The following explains the sonnet I call THE KISS, p. 33:—

"In this passion the Authour, being ioyfull for a kisse, which he had receiued of his Loue, compareth the same vnto that kisse, which sometime Venus bestowed vpon Aesculapius, for hauing taken a Bramble out of her foote which pricked her through the hidden spitefull deceyte of Diana, by whom it was laide in her way, as Strozza writeth. And hee enlargeth his inuention vppon the french prouerbiall speech, which importeth thus much in effect,— that three things proceed from the mouth, which are to be had in high account, Breath, Speech, and Kissing;- the first argueth a man's life; the second his thought; the third and last, his loue." - OF TIME. In Davison's Poetical Rhapsody this has been reduced to a sonnet, by throwing out four lines.

P. 31.

P. 32- JEALOUS OF GANYMEDE. Arber prints in the first stanza, or staff "

66

To which all Neighbour, Saintes and Gods were calde.

And she once found should neither will nor choose.

P. 35.-Randon is random; blaze, blazon. In Byrd's Italian Madrigals I find the following variation of the MAY QUEEN. Was it so changed to suit "the affection of the noate”?

TO THE MAY QUEEN

This sweet and merrie month of May,
While nature wantons in her pryme,
And byrds do sing and beasts do play,
For pleasure of the joyfull time;

I chuse the first for holly daie,

And greet Eliza with a ryme.

O beauteous queene of second Troy,
Take well in worth a simple toy.

I may here add, as farther sample of a poet almost unknown, a fragment (which as such would not come within the limits of my text) from his "MELIBOEUS, an Eglogue," translated by Watson from his own Latin Elegy written on the death of

Sir Francis Walsingham, 1590. Spelling of Gratious streete. Diana is of course Queen Elizabeth.

DIANA, wondrous mirrour of our daies ;

Diana, matchlesse Queene of Arcadie;
Diana whose surpassing beauties praise
improus hir worth past terrene deitie;
Diana, Sibill for hir secret skill;

Diana, pieties chief earthlie friend;
Diana, holie both in deede and will;

Diana, whose iust praises haue no end.
Ah but my Muse, that creeps but on the ground,
begins to tremble at my great presume,
For naming hir, whose titles onelie sound
doth glad the welkin with a sweet perfume.
For in hir minde so manie vertues dwell

as eurie moment breed new pieties :
Yet all in one coioind doe all excell,

and crowne hir worth with sundrie deities.

But that vnwares my sorie stile proceeds

drad Cynthia pardon: loue desires dispense :
As Joves high Oaks orelook Pans slender reeds,
so boue all praising flies thine excellence.
Yet lest my homespun verse obscure hir worth,

sweet Spencer let me leaue this taske to thee,
Whose neuerstooping quill can best set forth

such things of state, as passe my Muse, and me. Thou Spencer art the alderliefest swaine,

or haply if that word be all to base,

Thou art Apollo whose sweet hunnie vaine
amongst the Muses hath a chiefest place.

Therefore in fulnes of thy duties loue,

calme thou the tempest of Dianaes brest, Whilst shee for Meliboeus late remoue

afflicts hir mind with ouerlong vnrest.

MUNDAY

P. 36— The DIRGE out of an old play, The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, the joint production of Henry Chettle and Anthony Munday: Munday's authorship of these lines is therefore not quite certain. The play is reprinted in the 1874 edition (W. C. Hazlitt's) of Dodsley's Old Plays.

PEELE

Pp. 37, 38-These two songs are from The Arraignment of Paris, a "pastoral" performed before Q. Elizabeth in 1584.

GREENE

Pp. 39-45- The Eclogue, MENAPHON'S ROUNDELAY and SONG, are out of his Menaphon, afterwards called Arcadia; INFIDA'S SONG from Never too late; Sweet Content from his Farewell to Folly. Line 7 of DORON AND CARMELA is corrected by Dyce to

Thine eyes are like the glowworms:

but the whole Eclogue is burlesque, and not to be reconciled with common sense.

