but appear to belong properly to Thomas Lodge; and I think the list could be extended: 66 1. "Alas, how wander I amidst these woods." -E. H., p. 183; "S. E. D." But it is in Lodge's Rosalind," p. 120, reprint. Hence 2. "Like desert woods with darksome shades obscured."-E. H., p. 112 ; “ S. E. D." but repeated on p. 224, with the signature Ignoto. claimed for Sir W. Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors. A copy occurs in the "Phoenix Nest," 1593, p. 59, with the signature, "T. L. Gent." 3. " My Phyllis hath the morning sun.”—E. H. p. 53; “S. E. D." Accepted by Ellis. But see Collier, "Bibl. Cat." i. 72, 467. 4. "When the dog," &c.—E. H., p. 154; “S. E. D." But it is in Lodge's "Rosalind," p. 120. Mr. Collier also conjectures that the poem, "A shepherd poor, Eubulus called he was," which is commonly ascribed to Francis Davison, may have been really written by Sir E. Dyer; "Bibl. Cat." i. 188; and Malone proposed, as I have noted before (p. 215), to ascribe to him the elegy on Sidney, beginning, "Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage.”. XVI. p. 149. I have given a full account of the various editions and imitations of this favourite poem in my former volume, p. lxv. note. The authority of this one MS. is considerable, because of the number of Dyer's pieces which it has preserved; and popular as the poem was, I am not aware that there is any other claimant for it. XVII. p. 151. All the printed copies, old and new, so far as I have seen them, and also the Rawlinson MS., give in the third line the unintelligible reading, "Fond of delight." For the true reading, "Fond of the light," we are indebted to the Harleian MS. In line 6, "wood"= mad. Herrick has a short poem on the same conceit: "I played with love, as with the fire "That satyr he but burnt his lips, But mine's the greater smart," &c. XVIII. p. 153. In line 3, both MSS. read "the matter of mishap," which destroys the rhyme. There are, however, many variations between them. 66 XIX. p. 154. This poem must have been highly esteemed to have obtained the compliment of adaptation and imitation from Robert Southwell and Lord Brooke; and yet I am not aware that it has ever been printed before, except very imperfectly among the Poems of Pembroke and Rudyard," and some extracts by Malone. The MS. copies differ exceedingly, both in various readings and in omissions. I have made out the best text that I could, from a careful comparison of all the materials. It is the same piece which Wood erroneously called " A Description of Friendship" (A. O. i. 741); a title which he took by mistake from another poem in the Ashmole MS. 66 Page 156, line 16. I read the hyacint" (so spelt for the rhyme); i. e. read the fancied letters on its leaves:-" on which are writ the letters of our woe" (Beaumont). See Ovid, Metam. x. 215. Some copies have "reap the hyacinth." Page 159, line 5. Heben;" so often Spenser, for ebony; "His spear of heben wood.”—“ F. Q.” I. vii. st. 37. Page 168, line 27. I have substituted "wrath" for "worth;" and have corrected two or three other errors of the press in different parts of the poem. Page 171, line 9. "The ship of Greece" is clearly the famous ship in which Theseus returned after slaying the Minotaur. The Athenians professed to preserve it till the days of Demetrius Phale. reus, the rotten timbers being carefully removed and renewed from time to time, so that it became a favourite question whether a ship of which every plank had been often changed could still be called the same (Plutarch, Thes. p. 10, ed. 1620). This passage, in which Lord Brooke compares the changes of his mistress to that ship of Greece and to the ever-flowing stream-the same, yet not the same perpetually altering, yet bearing continuously "their antique name," is an excellent specimen of the subtle conceptions which he loved to elaborate in his poetry. But the whole poem is raised to a level of thought curiously different from that of the two pieces by Dyer and Southwell with which it is connected. XXII. p. 173. I have inserted this pretty poem from the works of Lodge, because his verses have been so much mixed up with those of Dyer. Lodge was first an Oxford student; then a voyager; next a lawyer; finally a physician; and died of the plague in 1625. He had also a literary connection with the dramatist Robert Greene, who frequently uses the same imagery; e. g. in his "Never too late," 1590:-"Then shall heaven cease to have stars, the earth trees, the world elements, and everything reversed shall fall to their former chaos" (Dyce, "Life of Greene," p. ix.). And in "Alphonsus, King of Arragon" (Dyce, ii. 18): "For first shall heaven want stars, and foaming seas Want watery drops, before I'll traitor be Unto Alphonsus, whom I honour so." XXIII. p. 174. Observe the use of adjectives for substantives; page 175, line 14, "bright" for brightness; line 17, "pure" for purity. XXIV. VI. Robert, Earl of Essex. To these three poems, by Elizabeth's brilliant but ill. starred favourite, the following may be added: 4. "Change thy mind, since she doth change." Douland's Musical Banquet," &c., 1610, Cantus II., by "the Right Hon. Robert Earl of Essex, Earl Marshal of England." Anonymously in "Wit's Interpreter," 1671, p. 128; and MS. Rawl, Poet. 85, fol. 126. 5. "There [It] was a time when silly bees could speak."-Printed from a Sloane MS. by Park, Walpole's "R. and N. A.," ii. 113. Another MS. is quoted by Mr. Collier, "Bibl. Cat." ii. 189. The first three stanzas were printed in a music-book of Dowland's; Percy Soc. vol. xiii. p. 72. Other copies occur in Harl. MS. 6910, fol. 167; in MS. Ashm. 767, fol. 1, and 781, p. 132; and in MS. Tann. 306, p. 249. 6. "Muses no more, but Mazes be your name.' -Harl. MS. 6910, fol. 151, as by "Comes Essex.” Thence printed in "Exc. Tudor." vol. i. p. 33. 7. "To plead my faith where faith hath no reward."-Douland, 1610, as above; Cantus VI. Another poem is found in MS. Ashm. 767, fol. 64, entitled "Essex's last Voyage to the Haven of Happiness," beginning, "Welcome, sweet death, the kindest friend I have." But this piece seems to be merely an elegy on his demise; after the manner of "The Lieutenant's Legend," or "The despairing Complaint of wretched Raleigh." Sir Henry Wotton says that "to evaporate his thoughts in a Sonnet" was Essex's " common way;" and from one of these he quotes the couplet ("Rel. Wotton." p. 165, ed. 1685): "And if thou should'st by her be now forsaken, She made thy heart too strong for to be shaken." The history of "his darling piece of love and selflove" (ib. p. 174), appears to have been made out sufficiently by Mr. Spedding; "Life of Bacon," vol. i. pp. 374-391. Mr. Hallam passes a very high eulogium on his prose; "Literature of Europe," vol. iii. p. 145, ed. 1843. I am not aware that his supposed translation of one of Ovid's Epistles has been found; Warton, H. E. P., iii. 340-1. XXVII.—VIII. pp. 178-181. A. W. It is very remarkable that no clue has been discovered to the owner of these initials, the author of a large portion of the best poems in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody." At one time Brydges had proposed to give Raleigh the credit of the entire series, which had up to that time been anonymous; but the intention was defeated by the production of a list, which Sir H. Nicolas pronounces to be in the handwriting of Francis Davison himself, entitled, "Catalogue of all the poems in rhyme or measured verse by A. W." (Harl. MS. 280, fol. 102), and including all the poems in question. It is impossible to withhold our sympathy for Brydges' disappointment. The guess was a good one. The poems would have done Raleigh no dishonour. They present many marks of strong resemblance to his authenticated poems; and the longer piece which I have here inserted would have commended itself to every one as a natural and appropriate statement |