In the Life of Raleigh which Oldys prefixed to his edition of the History of the World (1736), about seventeen poems were mentioned; but his references were sadly wasted on his successors. In Birch's edition of Raleigh's Minor Works (1751), only nine poems were ascribed to him;-Cayley (1805), though he made some additions, merely repeated the titles of other poems from Oldys;—and when Sir Egerton Brydges published a thin quarto volume at the Lee Priory Press, in 1813, as "The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh now first collected," he did not even try to exhaust the materials which had been previously brought together, while he filled up his book by reprinting all the poems in England's Helicon and Reliquiæ Wottoniana which bore the signature Ignoto. The following is the Table of Contents prefixed to the Lee Priory edition;-†

I. A Description of the Country's Recreations.-Ignoto. -Reliquia Wottoniana.

II. Dispraise of Love and Lovers' Follies.-Ignoto.— England's Helicon.

• Eight of the nine in Birch had been named by Oldys (the other being The Lie, or, as Birch called it, the Farewell). So had one which Brydges took from Cayley. Oldys had also mentioned seven of the Addit. Poems given in the Oxford ed., two of which were also in Cayley, but not in Brydges. A lost Poem (Cynthia, known from Spenser) makes up the number. But as he referred with an "&c." to an Ashm. MS. from which another of the Oxford additions was taken, he may be said to have pointed out eighteen in all.

+ I have added the numbers, for convenience in reference; and have marked by an asterisk the nine poems which were printed by Birch. (Of the two pieces omitted in the numeration, one, which Birch also gave, is professedly by Marlow; it was introduced, because the Answer is ascribed to Raleigh; the other is only a second copy of that which precedes it.)— The authorities appended to each title (as well as the titles themselves) are exactly copied from the original Table; and they are preserved here, because they are the only testimonies which Brydges thought fit to supply.His Collection was reprinted in London the year after it was published at the Lee Priory Press; but without any additional pieces.

*III. On the Snuff of a Candle.-Dr. Birch.

IV. A Dialogue betwixt God and the Soul.-Ignoto.— Reliq. Wott.

V. Phillida's Love-call to her Coridon, and his Replying.-Ign.-Eng. Hel.

*VI. Sir Walter Raleigh the Night before his Death.W. R.-Rel. Wott.

VII. The Shepherd's Slumber.-Engl. Heli.

VIII. De Morte.-Ignoto.-Reliq. Wott.

IX. A Nymph's Disdain of Love.-Ignoto.-Engl. Heli.

X. The Shepherd's Description of Love.-Ignoto.-Engl. Heli.

XI. Hymn.-Ignoto.-Reliq. Wott.

Song.-By Christopher Marlow.-Dr. Birch.-Engl.

Heli.

* XII. The Answer.-By Sir Walter Raleigh.—Dr. Birch.-Engl. Heli.

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.-Ignoto.-Engl.

Heli.

XIII. Another of the same Nature made since.-Ignoto. -Engl. Heli.

XIV. An Heroical Poem.-Ignoto.-Engl. Heli. XV. The Shepherd to the Flowers.-Ignoto.-Engl. Heli.

*XVI. Upon Gascoigne's Poem, called "The SteelGlass."-Dr. Birch.

XVII. Thirsis the Shepherd to his Pipe.-Ignoto.— Engl. Heli.

XVIII. Love the only Price of Love.-Ignoto.-Engl.

Heli.

XIX. The Shepherd's Praise of his Sacred Diana.-Ignoto.-Engl. Heli.

*XX. The Silent Lover.-Dr. Birch.

*XXI. A Vision upon the Fairy Queen.-Spenser. *XXII. On the same.-Spenser.

C

XXIII. The Lover's Absence Kills me, her Presence [Cures] me.-Ign.-Eng. Hel.

XXIV. A Defiance to Disdainful Love.-Ignoto.-Engl. Heli.

XXV. Dulcina.-Cayley's Life of Raleigh.

XXVI. His Love admits no Rival.-Cayley's Life of Raleigh.

*XXVII. His Pilgrimage.-Dr. Birch.

*XXVIII. The Farewell.—Dr. Birch.—Davison's Rhapsody.

After all the inquiries which have been made upon this subject, I fear that we cannot substantiate Raleigh's claim to any poems in this list, except the nine which are marked by an asterisk, as having been previously ascribed to him by Birch. Seven of those are reprinted in this volume ;* another is quoted and described (No. xxii. see p. 116); and the ninth is the poem prefixed to Gascoigne's Steele-Glass, in 1576 (No. xvi), about which there is some difficulty. Two objections have been raised; namely, that the writer's name is spelt in an unusual manner, and that he describes himself as "of the Middle Temple," while Raleigh declared on his trial, that he had never" read a word of the law or statute before" he "was prisoner in the Tower."+ The first cannot be allowed much weight (see p. 95); to the second, it has been answered, that he may have been merely a resi

No. iii. on p. 74.-No. vi=II. vi. p. 73.—No, xii=III. viii. p. 125. -No. xx=III. ix. p. 130.-No. xxi=III. v. p. 115,-No. xxvii=1II. ii. p. 104.-No. xxviii=III. i. p. 89.

