less than eight cases out of sixteen,- for we have seen that two were given up by Brydges himself, we are not disposed to trust it any longer. We may therefore say at once, that the five which still remain unmentioned (Nos. v, vii, ix, xiii, and xv) have been printed among Raleigh's Poems without any evidence at all. Besides, if Ignoto had any special significance in the body of the book, it must have had the same in the Table of Contents, which was inserted in the second edition of England's Helicon; but that Table would

Collection of Raleigh's Poems in 1813. Ritson also was ignorant of that document when he compiled his Bibl. Poet., as is plain from his article on A. W., p. 382. When, therefore, he affirmed that No. ii was "ascertained to be the composition of Francis Davison" (ib. p. 255), it can scarcely have been because he had any reasons for regarding A. W. as a signature used by Davison himself. It is more likely that this was the only one of the five which he had observed in Davison's Collection, and that he assigned it to the editor as a matter of course, just as he seems to have done in the case of a more fainous poem (see this vol. p. 91). Steevens had pencilled Davison's name at the foot of his transcript of No. ii.-It should be observed, as a further indication of what was meant by Ignoto, that all the five poems to which this note relates were added, with four others, in the second ed. of E. H., which was published after three eds. of Davison had appeared; and as seven out of the nine additions had been in Davison, they were probably transferred to E. H. from that Collection.

Ellis and Cayley had led the way by ascribing two of these five poems also to Raleigh on the evidence of the signature Ignoto; viz. Nos, xiii and XV; and a third, No. ix, has since been reprinted as Raleigh's by Campbell, no doubt on Brydges's authority. The Muse's Library contains copies of Nos, vii and xiii from E. H., but they are properly printed as anonymous.-There are other ancient copies of some of the five (as one of No xv in the Phoenix Nest, 1593, Cens. Lit. ii. 120, and one of No.v in the Crowne Garland of Golden Roses, 1612, p. 63, Percy Soc. reprint); but they supply no evidence.-Only one of them requires further notice, viz. No. xiii, which is the Imitation of Marlow's Passionate Shepherd, mentioned third in the list on p. 126 in this volume. Warton expressly gave this Imitation (as well as the Reply) to Raleigh, but without adducing any evidence except the signature Ignoto (see below). He thus began the system of trusting to that subscription, which Ellis and Cayley carried a little further, and which Brydges completed. The Reply to Marlow rests on other testimony.-I may add, that a MS. remark of Dr. Farmer's is cited in Cens. Lit. i. 162, as assigning this Imitation of Marlow to Shakespeare; but that note must have belonged either to the original Song, or to the Reply, which immedi ately preceded the Imitation in E. H., and which were printed (imperfectly) as Shakespeare's in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599.

add eight or nine fresh pieces* to our list; for it appears that the word is there affixed to twenty-four poems, if not to twenty-five.

This, then, appears to be a sufficient answer to Brydges's assertion, that “he who looks to its actual application at this time will give little credit to" the objection, “ that this subscription of Ignoto must be taken as no more than equal to Anonymous."+ It plainly meant no more than that in England's Helicon; and we find it just as difficult to dis

* A brief account of these will complete our proof that Ignoto was really an indefinite signature in England's Helicon.-One was at first subscribed M. F. G., but a blank was pasted over the initials (Sign. P.).-Two were sung before the Queen on Progresses," the Authors name unknowne to me" (Sign. Q. and Q. 2).—Three were taken from "Maister Iohn Dowlands booke of tableture for the Lute, the Authours names not there set downe & therefore left to their owners" (Sign. V. 4-X. 2). They are in Mr. Collier's recent publication of Lyrical Poems from old Music Books (pp. 63, 61, 57); the second of them is among Lord Brooke's Poems, 1633, p. 197, and has been chosen as a specimen of his poetry by Mrs. Cooper, Ellis, and others; the third has been ascribed to Shakespeare on the authority of initials in a MS. at Hamburgh; but Steevens has pencilled M. F. G. (the initials of Lord Brooke) at the foot of this, as well as the other.-A seventh has no signature at all in the body of the book (Sign. V. 4); but Mr. Collier (p. 65) prints it from the same vol. of Dowland's from which he took the three just mentioned.-An eighth was also taken from a Music Book (Sign. Z. 3). The only one not mentioned is entitled "An Inuectiue against Loue" (a distinct poem from No. xxiv) which was by A. W. It was one of the pieces added to the second ed. of E. H., which, as I have said, were pro bably borrowed from Davison.-(The reason why I speak doubtfully of the number may be seen from the repr. of this Table of Contents, or from Steevens's transcript of it.)

