 -Ships — • 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 39 
 
 Which yet have scope among the rest to play, 
 And all do wait for their support on Thee ; 
 Who hast assign'd each thing his proper food, 
 And in due season dost dispence Thy good. 
 
 They gather when Thy gifts thou dost divide ; 
 
 Their stores abound, if Thou thy hand enlarge ; 
 Confus'd they are, when Thou thy beams dost hide; 
 In dust resolv'd, if Thou their breath discharge ; 
 Again, when Thou of Life renew'st the seeds. 
 The withered Fields revest their chearful weeds. 
 
 Be ever gloried here Thy Soveraign Name, 
 
 That thou may'st smile on all which thou hast made ; 
 \A'hose frown alone can shake this earthly frame, 
 And at whose touch the Hills in smoak shall vade I 
 For me, may (while I breath) both harp and voice 
 In sweet indictment of thy Hymns rejoyce I 
 
 Let Sinners fail, let all Profaneness cease ; — 
 
 His Praise (my Soul) His Praise shall be thy Peace. 
 
 H. WOTTON.* 
 * 'H.W.' ed. 1654. 
 
40 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 TEARS AT THE GRAVE OF SIR AL- 
 BERTUS MORTON 
 
 (who was buried at Southampton) 
 WEPT BY SIR li. WOTTON. 
 
 [Sir Albertus Morton was Wotton's nephew, and had 
 been his Secretary at Venice. He was frequently employed 
 by King James on foreign affairs,— was knighted by him 
 Sept. 29: 1617: and died Secretary of State in November, 
 1625 (as Wood correctly states), "in the vernality (as I 
 may term it)," says his uncle, " of his employments and 
 Fortunes under the best King and Master of the World."* 
 Sir Henry never mentions him without expressing his affec- 
 tionate regard for him;f and though Walton has inserted 
 the following extract in his Life of Wotton, I need offer no 
 
 * Wood's A. O. ii. 523-4. Rel. Wotton. p. 477. Administration wng 
 granted to his widow in Dec. 1625. She was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir 
 Edward Apsley, of Thakeham, Sussex; was married Jan. 13: 1624: and 
 died S. P. 1627, which gives the date of Wotton's Epitaph on her. — Mor- 
 ton's relationship to Wotton is stated at length in the Introd. to this vol. 
 
 + See an account of an accident that befell Sir Albertus in 1613: Rel. 
 Wotton. 417, 421, 425, and compare ib. 443, 552. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTOy. 41 
 
 apology for repeating it here : — " Here [i. e. at Redgrave] 
 when I had been almost a Fortnight in the midst of much 
 Contentment, I received knowledge of Sir Albertus Morton's 
 departure out of this World, who was dearer unto me than 
 mine own being in it. What a wound it is to my Heart, 
 you will easily believe : But his undisputable Will must be 
 done, and unrepiningly received by his own Creatures, who 
 is the Lord of all Nature, and of all Fortune, when he taketh 
 now one, and then another, till the expected day wherein it 
 shall please him to Dissolve the whole, and to wrap up even 
 the Heaven it self as a Scroul of Parchment. This is the 
 last Philosophy that we must study upon the Earth ; let us 
 fiow, that yet remain, while our Glasses shall run by the 
 d roping away of Friends, re-inforce our Love to one ano- 
 ther ; which of all Vertues, both Spiritual and Moral, hath 
 the highest privilege, because Death it self shall not end it." * 
 The Variations are from a copy of the Poem inserted in 
 Walton's Life of Wotton (=A),t and from MS. Rawl. Poet. 
 147, p. 107. (=B.)] 
 
 ILENCE (in truth) would speak my sorrow 
 best, 
 For deepest wounds can least their feelings 
 tell; 
 
 Yet let me borrow from mine own unrest 
 But time to bid him, whom I loved, farewel. 
 
 [o] O my unhappy Lines ! you that before 
 
 Have serv'd my Youth to vent some wanton cries, 
 
 • Rel. Wotton. 322. Letter to Nic. Pey, dated 1626 in ed. 1672, no 
 doubt by mistake. There is no date in the two earlier eds. Walton has 
 varied it a little in the Lite. 
 
 t All that portion of the Life which concerns Morton and Bedel, wa* 
 first inserted in ed. 1654. It will be seen that the copy printed iu that 
 year differs /roni the one-given in 1672. 
 
42 POEMS BY 
 
 And now, congeal'd with grief, can scarce implore 
 Strength to accent, — Here my Albertus lies ! 
 
 This is the sable Stone, — this is the Cave 
 [l o] And Womb of Earth that doth his Corps embrace ; 
 While others sing his praise, let me engrave 
 These bleeding Numbers to adorn the place. 
 
 Here will I paint the Characters of wo ; 
 Here will I pay my tribute to the Dead ; 
 [15] And here my faithful Tears in showres shall flow, 
 To humanize the Flints whereon I tread. 
 
 Where, though I mourn my matchless loss alone, 
 And none between my Weakness judge and me, 
 Yet even these gentle Walls allow my moan, 
 [20] Whose doleful Echoes to my Plaints agree. 
 
 But is he gone ? and live I Rhyming here, 
 As if some Muse would listen to my Lay, 
 When all distun'd sit wai[l]ing for their Dear, 
 And bathe the Banks where he was wont to play ? 
 
 [25] Dwell thou in endless Light, discharged Soul, 
 Freed now from Natures and from Fortunes trust ; 
 While on this fluent Globe my Glass shall roul. 
 And run the rest of my remaining dust. 
 
 H. W. 
 
 [Variations. 1. ^ will speak my sorrous — B. — 4. 'A time' — 
 A. * loue' — B. — 9. ' t/iat Sable stone' — A. 'and t/" y'' caue' — 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON, 
 
 43 
 
 B. — 14. * Here I will pay' — A. ed. 1654. — 16. 'on which' — A. 
 — 19. * pensive walls' — A. — 23. All the old copies edited by 
 Walton have the unmeaning misprint, ' ivaiting' — , which IMr. 
 Dyce corrected on conjecture ; and it is ' wailing' in B. — 24. 
 
 * they were wont' — B. — 25. ' Dwell then in endless light, thou 
 freed soul' — A. ed. 1654. * Dwell then in endless Bliss with 
 happy Souls' — ib. ed. 1672. The line is imperfect in B. — 26. 
 
 * Discharg'd from' — A B. — 27. * Whil'st on this fluid globe my 
 glass shall roul' — A. ed. 1654. * Whil'st on this^uirf Globe my 
 Hour-glass rowls' — ib. ed. 1672. 'or glasses rowle' — B. — 28. 
 ' And runs the rest' — A. ed. 1672. ' o^ remaining' — B. The sign, 
 in the two earlier editions of Rel. Wotton. is " H. Wotton."J 
 
u 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 XII. 
 
 VPON THE DEATH OF SIR ALBERT. 
 MORTON'S WIFE. 
 
 [If it were not certain that Wotton often affects a kind of 
 reserve about his own productions, the following postscript 
 to one of his letters to John Dinely (dated Nov. 13 : 1628 :) 
 would be rather perplexing : — " If the Queen [of Bohemia] 
 have not heard the Epitaph of Albertus Morton and his 
 Lady, it is worth her hearing, for the passionate plainness." 
 Then follows the couplet, — marked " Author is Licerti.''* 
 (Rel. Wotton. p. 560.) 
 
 In Philipot's edit, of Camden's Remaines, it is given with 
 a singular difference : — " Vpon two Lovers who, being es- 
 poused, dyed both before they were married." It com- 
 mences, "She first"— &c. (p. 406, ed. 1657.) In Resti- 
 tuta, iv. 353, it is cited from Picke's Festum Voluptatis, 
 1639, with the title, " One that dyed with griefe a few dayes 
 after her husband." — The signature in the first, ed. of Rel. 
 Wotton. is " H. Wotton;" in the second, *'Hen. Wot- 
 ton."] 
 
 H 
 
 E first deceas'd ; She for a little tri'd 
 To live without him, lik'd it not, and di'd. 
 
 H. W. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 45 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THIS HYMN 
 
 WAS MADE BY SIR H. WOTTON, WHEN HE WAS AN 
 
 AMBASSADOR AT VENICE, IN THE TIME 
 
 OF A GREAT SICKNESS THERE. 
 
 [The confusion which has been introduced into the history 
 of the minor poetry composed during the reigns of Elizabeth 
 and her successor, by the anxiety of certain persons to make 
 Raleigh answerable for all the fugitive pieces of his day, 
 meets us before we get beyond the limits of Sir Henry Wot- 
 ton's best authenticated productions; though in this case 
 the claim has been tacitly abandoned. "There is a poem," 
 said Sir Egerton Brydges in 1 800, " which, among the M SS. 
 of the British Museum, is said to have been written by Sir 
 Walter Raleigh jwsi before he died.'" Here, then, is the be- 
 ginning of our troubles. " It seems to partake so much of 
 the sublime spirit of his character, that (although it has been 
 printed before in the Topographer, i. 425 ; and also in a 
 very imperfect manner among Sir Henry Wotton's Remains) 
 I cannot refrain from inserting it here." We are therefore 
 at once presented with a mangled copy of this piece of 
 Wotton's, under the title, " Sir Walter Raleigh, in the un- 
 
46 POEMS BY 
 
 quiet rest of his last sickness."* This very title is sufficient 
 to put an end to the theory which is so strangely founded on 
 it ; and when a Collection of Poems was issued thirteen 
 years afterwards from the Lee Priory Press, under the name 
 of Sir Walter Raleigh, no notice was taken of the discovery. 
 We are still left, however, without any explanation of Sir 
 Egerton's notion of a " very imperfect" copy ; for it will be 
 seen, from the Variations, that the text which he has printed, 
 besides the omission of a whole stanza, is inferior to that of 
 Rel. Wotton. in almost every instance where they differ. 
 
 If Walton copied the title to this piece exactly, it could 
 not be written till after 1604 ; and the character of the 
 Poem would justify us in affixing a much later date. But 
 Wotton had been more than once at Venice during his early 
 travels. f He was three times sent Ambassador to Venice, 
 and spent nearly fourteen years there in these different Le- 
 gations,!"] 
 
 TERNAL Mover, w^bose diffused Glory, 
 To shew our groveling Reason what thou 
 
 art. 
 Unfolds it self in Clouds of Natures story. 
 Where Man, thy proudest Creature, acts his part ; 
 
 * Brydges' edit, of Phillips's Theatr. Poet. Angl. p. 308. It should be 
 observed that the writer in the Topographer (probably Brydges himself) 
 believed it to be a newly discovered Poem; and knew nothing of Rel. 
 Wotton. 
 
 + See Walton's Lives, p. 135, ed. 1796, Rel. Wotton. 651, 702. In a 
 letter from the tutor of Francis Davison to Secretary Davison, dated 
 Venice, Jan. 22: 1595 : he says, " Neither would I wish that you should be 
 deceived any longer in 3Ir. Wo : and some others, who report they have lived 
 in these parts for a hundred marks by the year." Nicolas's ed. of Davi- 
 son's Poet. Rhaps. p. viii. The editor conjectures that this was the future 
 Sir Henry; and it is worth remarking, that a hundred marks a year was 
 the very sum left him in his father's will. (Walton, p. 127.) The same 
 sum, however, was bequeathed to the other younger sons of Thomas Wotton. 
 
 j Rel. Wotton. p. 249. Walton's Lives, pp. 154, 158, &c. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 47 
 
 [5] Whom yet, (alas) I know not why, we call 
 The Worlds contracted sum, the little all ; 
 
 For what are we but lumps of walking- clay ? 
 Why should we swell ? whence should our spirits 
 
 rise ? 
 Are not bruit Beasts as strong, and Birds as gay, — 
 [10] Trees longer liv'd, and creeping things as wiser 
 Only our souls were left an inward light, 
 To feel our weakness, and confess thy might. 
 
 Thou, then, our strength. Father of life and death, 
 To whom our thanks, our vows, our selves we owe, 
 [15] From me, thy tenant of this fading breath. 
 
 Accept those hnes, which from thy goodness flow ; 
 And thou, that wert thy Regal Prophet's Muse, 
 Do not thy Praise in weaker strains refuse. 
 
 Let these poor Notes ascend unto thy Throne, 
 [20] W^here Majesty doth sit with Mercy Crown'd, 
 Where ray Redeemer lives, in whom alone 
 The errours of my wandring life are drown'd ; 
 Where all the Quire of Heaven resound the same, 
 That only Thine, Thine is the saving Name. 
 
 [25] Well, then, my Soul, joy in the midst of Pain; 
 Thy Christ, that conquer'd Hell, shall from above 
 With greater triumph yet return again, 
 And conquer his own Justice with his Love ; 
 Commanding Earth and Seas to render those 
 
 [30] Unto his Bliss, for whom he paid his Woes. 
 
48 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 [35] 
 
 Now have I done ; now are my thoughts at peace ; 
 And now my Joyes are stronger than my grief : 
 I feel those Comforts, that shall never cease, 
 Future in Hope, but present in Belief : 
 Thy words are true, thy promises are just, 
 And thou wilt find thy dearly bought in Dust. 
 
 H. WOTTON. 
 
 [Variations in the copy printed by Sir E. Bn'dges. 3. ^In- 
 folds' — ' restless story' — . 4. ' the proudest' — . 6. ' The world's 
 contracted Sim' — . 8. ^ What are our vaunts V — . 11. 'receive 
 more inward light' — . The third stanza is omitted altogether. — 
 19. 'pure notes' — . 24. 'That none but thine' — . 25. ' Therefore, 
 my soul' — . 26. ' That Christ' — . 31. 'joys at peace' — . 34. 
 ' Future in hopes, but present in relief — . 36. ' And thou wilt 
 know thy marked flock in dust' — . In Rel. Wotton. ed. 1651 and 
 1654, line 11 is, 'Only our Souls was left an inward Light' — . 
 The signature is vai-ied in all three editions; "Hen. Wotton." 
 ed. 1651. "H. W."ed. 1654.] 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 49 
 
 XIV. 
 A HYMN TO MY GOD, 
 
 IN A NIGHT OF MY LATE SICKNESS. 
 
 [Introdlced by Mr. Campbell (Specimens, p. 158, second 
 ed.) with the following title and remark : "A Meditation. 
 From Sanscroft's Collection. (Mr. Malone, from whose 
 handwriting I copy this, says, 'not, I think, printed/)" 
 This is a singular oversight ; for the verses are in every edit, 
 of Rel. Wotton.; and though they are arranged among the 
 letters, they immediately precede the "Poems" in the first 
 edition, and in the second and third, only a few pages inter- 
 vene. They had been reprinted in Biogr. Brit. (vi. 4351), in 
 Zouch's edit, of Walton's Lives (p. 187, ed. 1796), and else- 
 where. 
 
 They were enclosed in the following letter to Izaak Wal- 
 ton : 
 
 <•' Ml/ Worth/ Friend, 
 
 "Since I last saw you, I have been confined to mv 
 Chamber by a quotidian Fever, — I thank God, of more con- 
 tumacy than malignity. It had once left me, as I thought; 
 
50 POEMS BY 
 
 but it was only to fetch more company, returning with a 
 surcrew of those splenetick Vapours that are called Hypo- 
 chondriacal; of which, mostsay, the Cure is good Company ; 
 and I desire no better Physician than your self. I have in 
 one of those fits endeavoured to make it more easie by com- 
 posing a short Hymn : and since I have apparelled my best 
 Thoughts so lightly as in Verse, I hope I shall be pardoned a 
 second vanity, if I communicate it with such a Friend as 
 yourself; to whom I wish a chearful Spirit, and a thankful 
 heart to value it, as one of the greatest Blessings of our good 
 God ; in whose dear love I leave you, remaining 
 
 Your poor Friend to serve t/ou, 
 
 H. WOTTON." 
 
 This letter has no date; and the one which precedes it 
 in Rel. Wotton. could not be written till after Feb. 6: 
 1638-9:* but I think there is a little evidence to shew that 
 the letter containing the verses was written nearly a year 
 before that time; for the expressions in the following ex- 
 tract so closely resemble those quoted above, that they can 
 scarcely relate to any other poem ; " I send you a few poor 
 Lines, which my pains did beget: I pray keep them under 
 your own favorable Judgment, and impart them tenderly to 
 others ; for I fear that even the best of our thoughts may be 
 vainly clothed." (Rel. Wotton. p. 376.) This other letter 
 is undated, like the former; but Wotton observes in it, 
 that Sir Thomas Roe was " to take his leave on Sunday 
 next at Court," in order to go to Hamburgh ; and Garrard 
 mentions his departure in a letter dated May 10: 1638: 
 (Strafforde Letters, ii. 167.) 
 
 The Variations are from four copies of the piece ; viz. A 
 =Sancroft's,— MS. Tann. 465. p. 137.— B=MS. Rawl. 
 Poet. 147. p. 101.— C=MS. Ashm. 38. N^ 172.— D= 
 
 * See Nicolas's Life of Walton, p. xiii. and Biogr. Not. of Bp. Henry 
 King, 1843, p. xxxii. 
 
SIR HENRY WOTTOX. 51 
 
 Campbell's copy, as above. It will be seen, that Malone's 
 transcript does not exactly agree with any of the MSS. The 
 title which he gives it is taken from the Rawl. MS.] 
 
 H thou great Power ! in whom I move, 
 For whom I Live, to whom I Die, 
 Behold me through thy beams of Love, 
 Whilst on this Couch of Tears I lie ; 
 x\nd cleanse my sordid Soul within 
 By thy Christs Blood, the Bath of Sin. 
 
 No hallowed Oyls, no grains I need. 
 No Rags of Saints, no purging Fire ; 
 One Rosie drop from David's Seed 
 [lo] Was W^orlds of Seas to quench thine Ire. 
 O precious Ransome ! which once paid, 
 That Consummatum est was said ; 
 
 And said by him that said no more, 
 
 But seal'd it with his Sacred Breath : 
 
 [15] Thou, then, that hast dispong'd my Score, 
 
 And dying w^ast the Death of Death, 
 
 Be to me now, on Thee I call, 
 
 My Life, my Strength, my Joy, my All ! 
 
 H. WOTTON. 
 
 [Variations. — 1. ' uee move' — A B C D. — 2. ' By whom wee 
 live, to whom wee die' — A B C D, — 4. ' While in' — A C. — 7. 
 'no giLins I need' — D.— 8. ' No new-home drams of — B D. — 13. 
 ' who said no more' — A C. — 15. ' w<='^ hast' — A. ' who hast' — C. 
 ' that hast dispurged our score' — D. ' our score' also in A B C. 
 — 16. ^icerf — A B C D. — 17. ' Bee now, while on thy name wee 
 call'— A C. So also B D, except ' whilst on'— 18. * Our life, our 
 Strength, our Joy, our All.'— A B C D.] 
 