+ Works, i. 669. Wood's statement (A. O. ii. 236,) was no doubt borrowed from the signature. Naunton says, " His approaches to the Univer sity and Inns of Court were rather excursions than sieges or settings down; for he stayed not long in a place." Fragm. Reg. p. 216, ed. 1694. See Oldys and Birch in vol. i. of the Oxford ed. pp. 21-3, 572. (Add, Cayley, i. 10. Muses Library, p. 269. Ritson, Bibl. Poet. p. 307. D'ls raeli, Cur. of Lit. p. 258, ed. 1839.)

dent in the Middle-Temple, which seems the most probable solution. As to the internal evidence, the critics are at variance. Oldys and Brydges assume that it is completely in Raleigh's favour; Mr. D'Israeli, also, though he hesitates about the spelling, says that "these verses, both by their spirit and signature, cannot fail to be his ;" while Mr. Tytler says, that "although written in the quaint style of his age, their poetical merit is below his other pieces, and it is difficult to believe that they flowed from the same sweet vein which produced the answer to Marlow's Passionate Shepherd."* Such are the advantages we gain by turning to internal evidence.

Two other poems in the list (Nos x. xix.) are said to have the very dubious authority of Raleigh's obliterated initials in England's Helicon. To what I have elsewhere said on this point, I have only to add, that a very different copy of No. x. was printed anonymously in Davison's Rhapsodie; and that Brydges, in his reprint of Davison, included it among Raleigh's Poems, but confessedly without any authority. That copy therefore, gives us no assistance. As to the change of signature, the new one of Ignoto is so

• Life of Raleigh, p. 22, ed. 1840. Perhaps we may venture to remark, that it is somewhat doubtful what were Raleigh's other pieces, and even whether he wrote the Reply to Marlow (III. viii.) at all. Some may also think that the "solid axiomatical vein" which Oldys observed in the lines on Gascoigne, is more characteristic of Raleigh's style than the "sweet vein" which Mr. Tytler discovers in the other poem, which was meant for a grave and earnest rebuke to all "sweet" Pastorals.

+ See this vol. p. 125, note †, and p. 136. The two copies of No. x. are so much varied, that I doubt whether their real identity has been ob served. In E. H. the poem is entitled, “The Sheepheards Description of Loue," and it is printed in the form of a Dialogue between Melibeus and Faustus, beginning," Melibeus. Sheepheard, what's Loue, I pray thee tell" -(Sign. L. 2). In Davison, it is entitled, "The Anatomie of Lone;" the Dialogue is not marked; and it begins," Now what is loue, I pray thee tell" (P. 147, ed. 1621,=ii. 97. Lee Priory ed. of Davison, p. 295, ed. Nicolas.-The stanza which appears to conclude this piece in ed. 1621 is really a separate fragment by A. W., of which I shall have to speak again.)

firmly fixed in the case of No. x. in Steevens's copy of E. H., that I cannot tell whether it really conceals the initials of Raleigh. In the case of N°. xix., however, they are perfectly legible (Sign. N. 4); and I will therefore subjoin the poem :

66

THE SHEEPHEARDS PRAISE OF HIS SACRED DIANA.

"Praysed be Dianaes faire and harmelesse light;

Praised be the dewes, where-with she moists the ground;
Praised be her beames, the glory of the night;

Prais'd be her power, by which all powers abound:

"Prais'd be her Nimphs, with whom she decks the woods;
Prais'd be her Knights, in whom true honour liues;
Prais'd be that force, by which she moones the floods:
Let that Diana shine which all these giues.

"In heauen Queene she is among the Spheares;
She Mistresse-like makes all things to be pure;
Eternity in her oft change she beares;

She beauty is; by her the faire endure,

"Time weares her not; she dooth his Chariot guide;
Mortality below her Orbe is plast;

By her the vertue[s] of the starres downe slide;
In her is vertues perfect Image cast.

"A knowledge pure it is her woorth to know:
With Circes let them dwell that thinke not so.

Brydges justly calls this "fulsome adulation of the Queen;" but the lines are nevertheless dignified and stately; and we should value them more highly if we could forget both the allegorical meaning and the utter paganism of the poem.

With respect to the two poems taken from Cayley (No. xxv-vi), Brydges says that he is ignorant of Cayley's authority, and that he has "strong doubts whether" they are really to be attributed to Raleigh's pen." His doubts are not unreasonable; but Cayley's authority can be found without much difficulty. The two poems were printed in the Appendix to his Life of Raleigh (pp. 105-8), together with a third which Brydges has omitted. “Dulcina” (No.