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of the Angler agrees with the second; but one or two slight variations (A) were afterwards introduced. The copy in England's Helicon (B) is nearly the same, except in regard to the interpolated stanza. It is printed in the notes to the Lee Priory and Oxford editions, where the text (C), which is very different, is taken from Dr. Birch (ii. 394). A copy printed in the Muse's Library (D) in 1741, is a little different from any of these. I have also marked the few variations (E) in the copy printed by Percy (i. 219, ed. 1767).]

F all the world and Love were young,
And truth in every shepherds tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

[5] But time drives flocks from field to fold, When rivers rage and rocks grow cold; And Philomel becometh dumb;

The Rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields [10] To wayward Winter reckoning yeilds: A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

Is fancies spring, but sorrows fall.

Thy gowns, thy shooes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,

[15] Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,-
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivie buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,-

All these in me no means can move [20] To come to thee and be thy Love.*

But could youth last, and love stil breed,—
Had joyes no date, nor age no need;

Then those delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.

[VARIATIONS. 1. If that the World'-E (and so in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, where the first stanza only is printed, as if it were Shakespeare's.)-2. 'on every'-C.-3. 'These pleasures might my passion move'--C.-The second stanza is altogether omitted in C.-5. Time driues the flocks'-B D.-7. 'Then Philomel'-A.-8. The Rest complain'-D (so also Ellis; and of course more correctly. But see below, p. 132, note.) And age complains'-A. And all complain'-E.-9, 10. So A B, and also E, except 'yield'-In C they stand thus ;'But fading flowers in every field

To winter floods their treasures yield ;'

The alteration in D keeps nearer to the text, and saves the grammar at the cost of the sense ;

"The Flowers do fade in wanton Fields;

The wayward Winter Reckoning yields;'

11. A honey'd tongue'-C.-13. 'Thy gown'-C.-15. 'Are all soon wither'd, broke, forgotten'-C.-19. 'no Mind can move' -D. 'Can me with no enticements move'-C.-20. 'To live with thee'-C.-21. 'could Love'-C.-22. 'Joy'-D. 'had Age'— C.-23. 'these'-B D.]

• The following stanza is here inserted in the second edit. of the C. A. It is said to be wanting in the first. Walton has added a similar stanza to Marlow's Poem.

"What should we talk of dainties then,

Of better meat then's fit for men?

These are but vain: that's only good,

Which God hath blest, and sent for food."

K

[blocks in formation]

"PASSIONS ARE LIKENED BEST TO FLOUDS AND STREAMES."

[BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]

[RALEIGH's claim to this Poem is supported by so many independent testimonies, that we need not hesitate to regard him as the Author. Yet there are at least three other claimants:-

1. There is an imperfect copy among LORD PEMBROKE'S

1. The copy in the Oxford ed. (viii. 716) is improved from one of the Rawl. MSS. where the piece is entitled "Sir Walter Ralegh to Queene Elizabeth." (Another instance, by the way, where a right name is coupled with a wrong legend; for they are scarcely such as Raleigh would address to the Queen.)-2. Raleigh's name is said to be appended to a copy in the MS. from which Brydges published some of W. Browne's Poems. See his Pref. p. 6.-3. The initials "Sr W: R:" are subjoined in the MS. followed in the text.-A former possessor of that MS. refers in the margin to Wit's Interpreter, and a "scarce octo. Edit. of R.'s Works." There are two copies in Wit's Interp. ed. 1671; viz. on p. 146, a very incorrect one, headed, "To his Mistress, by Sir Walter Raleigh;" and on p. 173, a copy without the first stanza, and without a name. The readings of the second copy are better than those of the first.-See also Oldys's Life of Ral. pp. 131-2. Ellis and Campbell reprint it as Raleigh's.

1

Poems (p. 35). But that volume, as I have had to remark several times before, is of no authority, whenever we possess any positive evidence against it. Yet the piece has been sometimes given as a specimen of Pembroke's poetry.*

2. Mr. P. Cunningham, in his notes to Campbell's Specimens (p. 77), mentions that “it has been ascribed with great probability to SIR ROBERT AYTON in a MS. and contemporary volume of Ayton's poems once in Mr. Heber's hands." But we have already had too many instances of the errors committed in these old MS. Collections to be satisfied with the authority of one against several, unless it is more definitely authenticated. Even had the volume been in Ayton's own writing (and the contrary is implied), it might have been a mere table-book,—such as it was then very I customary to compile.

3. In MS. Ashm. 781 (p. 143), a part of it (without either the first or the last stanza) is signed "Lo: WALDEN;" and in the Index to the volume, the piece is duly entered as "Lo: Waldens Verses." On this authority, Ritson entered the name of Lord Walden (afterwards Earl of Suffolk) in his Bibl. Poet. (p. 383) though he had previously asserted that Raleigh wrote "the Silent Lover," the title by which this Poem is commonly described (p. 307). Park, who had not seen the MS. and could not obtain a copy of the verses, implicitly followed Ritson's guidance, and therefore devoted an Article to this nobleman in his edit. of Walpole's Royal

Mr.

✦ E.g. in Park's Walpole, ii. 267. Bliss's Wood, A. O. ii. 486. Lodge (Port. of Illustr. Pers, under Pembroke) assumes, like Mr. Hallam, that the volume was edited by Dr. Donne himself, and says, “His [Pembroke's] editor, Donne, must have blushed for the miserable homeliness of his own muse when he copied such lines as these-Wrong not, dear Empress of my heart,' (&c.) or the following, addressed to a lady weeping— Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,'" &c. Now Donne no more edited the poems than Pembroke wrote them; and the first is Raleigh's, the second, Bp. Henry King's.-Donne's son, the true editor, was not given to blushing, either for his father's doings or his own.-See the Introduction to this volume, pp. lxi-lxiii.

and Noble Authors (ii. 222). Here, again, we have one MS. against several,-with the additional objection, that a transcriber, who could not procure a more genuine text, was likely to be equally unsuccessful in discovering the writer's

name.

The copy here printed is taken from Mr. Pickering's MS. (fol. 112, vo.) with the correction of a few errors which were probably due to the transcriber. It contains nearly all the improvements given in the Oxford edition; and the rest (A) are mentioned among the Variations. B the Lee Priory text, which is the same that had been printed by Birch (ii. 394), and Cayley (i. 140). It also corresponds with that in the Muse's Library (1737, p. 273). C= the copy in Pembroke. The Variations in the Ashm. MS. and in Wit's Interpreter are very numerous; but they are scarcely worth preserving.]

ASSIONS are likened best to flouds and

streames;

The shallow murmur, but the deepe are

dumbe:

Soe, when affections yeild discourse, it seemes The bottome is but shallowe whence they come. [5] They that are rich in wordes, in wordes discouer That they are poore in that which makes a Louer.

For the sake of exactness, these alterations are mentioned here; for the copy (like that followed in No. II.) is not authoritative enough to require the distinction of brackets.—In line 3, then, the MS. has 'yeilds'—; in 9, Which thinking'— ; in 11,' plainte'—; in 12, ‘ hir beautie’—; in 20, ' repelling'-; in 26,‘ Distraction'-; in 35, 'to my' is omitted, and the line left imperfect. (As to the first of these,—' yeilds'—I see no reason why we may not amend the inaccuracy where we can; but in many cases, it may be better to leave it, unless a piece is modernized altogether. Thus in line 8 of the last poem, I have retained the old form, because in line 10, where it occurs again, we cannot mend it without either destroying the rhyme, as Percy does, or making still further alterations.)

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