PART 11. 
 
 POEMS 
 
 FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 FROM RELIQULE WOTTONIAN^, 
 ED. 1685. 
 
 ?- 
 
A DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY'S 
 RECREATIONS. 
 
 [This piece is introduced in Walton's Complete Angler 
 (pp. 348-350. ed. 1655) with the following preface: — 
 *' When you have pledged me, I will repeat the Verses 
 which I promised you ; it is a copy printed amongst Sir 
 Henry Wottons Verses, and doubtlesse made either by him, 
 or by a lover of Angling : Come, Master, now drink a glasse 
 to me, and then I will pledge you, and fall to my repeti- 
 tion; it is a description of such Country recreations as I 
 have enjoyed since I had the happinesse to fall into your 
 company." When the "repetition" is concluded, Piscator 
 says, " Trust me (Scholer) I thank you heartily for these 
 Verses ; they be choicely good, and doubtlesse made by a 
 lover of Angling." Mr. Ellis, therefore, inserts part of them 
 in his Collection under the name of Sir Henry Wotton (ii. 
 365). 
 
 Sir Egerton Brydges gives them the first place in his edi- 
 tion of the Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh, with the note : — • 
 
56 FOEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 " Errors will seem to strike the hasty Critic in the commence- 
 ment of this Collection, for A Description of the Country'' s 
 Recreations has been generally printed as Sir Henry Wot- 
 ton's. But it is clearly distinguished from Wotton's own in 
 the ' Reliquice ;' and though it is marked by the deep moral 
 cast of that eloquent and instructive writer, it is not unbe- 
 coming the vigorous mind, the worldly experience, and the 
 severe disappointments of Raleigh."* That is to say, Ra- 
 leigh might have written it, therefore he did write it; — an 
 argument which will scarcely stand. Yet Sir Egerton gives 
 no other evidence, except the signature Ignoto in Rel. Wot- 
 ton., — evidence, however, which he thought so conclusive, 
 that he claims for Raleigh all the other pieces in Rel. Wot- 
 ton. which are marked in the same way. Now even if this 
 word Ignoto were admitted to be a "slight designation of" 
 Raleigh's " property" (as Ellis calls it) in the earlier Mis- 
 cellanies, — an admission against which I have a few objec- 
 tions to urge elsewhere, — it is certainly none when Izaak 
 Walton uses it, or we should have found Raleigh's name, 
 not Wotton's, in the passage which I have cited above. It is 
 evident, that Walton placed the piece among the doubtful 
 poems when he edited Rel. Wotton., because he had no 
 positive proof that Wotton wrote it; but it is equally evi- 
 dent that he knew nothing of any other claimant, from the 
 expressions he used about it when he wrote the Angler. 
 If /?e could not establish Wotton's claim, of course we can- 
 not ; but Wotton certainly ought to have the benefit of his 
 editor's hesitation on the subject. 
 
 The Variations are from the copy in the Complete An- 
 gler (marked W.) and from one which is printed anony- 
 mously in Clifford's Tixall Poetry (pp. 297-300) with the 
 title, " Rusticatio Religiosi in Vacantiis" (marked T.).] 
 
 * Hence it is retained in the Oxford ed. of Raleigh's Works, viii. 697, 
 from which Mr, Tytler has taken it, and supplied it with a running com- 
 mentary, fitted to Raleigh's circumstances. Life of Ral. p. 198, ed. 1840. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTOX. 57 
 
 UIVERING fears, Heart-tearing cares, 
 Anxious sighs, Untimely tears, 
 Fly, fly to Courts ! 
 Fly to fond worldlings sports, 
 Where strain'd Sardonick smiles are [g] losing- 
 still, 
 And grief is forc'd to laugh against her will ; 
 Where mirth's but mummery, 
 And sorrows only real be ! 
 
 Fly from our Country pastimes ! fly, 
 [lo] Sad troop of human misery ! 
 Come, serene looks, 
 Clear as the Chrystal brooks, 
 Or the pure azur'd Heaven, that smiles to see 
 The rich attendance of our poverty ! 
 [15] Peace, and a secure mind, 
 
 (Which all men seek,) we only find. 
 
 Abused Mortals ! did you know 
 Where Joy, Hearts ease, and comforts grow, 
 You'd scorn proud towers, 
 [20] And seek them in these bowers. 
 
 Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may 
 
 shake, 
 But blustring care could never tempest make, 
 Nor murmurs e're come nigh us. 
 Saving of Fountains that glide by us. 
 
58 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 [25] Here's no fantastick Mask, nor dance, 
 But of our Kids, that frisk and prance : 
 Nor wars are seen, 
 Unless upon the green 
 Two harmless Lambs are butting one the other ; 
 [30] Which done, both bleating run, each to his Mother: 
 And wounds are never found. 
 Save what the Plow -share gives the 
 ground. 
 
 Here are no false entrapping baits. 
 To hasten too too''^ hasty fates ; 
 [35] Unless it be 
 
 The fond Credulity 
 Of silly fish, which, worldling-like, still look 
 Upon the Bait, but never on the Hook : 
 Nor envy, unless among 
 [40] The Birds, for piize of their sweet song. 
 
 Go ! let the diving Negro seek 
 
 For Gemras hid in some forlorn creek ; 
 
 We all Pearls scorn, 
 
 Save what the dewy morn 
 [45 J Congeals upon each little spire of grass. 
 
 Which careless Shepherds beat down as they 
 
 And Gold ne're here appears, [pass ; 
 
 Save what the vellow Ceres bears. 
 
 * On this expression, see Halliwell's note on the old 3 Hen. vi. p. 19G, 
 and Shakesp. Soc. Papers, i. 39 — 43. Air. H. would print it as one word. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTOX. 39 
 
 Blest, silent Groves ! O may ye be 
 [50] For ever Mirth's best Nursery ! 
 May pure contents 
 For ever pitch their Tents 
 Upon these Downs, these IMeads, these Rocks, 
 these Mountains, [tains ! 
 
 And peace still slumber by these purling Foun- 
 [55] Which we may every year 
 
 Find when we come a fishing here. 
 Ignoto. 
 
 [Variations.— 3. In Rel. Wotton. 1654 and 1672, ' Fly, fly to 
 the Courts.' It is as I have given it in ed. 1651, and in the other 
 copies. — i. ' Fly to Jind icorldly harts' — T. — 5. ' closing' ed. 
 1672. It is ' glosing' in eds. 1651 and 1654, and in the other 
 copies. — 6. ' his will' — T. — 7. ' Where mirth is but' — T. — 9. 
 'pastime'— T.— 10. ' troops'— \Y. and T.— 11. ' serened'— T.— 12. 
 ' these cristaW — T. — 13. 'azure' — T. — 14. 'onour' — W. — 22. 'can 
 never' — T. — 24. 'which glide' — T. — 25. 'or dance' — T. — 31. 'Nor 
 wounds are ete?- found' — T. — 33. 'false' om. W. — 37 .' worldlings 
 like' — T. — 38. 'and never' — T. — 40. 'for price of — W. 'for 
 praise of — T. — 42. ' hid' om. T. — 43. ' We pearles do scorne' — T. 
 — 45. ' little' om. T. — 48. ' 5ut what'— T.— 49. ' Sweet silent .... 
 you be' — T. 'you he' also in W. — 50. ' blest nursery' — T. — 53. 
 ' Upon these meads, these downs' — T. — 56. ' Meet when' — W' , 
 ed. 3. — ' to sojourne here' — T,] 
 
60 
 
 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 II. 
 
 IMITATIO HORATIAN^ ODES 
 
 IX. DONEC GRATUS ERAM TIBI. LIB. III. 
 A DIALOGUE BETWIXT GOD AND THE SOUL. 
 
 [Inserted among Sir Walter Raleigh's Poems, in the Lee 
 Priory edition, pp. 6, 7, on the evidence of the signature 
 Ignoto ; and with the following remark: "This Dialogue 
 betwixt God and the Soul stands on the authority of Isaac 
 Walton, as Editor of the ' Reliquia Wottoniana.^ Its ab- 
 surdity needs not be pointed out." (p. 65.) The Oxford 
 editors of Raleigh's Works have rejected it in their reprint 
 of the Lee Priory Collection, and in so doing, they were 
 certainly correct. It is, however, the only instance in which 
 they have exercised this discretion, which might have been 
 employed in other eases also with advantage. The "absur- 
 dity" of the piece, great as it is, is not so obvious as its ir- 
 reverence ; and we have no right to talk of Izaak Walton's 
 "authority," unless we can prove that he regarded Ignoto 
 as a signature peculiar to Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 On a translation of this ode by Ben Jonson (Works, ix. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 61 
 
 142), GifFord has this note: "This little piece has always 
 been a favourite. Granger, whose knowledge of our old 
 writers did not extend much beyond their portraits, tells us,* 
 that the first English version of this Ode was made by Her- 
 rick. The Hesperides were not published till 1648, and to 
 say nothing of the translation before us, a dozen, perhaps, 
 had appeared before that period. I have one by Francis 
 Davison as early as 1608, but neither is this the first: — the 
 matter, however, is of no great moment."] 
 
 '^'oul. gJ^g^^J^HILST my Souls eye beheld no 
 light, 
 But what stream' d from thy gra- 
 cious sight, 
 To me the Worlds greatest King 
 Seem'd but some little vulgar thing. 
 
 [5] God. Whil'st thou prov'dst pure, and that in thee 
 I could Glass all my Deity ; 
 How glad did I from Heaven depart, 
 To find a Lodging in thy Heart ! 
 
 S. Now Fame and Greatness bear the sway ; 
 [10] ('Tis they that hold my Prisons Key :) 
 
 For whom my Soul would die, might she 
 Leave them her Immortality. 
 
 * Viz. Biogr. Hi;-t. ii. 309, 4;h ed. But Gifford states Granger's mistake 
 too strongly ; for lie speaks very doubtfully about it ; and though Herrick'g 
 Hesperides were not published till 1C48, this Dialogue is expressly said to 
 have been " Translated anno 1627." p. 76. Davison's Translation is in the 
 Poet. Rhaps. p. 94, ed. Nicolas. 
 
62 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 G. I, and some few pure Souls conspire, 
 And burn both in a mutual Fire, 
 [ir>] For whom I'll die* once more, ere they 
 
 Should miss of Heavens eternal day. 
 
 S. But, Lord, what if I turn again, 
 And, with an Adamantine Chain, 
 Lock me to thee ? What if I chase 
 [20] The World away to give thee place ? 
 
 G. Then, though these Souls, in whom I joy, 
 Are Seraphims, — Thou but a toy, 
 A Foolish Toy, — yet once more I 
 Would with thee live, and for thee die. 
 
 Ignoto. 
 
 * ' Tld dy'— eds. 1651 and 1654, and Biydges,' /V die.'— In ed. 1672, 
 the title is, * Imitatio i/orc^/««a Odes 9' — &c. In line 21, ' those souls' — 
 .d. 1651. In line 4, '« little'— Brydges. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 63 
 
 III. 
 
 DOCTOR B. OF TEARS. 
 
 [The full name of the writer is preserved in an old MS. 
 Collection belonging to Mr. J. P. Collier, with the loan 
 of which he favoured me some time since. The piece 
 is there entitled, " Doc. Brooke of Teares." — Dr. Samuel 
 Brooke, the intimate friend of Dr. Donne, was the son of 
 a Yorkshire merchant, and was entered at Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, in 1596. He took the degree of M. A. in 1604, 
 that of B.D. in 1607, and that of D.D.in 1615. In 1612, 
 he was made Divinity Professor of Gresham College, and 
 was afterwards in succession Rector of St. Margaret's, Loth- 
 bury, Master of Trinity, and Archdeacon of Coventry. This 
 last preferment he held only for a few months, and died in 
 September, 1631.* I believe he has not generally been re- 
 cognized as an English poet, though some of his contempo- 
 raries have left allusions which would have led us to look 
 
 * See Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors, in Bliss's ed. of Wood's 
 Fasti, i. 401, ami iii Zoiich's Walton, pp. 35, 36, ed. 1796: where much 
 more will be found about him. 
 
64 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 for more copious remains than this short poem, \vhich has 
 hitherto been all but anonymous. Thus Donne speaks of 
 " seeing in" him " bright sparkes of Poetry," and Crashaw 
 calls him a Brooke 
 
 " Whose Banks the Muses dwelt upon, 
 More then their own Helicon."* 
 
 A Latin pastoral, of which he was the author, (and I 
 think it was not his only performance of that kind,) was acted 
 before King James at Cambridge on Friday, March 10: 
 1614-5: and was afterwards printed. Its full title is given 
 in the note.f Chamberlain says that it was '' excellently 
 written, and as well acted;" and that it " gave great con- 
 tentment, as well to the King as to the rest."| 
 
 His brother, Christopher Brooke, who was Donne's 
 " chamber-fellow," and who shared, like Dr. Brooke, in the 
 troubles arising from Donne's hasty marriage, has been al- 
 ready mentioned in connection with Serjeant Hoskins (p. 
 7), and was far more celebrated for English Poetry, in 
 which he was frequently the coadjutor of William Browne. § 
 
 * Donne's Poems, p. 98, ed. 1633. (I presume the initials " M. S. B." 
 refer to Mr. Samuel Brooke. Tlie piece was evidently written when they 
 were both young, and before Donne became a Proteslant.) Crashaw's 
 Poems, p. 95, ed. 1070. Crashaw's Elegy is copied in Archbishop San- 
 croft's Collection, MS. Tann. 46.5. fol. 65. v^. which contains also a Latin 
 Epitaph on Dr. Brooke, fol. 27. 
 
 t " Melanthe, Fabula pastoralis, acta cum Jacobvs Magnae Brit. Franc. 
 & Hiberniae Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, ibidemq; Mnsaiuin 
 atque animi gratia dies quinque commoraretur. Egervnt Alvmni Coll. 
 San. et Individvse Trinitaus, Cantabrigiee. Excudebat Cantrellvs Legge. 
 Mart. 27. 1615." A copy in the Bodleian (Rawl. 4to. 253) has an imper- 
 fect list of the original actors, supposed to be in the handwriting of the 
 author. 
 
 j See Hawkins's ed. of Ruggle's Ignoramus, p. xxx. and Ward, as 
 above. 
 
 § Wood mentions his Elegy on Henry, Prince of Wales, 1613; his Ec- 
 logues, dedicated to William Browne, 1614, and some scattered pieces, to 
 which Dr. Bliss has made important addiiions. Wood's Fasti, i. 403. An 
 Epithalamium, which bears his signature, is the last piece contained in 
 England's Helicon. There are two Elegies by " C. B." in Cheetham MS. 
 (Manchester) 8012. pp. 154, 155. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 65 
 
 The Shakespeare Society has recently republished a curious 
 Poem, entitled, "The Ghost of Richard the Third," 1614, 
 which has iiis initials at the end of the Dedication. Mr. 
 Collier was at one time inclined to ascribe it to Charles 
 Best; but he has since altered his opinion, at the suggestion 
 of Mr. Rodd, and, like Mr. Dyce, appears to believe that 
 its real author was Christopher Brooke.* 
 
 The piece now before us was inserted among the Poems of 
 Pembroke and Rudyard, 1660, with the title, " Benj. Ru- 
 dier of Tears" (p. 46); but the authority of the MS. copy, 
 and of the initials in Rel. Wottom is sufficient to set his 
 claim aside. 
 
 The variations marked C. are from Mr. Collier's MS. and 
 those marked R. from Rudyard's Poems. It will be seen 
 that they supply one line which is required by the form of 
 the stanza, but which is omitted in every edition of Rel. 
 Wotton.] 
 
 1. 
 
 ]H0 would have thought there could have bin 
 Such joy in Tears wept for our Sin ? 
 Mine Eyes have seen, my heart hath 
 proved 
 
 The most and best of earthly joys ; 
 [5] The sweets of love, and being loved ; 
 
 iMasks, Feasts, and Plays, and such like Toys : 
 Yet this one Tear, which now doth fall, 
 In true Delight exceeds them all. 
 
 • Collier's Life of Shakespeare, p. ccxlvi. Preface to reprint of "The 
 Ghost of Rich. III." p. xiv. and Dyce's Remarks on GiflFord's Jonson, p. 
 297, — The Bodleian copy of this volume is said to be unique; and even Park, 
 who was iniimalely acquainted with these old books, had never seen it. 
 (^ote on Warton's H. E. P. iii. 235, ed. 1840.) Dr. Donne has addressed 
 more than one poem to Christopher Brooke. See his Poems, pp. 50, 97 
 ed. 1633. 
 
66 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 2. Indeed mine Eyes at first let in 
 
 [lO] Those Guests that did these woes begin ; 
 
 Therefore mine Eyes in Tears and Grief 
 Are justly drown'd ; but that those Tears 
 
 Should Comfort bring, is past behef. 
 Oh God ! in this thy Grace appears, 
 [15] Thou that mak'st light from darkness spring, 
 Mak'st joyes to weep, and sorrow[s] sing. 
 
 3. Oh where am I ! what may I think ! 
 Help, help ! alass, my Heart doth sink ; 
 
 Thus lost in Seas of wo, 
 [20] Thus laden with my sin, 
 
 Waves of Despair dash in, 
 And threat my overthrow. 
 What Heart opprest with such a weight 
 Can chuse but break, and perish quite ? 
 
 [25] 4. Yet, as at Sea in Storms, Men use, 
 
 The Ship to save, the[ir] Goods to lose ; 
 So, in this fearful Storm, 
 This danger to prevent, 
 Before all hope be spent, 
 [30] I'll chuse the lesser harm : 
 
 JNIy Tears to seas I will convert. 
 And drown my Eyes, to save my Heart. 
 
 5. Oh God, my God ! what shall I give 
 To thee in thanks ? I am and live 
 [35] In thee, and thou didst safe preserve 
 
 My Health, my Fame, my Goods, my Rent ; 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 Thou makest me eat while others sterve ; 
 [And sing, whilst others do lament.] 
 Such unto me thy Blessings are, 
 [40] As if I were thy only Care. 
 
 6. But, oh my God ! thou art more kind, 
 When I look inward on my mind : 
 
 Thou fillest my Heart with humble joy, 
 With Patience, Meekness, fervent love, 
 [45] (Which doth all other loves destroy,) 
 With faith, (which nothing can remove,) 
 And hope assured of Heavens Bliss ; — 
 This is my State, — thy Grace is this. 
 
