introduce and perpetuate a new type in a literature; a type distinct from the "visions" which Spenser translated. The highest tribute which it has received is the imitation of Milton:

"Methought I saw my late espoused saint."

But Mr. Todd quotes a sonnet, printed as early as 1594, beginning :—

"Methought I saw upon Matilda's tomb."

Waldron gives another, signed "E. S.," which was printed in 1612 :

:

"Methought I saw in dead of silent night."

And the echo is still repeated by poets nearer our own times.

"Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne."

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Wordsworth, "Miscellaneous Sonnets."

'Methought I saw a face divinely fair,

With nought of earthly passion."

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Lyra Apost." No. XCII. 'Methought there was around me a strange light." Williams," Thoughts in Past Years," No. LV. &c. v. p. 9. Another of the same. These very inferior verses illustrate the height to which flattery of Queen Elizabeth was carried. It was she to whom Spenser's poem was dedicated. She therefore is the "virtue" and beauty," which are treated as the poet's model and appeal. Compare No. xxvI. p. 77.

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v. p. 9, line 2. Philumena. Compare the Hatfield MS., No. xx., p. 33, line 12;

"Nor Philomen recounts her direful moan."

In Gascoigne's "Complaint of Philomene," 1576, he appears to write Philomene when he needs three syllables, and Philomela for four.

VI. p. 11. Reply to Marlowe. The external evidence that Raleigh wrote this poem is confined to

Izaak Walton; whose assertion, however, appears to be sufficient in the absence of any more likely claimant. Few, I think, will agree with a modern writer, who assigns the whole to Shakespeare, to whom the first stanza only was ascribed in the "Passionate Pilgrim," 1599. The statement of Ellis, which has been constantly repeated, that the word "Ignoto" was pasted over the original signature "W. R." in "England's Helicon," is an absolute mistake, arising from a confusion with some other changes in that volume (see here, Nos. XXVI. and XXVII.). I have examined several copies of the original edition, and have not found a single trace of any other signature to this particular poem but " Ignoto;" nor is any author's name supplied in F. Davison's " Catalogue of the Poems contained in England's Helicon," in Harl. MS. 280. This disposes of the suggestion that Walton assigned the piece to Raleigh merely because he used " a copy in which the alteration had not been made." In the second edition of the "Angler," Walton inserted, apparently from a contemporary broad-sheet (see the " Roxburghe Collection of Ballads," i., 205, B. M.), the following verses, as in each case the last but one in the poem

Marlowe, " Thy silver dishes, for thy meat,

As precious as the Gods do eat,

Shall on an ivory table be

Prepared each day for thee and me.

Raleigh. "What should we talk of dainties, then,-Of better meat than's fit for men?

These are but vain; that's only good,

Which God hath blest, and sent for food."

Full information on various readings, references,

and imitations may be found in Sir H. Nicolas's

ed. of Walton's 66 Angler," pp. 115-120; in Chappell's "Popular Music of the Olden Time," pp. 213-215; and in my former volume on the "Poems of Wotton and Raleigh," 1845, pp. 125-9, and p. 136.

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VII. p. 12. Like Hermit Poor. In this case also a large store of early allusions may be found in Nicolas's ed. of Walton's " Angler," pp. 159161; repeated with some additions in Rimbault's Songs and Ballads from Old Music Books," p. 98. Attention was first called to Raleigh's claim by Mr. Collier, "Bibl. Cat.," ii. 223. The lines seem, however, to have been condensed from an earlier piece by Thomas Lodge. The various readings are unusually numerous.

VIII. IX. X. pp. 13-15. Poems from "Le Prince d'Amour," 1660. As that small volume was published under no particular authority, forty-two years after Raleigh's death, the evidence of the signature" W. R.," which it affixes to each of these three poems, would have seemed very weak but for the decisive discovery that Raleigh himself quotes a line from one of them as his own in the Hatfield MS., above, p. 36;

"Of all which past, the sorrow only stays." Compare "Hist. of the World," I. ii. 5; in the last stage of life "We find by dear and lamentable experience, and by the loss which can never be repaired, that of all our vain passions and affections past, the sorrow only abideth." The expression at the end of the same piece, "My fortune's fold," was used by Raleigh of his estate at Sherborne : "I am myself here at Sherborne, in my fortune's fold" (to R. Cecil, May 10, 1593; Edwards, ii. 80). No. VIII. then, being unquestionably

Raleigh's, an editor who has proved right in one point may claim our confidence for the other two pieces also. It will be seen that for each of these poems much older anonymous copies have been found. In the first line of No. x., the last word should, apparently, be "smart.”

XI. p. 16. Fain would I, but I dare not. As the initials "W. R." appear to have been added in the Rawlinson MS. by a later hand, it is possible that they rest on mere conjecture, suggested by the well-known line ascribed by Fuller to Raleigh; No. XXIII., 1. The MSS. vary throughout the piece between "whereas " and "whenas." I believe the latter word, which is frequent in Spenser, Herrick, &c., to be correct.

XIII. p. 19. On the Cards and Dice. A shorter copy of these verses is still in use as a Christmas riddle. The double meaning will be easily traced all through. The day fixed in the first line probably refers to the licence which prevailed between Christmas and Twelfth Day. The fifth line means that many purses shall be emptied of their crosses-i.e., coin. But it would make a better antithesis with the next line to read, no end of crosses "-i.e., gains. The game is supposed to be continued till cock-crowing, which gives the key to the last two lines.

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While the evi

XIV. p. 20. The Silent Lover. dence in Raleigh's favour is in this case strong and general, what is alleged for three other writers is in each instance isolated and weak. In behalf of Lord Pembroke-though he has found one modern supporter-no proof exists but the fact that the piece is assigned to him in the notoriously untrustworthy collection which was

edited in 1660 by the younger Dr. Donne. Aytoun's claim depends on a MS. used in an edition of his poems published at Edinburgh in 1844, the editor of which believed the piece to have been "never before printed" (p. 129). The third claim rests solely on the unsupported witness of MS. Ashm., 781, p. 143, where an imperfect copy is signed "Lo. Walden." Mr. Collier suggests that this claim arose from a confusion with Raleigh's own title, "Lord Warden of the Stannaries;" but I doubt whether that title would have been used alone. It is enough to say that one MS. could not outweigh the authority of several, unless it possessed some direct or unusual authority. The last stanza but one, which has been ascribed to so late a writer as Lord Chesterfield, was quoted in 1652, in the dedication to a play of Fletcher's, as written by "an ingenious person of quality " (Dyce's edition, vol. viii. p. 106). Several copies omit (perhaps properly) the first six lines.

XVI. p. 23. The Lie. For a long time Raleigh's claim to this poem seemed unusually doubtful; it is now established at least as conclusively as in the case of any of his poems. We have the direct testimony of two contemporary MSS., and the still stronger evidence of at least two contemporary answers, written during Raleigh's lifetime, and reproaching him with the poem by name or implication.1 An untraced and unauthorized story, that he wrote the poem the night

1 See them in Appendix to the Introduction, A. No. IV. For various readings and other details I must refer to my former volume, pp. 89-103. I had previously stated the chief points of the evidence in the "British Critic" for April 1842, pp. 344-9.