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 No. xxxii, which, as we have seen,* was quoted as Raleigh's by Puttenham 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.

WRITTEN BY SIR WALTER RALEGH IN HIS YOUNGER YEARS.

"Calling to mind, my eyes went long about

To cause my heart for to forsake 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 heart 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 my 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 the cause of all my smart,
And told myself, that I myself 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 two unlucky mistakes,

Raleigh No. 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 No. 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 Rhapsodie, 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, doth moue:
Her face, her tong, hir wit, with beams, with sound, with art,
Doth blind, doth charme, doth 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 serue, to loue, to feare."

No. xxx was also printed in the Phoenix Nest (p. 70); and the text of that volume is adopted here :-‡

See above, p. xxxv, note ‡.--I am inclined to regard this evidence as peculiarly doubtful.

+ It has been remarked before, that there are three 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 considerable 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 sound well nigh is done'-in line 13,' ere care or Winters cold'—. These readings are retained in the Oxford edition.—Oldys thought that " from the subject" 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."

66

"Like truthles dreames, so are my ioyes expired,
And past returne are all my dandled daies,
My loue misled, and fancie quite retired;
Of all which past, the sorow onely staies.

"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 staies.

"As in a countrey strange without companion,

I onely waile the wrong of deaths delaies,

Whose sweete spring spent, whose sommer wel nie done;
Of all which past, the sorow onely staies;

"Whom care forewarnes, ere age and winter colde,
To haste me hence, to finde my fortunes folde."

No. xxxi consists of three stanzas, of which I shall subjoin the 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!"

*

No. xxxv is printed in this volume (p. 122); and it seems needless to add anything to what has been elsewhere said of No. xxxiv (p. 121, note), of No. xxxvii (p. 96), and of No. xxxviii (p. 122, note): but I will insert Manningham's version of No. xxxix from Mr. Collier, who remarks, however, that it "does more credit to his adversary than to Sir W. Raleigh, but not much to either":

See above, p. xxxv, note +.-The judgment passed on such trifles as these depends very much on the persons to whom they are ascribed. Wal

"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 gentleman]'s name, that will never be thrifty.
"And Noel's answere.
"Raw Ly.

"The foe to the stomacke, & the word of disgrace

Shews the gentleman]'s name with the bold face."

3. The five remaining poems placed in this class are, Nos. 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 thear 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 THE 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, Nos. 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 are few better than the following, which queen Elizabeth 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 relaxation than he could find in writing the History of the World.

land's Helicon ;* No. xxv and xxvi, which Brydges copied from Cayley; Nos. i, iv, viii, and xi, which were signed Ignoto in Rel. Wotton., and are all in this volume; and Nos. 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 (No. xv), as a specimen of a class of poems which has had considerable influence on Raleigh's poetical character:

"THE SHEEPHEARD TO THE FLOWERS.

"Sweete Violets (Loues Paradise), that spread
Your gracious odours, which you couched beare
Within your palie faces,

Vpon 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 us in arranging the two poems in the third 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 No. x as Raleigh's (Surrey, p. 246); but only from "ed. 1814."

+ See above, pp. xxviii-ix.—The authority of the London Magazine will scarcely be thought sufficient to transfer No. xxvi to Class I.

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 construction is altogether involved and obscure, which makes me doubt 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 Cens. 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.