 [Variations. (As those of C. were marked some time since, 
 a few may have been overlooked). 3. ' Mine eye hath seen' — 
 both C. and R.— 5. 'The sweet'— hoih.— 12. Uhese'—R.—i3. 
 ' 'tis' — both. — 16. ' sadness sing' — both. — It is ' sorrows' in Rel. 
 Wotton. eds. 1651-4. In ed. 1672, ' sorrow'— .19. ' tost'—R. 
 which appears preferable to the other reading. — 22. ' mine' — R. 
 — 24. 'Canchuse hut sink, and perish streight' — R. 'straight' 
 also in C. — 25. 'men choose' — both. — 26. 'the' — Rel. Wotton. I 
 follow the copy in R. — 29. ' hopes' — R. — 32. ' mine eyes' — both. 
 — After the fourth stanza a fresh commencement is made in R. 
 the letter "R." being interposed.— 35. 'dost safe'— R. — 37. 
 'whilst' — both. — 38. This line occurs in both C. (where 'other 
 doth') and R. but not in Rel. Wotton. The structure of this stanza 
 is the same as that of the first, second, and sixth. — 40. ' As 
 thouj,h — thine' — both. — 44. 'meek and fervent' — both. — 45. 'All 
 other loves which doth destroy' — both.] 
 
'68 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 IV. 
 
 BY CHIDICK TYCHBORN, 
 
 (being young and then in the tower) 
 THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS EXECUTION. 
 
 [Chidiock Tychbourne, of Southampton, was executed 
 with Ballard and Babington in 1586.* Mr. Collier's MS. 
 contains a copy of these verses, with a reply to them, of which 
 the commencement may be cited here : — 
 
 "an 
 
 ANSWERE TO m'^ TICHBORNE 
 
 WHO 
 
 WAS EXECUTED W^" BABINGTON. 
 
 " Thy flower of youth is with a north wind blasted ; 
 
 Thy feast of Joye is an Idea found ; 
 Thy Corne is shed ; thy vntimely haniest wasted ; 
 
 Thy good in ill, thy hope in hurt [is drowned ?];t 
 
 * Mr. D'Israeli, who has devoted to him an Article in his Curiosities of 
 Literature, gives these verses from one of the Harl. MSS. and remarks, in 
 the note, that they have, at one time, been assigned to Raleigh. Of course 
 he is quite correct in treating this as a mere bhmder. (p. 236, ed. 1839.) 
 
 t MS. ' a^ wasted'' — the writer's eye having caught the line above. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 69 
 
 Darke was thy daye, & shadow was thy Sun; 
 And, by such lights, thy life vntimely spun. 
 
 "Thy tale was nought; thy Oratory told; 
 
 Thy fruite is rotten, & thy leaues are gone ; 
 Thy selfe wert young in yeares, in tyme growne old ; 
 
 The world accoumpts thee not worth thinking on ;" &c. 
 
 Copies of Tychbourne's lines are found in numerous MSS. ; 
 but some of them agree very nearly with the text here 
 printed (e. g. Mr. Collier's, and one in MS. Ashm. 781, p. 
 1 38). I have given the variations from Mr. D'Israeli's copy, 
 (=A.) and from one in MS. Malone 19, p. 44. (=B.) 
 Their titles correspond (except in mere verbal differences) 
 with that printed above. It seems that the first and second 
 stanzas were printed, with considerable alterations, in Este's 
 Madrigals, 1604. See Cens. Lit. ii. 101, 2nd edit.] 
 
 1. 
 
 Y prime of Youth is but a Frost of Cares ; 
 My Feast of joy is but a Dish of pain ; 
 My Crop of Corn is but a Field of Tares ; 
 And all my good is but vain hope of gain : 
 [5] The day is [fled], and yet I saw no Sun ; 
 
 And now I live, and now my life is done ! 
 
 2. The Spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung ; 
 The Fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green ; 
 My youth is gone, and yet I am but young ; 
 
 [10] I saw the World, and yet I was not seen : 
 
 My Thread is cut, and yet it is not spun ; 
 And now I live, and now my life is done ! 
 
 3. I sought my Death, and found it in my Womb; 
 I looked for Life, and saw it was a shade ; 
 
70 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 [is] I trod the Earth, and knew it was my Tomb ; 
 And now I die, and now I am but made : 
 The Glass is full, and now my Glass is run ; 
 And now I live, and now my Life is done I 
 
 [Variations. — 2. ' ioyes' — B. — 4. ' goodes' — A. — 5. 'fled' — A. 
 (So also Mr. Collier's MS. and MS. Aslim.) In Rel. Wott. and 
 B. ^past' — which occurs directly afterwards. — 7. '3% Spring' — 
 A. ^ My tale was heard, & yet it was not told' — B. — 8. ^ My 
 fruite is falne, & yet my leaues are greene' — B. — 9. ' My youth 
 is spent, & yet I am not old' — B. ' INIy youth is past' — A. (The 
 readings of B. in this stanza seem to be supported by the " An- 
 swere" quoted above.) — 13. ^for death' — A. ^ the wombe' — A 
 B. — 14. ' and yet it was' — A. — 15. ' I trade the ground' — A. — 
 16. 'I was but made' — B. — 17. 'My glasse is full' — B. 'and 
 yet'—A.I 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 71 
 
 V. 
 
 [This piece, again, is claimed for Raleigh by Sir Egerton 
 Brydges, on the authority of the signature. He remarks, — 
 " If we admit this to be Raleigh's, what shall we say to the 
 foul charge of Atheism, or even Deism, which has been made 
 against him ? The second and third stanzas are vigorous 
 and sublime." Fortunately, we have better evidence than 
 this to prove that the charge against Raleigh was hasty and 
 unjust. The piece is retained in the Oxford edition of his 
 works (viii. 707) ; and received by Mr. Tytler with implicit 
 confidence. " It was probably about the same time," he 
 tells us, — referring generally to the period of his long impri- 
 sonment, — " that this fine hymn was composed Making 
 
 allowance for their occasional quaintness, the fault not of the 
 writer but of the age, there are few who will not in these 
 small pieces recognise that fiery stamp which marks the true 
 gold of the imagination from its counterfeit." (Life of 
 Raleigh, p. 287, ed. 1840.) 
 
 There is a copy of it, without a signature, in Mr. Collier's 
 MS., but as the variations appeared to be generally for the 
 worse, I did not mark them.] 
 
72 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 ISE, oh my Soul, with thy desires to 
 Heaven, 
 And with Divinest Contemplation use 
 Thy time, where times eternity is given , 
 And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts * 
 abuse ; 
 But down in darkness let them lie; 
 So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die ! 
 
 2. And thou, my Soul, inspir'd with holy flame. 
 
 View and review, with most regardful Eye, 
 That holy Cross, whence th}" Salvation came. 
 
 On which thy Saviour, and thy Sin, did die ! 
 For in that sacred Object is much pleasure, 
 And in that Saviour is my Life, my Treasure. 
 
 3. To thee (O Jesu !) I derect my Eye[s] ; 
 
 To thee my hands, to thee my humble Knees ; 
 To thee my Heart shall offer Sacrifice ; 
 
 To thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only 
 sees : 
 To thee my self, — my self and all I give ; 
 To thee I die ; to thee I only Hve ! 
 
 Ignoto. 
 
 * So all the editions, old and new ; and I have not marked any varia- 
 tion from the MS. But it can scarcely be correct. — Again, the brevity of 
 the fifth line is not countenanced by the form of the oiher stanzas. — In 
 the first line of the third stanza, the eds, have ' eie' or' Eye'— which the 
 rhyme would be sufficient to correct ; and in the MS. it is ' myne eyes"—. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 73 
 
 VI. 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 
 THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH. 
 
 [ "That his [Raleigh's] faith was no less steadfast in the 
 hopes of a resurrection,* we are as convincingly assured by 
 those verses, which, this last night of his life, he probably 
 wrote also here, in the Gatehouse, — they being found there 
 in his Bible ; and, according to the most ancient copies I 
 can meet with, penned in these words;" &c. Oldys. — 
 " Having finished this [viz. ' An Answer to some things at 
 my Death'] he seems to have drawn up a few additional 
 notes of remembrance, containing heads of the different sub- 
 jects upon which, if permitted to speak on the scaffold, he 
 meant to address the people ; and taking his Bible, he wrote 
 on a blank leaf these few lines: It may appear singu- 
 
 * He had just been speaking of Raleigh's Poem called his " Pilgrimage." 
 See Part III. No. ii. in this vol. 
 
74 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 lar to some that we find him so employed at such a moment, 
 but from his early youth Raleigh had been accustomed to 
 throw his feelings into numbers. His last thoughts are 
 solemn and full of immortality ; and their poetical dress 
 indicates a rare tranquillity of mind." Tytler.* 
 
 It is satisfactory to meet with at least one poem, though a 
 very short one, which can be ascribed to Raleigh without 
 much danger of mistake ; but this is the only piece in Rel. 
 Wotton. of which so much can be said with safety. The 
 tradition which assigns it to the night before his execution 
 may in this case be correct. Perhaps it is equally true with 
 regard to the following couplet, which is printed in the 
 various Collections of his Minor writings. 
 
 " ox THE SNUFF OF A CANDLE, THE NIGHT BEFORE HE DIED. 
 
 Cowards [may] fear to die ; but Courage stout. 
 Rather than live in Snuflf, will be put out." 
 
 The story of his ** Dying Meditation," which is appended 
 to so many other Poems, — some of which he never wrote at 
 all, — seems to have been carelessly transferred to them from 
 one or other of these two short fragments. 
 
 The variations are given from three copies, to which many 
 others might have been added ; viz. — A=Dr. Birch's copy, 
 Raleigh's Minor Works, ii. 400. (It appears to have been 
 taken from Raleigh's Remains, where the title is, ^'Sir Wal- 
 ter Raleigh's Verses, Found in his Bible in the Gate-house 
 at Westminster," p. 258, ed. 1661,)— B=01dys's copy, as 
 above.— C=Chetham MS. 8012, p. 162.] 
 
 * Oldys's Life of Ral. p. 556, Oxf. ed. cf. p. 424. Tytler, p. 357, ed. 
 1840. Tytler found a copy in the state-paper office, p. 356, note. — Brydges 
 mentions one in a Lansd. MS. entitled, " De seipso." Pref. to Browne's 
 Poems, Lee Priory ed. p. 6. — See also D'lsraeli's Cur. of Lit. p. 419, ed. 
 1839. Cayley, ii. 167. Ellis, ii. 224. Raleigh's Works, viii. 729, Oxford 
 ed. — A copy was printed on the last leaf of his Prerog. of Pari. 1628, with 
 the title, " The Authours Epitaph, made by hiniselfe ;" but I believe the 
 lines had been published at a still earlier date. — Another copy is in Win- 
 stanley's Worthies, p. 305, 1684. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 7o 
 
 IVEN such is time, that takes on trust 
 Our youth, our joyes, our all we have, 
 And pays us but with [Earth] and Dust ; 
 Who, in the dark and silent Grave, 
 (When we have wandred all our ways,) 
 Shuts up the story of our days : 
 But from this Earth, this Grave, this Dust, 
 My God shall raise me up, I trust ! 
 
 W. K. 
 
 [Variations. — 1. '• ichich' — A. 'who' — B. 'in trust' — A B C. — 
 2. 'our age' — C. 'and all' — A B C. — 3. ' with Age and Dust' 
 — Rel.Wotton. 'nought but^o-^' — A. 'with earth and dust' — B 
 C. The reading ' age' is found also in several of the copies men- 
 tioned in the note on the preceding- pag-e ; but the seventh line 
 clearly proves that it is erroneous. — 4.' Which in' — A. ' Who in 
 the silence of the graue' — C. — 6. ' Shut vp the glory' — C. — 7. 
 'And from which Grave and Earth and Dust' — A. 'But from 
 that earth, that grave, and dust' — B. ' And from that earth, graue, 
 and dust'— C. ' The Lord shall'— A B C. So Oxford edit., Win- 
 stanley, Prerog. Pari., &c. ' The Lord will' — Tytler.] 
 
76 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 VII. 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 [In the first edit, of Rel. Wotton., these lines were signed 
 Ignoto, which was altered in ed. 1654 to Fra. L^ Bacon, — ■ 
 the signature retained in ed. 1 672. There can be no reason- 
 able doubt that Bacon wrote them ; but his claim cannot 
 have been generally known, since his name is usually an 
 after-insertion in the IMS. copies, as well as in Rel. Wotton.* 
 The most conclusive evidence is that of Thomas Farnaby, 
 who printed them in his Florilegium, in 1629, (pp. 8 — 10) 
 with a Greek translation, immediately after a well-known 
 Epigram that is usually ascribed to Posidippus; and intro- 
 duced them thus ; — " Hue elegantem V. CL. Domini Ve- 
 rulamij irapi^Uav adjicere adlubuit."f They were repeated 
 
 * Thus in MS. Rawl. Poet. 117, fol. 161, they were first entitled "The 
 Bubble, by R. TV." (those seem to be the letters) and the words, " by y« 
 L^ Bacon," were added afterwards. — In MS. Ashra. 38, p. 2, the first 
 title was, " On Mans Mortalitie, by Doctor Donn" altered to " S"" Fran. 
 Bacon." — In Mr. Pickering's MS. fol. 87. they have the signature, "Henry 
 Harrington," but the name of " L^ Verulam viscoun[t] St Albans," is added 
 in a later hand. Title," Vppon ye niiserie of Man." 
 
 t Mr. Dyce, with less accuracy than usual, says, "The celebrated copy 
 of verses beginning ' The world's a bubble' has been attributed 6y Farnaby 
 and others to Wotton, — on what authority, does not appear," &c. (Preface 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 77 
 
 in the same form in the edit, of 1650. To this copy refer- 
 ence is made by Aubrey, who calls them " excellent verses 
 ofhisLoP^"* 
 
 That Bacon's occasional recreations in Poetry were not 
 overlooked in the succeeding age, may be gathered from a 
 letter of Waller's, which was prefixed to the first edit, of his 
 Poems (1645), and which was probably genuine, though 
 the publication was unauthorized ; — " Not but that I may 
 defend the attempt I have made upon Poetrie, by the ex- 
 amples (not to trouble you with Historic) of many wise and 
 worthie persons of our own times; as Sir Philip Sidney, 
 Sir Fra. Bacon," &c. His metrical version of a few Psalms, 
 which he published in 1625, with a dedication to George 
 Herbert, may be found among his works. Park has printed 
 a short poem (partly in imitation of Horace) which he found 
 among the Royal MSS. in the British Museum, with the title, 
 "Verses made by Mr. Fra. Bacon ;"f and in the long letter 
 addressed to the Earl of Devonshire, in which Bacon defends 
 his conduct towards Lord Essex, he says that (" though I 
 profess not to be a Poet,") he had " prepared a Sonnet, di- 
 rectly tending to draw on Her Majesty's reconcilement to 
 my Lord." 
 
 The last line of this piece, as it stands in all the copies 
 but that of Rel. Wotton. occurs in precisely the same words 
 among the Poems of Bp. Henry King (p. 23, ed. 1843); — 
 
 to Wotton's Poems.) Zouch mentions that it is printed as Wotton's in 
 Gibber's Lives of the Poets (ed. of Walton, p. 510, 1796) ; but he quotes 
 Farnaby correctly. Park says that it is reprinted in Fawkes and Woty; 
 — and in the New Foundling Hosp, for Wit. 
 
 • Letters from the Bodleian, ii. 224. Farnaby's text was reprinted in 
 the " Poematia" of H. Birchedus (Birkhead) in 1656, with the title, " An 
 Ode against Mans Life." He added " A Parode in praise of Humane 
 Life," and subjoined Latin, as well as Greek, translations of both, — taking 
 the Greek version of Bacon's lines from Farnaby, who had been his teacher 
 (pp. 86-94). 
 
 + Edit, of Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ii. 217. There is another 
 copy of them in Chetham MS. (Manchester) 8012, p. 79. 
 
78 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 " At least with that Greek Sage still make us cry, 
 Not to be born, or, being born, to dy." 
 
 King gives his marginal quotation in Latin ; and I do not 
 know from which of the many Greek writers who have the 
 saying he meant to cite it;* but it was a common proverb 
 in his day. Bodenham has it in the " Garden of the Muses" 
 (p. 214, ed. 1610);— 
 
 " Better not be, thenf being, soone to die.'' 
 
 The Variations are taken from Farnaby (^A), — MS. 
 Rawl. P. 117 (=B),— and Mr. Pickering's MS. (=C).— 
 Those of the Ashmole MS. and of Mr. Collier's MS. (where 
 the poem is transcribed) are either too inaccurate or too 
 trifling to need mention.] 
 
 HE World's a bubble, and the life of man 
 
 Less than a span ; — 
 In his Conception wretched, from the womb, 
 So to the Tomb ; — 
 [CJurstfrom his Cradle, and brought up to years 
 With Cares and Fears. 
 Who then to frail Mortality shall trust, 
 But limns on Water, or but writes in Dust. 
 
 Yet, whil'st with sorrow here we live opprest, 
 [lO] WTiat life is best ? 
 
 * See the parallel passages in Grotius on Eccles. iv. 3, and Dav. in 
 Cic. Tusc. D. i. 48. Tlie origin of the phrase was ascribed by Aristotle to 
 Silenus, who bestowed it on his captor. King Midas. In that curious far- 
 rago of undigested information, Heywood's " Hierarchic of the Blessed 
 Angels," we find both this proverb and its opposite, pp. 1[4]5, 384. — The 
 Epigram of Posidippiis was translated into English verse by Sir John 
 Beaumont, and into Latin by Buchanan, Grotiiis,and several others. 
 
 t The word stands for either " then" or " than.'' I understand it here 
 in the former sense. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 79 
 
 Courts are but only superficial Schools, 
 
 To dandle Fools : ^ 
 
 The rural part is turned into a Den 
 Of savage Men : 
 [15] And where's a City from foul vice so free, 
 
 But may be term'd the worst of all the three ? 
 
 Domestick Cares afilict the Husband's bed. 
 
 Or pain[s] his Head : 
 Those that live single, take it for a curse, 
 [20] Or do things worse : 
 
 These would have Children : — those that have 
 them, [m]one, 
 
 Or wish them gone : 
 What is it, then, to have, or have no Wife, 
 But single thraldom, or a double strife ? 
 
 [25] Our own Affections still at home to please. 
 Is a Disease : 
 To cross the Seas to any foreign soil, 
 
 Peril and toil : 
 Wars with their noise affright us ; when they cease, 
 [30] We're worse in peace : 
 
 What then remain s,but that we still should crv 
 For being born, and, being born, to die ? 
 Fra. Lord Bacon. 
 
 [Variations.— 5. Eel. Wotton. and B. ' Nurst'—. It is ' Curst' 
 in A C. In IMS. Ashm. ' Crost'—. ' the cradle'— A.— 6. ^ care' 
 —C.—7. 'doth trust'— B.— 8. 'But limmes the water'— A B C. 
 'and doth wriglit'— B.— 9. 'Yet since'— A. 'Yet while'— C. 
 
