[ASCRIBED TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]

[I CONCLUDE these fragments of Raleigh's poetry with three of the Miscellaneous pieces which have been ascribed to him; but whether the evidence is sufficient to prove that he wrote them all, must be left for others to determine. It is at any rate more direct in each case than the signature Ig

noto.

If he was really the author of them, we should need no further proof of his singular versatility; for their internal character might have consigned them to three separate centuries. The first might very fairly take its station among the older Ballads. Percy, who spoke of a very modernized edition, thought that it "must have been written, if not before the dissolution of the monasteries, yet while the remembrance of them was fresh in the minds of the people." (ii. 92, ed. 1767.)-It is universally conceded that the second ranks among the finest Minor Poems written in the Elizabethan age. Of the third, Sir Egerton Brydges says, that it "is a most extraordinary poem; terse, harmonious, pointed,

full of ingenious turns, and often admirably expressed. It seems to have anticipated a century in its style." The latter part of this will perhaps be admitted by some, who will think that, for this very reason, the former is too laudatory. It is strange that a person who has written so often and so well in praise of simplicity and nature, should have been so much captivated by that witty and graceful, but most artificial poem.

The evidence on which Raleigh's claim to this first piece is founded, goes into a very narrow compass; for I have heard of none but the initials which are appended to it in the MS. from which it is now taken.* It has been previously printed from the same MS. by Dr. Bliss,† who thought that it had never appeared in print before. In this form, it probably had not; but Percy's Reliques contained an altered version of it, which "was communicated to the Editor by the late Mr. Shenstone, as corrected by him from an ancient MS., and supplied with a concluding stanza." That copy begins and ends as follows:

* Namely, MS. Rawl. Poet, 85, fol. 124. The same MS. contains another piece beginning, "Fayne woulde I, but I dare not”—(fol. 41, vo.) to which the initials "W. R." are subjoined; but they seem to have been added by a later hand. Dr. Bliss printed the first stanza of it. Neither of these was included in the Lee Priory Collection, which was published before Dr. Bliss called attention to them; but they are both given in the Oxford edition of Raleigh's Works (viii. 732-3), with the titles, "False Love and True Love," and "A Lover's Verses." The commencement of the second reminds ns of the line which Fuller ascribes to Raleigh, Worthies of Devon. p. 261.-I have not thought it necessary to retain the contractions of the MS.

+ In his additions to Wood's A, O. ii. 248-9.

Percy makes no mention of Raleigh's claim; nor does it appear to have become generally known. It seems that there was a series of Ballads on the subject of Pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham; and if Raleigh contributed this portion of the set,-which, I own, appears to me extremely improbable,—he must of course be supposed to have assumed an archaic tone for the occasion.]

+ Mr. Dyce, who has occasion to mention both the Ballad and the tune in his edit. of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 172, iii. 439), is content in the one case with Weber's reference to Percy, and in the other with Mr. Chappell's account; but as it is not likely that he would overlook the copy printed by Dr. Bliss, his silence must have arisen from distrust in the validity of Raleigh's title. Mr. Chappell reprints the Ballad at length from Percy, without saying anything of Raleigh. (Nat. Engl. Airs, ii. 158. On the same page, he quotes a reference to the tune from an Epitaph on Secretary Cecil, contained in Osborne's Tradit. Mem.,

"And sweetly sung Walsingham to's Amaryllis,”

apparently without knowing that Raleigh is generally regarded as its author. See Raleigh's Works, i. 424, viii. 735, 744. Cayley, ii. 191. Tytler, 303, ed. 1840.)

See Percy, ii. 78, 91,399, ed. 1767, and Mr. Chappell, 1.1. On the subject of these Pilgrimages, see further The Vision of Piers Ploughman, 1. 107, ed. Wright (with note), and the same editor's vol. of Letters on the Suppression of Monast. p. 138.

§ This first stanza is from the margin of the MS. It originally stood thus:

"As you went to Walsingam,

To that holy lande,

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 alone,
And a new waye doth take,

Who loued you once as her owne,
And her ioye did you make?

Met you not with my true loue,

By the waye as you went?"

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.

* "Sic pro now. "-BLISS.

SR W. R.

+ 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,)