+ Notes to Raleigh's Poems, p. 69. "These signatures," he adds," when once seized, become appropriate." If he refers to such cases as the Immerito of Spenser, and the Infortunio of Ralph Starkey, they are not parallel instances; for those words have an obvious meaning; but why should Raleigh, or any one else, monopolize the title of the Unknown Poet?-Some of Brydges's remarks in that place betray a strange forgetfulness of his Preface to the reprint of E. H., which appeared before the publication of Raleigh's Poems. "To one of these poems in the first edition of the 'Helicon,' the name of Ignoto was pasted over the initial letters W. R." In that Preface, he said the same of three poems. Again; " Once, if I recollect, Ignoto was misapplied in the Helicon;' but probably under a mistaken apprehension that the piece was Raleigh's." In the reprint of E. H., he

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cover any recondite signification from the manner in which it is employed in Davison or Rel. Wotton. If we turn to other publications, the indefinite character of the signature becomes still more apparent.* When Warton called it Raleigh's constant signature," he probably meant only that Raleigh frequently used it, as others might do likewise.t But an occasional or even a frequent use of it would give us no information, unless it was also exclusive, which cannot any longer be maintained.

said that two which were so marked belonged to Shakespeare and Barnfield; and that a third was given, in another part of the same volume, to Sir Edward Dyer. "The major part of these poems," he concludes, " possess also the internal evidence of traits of Raleigh's genius." We will listen to arguments from internal evidence, when those who use them will come to some agreement on it.

Thus Sir John Harington applies it to the author of the Arte of English Poesie, whom we now know to be Puttenham (Anc. Crit. Essays, ii. 123); and uses it in his Additions to Godwin of" an English gentleman" who scribbled verses on a wall (Nug. Ant. ii. 140, ed. Park).—Ritson remarked that the signatures W. R. and Ignoto were sometimes found together in the very same publication, where different persons were obviously meant, as in the Commendatory Poems on Spenser's Faery Queen, and on Lithgow's Pilgrim's Farewell (Bibl. Poet. pp. 255, 307).- Both the signatures are also used in Davison; and a MS. note of Dr. Farmer's on the Ignoto appended to one poem, which Brydges gave to Raleigh in his reprint of that collection, is curious enough :-" Perhaps Spencer, since he frequently signed himself so; as did Shakespear also." But he afterwards drew his pen through this observation.

+ H. E. P. iii. p. 354, ed. 1840. (The note appended by Warton's editors, professedly from Cayley, was borrowed by Cayley from Ellis.) Warton had been speaking of Marlow's Passionate Shepherd; and after quoting Izaak Walton, he proceeded: "In England's Helicon it is printed with Christopher Marlow's name, and followed by the Reply, subscribed Ignoto, Raleigh's constant signature. A page or two afterwards, it is imitated by Raleigh." If he had any "good reasons for his opinion," we can only regret that he "neglected to adduce them;" but he was probably thinking only of the poem before him, which most agree to treat as Raleigh's, on Walton's authority, though it is only signed Ignoto in E. H.; and of those cases in which there was some confusion between W. R. and Ignoto. But by giving Raleigh the Imitation of Marlow as well as the Reply, he certainly set the example of assuming that Ignoto was evidence in Raleigh's favour.

This was afterwards conceded by Brydges himself; but as he did not follow up his general acknowledgement, in any of his numerous publications with which I am acquainted, by a minute examination of the evidence, it has failed of its effect. His Collection, with the exception of a single piece (N°. iv), has been admitted into the best edition of Raleigh's entire Works, to which those who wish for specimens of his poetry most naturally turn; and hence poems to which Raleigh has no kind of title are perpetually ascribed to him on the authority of that publication.