80 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 ' Yet whilst wee wretched Hue w*''^ cares opprest' — B. — 11. ^ bee 
 but' — B. ' only' omitted in B C. — 13. ' parts are' — A C. ' parts 
 bee' — B. ^ to a Denn' — C— 15. 'from all vice' — A C. Uhat 
 Citty'— B.— 16. 'May not be called'— B.— 17. ' afflicts'— B C. 
 and Rel. Wotton. eds. 1651-4.— 18. In Rel. Wotton. ed. 1672, 
 it is 'pain' — ; but the word ' Cares' in the preceding line would 
 lead us to expect the plural; and 'pains' is found in A B C. 
 a.s wellas in Rel. Wotton. eds. 1651-4.— 19. 'They that'— C— 21. 
 ' .Some would' — A B. ' Some wish for children, they y* haue them, 
 moane' — C. ' mone' also in A B. — In Rel. Wotton. and MS. 
 Ashm. 'none.'— 24. 'double life'— C— 26. ' That's a.'— B.— 27. 
 ' 5ea'— A.— 28. 'perills'—A.—29.'affrights'—C. and ' us'omitted. 
 — 31. 'but mortall men may crye' — B. — 32. ' Not to be borne, or 
 being- borne to dye' — A B C. Birkhead has an odd note on the 
 line, pointing out that the author should have said, ' Not to have 
 been borne' ike. Perhaps Walton thought so too, and therefore 
 altered it.] 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 81 
 
 VIII. 
 DE MORTE. 
 
 [The signature Ignoto has, of course, brought this piece 
 also into the editions of Sir Walter Raleigh's Poems (Lee 
 Priory ed. p. 18. Oxford ed. viii. 704). Brydges remarks; 
 — " These lines are quaint ; but contain a powerful com- 
 pression of thought. Unfortunately, they recall to us Shakes- 
 peare's celebrated passage on the same subject." (p. 66.) 
 In this case, as in those already mentioned, we must have 
 better evidence before Raleigh's claim can be allowed. Mr. 
 Freeman thought them " decidedly in Wottons style. '^ (p. 
 257.) 
 
 A similar piece is ascribed to Raleigh in Mr. Pickering's 
 MS. (fol. 113, v°.) which it may be right to quote, although 
 it has been in print before ;* — 
 
 " What is our Life 1 the play of passion ; — 
 Our mirth, — the Musick of Diuision ; — 
 O"" Mothers wombes the Tyreing houses be, 
 AVhere we are drest for Hues short comedie ; 
 The Earth ye Stage, — Heauen the Spectator is, — 
 Who sitts and veiwes, whosoere doth Act amiss; 
 The graues, which hyde vs from y^ scorching Sunn, 
 
 * It is imperfectly printed in Cens. Lit. ii. 103, second ed,,from Gib- 
 bons's" First set of Madrigals and Mottets," &c. 1612. 
 
82 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 Are like drawne Curtaines [whent]y^ play is doue; 
 Thus playeing post wee to o' latest rest; 
 And then we die in earnest, not in Jest. 
 
 Sr W: R:" 
 
 The authority of a single MS. is scarcely sufficient to 
 prove that Raleigh wrote these lines ; but it is at least more 
 weighty evidence than the word Ignoto.] 
 
 |AN'S Life's a Tragedy:— his Mother's 
 Womb 
 (From which he enters) is the tiring Room ; 
 This spacious Earth the Theater ; and the 
 Stage 
 That Countrey which he lives in : — Passions, Rage, 
 Folly, and Vice are Actors : — The first cry 
 The Prologue to th* ensuing Tragedy : 
 The former Act consisteth of dumb shows ; 
 The second, he to more Perfection grows ; 
 I' th' third he is a Man, and doth begin 
 To nurture vice, and act the deeds of sin ; 
 I' th' fourth declines ; I' th' fifth. Diseases clog 
 And trouble him : — then Death's his Epilogue. 
 
 Ignoto. 
 
 + So the copy in Cens. Lit.— In MS. 'till.' — The curtains were formerly 
 suspended from an iron rod, and opened in the centre. They were there- 
 fore drawn apart for the performance, and drawn together at its close. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 83 
 
 IX. 
 
 EPIGRAM. 
 
 F breath were made for every man to buy, 
 The poor Man could not hve, — rich would not die- 
 
 cc-^f^P* 
 
84 
 
 POEMS FOUND AMONG THE 
 
 ^ 
 
 X. 
 
 JOHN HOSKINS TO HIS LITTLE CHILD 
 BENJAMIN FROM THE TOWER. 
 
 [Inserted for the first time in ed. 1672. — Hoskins wrote 
 his advice in a Latin couplet, as well as in these English 
 lines; and the two are sometimes found together; — 
 
 " AD FILIOLUM SUUM BENIAMIN. 
 
 Dum puer es, vanae nescisq; incommoda vocis, 
 Vincula da linguae, vel tibi lingua dabit."* 
 
 His imprisonment, which has been alluded to above (pp. 
 6, 8,) was caused by a violent speech against the Scots, which 
 he delivered in the short Parliament of 1614. From Wot- 
 ton's account of the affair, we should conclude that he fully 
 
 * From Mr. Pickering's MS. fol. 151, and MS. Malone,19, p. 141, both 
 with the English, — which occurs without the I.atin in MS. Rawl. Poet. 
 117. The variations in these copies of the English verses (marked ABC 
 in the order in which they have been named) are so considerable, as to 
 shew that Hoskins gave out ditferent editions of them. The second line of 
 the Latin is quoted, as written by Hoskins, in one of Howell's Letters. — 
 In MS. Mai. 19, there is another Latin couplet, which " M^" Hoskins wrott 
 in the Windowe when he came out of the Tower," p. 140. The son of 
 Hoskins who is most frequently mentioned was called Benedict, or Betmet. 
 
PAPERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. 85 
 
 deserved his punishment ; and we have Raleigh's authority 
 (as well as his own) for adding, that it led to his hearty 
 repentance.f] 
 
 WEET Benjamin, since thou art young, 
 And hast not yet the use of Tongue, 
 Make it thy slave, while thou art free ; 
 
 Im prison it, lest it do thee. 
 
 [Variations. — 1. ^ My little Ben, nowe thou' — C. 'whilst' — 
 A. ' ivhile'—-B.~2. ' And knowst not yet'— A B.— 3, 4. ' Keepe 
 it in thrall, while it is free; Imprison it, or it ivill thee.' — A B. 
 {except ' whilst' — A.) — 'Imprison it, ivhilst thou art free; Least 
 that, as myne, imprison thee' — C] 
 
 + See Rel. Wotton. pp. 432-4-8, (followed by Wood, Lingard, and others) 
 and Raleigh's Works, viii. 162, 211, Oxford edit. — Sir C. Cornwallis, 
 who was implicated by Hoskins, and imprisoned a few days after him, 
 addressed an Apologetic Letter to the King (preserved among both the 
 Ashm. and Tann. MSS. and printed in Gutch's Collect. Cur, i. 161-7,) in 
 which he seems anxious to deny any connection with him. A similar 
 speech is said to have been delivered by a different person in an earlier 
 Parliament. (See Heylin, Exam. Hist. ii. 71, and Fonlis, Hist. Plots, &c. 
 p. 65 ; but as a reference to Cobbett's Pari. Hist. i. 1097, will prove that 
 part of their account is erroneous, we cannot be certain about the rest.) 
 It is supposed that Wotton sat in the Parliament of 1614 as member for 
 Hastings. (In 1625, he was member for Sandwich.) Hoskins sat for the 
 city of Hereford, as before in 1603, and afterwards in 1628. See Not. 
 Pari, sub annis. 
 
POEMS 
 
 FROM VARIOUS SOURCES 
 CHIEFLY BY 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 
 
THE LIE. 
 
 [by sir WALTER RALEIGH.] 
 
 [It has been reported, that this poem was written by Raleigh 
 on the night before his execution in 1618 ;* but unluckily, it 
 was in print ten years before that time, in the second edition 
 of Davison's Poeticall Rhapsodie, 1608. The advocates of 
 Raleigh's claim have sometimes fallen back on the position, 
 that perhaps he composed it while he was expecting execu- 
 tion in 1603 ;t but this ground also must be now relin- 
 
 * When Dr. Birch inserted it among Raleigh's Minor Works in 1751, 
 (ii. 396,) he gave the tradition in a less substantial form : — "This Poem is 
 supposed to be Sir Walter Raleigh's, and appears to have been written 
 some short Time before his Death." But Dr. Farmer, who has marked 
 Birch's variations in his copy of Davison, adds, " This was written {I think) 
 by Sir Walter Rawleigh y^ Night before He u-as beheaded." These two notes 
 very fairly represent the manner in which the tradition would grow up. 
 
 + Percy's Reliques, ii. 289, ed. 1765. Nicolas's edit, of Davison, Biogr. 
 Not. p. ci. — Mrtlone's note, inserted in his copy of Davison, ed. 1621, in the 
 Bodleian, was evidently written before he obtained the MS. ?nentioned in 
 the next note. He thought of the earlier portion of Raleigh's long impri- 
 sonment. 
 
90 POEMS FROM 
 
 quished, as there are MS. copies in existence of a still earlier 
 date.* The nature of his first imprisonment puts that out 
 of the question ; and hence it has been generally concluded^ 
 that the name appended to the poem is as erroneous as the 
 tradition, and that Raleigh could not be its author. 
 
 Those who took the piece as Raleigh's editors have given 
 it seem justified in this conclusion ; for no evidence but the 
 tradition is cited by Birch or Brydges; and when one part 
 of a story is proved to be false, we are naturally inclined to 
 distrust the whole. But if some independent testimony can 
 be brought forward, of course the falsehood of the legend 
 goes for nothing. Such testimony can certainly be found, 
 though perhaps some may still doubt whether it is quite 
 conclusive ; but before it is adduced, we should enquire 
 whether more satisfactory evidence has been stated in behalf 
 of any other person. 
 
 1. Mr. Campbell asks : " Is not the Soul's Errand [thus 
 he entitles the present piece] the same poem with the Soul's 
 Knell, which is always ascribed to Richard Edwards? — If 
 so, why has it been inserted in Raleigh's Poems by Sir Egerton 
 Brydges ?"f For this conjecture, we are probably indebted 
 to the partial resemblance of the titles, added to the circum- 
 stance, that Gascoigne ridiculed those who fancied, that 
 "the Soulknil of M. Edwards was written in extremitie of 
 sickness.'' It would at once supersede the dates of the MSS., 
 for Edwards died in 1566.— But as " the Soulknil" could 
 scarcely be the title of a poem which contains no reference 
 to knelling, and as false traditions of this nature were ap- 
 
 * Malone had a MS. of it dated 1595 (Shakesp. by Boswell, ii. 579); 
 Brydges speaks of one in Brit. Mus. dated 1596 (Lee Priory edit, of Ra- 
 leigh's Poems, p. 58. Oxford edit, of Raleigh's Works, viii. 7'i5) ; and Mr. 
 Campbell says," it can be traced to MS. of a date as early as 1593." (Spe- 
 cimens, p. 57, second ed.) 
 
 t Specimens, p. Ixvi. note, second ed. But why must Brydges bear all 
 the resentment of Messrs. Campbell and Hallam 1 He only followed 
 Birch. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 9! 
 
 pended to almost all the moral pieces of that time, Mr. Camp- 
 bell's opinion is not likely to meet with general support. 
 
 2. A letter of Bishop Percy's is in existence,* from which 
 it appears that Cole had a MS. in which it was assigned to 
 Lord Essex. The whole passage relating to this subject is 
 curious ; but it is sufficient to say here, that Percy was not 
 willing to admit the claim ; and we may safely follow his 
 example. 
 
 3. Ritson gives it to Francis Davison ;t but no argu- 
 ment has hitherto been adduced in his favour, which would 
 not make over to him all the unsigned pieces in the Collec- 
 tion which he formed. Mr. Campbell thought, that in 
 1593, he would be too young to write it; which is quite 
 true, when the character of the poem is taken into the ac- 
 count; for he was then only about eighteen. But it might 
 be urged, that he was admitted a member of Gray's Inn in 
 that same year, and in the very next year, became confessedly 
 an author.^ The former reason, however, is sufficient to 
 justify us in setting him aside, as both the modern editors 
 of the Rhapsody have done. 
 
 4. Ellis prints the poem under the name of Joshua Syl- 
 vester, because a mutilated copy of it is inserted in the 
 posthumous collection of Sylvester's Workes. " Till a more 
 authorized claimant shall be produced, it is therefore restored 
 to its ancient proprietor. "§ To be consistent, however, he 
 
 * Nichols's Ulustr. of Lit. Hist. &c. vi. 362, (where the poem is errone- 
 ously called " the Lyre.'") The letter is dated March 9: \767: when Ihese- 
 cond ed. of the Reliques was nearly printed off. I w ish we had any good 
 reason for presuming, with Percy, that Raleigh "publicly owned'' the poem. 
 
 t Bibl. Poet. p. 308. But the passage is singularly confused, and he 
 gives the piece a tiile ("The Answer to the Lye") which it neither bore 
 nor could bear. His note in reference to Percy is (if possible) more ill- 
 natured than usual; for Percy named the edits, of 1608 and 1611 in his 
 very earliest editions, (ii. 289, ed. 1765,— ii. 300, ed. 1767,) though it does 
 not appear that he had seen them. 
 
 i Nicolas's Life of F. Davison, prefixed to his ed. of Poet. Rhaps. p. iv. 
 
 § Specimens, ii. 330, 333, ed. 181 1 . See Sylvester's Workes, p. 652, ed. 
 1641. Campbell, p. 57, cf. pp. 76, 79. 
 
92 POEMS FROM 
 
 should have given it as it stands in that volume ; but the ab- 
 surdity would then have been too manifest; for, as Mr. 
 Campbell says, " whoever looks at the folio vol. of Sylves- 
 ter's poems, will see that Joshua uses the beautiful original 
 merely as a text, and has the conscience to print* his own 
 stuff in a way that shows it to be interpolated." Doubtless 
 every one will be of Mr. Campbell's opinion, supported as 
 it is (though not very decisively) by that of Mr. Hallam.f 
 Headley had asserted that it was "beyond a doubt not" 
 Sylvester's, before Ellis wrote at all.| 
 
 5. A copy is found among the Poems of Lord Pembroke 
 and Sir B. Ptudyard (1660, p. 104,) with the initial of Lord 
 Pembroke at the top. But this copy, like Sylvester's, is 
 mutilated and imperfect, though not to so shameful a degree ; 
 and the character of the volume is so notorious, that I be- 
 lieve none of those who have had occasion to mention it 
 
 * Not so; but it was bad enough to write it, — if indeed Sylvester was 
 really guilty of it, which may be charitably doubted . He died in 1618 : and 
 in the vol. of 1641, the piece is placed among the " Posthumi . . . Never 
 till now Imprinted." — Others have written bad variations on the poem, as 
 may be seen from Percy's letter, quoted above, — from one of the copies 
 printed by Sir H. Nicolas from the MSS. in Brit. Mus., — and from that 
 in the Chetham MS. mentioned below. There have been sundry imitations 
 of it in later times, two of which occur in one vol. of "The New Foundling 
 Hospital for Wit." 
 
 + See Hist. Lit. Cent. XVI. ii. 126, ed. 1843. In a note, Mr. Hallam 
 says," Brydges gives it to Raleigh without evidence, and we may add, 
 without probability." — " Without evidence," certainly ; for he has not ad- 
 duced a particle. That which is quoted above was altogether unknown to 
 Lira. But why "without probability"? Raleigh was 41 years old in 
 1593, the earliest date to which the poem has been traced ; he had written 
 verses in 1576; and as to the subject of the piece, surely it is not neces- 
 sary that a Christian man should be on the poiht of dying, before he will 
 fix his thoughts on death. Others have made too much of the internal 
 evidence when they thought it sufficient to prove Raleigh's title; but it 
 can scarcely be urged against him. Mr. Hallam says, that the poem is 
 " characterised by strength, condensation, and simplicity ;" and that " such 
 poems as this could only be written by a man who had seen and thought 
 much." What is there here to which Raleigh may not answer? 
 
 I Select Beauties, &c. ii. 161, ed. 1787. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 93 
 
 have attempted to substantiate Lord Pembroke's claim.* 
 Nor would it be possible to do so ; for he was not born till 
 1580. It must, therefore, be resigned with the preceding 
 four. And these, I think, are all the claimants who have 
 been hitherto named. 
 
 This negative evidence, however, though necessary, will 
 be insufficient, unless we can produce some positive testi- 
 mony in Raleigh's favour, which is free from the suspicion 
 felt towards witnesses, of whose statement one part has been 
 shown to be inaccurate. Such the following piece must be 
 allowed to be. It is here printed from an old MS. Miscel- 
 lany in the Chetham Library at Manchester (8012, p. 
 107):— 
 
 "Go, Eccho of the minde; 
 A careles troth protest; 
 Make ansvvere yt rude Rawly 
 No stomack can disgest. 
 
 For why ? the lies discent 
 Js over base to tell; 
 To vs it came from Italy, — 
 To them it came from hell. 
 
 What reason proues, confesse; 
 What slander saith, denye; 
 Let no vntruth wt'i triumph passe, 
 Bnt never giue the lye. 
 
 Confesse, in glittering court 
 
 All ar not goulde that shine ; 
 
 Yet say one pearle, & much fine gould 
 
 Growest in y? Princes minde. 
 
 Confesse, y* many leaues 
 Do overgrovve the grounde ; 
 Yet say w'h in the fielde of God 
 Good come is to be found e. 
 
 Confesse, som iudge vniust 
 The widowes right delay; 
 Yet say there ar some Samuels 
 That never say her nay. 
 
 * Park, Cens. Lit. i. 171, ed. 1815. Nicolas, ed. of Davison, p. 25, note. 
 Hallam, Hist. Lit. &c. iii. 44, ed. 1843. 
 t Qy. * Gloms' 1 And in the next line, qy. — * that many u)eeds' T 
 
94 FOEMS FROM 
 
 Admittesome man of state 
 
 Do pitch his Ihoughtes to hie ; — 
 
 Is yt a rale for all the rest, 
 
 Their loyall hartes to trie? 
 
 Your wittes ar in the waine; 
 
 Your autumne in the bud ; 
 
 You argue from pi'ticulers;* 
 
 Your reason is not good. 
 
 And still yt men may see 
 
 Lesse reason to comend you, 
 
 I marvaile most, amongst ye rest, 
 
 How schooles & artes offende you. 
 
 But whie pursue I thus 
 
 The witlesse wordes of winde 1 
 
 The more the crab doth seeke to creepe. 
 
