discourseth in his booke called The English Poete, which booke being lately come to my hands, I mynde also by Gods grace, upon further advisement, to publish.

I believe the book here mentioned is that which appeared under Sir Philip Sidney's name, nine years after his death, as the Apologie for Poetrie. The style is the same as that of the writer of these notes.

The "Glosses" are full of curious reading and reflection, and show an intimacy with the author's meaning and sources of information which, in my opinion, renders the pretence of editorship by a friend absurd on the face of it. Even more absurd, if possible, is the pretence that this is done in his absence and without his knowledge and consent. So much has been written of the greatness of the Elizabethan age that we are apt to forget how rude and simple the England of that day really was. The author presumes on the simplicity of his audience, and on the entire absence of "publicity," which made literary deception a very easy matter. The "glosse" under "Januarie" is a good example of this, where the motives of the author of the poems in adopting certain feigned names are discussed with an intimacy and elaboration which are quite unexampled in the case of one man writing about another. The writer of the notes, as will be seen from the extracts which I shall give, shows exceptional reading and facility; yet, so far as is known, he never wrote anything else, though "Edward Kirke,” with whom, under the accepted theory, he is identified, lived to mature age. It is true that in the "glosse" under " November" he mentions "my Commentarye upon the Dreames of the same Authour," but that never appeared; nor did the poem referred to appear under that title, but it was probably incorporated in another. The following are two of these notes from "Januarie," which I give as examples:

Colin Cloute, is a name not greatly used, and yet have I sene a Poesie of M. Skeltons under that title. But indeede the word

1 Edward Kirke, according to Dr. Grosart, became rector of Risby, Suffolk, and survived to 1613, æt. 60, "as both his epitaph and will show."

Colin is Frenche, and used of the French Poete Marot (if he be worthy of the name of a Poete) in a certein Æglogue. Under which name this Poete secretly shadoweth himself, as sometimes did Virgil under the name of Tityrus, thinking it much fitter then such Latine names, for the great unlikelyhoode of the language.

Rosalinde, is also a feigned name, which, being wel ordered, wil bewray the very name of hys love and mistresse, whom by that name he coloureth. So as Ovide shadoweth hys love under the name of Corynna, which of some is supposed to be Julia, themperor Augustus his daughter, and wyfe to Agryppa. So doth Aruntius Stella every where call his Lady Asteris and Ianthis, albe it is wel knowen that her right name was Violantilla: as witnesseth Statius in his Epithalamium. And so the famous Paragone of Italy, Madonna Coelia, in her letters envelopeth her selfe under the name of Zima: and Petrona under the name of Bellochia. And this generally hath bene a common custome of counterfeicting the names of secret Personages.

It seems to me that only a very young writer could have written this. He has not yet learned to use his reading without making a display of it.

Under Hobbinol (by whom, in a later note, he says Gabriel Harvey is intended) the writer makes some observations about "Platonic" love, which are suggested rather by the relations of the author of the poems with his friend "Hobbinol" than by the passage in imitation of Virgil. These remarks would be inapplicable, on the ground of age, to relations between Harvey and Spenser, and it appears to me obvious that, read with them, the poem applies to a boy just verging on adolescence, who has fallen seriously in love with a girl for the first time. Up till then, like many young people of either sex, especially where the intellect or imagination is highly developed, he had conceived a strong attachment for some one older than himself of his own sex, by whom his affection was returned. Owing to the early age at which boys were sent to college in those days, school conditions existed at the Universities, and there is a reference to the bad side of them in the Harvey-Immerito correspondence. I conceive that the author of the poems, who, as a youth at college, had an intimacy with Gabriel Harvey, is here defending himself from the imputations, sometimes serious,

sometimes in the nature of badinage, which arise under such circumstances. It may seem revolutionary to some readers to suggest that these poems were the work of a youth, but I shall expect to produce evidence later which will show that there is nothing improbable in this.

Under "Februarie" the "glosse" states that Gride means "perced": "an old word much used of Lidgate, but not found (that I know of) in Chaucer"; that Threnot is the "name of a Shepheard in Marot his Æglogues"; that The Sovereign of Seas "is Neptune the god of the seas. The saying is borowed of Mimus Publianus"; that Phyllis is "the name of some mayde unknowen, whom Cuddie, whose person is secrete, loved. The name is usuall in Theocritus, Virgile and Mantuane"; that O my liege is "a manner of supplication wherein is kindly coloured the affection and speache of ambitious men"; and under There grew there is a note that "This tale of the Oake and the Brere he telleth as learned of Chaucer, but it is cleane in another kind, and rather like to Esope's fables. It is very excellente for pleasaunt descriptions being altogether a certaine Icon or Hypotyposis of disdainfull younkers."