P. 41 — INFIDA'S SONG. The burden Englished thus:

Sweet Adon! darest not glance thine eye

Will you not dare? my pretty friend!

Upon thy Venus that must die?

I pray you, let your scorn have end! (pity me!)

Will

Will

you not dare? my fair! my fair!

you not dare? my pretty friend!

I have accented priè, since it must be read as if two syllables (pri-e): the usual French poetic measure, used by Chaucer and other early English writers, probably the original of the later a at the end of a line, as in

Your sad heart tires in a mile-a.

P. 44 — Sweet CONTENT. Although since deciding on my selection, I find this in Ward's English Poets, latest and best of our anthologies, I retain it, because I think I detect errour in one line as there printed (as it is also printed by Dyce) :

The sweet consort of mirth and music's fare.

What is there peculiar to an obscure life in the consorting of mirth and music? And what may be music's fare? Mirth and modest fare are noticeable consorts, if modest be not the word Greene wrote. I think he did not write music's; while

he might have left the second stanza in the unreadable shape his editors allow it to preserve, thus:

The homely house that harbours quiet rest;

The cottage that affords no pride nor care;
The mean that 'grees with country music best;
The sweet consort of mirth and music's fare;
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss:

A mind content both crown and kingdom is.

Ward's English Poets — vol. 1, p. 409.

A not unfair specimen this of the ease with which an author's meaning can be obscured by only wrong punctuation. Dyce prints these lines in an equally unsatisfactory manner, except that he alters a type to as type, so helping toward the sense; while Ellis keeps the obscuring a, and destroys sense with a full stop after fare. I prefer the mean agrees (that understood no unusual construction) to the mean that 'grees.

DRAYTON

Pp. 46-50-WHAT LOVE IS, ROWLAND'S ROUNDELAY, and the SONG OF MOTTO AND PERKIN, are in his Eclogues. In my copy (edition 1619), p. 46, line 4, ceaseth is printed for seizeth; p. 49, line 14, breath is repeated, carelessness of poet or printer. Make, p. 47, line 3, means mate, often so used in old poems; p. 50, stervèd is starvèd, clip is clasp.

DAVIES

Not Sir John Davies, but plain John Davies, writing-master, of Hereford, "the greatest Master of the Pen that England in her age beheld," says Fuller; as a poet not without esteem of his great contemporaries, yet of whose existence I obtain no trace in the anthologies. Even Ward, 1880, has ignored him, though two quarto volumes of Davies' Poetical Works were

published in 1878, rescued from oblivion by the indefatigable Dr. Grosart. To me, as to Dr. Grosart, "Wotton is thin and feeble beside these finely woven lines"—his PICTURE OF AN HAPPY MAN, "albeit How happy is he born and taught has secured its place in our literature." Davies' poem appears in the Rights of the Living and the Dead, put as Appendix to his Muse's Sacrifice, printed in 1612; Wotton's may be dated at least two years later.

His principal works are Microcosmos, Humours Heau'n on Earth (in which is a Dantesque Picture of the Plague, that of 1603), Witte's Pilgrimage, The Scourge of Folly - for the most part satyrical epigrams, and The Muse's Sacrifice or Divine Meditations.

P. 51, line 11 — squire is old French esquierre, a carpenter's square; p. 52, line 14, moe or mo more (old usage, held to

Davies' heading is

"To the Lady Wroth: in the deserved praise of heavenly
musick, resembling it to God himselfe."

Am I too venturesome, altering Grosart's joyful to joyless in
The lively death of joyful thoughts?

P. 55-AN HELLESPONT OF CREAM: by master Davies thus prefaced:

"The Author loving these homely meates specially viz., Creame, pancakes, butterd pippin-pies (laugh good people) and tobacco; writ to that worthy and vertuous gentlewoman whom he calls mistrisse, as followeth."

NASH

P. 56- FAIR SUMMER. Sung in Summer's Last Will and Testament: Dodsley's Old Plays. Hazlitt (W. C.) gives in the first stanza Go not yet away, and Go not yet hence in the second.

MARKHAM

P. 57 — SIMPLES. From a play by Markham and Sampson,