 The more she is behinde. 
 
 In church & comon wealth, 
 
 In court & country both, — 
 
 What, — nothing good, but all [s]ot bad 
 
 That every man doth loath? 
 
 The further yt you raunge. 
 
 Your errour is the wider ; 
 
 The bee sometimes doth hony suck. 
 
 But sure you ar a spider. 
 
 And so my counsaile is. 
 
 For that you want a name. 
 
 To seeke some corner in the darke. 
 
 To hide your self from shame. 
 
 There wrapp the sely flye 
 
 Wth in your spitefuU webbe; 
 
 Both church & court may want you well; 
 
 They ar not at such ebbe. 
 
 As quarrels once begun 
 
 Ar not so quickly ended. 
 
 So many faultes may soone be found e. 
 
 But not so soone amended. 
 
 And when you come againe 
 To giue the worlde the lye, 
 I pray you tell them how to line. 
 And teach them how to dye." 
 
 * This technical expression comes in oddly enough. But the whole 
 piece is sad doggrel. 
 
 + MS. ' all to" — . The alteration is required by the next line; — other- 
 wise " all-to''' meant — altogether, — as in Judges ix. 53. — Or * to' might stand 
 for ' too' — as in st. 7. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 95 
 
 In these verses, three points especially deserve attention ; 
 first, that they assign the disputed Poem to Raleigh byname ; * 
 — next, that they were written when he was still alive, as is 
 plain from the concluding stanzas ; — and lastly, that they 
 give the reason why it has been found so difficult to discover 
 its true author, for the 1 3th stanza intimates that " The Lie" 
 was anonymous, though its writer was not altogether un- 
 known. 
 
 But this is not the only answer to the Poem which can be 
 found among contemporary MSS. In one of the Ashmo- 
 lean MSS. (781, p. 164,) there are two short pieces which 
 clearly bear upon this point; but as they have been printed 
 at length among the Additional Poems in the Oxford edition 
 of Raleigh's Works, f I need only cite a part of them. The 
 first is entitled "The Answre to the Lye," and begins and 
 ends as follows : — 
 
 " Courts Scorne, States disgracinge, 
 
 Potentates Scoflfe, Gover[n]ments defacinge .... 
 
 ****** 
 
 Such is the Songe, such is the Author, 
 Worthy to be rewarded with a halter." 
 
 Eight lines intervene, which are of the same fashion with 
 the first couplet. So far, we have no name of any kind. 
 The second piece, which follows on the same page, is en- 
 titled, " Erroris Responsio," and corresponds to the former, 
 thus : — 
 
 * The mere variation of the spelling need cause no difficulty. " Raicley's 
 name," says Mr. D'Israeli," was spelt by himself and by his contemporaries 
 in all sorts of ways." Cur. of Lit. p. 258, ed.l839. Cf. p.414,and Malone's 
 Shakesp. by Boswell, ii. 3. It is spelt " Rauley" in two recent fac-similes 
 of his writing, — viz. in Nicolas's ed. of Davison, and in Collier's Egerton 
 Papers, Camd. Soc. p. 94. He generally wrote it " Ralegh." 
 
 + They had been mentioned by Oldys, Life of Ral. pp. 423-4, Oxf. ed. 
 and are inserted in Raleigh's Works, viii. 735. But they are treated as if 
 Raleigh wrote them both, which is absurd ; and are not in any way con- 
 nected with " The Lie," which makes them useless. The first of them pro- 
 bably gave Ritsoo his erroneous title. 
 
96 PO£MS FROM 
 
 " Courts Comender, States maintayner, 
 Potentates defender, Gover[n]ments gayner .... 
 
 Such is the Author, such is the Songe, 
 Retorninge the halter. Contemning the wrong." 
 
 Theji, at last, we read, "Finis. S*" Wa : Ra :"— It is obvi- 
 ous that the first of these is an attack upon the present Poem, 
 and the second a defence of it. It may be very doubtful 
 whether the defence was really written by Raleigh, but the 
 transcriber who assigned it to him evidently thought he had 
 an Author's right of appearing in behalf of his own produc- 
 tion. And here, again, our evidence is not injured by the 
 presence of the tradition, since it must have been believed 
 that he survived the composition of " The Lie" long enough 
 to defend the piece from its maligner. 
 
 The Chetham MS. contains also a copy of "The Lie," 
 without any heading, but with the full signature, " Wa: 
 Raleigh." (p. 103.) This is a slight addition to our evi- 
 dence ; for though the authority of these old MS. Collections 
 is not generally very high, the compiler of this volume ap- 
 pears to have been sufficiently acquainted with contemporary 
 literature to have the right of offering at least corroborating 
 proof; for he has copied some of Raleigh's letters, and va- 
 rious poems by Hoskins, Donne, Christopher Brooke (?), 
 Francis Davison, and others, which were not printed till long 
 after, — some not till very lately, and (I think) some few not 
 at all.* The date of the MS. cannot fall much later than 
 the time of Raleigh's death. 
 
 * Those of Hoskins and Brooke are alluded to above (pp. 8, 9, 64; see 
 also pp. 74, 77) ; there are some of Donne's (without a name) on pp. 95-101 ; 
 and several of Davison's Psalms at the end of the volume. As these last 
 are also anonymous, Mr. Halliwell, in his description of the Chetham MSS., 
 merely terms them " a collection of psalms." He ascribes the volume (which 
 formerly belonged to Dr. Farmer) to " the time of James I." I do not, how- 
 ever, lay much stress on this signature; tirst, because the compiler may have 
 taken it from the Reply, though he has spelt it differently; next, because 
 the Poem has an interpolated verse; and lastly, because the transcriber's ac- 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 97 
 
 On Raleigh's side, then, (to say no more of this, or any 
 other minor proofs, — such as the name appended in various 
 Collections of later date and no authority,) we have two 
 Answers to the Poem, both written while he was still alive : — 
 in the one, he is expressly mentioned as the Author of "The 
 Lie ;" — on the same page which preserves the other, he is 
 connected with it almost as closely, by being represented as 
 undertaking its defence. On the other side, we have five 
 other claimants, whose cases will not bear examination, and 
 the convicted falsehood of a foolish tradition, which would 
 almost have refuted itself. — Those who have more ample op- 
 portunities of examining the minor literature of that period 
 than I can command, may probably find much more that 
 bears upon the subject. I have only been anxious to escape 
 the censure which Mr. Campbell passed on those who had 
 previously printed it as Raleigh's, '* without a tittle of evi- 
 dence to show that it was the production of that great man." 
 If it be once conceded that Raleigh wrote it, the manner 
 in which the tradition arose will be easily explained. It 
 seems that he really composed one short piece, if not a se- 
 cond, the very night before his execution (see above, p. 74) ; 
 the rumour of these would soon be spread abroad ; — the 
 popular love for prison-verses would give ample encourage- 
 ment to conjectures on their nature; — and any moral piece 
 which he had previously written, and in which the near ap- 
 proach of death was dwelt on, would be eagerly caught 
 up, and represented as his dying meditation, by those who 
 had neither time nor inclination to be exact in their dates. 
 Hence it happens, that besides those two short pieces, there 
 are no less than four long poems, which have been assigned 
 by various writers to this last period of his life. Two out of 
 
 quaintance with contemporary literature, which I have assiinicd above, might 
 be denied on the ground, that had he known the writers of the pieces just 
 mentioned, he would have named them. I have not been able to examine 
 some other volumes of the same nature w hich are said to be in that Library, 
 
 H 
 
98 POEMS FROM 
 
 the four it is unlikely that he ever wrote at all * Of the 
 other two, — "The Lie," and "The Pilgrimage," — he was 
 probably the Author, but certainly not at the time recorded. 
 The following lines from Breton's " Melancholike Hu- 
 mours," 1600, (p. 34, Lee Priory reprint,) deserve inser- 
 tion, as a parallel to this Poem : — 
 
 " Go ! bid the world, with all its trash, farewell. 
 
 And tell the earth it shall be all but dust ! 
 These wicked wares, that worldlings buy and sell, 
 
 The moth will eat, or else the canker rust : 
 
 All flesh is grass, and to the grave it must. 
 This sink of sin is but the way to hell; 
 Leave it, I say, and bid the world farewell ! 
 
 " Account of pomp but as a shadow'd power. 
 And think of friends but as the summer flies; 
 
 Esteem of beauty as a fading flower. 
 And lovers' fancies but as fabled lies: 
 Know, that on earth there is no Paradise. 
 
 AVho sees not heaven is surely spirit-blind. 
 
 And like a body that doth lack a mind." 
 
 The Poem is here printed from the fourth edit, of Davison 
 (p. 100), with a few corrections,-which are marked by brackets. 
 That copy has been given in the notes to the Lee Priory and 
 Oxford editions, where the text (=A) is taken from Dr. 
 Birch. Percy (=B) also professed to print from Davison, 
 but he has introduced several of the readings of the other 
 copy. So too has Ellis (=:C), though more sparingly, as 
 will be seen from the Variations. The two copies which 
 Sir H. Nicolas printed from the Harl. MSS. at the end of 
 his edit, of Davison (=D and E) present many minute va- 
 riations, w^hich it would have been tedious to give at length. 
 I have therefore selected only a few of them; and have done 
 
 ♦ Viz. Wotton's Hymn made at Venice, above, p. 45, and the " Farewell 
 to the Vanities of the World," No. IH. in this Part. — The note on p. 68 
 will supply a fifth instance, — In what is said above, I have assumed the 
 antiquity of the tradition, (which seems to me very doubtful,) so as to state 
 '.Ije case against Raleigh in the strongest way. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 
 
 99 
 
 the same %vith the copy in Pembroke (=F). Some read- 
 ings (=G) have also been selected from the fragments of 
 the original preserved in Sylvester's Parody. The title in 
 Davison is "The Lie," which is retained by Percy: — that 
 of" The Soul's Errand" was taken by Ellis from Sylvester's 
 Works, — the only part of that copy which he preserved; 
 and Mr. Campbell kept it, and argued from it, in spite of 
 his just objections to Sylvester : — the title in Birch, Sec. is 
 " The Farewell."] 
 
 OE, soule, the bodies guest, 
 vpon a thanklesse arrant ; 
 Feare not to touch the best ; — 
 the truth shall be thy warrant : 
 [5] Goe, since I needs must dye, 
 
 and glue the world the lye. 
 
 Say to the Court, it glowes, 
 and shines like rotten wood ; 
 
 Say to the Church, it shewes 
 [10] whats good, and doth no good : 
 
 If Church and Court reply, 
 then giue them both the lye. 
 
 Tell Potentates, they line, 
 
 acting by others action ; 
 [15] Not loued, vnlesse they giue, — 
 
 not strong, but by [a faction] : 
 If Potentates reply, 
 
 giue Potentates the lye. 
 
 Tell men of high condition, 
 [20] that mannage the estate, 
 
100 POEMS FROM 
 
 Their purpose is ambition, 
 their practise onely hate : 
 
 And if they once reply, 
 then giue them all the lye. 
 
 [25] Tell them that braue it most, 
 
 they beg for more by spending. 
 Who, in their greatest cost, 
 
 [seek] nothing but commending 
 And if they make repW, 
 [30] then giue them all the lie. 
 
 Tell zeale it wants deuotion ; 
 
 tell loue it is but lust ; 
 Tell time it [is] but motion ; 
 
 tell flesh it is but dust : 
 [35] And wish them not reply, 
 
 for thou must giue the lie. 
 
 Tell age it daily wasteth ; 
 
 tell honour how it alters ; 
 Tell beauty how she blasteth ; 
 [40] tell fauour how it falters : 
 
 And as they shall reply, 
 
 giue euery one the lye. 
 
 Tell wit how much it wrangles 
 in tickle points of nicenesse ; 
 [45] Tell wisedome she entangles 
 
 her selfe in ouer wisenesse : 
 
 And when they do reply, 
 
 straight giue them both the he. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 101 
 
 Tell Phisicke of her boldnesse ; 
 [oO] tell skill it is pre[t]ension ; 
 
 Tell Charity of coldnesse ; 
 
 tell law it is contention : 
 And as they doe reply, 
 
 so giue them still the lye. 
 
 [55] Tell fortune of her blindnesse ; 
 
 tell nature of decay ; 
 Tell friendship of vnkindnesse ; 
 
 tell Justice of delay : 
 And if they will reply, 
 [go] then giue them all the lie. 
 
 Tell Arts they haue no soundnesse, 
 
 but vary by esteeming ; 
 Tell schooles they want profoundnesse, 
 
 and stand [too] much on seeming : 
 [Go] If Arts and Schooles reply, 
 
 giue arts and schooles the lye. 
 
 Tell Faith its fled the Citie ; 
 
 tell how the countrey erreth ; 
 Tell manhood shakes off* pittie ; 
 [70] tell vertue least preferre[th] : 
 
 And if they doe reply, 
 spare not to giue the lye. 
 
 * In a case like this, where the old spelling,' of — , though very common, 
 might mislead the reader, it seems improper to retain it. 
 
102 POEMS FROM 
 
 So, when thou hast, as I 
 
 commanded thee, done blabbing, — 
 [75] [Although] to giue the lye 
 
 deserues no lesse than stabbing, — 
 Stab at thee he that will, 
 
 no stab th[e] soule can kill. 
 
 [Variations. — 2. Tliougli Birch printed ^ Arrant' (as in Dav. 
 and B, and in D E ' errant') it is modernized in A C to ' errand' 
 (so also F G) which Sir H. Nicolas properly rejects. The rhyme 
 is not uncommon.* — 3. ' to teach' — F. — 5. ^ Goe thou, since I 
 must dye' — G. — ' since thou must needs' — F. — 6. ' And give them 
 all the lie'— A D. 'And tell them all they lie'— E F.— 7. 'Go, 
 tell the Court'— A B C G.— 8. ^painted wood' — A.— 9. ^Go, tell 
 the Church' — A B C. — 10. ' but does no good' — A. (so, nearly, 
 D F G.)— 11. 'If Court and Church reply'— A F. (so D, ex- 
 cept 'or church') — 12. 'Give Court and Church the lie' — A. — 
 13. ' Tell Protestants' — F. (so also in lines 17, 18, — a very cu- 
 rious corruption.) — 14. ^ but Oh! their actions' — A. 'feut others 
 actions' — E F. It is ' actions' also in B C D. In Dav. and G. 
 'action.' — 16. 'hut by their factions'— A B C E F. In Dav. 
 'but by affection' — and in D, 'but by affections' — . I retain 
 the reading of G, as being nearest to that of Davison. — 20. ' That 
 rule affairs of state' — A B C E F. ' That in affairs of state' — 
 D G.— 23. 'do reply'— A.— 25. 'Tell those'— A E F G.— 27. 
 ' And in'— F G.— 28. So A B C E F. In Dav. and D, ' Like 
 nothing' — ' Seeke but a se/fe-commending' — G. — 30. ' Spare not 
 to give'— A B.— 31. 'it lacks devotion'— A B C— 33. So ABC 
 F. In Dav. and E, ' it meets but motion' — . ' it's but a motion' 
 — D.— 39. ' that it blasteth' — ^A. ' Tell truth how that she blasteth' 
 _D.— 40. 'that she falters'— A D F. 'how she falters'— B C— 
 
 * For example, in George Wither's Speculum Speculativum, 1660, p. 4. 
 
 " For doubtless I may boldly do mine Errant 
 
 To Kings and Nations, when I have thy warrant." 
 
 See also Richardson's Diet. s. v. Arrand, where the passage in the text is 
 cited, as from " Sir W. Raleigh. The Lye." 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 103 
 
 41. ' do reply'— A F. — 4-2. ' Give each of them'— B.— 44. ' In 
 fickle points' — A. ' In tricks and points' — F. — 46. ' Herself by 
 ynuch preciseness' — D. — 47. 'And if — A B. — 48. ^ Then give' — 
 A. ' Then straight give' — E. ' So give them aW — F. — 50. So 
 ABC. In Dav. and D E, ^prevention' — . In F, 'perversion' — 
 corrected in MS. in Fulman's copy. — 53. 'And if they yield 
 reply' — A. ('//' also in F. 'yield' also in B.) — 54. ' Then give' 
 —A D.— 59. 'if they do'— A E F. 'if they dare'— H.— 62. 'by 
 estrayning'—E.—63. 'Tell Scholars lack'— Birch; hut 'Tell 
 Schools they lack' — A E. — 64. Mispr. in Dav. ' so much' — . In 
 tlie Lee Priory ed. of Davison, it is ' too much' — and ' so' is 
 marked as a variation in the 3rd and 4th eds. — 70. Mispr. in 
 Dav. ' preferred' — . 75. SoA B C D. InD?iv. and E, ' Because' 
 — . 77. ' Yet stab at thee who will'— A B C. ' who that will' 
 — D and Nicolas.— 78. So A B C. 'thy soul'— Dav. and D. 
 
 ' the soul may' — E. In E, stanzas 7 and 8 are transposed ; one 
 
 stanza is interpolated after line 36, and a second at the end. — 
 In F, stanzas 5 and 6 are transposed, and the last three stanzas 
 are omitted. — In G, no stanza consists of more than four lines 
 but the first ; one is interpolated after the fourth ; the sixth is 
 altered ; and the remaining seven are altogether omitted, their 
 place being supplied by thirteen quatrains of most wretched 
 doggrel. — Some of the corrections are made in ed. Nicolas, 
 which differs from both the 4th and the L. P. eds. of Da\Tison in 
 one or two other small particulars.] 
 
104 
 
 POEMS FROM 
 
 O 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 ["This is an extraordinary poem; a mixture of sublime 
 ideas and sentiments, with quaint and degrading images. 
 It is said to have been written in the short interval between 
 his sentence and execution." — Brydges.* In another 
 note, Brydges says; — " This poem is too full of far-fetched 
 conceits to suffer us to believe that it was really written the 
 night before Raleigh's execution. It might have been com- 
 posed in the contemplation of death in one of the many 
 years between his sentence and execution, during that sad 
 period of cruel and unexampled imprisonment. It contains 
 a mixture of bold and sublime passages, such as the aspiring 
 and indignant soul of Raleigh was likely to utter. The first 
 stanza, in which the imagery drawn from a pilgrim is vividly 
 depicted, fills the mind with a wild interest.'' — Mr. Tytler 
 (p. 264, ed. 1840,) supposes, with far more probability, that 
 
 * Cf. Oldys, 424, 556. Cayley,ii. 165. D'Israeli, Ciir, Lit 420, ed. 1839. 
 A copy in MS. Ashm. 38, No. 70, is entitled, " Verses made by S' Walter 
 Raleigli the night before hee was beheaded." 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 105 
 
 it was written in 1603, in the interval between his condem- 
 nation and his respite. Although we are not to give a 
 literal meaning to lines 51 and 52, they clearly indicate a 
 certain expectation of a very closely impending execution ; 
 and some other lines were evidently written when the in- 
 dignation roused by Coke's coarse and scurrilous abuse had 
 not yet had time to subside. Raleigh was kept in suspense 
 for at least three weeks after his trial in 1603, during some 
 part of which this piece may have been written. 
 
