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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,

Who 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

And a new waye doth take,

Who loued you once as her owne,

And her ioye did you make?

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alone,

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 that ....as you came'-the stanza will correspond with that quoted in The Knight of the Burning 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 Chappell, ii. 115.

I haue loude her all my youth,
But no* ould as you see;

Loue lykes not the fallyng frute
From the wythered tree.t

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.

SR W. R.

"Sic pro now."-BLISS.

+ Dr. Bliss quotes a similar remark from Raleigh's Instructions to his Son;-"Let 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 had thee not in thy flower, will despise thee in thy fall." Remains, p. 87, 1661. (Works, viii. 560.)

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"IF ALL THE WORLD AND LOVE WERE YOUNG."

[ASCRIBED TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]

[IT is said that the initials W. R. were at first appended to the earliest complete copy of these verses (in England's Helicon, 1600); and that the word Ignoto was afterwards pasted over the letters. The same alteration appears to have been made in two other cases in that volume.+ 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 Shepheard'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 case of No. 71. (p. 161.) "The Shepheard's Description of Loue" (No. 54) is assigned to Raleigh by Ellis, ii. 221. Cayley, i. 14. Campbell, p. 77, second ed.

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 by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger daies." The former he describes as "that smooth song which was made by Kit. Marlow now at least fifty yeers ago." It may be remarked, in passing, that this second hypothesis is scarcely consistent with the notion that Ignoto was Raleigh's peculiar signature; though some persons have gladly embraced 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 assertion, it should be observed, that the passage is scarcely accurate enough in other respects to warrant such implicit confidence. When the first edition of the Angler was published (1653), Marlow had been dead sirty years; and at the time of his death, Raleigh, whose "younger daies" are so expressly mentioned, was forty-one years old. This leads us to suspect, that Walton took his date from the title-page of England's Helicon; and there is at least one other in

Compl. Angl. p. 105, ed. 1655. There are 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 Warton, iii. 354, ed. 1840, and Brydges). 4. Another by Donne, Poems, p. 190, ed. 1633 (also in the C. A.). 5. Another by Herrick, 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.

+

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 alteration [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 uncertainty, 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 Walton's Angler (p. 110), except that one stanza, which is probably 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, overlooking those of 1602 and 1608. As this song was by A. W. Walton's remark is one of the evidences tending to identify 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 title-pages seems more probable in both cases than that 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 sæpe in exponendis, approbandis, et exornandis narrationibus, in figmenta delabi soleant homines, quoad nuda facta fide dignissimi.” (Welcker in Hippon. et Anan. Fragm. p. 16.) All that Walton cared for was the Poem. The date and author's name were matters of comparative indifference.

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