Eleven "Additional Poems" were given in that edition (which was published at Oxford in 1829), with the following titles and references. I have prefixed the numbers, as before, carrying them on from the former list:

XXIX. The Lover's Maze.-From Le Prince d'Amour. XXX. Farewell to the Court.- From Le Prince d'Amour. XXXI. The Advice.- From Le Prince d'Amour.

XXXII. Verses by Sir Walter Ralegh.—From the Ashmolean MSS.

XXXIII. Moral Advice.-From the Ashmolean MSS. XXXIV. A Lover's Verses.- From the Bodleian MSS. XXXV. False Love and True Love.-From the Bodleian MSS.

XXXVI. The Answer to the Lie.-From the Ashmolean MSS.

XXXVII. Erroris Responsio.-From the Ashmolean MSS.

XXXVIII. Epitaph on Secretary Cecil.-See Osborne's Traditional Memoires, 1658, p. 89, and Oldys's Life, p.

424.

XXXIX. A Riddle.-From a MS. in the Bodleian written about 1589.

Ten of these poems need not detain us long. Two of them are printed at length in this volume, and four others

are quoted and described ;* the rebus on the name Noel, which is all that belongs to Raleigh in N°. xxxix, has been ascribed to him by other authorities, but it is sometimes given to no less a personage than Queen Elizabeth herself;+ and as to the three which are taken from the Collection of Poems appended to Le Prince d'Amour, 1660, though the evidence is not so unimpeachable as might be wished, it is right to give Raleigh the full advantage of it, till better can be found.

But the other poem in the list (No. xxxii) is a very different matter. Though the only authority cited here is that of the Ashmolean MSS.,§ the piece was expressly ascribed to Raleigh by Puttenham as early as 1589, when he quoted

* No. xxxiii=III. iv. p. 114, and No. xxxv=III. vii. p. 120.—On No. xxxiv, see p. 121, note.-On Nos, xxxvi-vii, see pp. 95, 96.-On No. xxxviii, see p. 122, note.

+ Manningham, who entered both riddles in his Diary under the date of Dec. 30: 1602: reverses the order of them, beginning "Sir W. Rawly made this rime upon the name of a gallant, one Mr. Noel;" and then adding" Noel's answere." (Collier's Hist. Dram. P. i. 336, note.) They are arranged as in the Oxford ed. in MS. Mal. 19, p. 42.-The two are often found apart; as that on Rawly in Aubrey, Letters from the Bodl. ii. 512; and D'Israeli, Cur. of Lit. p. 259 (with a different second line):and that on Noel in Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, i. 85, ed. Park (from Collins), where it is ascribed to Queen Elizabeth; and Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes, No. ccxxxvii, where no author's name is given.

They were mentioned by Oldys, p. 423, note.-The signature to each of the three poems is W. R. (Pr. d'Am. pp. 131-3). There is a more complete copy of No. xxix in Davison's Rhapsodie, in the earlier editions of which it was entitled "A Reporting Sonnet;" but afterwards "In the grace of wit, of tongue, and face." (P. 144, ed. 1621=i. 102, Lee Priory ed.)--There is also another copy of No. xxxi in MS. Rawl. Poet. 85, fol. 116, subscribed only," Finis. Written to Mris A. V."

§ That is, I presume, MS. Ashm. 781, p. 138. Signature, "Sr Wa: Raleigh."-Oldys (pp. 130-1) mentioned another copy in Wit's Interpreter, 1671, p. 205, where it is headed, " By Sir Walter Raleigh."-There is an anonymous copy of this poem also in MS. Rawl. Poet. 85, fol. 104, vo.I have remarked above, that Cayley inserted it in the Appendix to his Life of Raleigh (p. 107) between two poems which Brydges took on his autho rity, when this was overlooked.-This omission on the part of Brydges is the more inexplicable, because he had given it at length from Oldys in his ed. of Phillips, p. 314; but indeed I am equally at a loss to understand why he borrowed so little from Oldys in 1800 (for he missed his most im