 Some lines in it can scarcely be read without pain ; and 
 I would have omitted them, but that I was unwilling to 
 mutilate the Poem. But before we condemn them as irre- 
 verent, we should recollect the circumstances under which 
 they were probably composed. At such a period, when the 
 perspective through which we view things must be altogether 
 changed, the familiar distinctions between small and great 
 might be easily neglected, as if they were not real, but only 
 relative to us ; and a man of bold and ardent spirit, which 
 had not then been broken dow^n by long imprisonment, 
 might give vent, in strange and startling metaphors, to those 
 strong feelings of mingled confidence and indignation, which 
 could find no outlet in more ordinary language. 
 
 The Poem is now reprinted from one of the old editions 
 of Raleigh's Remains (1661, p. 256); with a few correc- 
 tions, which are noted in the Variations, where the original 
 readings are marked A. The same text (without the alter- 
 ations) was followed in the main by Birch (ii. 398), from 
 whom Brydges took his copy (=B). In the Oxford edition 
 (viii. 723), many " improvements" are introduced from one 
 of the Rawlinson MSS. ; but it will be seen that they bear 
 too many marks o? polishing to be genuine (=C). I have 
 added some other variations from a copy in Mr. Pickering's 
 MS. (fol. 82, =D,) where the title is the same with that 
 here given. The readings of the Ashm. MS. (=E) are only 
 quoted in a few cases, to support an occasional alteration.] 
 
106 POE.MS FROM 
 
 ITVE me my Scallop-shell of Quiet : 
 My Staff of Faith to walk upon ; 
 My Scrip of Joy, immortall Diet ; 
 My Bottle of Salvation ; 
 [5] My Gown of Glory (Hopes true gage) ; 
 And thus rie take my Pilgrimage. 
 Bloud must be my Bodies Balmer, — 
 No other Balm will there be given ; 
 Whil'st my Soul, like quiet Palmer, 
 [10] Travelleth towards the Land of Heaven ; 
 Over the silver Mountains, 
 Where spring the Nectar Fountains. 
 There will I kisse the Bowl of Blisse, 
 And drink mine everlasting fill, 
 [15] Upon every Milken hill. 
 
 My Soul will be a-drie before, 
 But after, it will thirst no more. 
 
 Then by that happy blestfull day, 
 More peacefull Pilgrims I shall see, 
 [20] That have cast off their rags of clay, 
 And walk apparelled fresh like me. 
 Tie take them first, to quench their thirst, 
 And taste of Nectars suckets, 
 At those clear Wells 
 [25] WTiere sweetnesse dwells. 
 
 Drawn up by Saints in Crystal Buckets. 
 And when our Bottles and all we 
 Are filPd with immortalitie. 
 Then the blessed Paths wee'l travel, 
 [30] Strow'd with Rubies thick as gravel, — 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 107 
 
 Sealing-s of Diamonds, Saphire floors, 
 High walls of Coral, & Pearly Bowers. 
 From thence to Heavens bribeless Hall, 
 Where no corrupted voices brawl ; 
 
 [35] No Conscience molten into Gold, 
 No forg'd Accuser bought or sold, 
 No cause deferr'd, no vain-spent journy. 
 For there Christ is the King's Attorny ; 
 Who pleads for all without degrees, 
 
 [40] And he hath Angels, but no Fees : 
 
 And when the grand twelve million lury 
 Of our sins, with direfull fury, 
 'Gainst our Souls black Verdicts give, 
 Christ pleads his Death, & then we live. 
 
 [45] Be thou my Speaker, taintless Pleader, 
 Unblotted Lawyer, true Proceeder ! 
 Thou giv'st Salvation even for Alms, — 
 Not with a bribed Lawyers Palms. 
 And this is mine eternal Plea 
 
 [50] To him that made Heaven, Earth, & Sea, 
 That, since my flesh must die so soon. 
 And want a Head to dine next noon. 
 Just at the stroak, when my veins start and spread, 
 Set on my Soul an everlasting Head ; 
 
 [55] Then am I ready, like a Palmer fit. 
 
 To tread those blest Paths which before I writ. 
 Of Death & ludgement, Heaven and Hell^ 
 Who oft doth think, must needs die wel. 
 
 [Variations. — In B, lines 7, 8, 9, 10 are arranged as 7, 10, 
 8, 9. In A C D as above.— 7. '■ Bodies only Balmer'— A B D. 
 
108 POEMS FROM 
 
 ' only' omitted in C E.— 8. 'will here' — C. ^ can there' — D.—9. 
 ' like a quiet' — A B D. 'a' omitted in C E. — 10. ' Travels to' — 
 C D.— 11. ' Over all the'— C. 12. ' Where do spring those'— C. 
 In A, 'springs' — . 13. Printed as two lines in B, though not in 
 Birch. So also is line 22. The arrangement is justified by that 
 of lines 24, 25 : but I have not altered that of A. In C, line 13 
 is printed thus : — 
 
 ' And 1 there will siveetly kiss 
 
 The happy bowl oi peaceful bliss' — . 
 
 It is ' I will' in D. — 14. * my' — D. ' Drinking mine eternal fill' 
 — C. — 15. 'Flowing on each milky hill' — C. — Lines 16, 17, 22 — 
 26 are omitted in D. In A B, the same seven lines are all 
 placed together, after line 15. In C E they are arranged as 
 above.— 18. ' Before that happy'— D. ' In that happy'— C— 21. 
 ' walk' omitted in D. — 22. ' to quench my thirst' — A B. ' to slake 
 their thirst'— C E.— 23. ' And then taste . . . nectar'— C— 27, 
 'our bodies'— B. ' Bottle'— B.— 29. 'Then those holy paths'— C, 
 ' Then the hilly paths'— D. In A B, ' Then the blessed Parts' — . 
 31. 'S&phire flowers' — A B. 'and Saphire floares' — D. — 35, 36, 
 37, all begin ' Nor' in D.— 36. ' Accusers'— !>.— 39. ' He pleades' 
 — D. — 40. 'And hath .. . butwotfFees' — D. — 41. 'grand twelve' 
 — C. ' twelve grand'— A B D.— 42. ' aufull furye'— D.— 43. 
 < Against' — D. — 45, The latter part of this line, and all the next, 
 are enclosed in brackets in A B. — 47. 'Thou would'st' — A B. 
 ' That giuest' — D. — 49. 'my' — D. ' Then this is mine' — C. — 51. 
 ' Seeing my flesh' — C. — 53. ' Just at the stroke of death, mjarms 
 being spread' — C. 'iust at the stroake when my veynes spread' 
 — D. — 55. '5os/?aZ/Iready' — C. — 56. 'Tread those bless'd paths 
 shown in thy holy writ' — C. 'best pathes' — D. — The concluding 
 couplet, which is in A B C, and is quoted by Oldys (p. 556), 
 appears to have been placed here by mistake. It is in none of 
 the three MSS. ; and Mr. Tytler has doubtless done well in 
 omitting it. The copy he has printed is taken in other respects 
 from C, except that in line 20, he reads, ' That have doft their 
 rags of clay' — ] 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 
 
 109 
 
 III. 
 
 A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES 
 OF THE WORLD. 
 
 [This poem, like many others reprinted in this volume, has 
 been ascribed to various writers ; and among the rest, both 
 to Wotton and to Raleigh ; nor is it easy to decide which 
 account is the most likely to be true. The case appears to 
 stand as follows : — 
 
 1. In the earlier editions of the Complete Angler, it is 
 intimated, that its author may have been Dr. Donne. — 
 (Piscator is about to recite it, in return for Venator's repe- 
 tition of the *' Description of the. Country's Recreations," 
 above, p. 55.) *'Come, now drink a glasse to me, and I 
 will requite you with a very good Copie of Verses; — it is a 
 Farewell to the vanities of the World; and, some say, 
 written by Dr. D. But let them be writ by whom they 
 will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be 
 possest with happie thoughts at the time of their composure ; 
 and I hope he was an Angler." — " Well, Master," says 
 \'enator, " these Verses be worthie to keep a room in every 
 mans memorie." (pp. 350-2, ed. 1655.) With this account 
 
110 POEMS FROM 
 
 agrees the title of a copy in MS. Ashm. 38, " Doctor 
 Donns valadiction to the worlde." 
 
 2. But in the third and succeeding editions of the An- 
 gler, the most important clause underwent an alteration ; 
 for we now read ; " and, some say, written by Sir Harry 
 WoTTOX, who, I told you, was an excellent Angler." (p. 
 251, 3rd edit.) Headley (ii. 24, ed. 1787,) and Campbell 
 (p. 157, second ed.) have therefore printed it as Wotton's, 
 without any sign of doubt ; and though we have nothing 
 more than this to shew for it, his claim may very possibly 
 be just. 
 
 3. In SirH. Nicolas's noble reprint of Walton, we find a 
 note upon the poem ; — " These verses are also said to have 
 been written by Sir Walter Raleigh, when a prisoner in 
 the Tower, shortly before his execution. Walton expresses 
 himself doubtful as to the author." (p. 311.) This tradi- 
 tion, which really seems to haunt us, has done Raleigh little 
 service. It has nearly deprived him, as we have seen, of 
 one poem, which I believe he really wrote ; and there can 
 be no doubt that it is a mistake in this case also. He may 
 have written the piece at some other time; but I do not 
 know on what authority it is ascribed to him at all. 
 
 4. A fourth claimant is added from Wit's Interpreter 
 (1671, p. 269,) where the poem is said to be ''By Sir Ke- 
 NELME DiGBY." On this authority, Ellis inserted a part of 
 it in his Collection under Digby's name (iii. 179, ed. 1811). 
 
 A singular title is prefixed to an anonymous copy of it in 
 Sancroft's Collection (MS. Tann. 465, fol. 59) ; " An Her- 
 mite in an Arbour, w'^ a prayer booke in his hand, his 
 foote spurning a globe, thus speaketh." I have given no 
 regular list of variations ; for Walton's text (here taken 
 from ed. 1655) is in general far superior to any of tlie 
 others.] 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. Ill 
 
 lAREWELL, ye gilded follies, pleasing 
 troubles ! 
 Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious 
 bubbles ! 
 
 Fame's but a hollow eccho ; Gold pure clay ; 
 Honour the darling but of one short day ; 
 Beautie (th' eyes idol) but a damask'd skin ; 
 State, but a golden prison, to live in, 
 And torture free-born minds ; imbroydred Trains 
 Meerly but pageants for proud swelling veins ; 
 And Blood, ally'd to Greatnesse, is alone 
 Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own : 
 
 Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood, and 
 
 Birth, 
 Are but the fading Blossoms of the earth. 
 
 I would be great, — but that the Sun doth still 
 
 Levell his rayes against the rising hill ; 
 
 I would be high, — but see the proudest Oak 
 
 Most subject to the rending Thunder-stroak ; 
 
 I would be rich, — but see men (too unkind) 
 
 Dig in the bowels of the richest mind ;* 
 
 I would be wise, — but that I often see 
 
 The Fox suspected, whilest the Ass goes free ; 
 
 I would be fair, — but see the fair and proud 
 
 (Like the bright Sun) oft setting in a cloud ; 
 
 I would be poor, — but know the humble grasse 
 
 * I. e. mine, — as it is spelt in MS. Saner, where the line begins,' Digg'- 
 vtiist' — (It was ' man' in the preceding line). In Wit's Interpr,' Dig out 
 the bowels' — . 
 
112 POEMS FROM 
 
 Still trampled on by each unworthy Asse : 
 Rich, hated ; wise, suspected ; scorn'd, if poor ; 
 Great, fear'd ; fair, tempted ; high, still envy'd more : 
 
 I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither ; 
 
 Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair ; — poor I'l be rather. 
 
 Would the world now adopt me for her heir ; 
 Would Beauties Queen entitle me the Fair ; 
 Fame speak me Fortunes Minion ; could I vie 
 Angels* with India ; with a speaking eye 
 Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike Justice dumb, 
 As well as blind and lame ; or give a tongue 
 To stones by Epitaphs ; be call'd great Master 
 In the loose Rhimes of every Poetaster ; 
 Could I be more then any man that lives. 
 Great, fair, rich, wise, [all inf ] Superlatives ; 
 Yet I more freely w^ould these gifts resign, 
 Then ever Fortune would have made them mine ; 
 And hold one minute of this holy leisure 
 Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. 
 
 * " An angel is a piece of coin, value ten shillings. The words to ' lie 
 angels' are a metonymy, and signify to compare riea///i."— Hawkins; — a 
 very insufficient explanation. His parallel of " dropping angels,^' from the 
 Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green (Percy, ii. 165, ed. 1767,) is more to 
 the point. " To vie" used as an active verb, meant — to stake, or hazard, 
 — implying an antagonist who could " revie" by putting down a larger 
 stake. Hence the expression was transferred from games of chance to va. 
 rious other kinds of contest. (See Gifford's Jonson, i. 106.) This mean- 
 ing seems to have been passing out of general use in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century ; for a line of Bp. King's, which stands thus in the 
 MS. copy of his Poems, — " Vyes Rages with the boyling flood" — was al- 
 tered in the edition (1657) to " Out-vies in rage," &c. (King's Poems, p. 25, 
 1843 : so also a copy in Tixall Poetry, p. 313). In Wit's Interpreter, the 
 above passage is printed, " Could I buy Angels" — a sufficient proof of the 
 inaccuracy of that copy. 
 
 t * in alt — Complete Angler, eds. 2 and 3, — the only old editions which 
 I have at hand. It is altered in the modern copies. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 113 
 
 Welcome, pure thoughts ! welcome, ye silent Groves ! 
 These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves : 
 Now the wing'd people of the skie shall sing 
 My cheerfull Anthems to the gladsom Spring : 
 A Pray'r-book now shall be my looking-glasse, 
 In which I will adore sweet Vertue's face. 
 Here dwell no hatefull looks, no Palace cares. 
 No broken Vows dwell here, nor pale fac'd Fears :* 
 Then here I'l sit, and sigh my hot loves folly, 
 And learn t' affect an holy melancholy ; 
 And if Contentment be a stranger then, 
 I'l ne'r look for it, but in heaven, again. 
 
 * In Sancroft's MS. these lines run thus ; — 
 
 " Here dwell noe heating loues, noe palsy feares, 
 Noe short ioyes purchas'd with aeternall teares. 
 Here will I sitt, & sigh my hott youth's folly," &c. 
 
 From this and several other passages, it would seem that the text which 
 Sancioft copied underwent a revisal from the author, before it fell into 
 Walton's hands. In most instances, the changes were for the better ; but 
 perhaps not in this. 
 
114 
 
 POEMS FROM 
 
 IV. 
 
 "WATER THY PLANTS WITH GRACE DIVINE." 
 
 [ascribed to sir WALTER RALEIGH.] 
 
 [From MS. Aslim. 781, p. 163. It has been printed before 
 in the Oxford edition of Raleigh's Works, apparently from 
 the same MS. and with the title, " Moral Advice," viii. 732. 
 I suspect that it was written against him, not ty him.] 
 
 ATER thy plants with grace devine, andhope 
 to live for aye ; 
 Then to thy Sauiour Christe incline ; in him 
 make stedfast stay : 
 Rawe is the reason that doth lye'^ within an Atheists 
 
 head, 
 Which saith the soule of man doth dye, when that the 
 boddies dead. 
 
 S"" Wa: Raleigh. 
 
 * The first and se%'enth words of this line m?g/it concenl a secret mark 
 of ownership, like that of Dyer's, — " Dy er thou let his name be known,'' 
 which, however, did not save that piece from the younger Donne. (See 
 Malone's Shakesp. by Bosw. ii. 220,581-2.) But this vile pun (if it is 
 one) is more likely to have been tlie work of an enemy. Who would 
 make such an execrable jest on his own name ? 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 
 
 115 
 
 V. 
 
 A VISION VPON THIS CONCEIPT OF THE 
 
 FAERY QUEENE. 
 
 [by sir WALTER RALEIGH.] 
 
 [" I HAVE been always singularly struck and delighted with 
 the tone, imagery, and expression of this extraordinary son- 
 net. The author must at this time have been deeply read in 
 works of poetical fancy, and highly imbued with their spirit, 
 Milton had deeply studied this sonnet; for in his composi- 
 tions of the same class, he has evidently, more than once,* 
 the very rhythm and construction, as well as cast of thought, 
 of this noble, though brief, composition." — Brydges. 
 
 The Sonnet was first printed in 1590, at the head of the 
 Commendatory Poems appended to the first three books of 
 Spenser's Faery Queen (p. 596), and immediately after the 
 
 * The c^«>/ instance is in Milton's Sonnet " On his deceased Wife" : — 
 " Methoiight I saw my late espoused saint," &c. 
 
 Mr. Todd (Spenser, ii. cxcv.) has mentioned an imitation of Raleigh's 
 Sonnet which was printed as early as 1594. As an account of the inter- 
 course between Raleigh and Spenser is given at length by the biographers 
 of both, it is needless in this case to make any particular references. 
 
116 POEMS FROM 
 
 letter which Spenser addressed to Raleigh in explanation of 
 his plan. It is followed by a second piece, entitled " An- 
 other of the same," to which the initials " W. R." are sub- 
 joined, and which closes with the following couplet : — 
 
 " Of me no lines are lon'd, nor letters are of price, 
 
 Of all which speak our English tongue, but those of thy deuice." 
 
 While it is so difficult to ascertain what Poems R,aleigh 
 really wrote, it is fortunate that the noblest of all those as- 
 cribed to him can be so well authenticated. The piece 
 from Davison, which is given next, is added for the same 
 reason which induced me to insert this Sonnet, — that the 
 reader may find at least some pieces in this volume, of which 
 Raleigh may be regarded as the undisputed author.] 
 
 E thought I saw the graue where Laura lay, 
 Within that Temple, where the vestall flame 
 Was wonttoburne; and passing by that way, 
 To see that buried dust of lining fame, 
 Whose tombe faire lone and fairer vertue kept ; 
 All suddeinly I saw the Faery Queene : 
 At whose approch the soule of Pefrarke wept ; 
 And from thenceforth, those graces were not seene, 
 For they this Queene attended ; in whose steed 
 Obliuion laid him downe on Lammas herse : 
 Hereat the hardest stones were seene to bleed, 
 And grones of buried ghostes the heuens did perse, 
 Where Homers spright did tremble all for griefe, 
 And curst th' accesse of that celestiall theife. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 
 
 117 
 
 A POESIE TO PROVE AFFECTION IS 
 NOT LOVE. 
 
