NOTES ON PART I. RALEIGH'S POEMS. HOUGH the striking vicissitudes of Raleigh's life have made it a favourite theme for biographers, no research has been expended on his poems since the days of Oldys (1736), unless I may venture to claim an exception for a little volume published by myself in 1845. Oldys mentioned about seventeen different pieces; but his references long remained neglected and unverified. In Birch's edition of " Raleigh's Minor Works" (1751), only nine of his poems were included; and when Sir E. Brydges published, in 1813-4, the thin quarto volume which he called, "The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh, now first collected," he made no attempt to exhaust the materials which Oldys had gathered; but swelled out Birch's nine to twenty-eight, by accepting two questionable pieces from Cayley, and appropriating seventeen poems-thirteen from " England's Helicon," d four from "Reliquiæ Wottonianæ," -on the 1 Namel VI. XVII. rthless evidence of the signature is volume, Part I., Nos. I. IV. V. VI. XIV. nd xxin. 8. |