On "Threnots Embleme "

Iddio, perche è vecchio,
Fa suoi al suo essempio,

"E. K." imposes the following essay :

This embleme is spoken of Thenot, as a moral of his former tale namelye, that God, which is himselfe most aged, being before al ages, and without beginninge, maketh those, whom he loveth, like to himselfe, in heaping yeares unto theyre dayes, and blessing them wyth longe lyfe. For the blessing of age is not given to all, but unto those whome God will so blesse. And albeit that many evil men reache unto such fulnesse of yeares, and some also wexe old in myserie and thraldome, yet therefore is not age ever the lesse blessing. For even to such evill men such number of yeares is added, that they may in their last dayes

1 "William Webbe" recurs to the subject, the allusion to which in the Shepheards Calender he had “hearde some curious heades call in question" "skant allowable to English eares," and he explains that " theyr nyce opinion ouer shooteth the Poets meaning.'

as

repent, and come to their first home: So the old man checketh the rash-headed boy for despysing his gray and frostye heares.

Whom Cuddye doth counterbuff with abyting and bitter proverbe, spoken indeede at the first in contempt of old age generally for it was an old opinion, and yet is continued in some mens conceipt, that men of yeares have no feare of God at al, or not so much as younger folke; for that being rypened with long experience, and having passed many bitter brunts and blastes of vengeaunce, they dread no stormes of Fortune, nor wrathe of God, nor daunger of menne, as being eyther by longe and ripe wisedome armed against all mischaunces and adversitie, or with much trouble hardened against all troublesome tydes : lyke unto the Ape, of which is sayd in Æsops fables, that, oftentimes meeting the Lyon, he was at first sore aghast and dismayed at the grimnes and austeritie of hys countenance, but at last, being acquainted with his lookes, he was so furre from fearing him, that he would familiarly gybe and jest with him: Suche longe experience breedeth in some men securitie. Although it please Erasmus, a great clerke, and good old father, more fatherly and favourablye to construe it, in his Adages, for his own behoofe. That by the proverbe, "Nemo senex metuit Jovem," is not meant, that old men have no feare of God at al, but that they be furre from superstition and Idolatrous regard of false Gods, as is Jupiter. But his greate learning notwithstanding, it is to plaine to be gainsayd, that olde men are muche more enclined to such fond fooleries, then younger heades.

It will be observed that this is in the manner of Bacon's Essays. The same thought about old age occurs in his essay "Of Youth and Age": "But for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the pre-eminence," etc.; and more fully in the "Differences between Youth and Old Age" in his History of Life and Death. The treatise is in Latin, but I give the passage from Spedding's translation (Works, v. 319):

Youth hath modesty and a sense of shame, old age is somewhat hardened; a young man has kindness and mercy, an old man has become pitiless and callous . . . youth is inclined to religion and devotion by reason of its fervency and inexperience of evil, in old age piety cools through the lukewarmness of charity and long intercourse with evil, together with the difficulty of believing [i.e. believing what people say].

The expression in "E. K.'s" note, " God, which is him

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selfe most aged," is, no doubt, partly suggested by the representations in the "mystery" plays and in Christian art. The idea is used with striking effect in King Lear, where Lear, seeing Goneril enter, exclaims

O heavens,

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,

Make it your cause; send down, and take my part! (ii. 4.)

Under "March" a verse-translation by the author is announced in a note which is in the same manner as Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients. It also (with the note on the "Embleme" which follows) belongs to the train of thought out of which the "Maske of Cupid" in Book III. of the Faerie Queene is constructed :

Swaine, a boye: For so is he described of the Poetes to be a boye, s. always freshe and lustie: blindfolded, because he maketh no difference of personages: wyth divers coloured winges, s. ful of flying fancies: with bowe and arrow, that is, with glaunce of beautye, which prycketh as a forked arrowe. He is sayd also to have shafts, some leaden, some golden: that is, both pleasure for the gracious and loved, and sorow for the lover that is disdayned or forsaken. But who liste more at large to behold Cupids colours and furniture, let him reade ether Propertius, or Moschus his Idyllion of winged love, being now most excellently translated into Latine, by the singuler learned man Angelus Politianus whych worke I have seene, amongst other of thys Poets doings, very wel translated also into Englishe Rymes.

The "glosse" on the "Embleme" is in the poet's own vein whenever he comments on the effects of passing love. It is always a matter for regret, a waster of time and talent, a folly, a triumph of "will" (the natural appetites) over "wit" (the rational faculty); but when it comes through the sight of physical beauty and the fatal glance of the eye, there is no escape from it. Such is the fate of the soul imprisoned in this "clayey lodging," in "the dungeon of the body."1 He praises faithful love in the highest language, but, in his own experience, the higher form of passion is rather a love of love or beauty, and the

1 These words occur in Sidney's Apologie, and in one of Nashe's writings, but the same thought occurs, in various terms, in Spenser's works.