 [by sir WALTER RALEIGH.] 
 
 [" The only poem printed in the Rhapsody," says Sir Har- 
 ris Nicolas, *' which was undoubtedly written by Raleigh, 
 is, A Poesy to prove Affection is not Love."^ Yet while so 
 many pieces are ascribed to him without any evidence at all, 
 this undoubted poem has not hitherto been admitted into 
 any general Collection of his Works. When Sir Egerton 
 Brydges edited his Poems in 1813, he took no notice of 
 Davison,f— probably because he designed to publish a se- 
 cond volume, which was to include a very large portion of 
 the Poeticall Rhapsodie. This intention appears to have 
 been frustrated by the discovery, that Raleigh could not be 
 
 * Biogr. Not. prefixed to his edit, of Davison, p. ci. The omission of 
 the initials "W. R." in the fourth edit, of Davison is no argument against 
 his claim ; for there is a very general (though not universal) omission of 
 signatures throughout that volume, 
 
 + Except that he inserted in a note the copy of " The Lie" which is 
 found in Davison. 
 
1 18 POEMS FROM 
 
 proved to be the author of the Poems signed A. W., which 
 Sir Egerton had at one time wished to ascribe to him ; and 
 therefore, instead of the promised second volume of Raleigh, 
 we have only a thin section in the Lee Priory reprint of 
 Davison's Collection, containing eight pieces under the title, 
 " Poems supposed to be written by Sir Walter Raleigh." 
 Of these eight, six are assigned to Raleigh without any cer- 
 tain evidence ; for a seventh (" The Lie"), no evidence was 
 produced ; and the eighth is the one before us, which bore 
 Raleigh's initials in the earlier editions of Davison. Only 
 two of these pieces found insertion in the Oxford edition of 
 Raleigh's Works ; and they did, because they had been in- 
 cluded in the former volume of his Poems. — This poem is 
 here reprinted from the fourth edition of Davison, 1621, p. 
 29.] 
 
 ONCEIT, begotten by the eyes, 
 Is quickly borne, and quickly dies ; 
 For while it seekes our hearts to haue, 
 Meane while there reason makes his graue ; 
 For many things the eyes approue, 
 Which yet the heart doth seldome loue. 
 
 For as the seeds, in spring time sowne, 
 Die in the ground ere they be growne ; 
 Such is conceit, whose rooting failes, 
 As child that in the cradle quailes ; 
 Or else within the mothers wombe 
 Hath his beginning, and his tombe. 
 
 Affection folio wes Fortunes wheeles. 
 And soone is shaken from her heeles ; 
 For following beauty or estate, 
 Her liking still is turn'd to hate ; 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 119 
 
 For all affections haue their change, 
 And fancie onely loues to range. 
 
 Desire himselfe runs out of breath, 
 
 And getting, doth but gaine his death ; 
 
 Desire nor reason hath nor rest, 
 
 And blinde doth seldome chuse the best : 
 
 Desire attain'd is not desire. 
 
 But as the cinders of the fire. 
 
 As ships in ports desir'd are drownd, — 
 As fruit, once ripe, then fals to ground, — 
 As flies that seeke for flames are brought 
 To cinders by the flames they sought ; 
 So fond desire, when it attaines. 
 The life expires, the woe remaines. 
 
 And yet some Poets faine would proue 
 Affection to be perfect loue, 
 And that desire is of that kinde, 
 No lesse a passion of the minde : 
 As if wilde beasts and men did seeke 
 To like, to loue, to chuse alike. 
 
 [W. R.] 
 
120 
 
 POEMS FROM 
 
 «AS YOU CAME FROM THE HOLY LAND.' 
 
 [ascribed to sir WALTER RALEIGH.] 
 
 [I CONCLUDE these fragments of Raleigh's poetry with three 
 of the Miscellaneous pieces which have been ascribed to 
 him ; but whether the evidence is sufficient to prove that he 
 wrote them all, must be left for others to determine. It is 
 at any rate more direct in each case than the signature Ig- 
 noto. 
 
 If he was really the author of them, we should need no 
 further proof of his singular versatility ; for their internal 
 character might have consigned them to three separate cen- 
 turies. The first might very fairly take its station among 
 the older Ballads. Percy, who spoke of a very modernized 
 edition, thought that it " must have been written, if not be- 
 fore the dissolution of the monasteries, yet while the remem- 
 brance of them was fresh in the minds of the people.'' (ii. 
 92, ed. 1767.) — It is universally conceded that the second 
 ranks among the finest Minor Poems written in the Elizabe- 
 than age. — Of the third, Sir Egerton Brydges says, that it 
 "is a most extraordinary poem; terse, harmonious, pointed, 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 121 
 
 full of ingenious turns, and often admirably expressed. It 
 seems to have anticipated a centuri/ in its styled The latter 
 part of this will perhaps be admitted by some, who will 
 think that, for this very reason, the former is too laudatory. 
 It is strange that a person who has written so often and so 
 well in praise of simplicity and nature, should have been so 
 much captivated by that witty and graceful, but most arti- 
 ficial poem. 
 
 The evidence on which Raleigh's claim to this first piece 
 is founded, goes into a very narrow compass ; for I have 
 heard of none but the initials which are appended to it in 
 the MS. from which it is now taken.* It has been previously 
 printed from the same MS. by Dr. Bliss,t who thought that 
 it had never appeared in print before. In this form, it pro- 
 bably had not; but Percy's Reliques contained an altered 
 version of it, which " was communicated to the Editor by 
 the late Mr. Shenstone,as corrected by him from an ancient 
 MS., and supplied with a concluding stanza." That copy 
 begins and ends as follows : — 
 
 " As ye came from the holy land 
 
 Of ' blessed ' Walsingham, 
 O met you not with my true love 
 As by the way ye came 1 
 
 * » » » » * 
 
 " Such is the love of womankinde. 
 
 Or Loves faire name abusde, 
 Beneathe which many vaine desires 
 
 And foUyes are exciisde. 
 
 • Namely, MS. Rawl. Poet. 85, fol. 124. The same MS. contains ano- 
 ther piece beginning, " Fayne woulde I, bnt I dare not" — (fol. 41, vo. ) 
 to which the initials " W. R." are svibjoined; but they seem to have been 
 added by a later hand. Dr. Bliss printed the first stanza of it. Neithe'- 
 of tiiese was included in the Lee Priory Collection, which was published 
 before Dr. Bliss called attention to them; but they are both given in the 
 Oxford edition of Raleigh's Works (viii. 732-3), with the titles, " False 
 Love and True Love," and " A Lover's Verses." The commencement of 
 the second reminds ns of the line which Fuller ascribes to Raleigh, Wor- 
 thies of Devon, p. 2G1.— I have not thought it necessary to retain the con- 
 tractions of the MS. 
 
 t In his additions to Wood's A. O. ii. 248-9. 
 
122 FOEMS FROM 
 
 " ' But true love is a lasting fire, 
 
 * Which viewless vestals* tend, 
 ' That biirnes for ever in the soule, 
 
 * And knowes nor change nor end.' " 
 
 Percy makes no mention of Raleigh's claim ; nor does 
 it appear to have become generally known. f It seems that 
 there was a series of Ballads on the subject of Pilgrimages 
 to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham ;+ and if Raleigh 
 contributed this portion of the set, — which, I own, appears 
 to me extremely improbable, — he must of course be supposed 
 to have assumed an archaic tone for the occasion.] 
 
 S you came from the holy land 
 
 Of Walsinghame, 
 Mett you not with my true loue, 
 By the way as you carae?§ 
 
 * " Sc. Angels." — Percy. 
 
 + Mr. Dyce, who has occasion to mention both the Ballad and the tune 
 in his edit, of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 172, iii. 439), is content in the 
 one case with Weber's reference to Percy, and in the other with Mr. 
 Chappell's account ; but as it is not likely that he would overlook the copy 
 printed by Dr. Bliss, his silence must have arisen from distrust in the va- 
 lidity of Raleigh's title. Mr. Chappell reprints the Ballad at length from 
 Percy, without saying anything of Raleigh. (Nat. Engl. Airs, ii. 158. On 
 the same page, he quotes a reference to the tune from an Epitaph on Se- 
 cretary Cecil, contained in Osborne's Tradit. Mem., — 
 
 " And sweetly sung Walsingham to's Amaryllis, — 
 
 apparently without knowing that Raleigh is generally regarded as its au- 
 thor. See Raleigh's Works, i. 424, viii. 735, 744. Cayley, ii. 191. Tyt- 
 ler, 303, ed. 1840.) 
 
 X See Percy, ii. 78, 91,399, ed. 1767, and Mr. Chappell, 1.1. On the sub- 
 ject of these Pilgrimages, see further The Vision of Piers Ploughman, 1. 107, 
 ed. Wright (with note), and the same editor's vol. of Letters on the Sup- 
 pression of Monast. p. 138. 
 
 § This first stanza is from the margin of the MS. It originally stood 
 thus:— 
 
 " As you went to Walsingam, 
 To that holy lande. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 123 
 
 How shall I know your trew loue,* 
 
 That haue mett many one, 
 As I went to the holy lande, 
 
 That haue come, that haue gone ? 
 
 She is neyther whyte nor browne, 
 
 Butt as the heauens fayre ; 
 There is none hathe a forme so deuine, 
 
 In the earth or the ayre. 
 
 Such a one did I meet, good Sir, , 
 
 Suche an Angelyke face, 
 Vrho lyke a queene, lyke a nymph did appere. 
 
 By her gate, by her grace. 
 
 She hath lefte me here all alone, 
 
 All alone, as vnknowne. 
 Who somtymes did me lead with her selfe, 
 
 And me loude as her owne. 
 
 What's the cause that she leaues you alone. 
 
 And a new waye doth take. 
 Who loued you once as her owne. 
 
 And her ioye did you make ? 
 
 Met you not wiili my true loue. 
 By the waye as you went ? " 
 
 The transcriber seems to have added the other stanza, because he could 
 make nothing of this ; but it probably conceals a genuine reading ; for if 
 the words in Italics be corrected thus: — 'As you came from. . . .From thai 
 ....as you came — the stanza will correspond with that quoted in 'The 
 Knight of the Burnhig Pestle, — except that the third line there begins • There 
 met you not' — . It will be seen that Percy's copy agrees more closely 
 with that in the text. 
 
 * The reader will of course remember the fragment sung by Ophelia, 
 which is transferred to "The Friar of Orders Gray." — Several other Bal 
 lads began much as this does. Compare the fragment from Percy's folio 
 MS. beginning, " Come you not from Newcastle" — in Chappeil. ii. 115. 
 
124 POEMS FROM 
 
 I haue loude her all my youth. 
 
 But no* ould as you see ; 
 Loue lykes not the fallyng frute 
 
 From the wythered tree.f 
 
 Know that loue is a careless chyld, 
 
 And forgett[s] promysse paste; 
 
 He is blynde, he is deaff when he lyste, 
 And in faythe neuer faste. 
 
 His desyre is a dureless contente, 
 
 And a trustless ioye ; 
 He is wonn with a world of despayre, 
 
 And is Lost with a toye. 
 
 Of women kynde suche indeed is the loue, 
 Or the word Loue abused, 
 
 Vnder which, many chyldysh desyres 
 And conceytes are excusde. 
 
 But true Loue is a durable fyre. 
 
 In the mynde euer burnynge ; 
 
 Neuer sycke, neuer ould, neuer dead ; 
 From itt selfe neuer turnynge. 
 
 Finis. S'^ W. R. 
 
 * " Sic pro jw!i\" — Bliss. 
 
 t Dr. Bliss quotes a similar remark from Raleigh's Instructiom to his 
 Son ; — " Lei thy time of marriage be in thy young and strong years; for 
 believe it, ever the young wife betrayeth the old husband, and she that 
 liad thee not in thy flower, will despise thee ia thy fall." Remains, p. 87, 
 16G1. (Works, viii. 560.^ 
 
VIII. 
 
 " IF ALL THE WORLD AND LOVE WERE 
 YOUNG." 
 
 [ascribed to sir WALTER RALEIGH.] 
 
 [It is said that the initials W. R. were at first appsnded to 
 the earliest complete copy of these verses (in England's Hel- 
 icon, 1600) ; and that the word Igtioto was afterwards pasted 
 over the letters.* The same alteration appears to have been 
 made in two other cases in that volume. f This may have 
 
 * Ellis, Specimens, ii. 215, ed. 1811 (from Steevens's copy of E. H.), and 
 Brydges, reprint of E. H. Pref. p. xiii. Ritson, however, speaks of only 
 two cases altogether in which the substitution had been made. Bibl. 
 Poet. pp. 254, 308. If the statement is incorrect with regard to the Reply 
 to Marlow, Raleigh's claim becomes really stronger; for we must then 
 concede that Walton had other reasons for assigning it to him. 
 
 + Namely, "The Shepheard's Description of Loue," and "The Shep- 
 heard's Praise of his Sacred Diana," Repr. of E- H. pp 90, 111. See the 
 Pref. p. xxvii. Both are in the Lee Priory ed. of Raleigh's Poems, pp. 
 21,40, and in the Oxford ed. viii. 706,716. Nothing, however, is said 
 there of the change of signature; and in Brydges' Notes to Raleigh's Poems, 
 p. 69, he speaks as if it had taken place in only one instance. So in the 
 list of the contents of E, H. in Cens. Lit. (i. 148-164, second ed.) where 
 the two pieces just mentioned are numbered 54 and 71, and the Reply to 
 Marlow, 138, the original initials " S. W. R." are only mentioned in the cas^e 
 of No. 71. (p. 161.) " The Shepheard's Description of Loue" (N". 54) is as- 
 signed to Raleigh by Ellis, ii. 221. Cayley,i. 14. Campbell, p. 77, seconded. 
 
126 POEMS FROM 
 
 been done, as Ritson observes, either because Raleigh was 
 not the author, or because he wished to be concealed. The 
 first would be the more natural explanation; but the second 
 has been more generally adopted, because Izaak Walton, 
 who has inserted in his Complete Angler both Marlow's 
 Poem and this Reply, speaks of the latter as " an answer to 
 it which was made hy Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger 
 daies." The former he describes as " that smooth song 
 which was made by Kit. Marlow/zow; at least fifty yeers ago.''* 
 It may be remarked, in passing, that this second hypothesis 
 is scarcely consistent with the notion that Jgnoto was Raleigh's 
 peculiar signature; though some persons have gladly em- 
 braced both, for the sake of widening the range of poems 
 ascribed to him. If ever that word ceased to mean simply 
 Anonymous, of course it ceased to be indefinite enough for 
 the purpose of concealment. 
 
 As so much reliance is placed in Walton's casual asser- 
 tion, it should be observed, that the passage is scarcely ac- 
 curate enough in other respects to warrant such implicit 
 confidence. When the first edition of the Angler was pub- 
 lished (1653), Marlow had been dead sixty years; and at 
 the time of his death, Raleigh, whose "younger dales" are 
 so expressly mentioned, was forty-one years old. This leads 
 us to suspect, that W'alton took his date from the title-page 
 of Eno-land's Helicon ; and there is at least one other in- 
 
 • CoiDpl. Angl. p. 105, ed. 1655. There art five poems altogether which 
 were framed on this model. 1. The original song, ascribed to Marlow. 
 2. The answer printed above. 3. An imitation, also in Engl. Helicon, 
 signed Ignoto, — and for that reason given by some to Raleigh (as by War- 
 ton, iii. 354, ed. 1840, and Brydges). 4. Another by Donne, Poems, p. 
 190, ed. 1633 (also in the C. A.). 5. Another by Htrrick, Hesperides, p. 
 223, 1648. — On the general question, enough may be found in Malone's 
 Shakesp. by Boswell, viii. 101-4. Nicolas's ed. of C. A. 116-8. Chappell's 
 Nat. Engl. Airs, ii. 138-40. As to Raleigh, see further, Oldys, p. 132. 
 Tytler,pp. 22, 108. Mr. Collier also admits his claim (Shakesp. viii. 561, 
 576); and indeed it is strange that any one could ever think Jaggard's 
 evidence of the smallest moment. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 127 
 
 stance, in which he seems to have contented himself, in like 
 manner, with the date of a publication.* If this was the 
 case, we should see good reason for assenting to the opinion 
 of Sir H. Nicolas, that Walton gave the present piece to 
 Raleigh, merely because he " used a copy in which the al- 
 teration [of the signature, — from W. R. to Ignoto] had not 
 been made." Had he stated that Raleigh wrote the Poem, 
 as the result of his own enquiries on a point of some uncer- 
 tainty, his authority would have been most weighty ; but it 
 is doubtful whether we can build so much upon it, in a case 
 where he seems to have merely acquiesced in the statement 
 which he found before him. 
 
 For these reasons, it seems that Raleigh's claim to the 
 Poem is not so certain as some have thought ; but after all, 
 I should be sorry to believe that Walton was mistaken. In 
 a case of this kind, the general consent in Raleigh's favour 
 must be allowed due weight. There is a great difference, 
 too, between the mere absence of positive evidence, as in this 
 case, and the existence of contradictory evidence, as in some 
 others. 
 
 The Poem is now reprinted from the second edit, of Wal- 
 ton's Angler (p. 110), except that one stanza, which is pro- 
 bably Walton's own, is thrown into a note. The third edit. 
 
 * Namely, the case of " Frank Davisons Song, which he made forty 
 years ago." (C. A. p. 165, ed. 1655. It was not so in the first ed.) Sir H. 
 Nicolas supposes that Walton took the date (in round numbers) from the 
 third ed. of Davison, 1611, overlookingthose of 1602 and 1G08. Asthissong 
 was by A. W. Walton's remark is one of the evidences tending to iden- 
 tify A. W. with Davison himself. See Nicolas's ed. of C. A. p. 164, and 
 of Davison, pp. cxxvii. 250. The supposition that Walton calculated from 
 the tide-pages seems more probable in both cases than tiiat the passages 
 were written some years before the Angler was published. With respect 
 to remarks introduced so incidentally, we should recollect, as a foreign critic 
 judiciously tells us to do in the case of historical narrations, " Quam seepe 
 in exponendis, approbandis, et exornandis narrationibus, in figmenta de- 
 \db\ so\eaat homines, quoad ?iHda facta Jide dignissimi.'" (Welcker in Hippon. 
 ft Anan. Fragm. p. 16.) All that Walton cared for was the Poem. The 
 date and author's name were matters of comparative indifiference. 
 
128 POEMS FROM 
 
 of the Angler agrees with the second ; but one or two slight 
 variations (A) were afterwards introduced. The copy in 
 England's Helicon (B) is nearly the same, except in regard 
 to the interpolated stanza. It is printed in the notes to the 
 Lee Priory and Oxford editions, where the text (C), which 
 is very different, is taken from Dr. Birch (ii. 394). A copy 
 printed in the Muse's Library (D) in 1741, is a little diffe- 
 rent from any of these. I have also marked the few varia- 
 tions (E) in the copy printed by Percy (i. 219, ed. 1767).] 
 
 ? all the world and Love were young, 
 And truth in every shepherds tongue, 
 These pretty pleasures might me move 
 To live with thee and be thy love. 
 
 [o] But time drives flocks from field to fold, 
 WTien rivers rage and rocks grow cold ; 
 And Philomel becometh dumb ; 
 The Rest complains of cares to come. 
 
 The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
 [lo] To wayward Winter reckoning yeilds : 
 A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
 Is fancies spring, but sorrows fall. 
 
 Thy gowns, thy shooes, thy beds of roses. 
 Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, 
 [lo] Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, — 
 In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 
 
 Thy belt of straw and ivie buds. 
 Thy coral clasps and amber studs, — 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 
 
 129 
 
 All these in me no means can move 
 [20] To come to thee and be thy Love.* 
 
 But could youth last, and love stil breed, — 
 Had joyes no date, nor age no need ; 
 Then those delights my mind might move 
 To live with thee and be thy love. 
 
 [Variations. 1. ' If that the World'— E (and so in the Pas- 
 sionate Pilgrim, 1599, where the first stanza only is printed, as 
 if it were Shakespeare's.) — 2. 'on every' — C. — 3. 'These plea- 
 sures might my passion move' — C. — The second stanza is altoge- 
 ther omitted in C— 5. ' Time driues the flocks' — B D.—7. ' Then 
 Philomel' — A.— 8. 'The Rest complain — D (so also Ellis; 
 and of course more correctly. But see below, p. 132, note.) 
 'And age complains' — A. 'And all complain — E. — 9, 10. So 
 A B, and also E, except ' yield' — In C they stand thus ; — 
 
 ' But fading flowers in every field 
 To winter ^oods their treasures yield ;' 
 
 The alteration in D keeps nearer to the text, — and saves the 
 grammar at the cost of the sense ; — 
 
 ' The Flowers do fade in wanton Fields ; 
 The wayward Winter Reckoning yields ;' 
 
 11. ^ A honey'd tongue' — C. — 13. 'Thy gown' — C. — 15. 'Are all 
 soon wither'd, broke, forgotten' — C. — 19. 'no Mind can move' 
 — D. ' Can me with no enticements move' — C. — 20. ' To live with 
 thee'— C— 21. 'could Love'— C— 22. 'Joy'—T>. 'had Age'— 
 C— 23. ' these— B D.] 
 
 * The following stanza is here inserted in the second edit, of (he C. A. 
 It is said to be wanting in the first. AValton has added a similar stanza to 
 Mallow's Poem. 
 
 " What should we talk of dainties then, — 
 Of better meat then's fit for men? 
 These are but vain : that's only good. 
 Which God hatli blest, and sent for food." 
 
POEMS FROM 
 
 « PASSIONS ARE LIKENED BEST TO 
 FLOUDS AND STREAMES." 
 
 [by sir WALTER RALEIGH.] 
 
 [Raleigh's claim to this Poem is supported by so many 
 independent testimonies, that we need not hesitate to regard 
 him as the Author.* Yet there are at least three other 
 claimants : — 
 
 1. There is an imperfect copy among Lord Pembroke's 
 
 * 1. The copy in the Oxford etl. (viii. 716) is improved from one of the 
 Bawl. MSS. where the piece is entitled " Sir Walter Ralegh to Queene 
 Elizabeth." (Another instance, by the way, where a right name is coupled 
 with a wrong legend ; for they are scarcely such as Raleigh would address 
 to the Queen.) — 2. Raleigh's name is said to be appended to a copy in the 
 MS. from which Brydges published some of W. Browne's Poems. See 
 his Pref. p. C— 3. The initials " S' W : R:" are subjoined in the MS. fol- 
 lowed in the text. — A former possessor of that MS. refers in the margin to 
 Wit's Interpreter, and a "scarce oct". Edit, of R.'s Works." There are 
 tico copies in Wit's Interp. ed. 1G71 ; viz. on p. 146, a very incorrect one, 
 headed, " To his Mistress, by Sir Walter Raleigh ;" and on p. 173, a copy 
 without the tirst stanza, and without a name. The readings of the second 
 copy are better than those of the first. — See also Oldys's Life of Ral. pp. 
 131-2. Ellis and Campbell reprint it as Raleigh's. 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 131 
 
 Poems (p. 35). But that volume, as I have had to remark 
 several times before, is of no authority, whenever we possess 
 any positive evidence against it. Yet the piece has been 
 sometimes given as a specimen of Pembroke's poetry.* 
 
 2. Mr. P. Cunningham, in his notes to Campbell's Spe- 
 cimens (p. 77), mentions that " it has been ascribed with 
 great probubilitj/ to Sir Robert Ayton in a MS. and con- 
 temporary volume of Ayton's poems once in Mr. Heber's 
 hands." But we have already had too many instances of 
 the errors committed in these old MS. Collections to be 
 satisfied with the authority of one against several, unless it 
 is more definitely authenticated. Even had the volume been 
 in Ayton's own writing (and the contrary is implied), it might 
 have been a mere table-book, — such as it was then very 
 customary to compile. 
 
 3. In MS. Ashm. 781 (p. 143), a part of it (without 
 either the first or the last stanza) is signed " Lo : Walden ;" 
 and in the Index to the volume, the piece is duly entered as 
 " Lo: Waldens Verses." On this authority, Ritson entered 
 the name of Lord Walden (afterwards Earl of SuflTolk) in 
 his Bibl. Poet. (p. 383) though he had previously asserted 
 that Raleigh wrote " the Silent Lover," — the title by which 
 this Poem is commonly described (p. 307). Park, who had 
 not seen the MS. and could not obtain a copy of the verses, 
 implicitly followed Ritson 's guidance, and therefore devoted 
 an Article to this nobleman in his edit, of Walpole's Royal 
 
 * E.g. in Park's AValpole, ii. 267. Bliss's Wood, A. O. ii. 486. Mr. 
 Lodge (Port, of Illuslr. Pers. under Pembroke) assumes, like Mr. Hallam, 
 that the volume was edited by Dr. Donne himself, and says, " His [Pem- 
 broke's] editor, Donne, must have blushed for the miserable homeliness of 
 his own muse when he copied such lines as these — 'Wrong not, dear Em- 
 press of my heart,' (&c.) or the following, addressed to a lady weeping — 
 * Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,' " &c. Now Donne no more edited the 
 poems than Pembroke wrote them ; and the tirst is Raleigh's, the second, 
 Bp. Henry King's. — Donne's son, the true editor, was not given to blush- 
 ing, either for his father's doings or his own. — See the Introduction to this 
 volume, pp. Ixi-lxiii. 
 
132 
 
 POEMS FROM 
 
 and Noble Authors (ii. 222). Here, again, we have one 
 MS. against several, — with the additional objection, that a 
 transcriber, who could not procure a more genuine text, was 
 likely to be equally unsuccessful in discovering the writer's 
 name. 
 
 The copy here printed is taken from Mr. Pickering's MS. 
 (fol. 112, v°,) with the correction of a few errors which were 
 probably due to the transcriber.* It contains nearly all the 
 improvements given in the Oxford edition ; and the rest (A) 
 are mentioned among the Variations. B= the Lee Priory 
 text, which is the same that had been printed by Birch (ii. 
 394), and Cayley (i. 140). It also corresponds with that in 
 the Muse's Library (1737, p. 273). C= the copy in Pem- 
 broke. The Variations in the Ashm. MS. and in Wit's 
 Interpreter are very numerous; but they are scarcely worth 
 preserving.] 
 
 ASSIGNS are likened best to flouds and 
 strearaes ; 
 The shallow murmur, but the deepe are 
 dumbe : 
 
 Soe, when affections yeild discourse, it seemes 
 The bottome is but shallowe whence they come. 
 [5] They that are rich in wordes, in wordes discouer 
 That they are poore in that which makes a Louer. 
 
 * For the sake of exactness, these alterations are mentioned here ; for 
 the copy (like that followed iu No. II.) is not authoritative enough to re- 
 quire the distinction of brackets. — In line 3, then, the jNIS. has * y ends' — ; 
 iu 9, * Which thinking' — ; in \\,' plainte' — ; in 12, ' Idr beautie' — ; in 20, 
 'repelling' — ; in 26,' Distraction' — ; in 35, 'to iny' is omitted, and the 
 line left imperfect. (As to the first of these, — ' yeilds' — I see no reason 
 why we may not amend the inaccuracy where we can ; but in many cases, 
 it may be better to leave it, unless a piece is modernized altogether. Thus 
 in line 8 of tlie last poem, I have retained the old form, because in line 10, 
 where it occurs again, we cannot mend it without either destroying the 
 rhyme, as Percy does, or making still further alterations.) 
 
VARIOUS SOURCES. 133 
 
 Wronge not, sweet Empress of my hearte ! 
 
 The merrit of true passion, 
 With thinking that he feeles noe smart, 
 [lo] That sues for noe Compassion ; 
 
 Since, if my plaintes serue not to approue 
 
 The Conquest of thy beautie. 
 It comes not from defect of Loue, 
 
 But from excess of dutie : 
 
 [la] Ffor, knoweing that I sue to serue 
 A sainte of such perfectione, 
 As all desire, but none deserue, 
 A place in her Affectione, 
 
 I rather choose to wante releife, 
 [20] Then venter the revealing : — 
 
 Where Glorie recommends the greife, 
 Dispaire distrusts the healinge. 
 
 Thus those desires that Ayme too high 
 For any INIortall Louer, 
 [25] When reason cannot make them dye, 
 Discretion doth them couer. 
 
 Yet, when discretion doth bereaue 
 
 The playnts that they should vtter. 
 Then thy discretion may perceiue 
 [30] That Sylence is a Sutor. 
 
 Sylence in Loue bewrayes more woe 
 Then wordes, though nere soe witty ; 
 
134 POEMS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. 
 
 A Beggar that is dumb, you knowe, 
 May challenge double pitty ! * 
 
 [35] Then wronge not, dearest to my heart ! 
 My true, though secrett passione ; 
 He smarteth most that hydes his smarte, 
 And sues for noe Compassion. 
 
 S-^ W : R : 
 
 [Variations. Tlie first stanza is omitted in C. — 5. 'must needs 
 discover' — A B. — 6. ' They are but poor' — A B. — 7. * sweet 
 mistress' — AB. 'rfear Empress' — C. — 8. 'merits' — C. — 10. 'Who' 
 — A B. — 11. ^plaints serve not to proj;e' — A. ' irere not t' approve' 
 — B. 'see77i not to prove' — C. — 13. 'They come not' — A. — 14. 
 ' But fear t'exceed my duty' — B. — 17. 'As all Divine' — C. — 22. 
 ' disdains the healing' — B. ' destroyes' — C. — 23. 'that feoi/sohigh' 
 — B. ' climb too high' — C. — 24. ' In any' — B. — 26. ' Discretion 
 them must cover' — B. — 28. ' that I should utter' — B. 'which 1' 
 — C. — 29. 'Then your' — A B. — 31. In some modern copies, 
 ' betrays' is substituted for ' bewrays' — but the latter is said to be 
 a more specific word than the foi-mer, and to be incapable of the 
 bad sense which ' to betray' often bears.t — 33. ' The beggar' — C. 
 — 34. ' Deserveth double' — A. — 35. 'Then misconc^/re not, dearest 
 heart' — A. 'dear heart 0/ my heart' — C. — 36. 'Mj love for secret 
 passion' — B.] 
 
 * " This stanza was, by some strange anachronism, current about fifty 
 years ago among the circles of fashion, as the production of the late cele- 
 brated Earl of Chestei field." — Bkydges. ("and it is even suspected, he 
 himself was willing to take the credit of" it. — Id. Note on Phillips, p. 316.) 
 
 t Cf. Nott's Surrey, p. 295; Halliwell's ed. of the old 3 Hen. vi. p. 210. 
 
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. 
 
 npHE Poems in Parts I. and II. are reprinted from the fourth ed. of Rel. 
 A "Wotton., that of 1685, compared with the tirst, 1051, and the second, 
 1(554. As the third ed., which was published in 1072, agrees in paging 
 with the fourth, so far as the same matter is common to both (that is, as far 
 as p. 582), it was too hastily assumed, that ed. 1685 was not a reprint, but 
 merely a re-issue of ed. 1672, with a new title-page, and the addition of 
 the Letters to Lord Zouch at the end. It was, however, a distinct im- 
 pression; but the few variations are of little consequence, as they are all 
 such as would be due to the printer, not the editor, who died in 1683. 
 In pagination; in such additions as that of Part II. No. x. ; in the varia- 
 tions of Part I. No. xi, w hich are cited from Walton's Life of Wotton ; 
 and in the misprints mentioned on p. 37, and on Part II. No. i. line 3 ; 
 eds. 1672 and 1085 agree. But in the following cases, ed. 1672 agrees 
 with eds. 1651-4, and the readings given as those of ed. 1672 are really 
 those of ed. 1685: — Part I. No. iii. line 8;— No. viii. line 21; — No. x. line 
 49; — No. xiii. line 11 ; — 'Part II. No. i. line 5 ; — No. ii, in the title, and 
 line 15; — No. iii. line 16; — and No. vii. lines 17, 18. (In this last case, 
 the reading 'pains' was adopted on the supposition that the word was 
 meant for a substantive, — and, as I still think, correctly; but it should be 
 stated, that in Farnaby's Greek version it is treated as a verb.) 
 
 P. 13. line 21. The title, "To the Spanish Lady," was probably pre- 
 fixed by a transcriber, who took the poem for a tribute to the Infanta, 
 written in anticipation of the Spanish match. — The old copies of the piece, 
 — of which there are many beside those mentioned, as in Wit's Recrea- 
 tions, 1640 (Cens. Lit. iii. 32), and in Wit's Interpreter, p. 267, ed. 1671, 
 — were fiequently destitute of both title and signature. In the first ed. 
 of the Reliques, Percy said that " The author and date" were " unknown. 
 'Tis printed," he adds, " from a written copy, which had all the marks of 
 great antiquity." (i. 280.) A copy printed from MS. in the Topographer, 
 i. 421, contains six stanzas, like that in Bancroft's MS.; but one of the 
 additional stanzas is quite different from Bancroft's; and there are nume- 
 rous variations throughout. The arrangement of the stanzas is also different 
 from that of the other copies. — A writer in Blackwood (March, 1339, p. 
 312) remarks that" some senseless clippers and coiners of poetry in" Scot- 
 land " have recast" it " into an eulogium upon the Scottish Queen Mary." 
 — The same writer conjectures that the " Farewell to the Vanities of the 
 World" (III. iii.) was composed by Izaak Walton himself (p. 313); but 
 his supposed parallel of Chalkhill's Thealma and Clearchus is a mistake. 
 See Nicolas's Life of Walton, p. xcvi. 
 
 P. 15. line 20. read, " by which means" — 
 
 P. 27. These lines have also been applied to Secretary Davison. Lloyd's 
 State W^orthies, i. 513, ed. 1766. 
 
 P. 44. There is another copy of this couplet in Fuller's Worthies of 
 Essex, p. 340. 
 
135 ADDITIONS AXD CORRECTIONS. 
 
 P. 64. note 5 It is worth remarking, that one of the Elegies signed C. B. 
 in the Chetham MS. was written " In obitiim . . . Merialis Crompton," 
 &c. The Ghost of Richard III. is dedicated to Sir John Crompton and 
 his Lady. — The Epithalamium, mentioned in the same note, was added in 
 the second ed. of England's Helicon, 1614. 
 
 P. 78. I fear the interpretation given to the line which is cited from 
 Bodenham can scarcely be supported. — There is another translation of the 
 Epigram of Posidippus (or, as it is there said, of Crates) in Puttenbam's 
 Arte of English Poesie, p. 171, repr. 
 
 P. 125. note * In Steevens's copy of England's Helicon, which is now 
 among Malone's books in the Bodleian (No. 278), the signature to the 
 Reply to Marlow (Sign. A a 2) is simply Ignoto, and it has never been 
 disturbed. As Ellis distinctly referred to that copy, it is plain that he was 
 mistaken in affirming, that it was in that case pasted over the initials W. R. 
 Raleigh's claim to the poem rests, therefore, on Walton's authority, which, 
 as I have remarked, becomes more important, when we are compelled to 
 resign the hypothesis that he used an unaltered copy of E. H. — The two 
 cases of substitution mentioned in the next note are correctly reported, — 
 except that, in Steevens's copy, the Ignoto pasted at the foot of No. 54 
 (Sign. L 3) completely obliterates the former signature; and we must 
 therefore suppose, that the fact of its being " S. W. R." has been learnt 
 from an examination of other copies. With three other alterations which 
 have been made in that same volume (Sign. H, — O 4, — and P) Raleigh is 
 not in any way concerned. 
 
 P. 128. line 8. read, " in 1737"— 
 
 As I have frequently referred in this vol. to the Collection of poems made 
 by Abp. Sancroft, and knosvn as MS.Tann. 465, I may take this opportii- 
 nilj- of remarking, that besides the larger book of extracts, which must 
 always be understood by the references in this vol., there is a smaller col- 
 lection, also in Sancroft's writing, and belonging to the same parcel; but it 
 is of less value than the other, because the extracts are almost entirely taken 
 from printed books. It was in this smaller bundle of papers (at pp. 34, 60) 
 that Warton found the transcripts of one of Milton's Psalms, and of his 
 Hymn on the Nativity, which he mentioned in the Pref. to his ed. of Mil- 
 ton's Minor Poems (pp. v,vi); and which D'oyly could not (ind (Life of 
 Saner, i. 21, n.). But the date which Warton assigns to these transcripts 
 ("about the year 1648") cannot be correct; for in an earlier part of the 
 same MS. Sancroft has copied several poems from Rel. Wotton. ed. 1651, to 
 the pagination of which he refers exactly, even when it is obviously erro- 
 neous. (Those poems are N^^. x, xiii,and xiv in Part I, copied on pp. 2, 
 25; and N^^. ii and iii in Part II, copied on pp. 4, 5.) This may have 
 some influence on the date which I have given on p. 22 (after Warton, as 
 I thought) to the larger MS. It was in the smaller MS. (p. 48) that Ma- 
 lone found the imperfect copy of Alabaster's Sonnets, which is printed in 
 Shakesp. by Bosw. ii. 262, n. There is a perfect copy of them in the 
 larger MS., p. 135. 
 
 FINIS.