I would observe upon this, that where the verb follows the negative nominatives, as in the passage quoted by Mr. Malone, this is the phraseology, not only of Shakespeare's, but of the present time, as in Gray:

"Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail,

Nor ev'n thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail," &c.

but I defy any commentator to produce an instance of such a construction where the verb precedes the nominatives. In that case, the verb has already affirmed, before the word of negation comes, and the negative cannot relate back, to make the verb deny. In other words, it is impossible that "I am a lion, nor a lion's dam" can mean, "I am not a lion, nor a lion's dam," or "I am neither a lion nor a lion's dam." I boldly say there is no instance in the English language at any time of such a phraseology. And what does Mr. Malone do with the word else? He gives it no meaning. And why say a fell or cruel lion? Or introduce a lion's dam or mother? I will now show how one little letter shall light up the

1 The following passage, from Warner's "Albion's England," may be adduced as an instance of such phraseology :

"The Musists, though themselves they please,

Their doings else find meed nor ease."

Here the words though and else prepare the mind for a negation as to both subjects. In our passage, there is no such preparation, and the word else comes after the negative and not before. If our lines had run as follows:

"Then know that I one Snug the joiner, am
Else a lion fell nor lion's dam,

it would have been analogous to the couplet from Warner, and would have meant that he was not, besides being Snug the joiner, either a lion or a lion's dam. As it is, Mr. Malone's construction can never be made.

whole passage with natural meaning, and give a sense to every word:

"Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am

A lion's fell, nor else no lion's dam;
For if I should as lion come in strife

Into this place, 'twere pity of my life."

"I, Snug the joiner, am only a lion's skin; nor any otherwise than as a lion's skin may be said to be pregnant with a lion, am I the mother of one; for it were pity of my life that I should come into this place in collision as a lion." Fell is a word scarcely yet obsolete for skin; and now the words else and dam have a meaning; and all this sense is obtained by only supposing that the letters has dropped from the text. It might indeed be done without any other alteration than that of a hyphen, lion-fell; but, as we find, in other parts of Shakespeare, the words calf's skin and lion's skin, with the genitive, I have thought it better to insert the s.

My interpretation is in some degree confirmed by the reading of the old quarto editions, which have, instead of "one Snug the joiner," "as Snug the joiner." If the editor of the first folio had understood the meaning of fell, he needed not to have made the alteration.

In a future volume of the Shakespeare Society's Papers, I shall continue my conjectures.

BARRON FIELD.

ART. VIII.-Poems attributed to Thomas Nash, contained in Dowland's "Songs or Ayres," 1600.

A contributor to the first volume of "The Shakespeare Society's Papers," who subscribes himself G. L., has asked for farther information respecting two stanzas attributed to Thomas Nash in the Introduction to the reprint of "Pierce Penniless's Supplication." G. L. has himself supplied a transcript of them (with the addition of a third stanza) from a MS. in the Bodleian Library, appended to some printed copies of tracts by Nicholas Breton; and he suggests that the third stanza, in truth, formed part of some separate poem. That he is right in this conjecture I have proof now before me, in a copy of a very rare musical work by John Dowland, called his "Second Booke of Songs or Ayres," printed in folio, London, 1600; that is to say, eight years after the original publication of "Pierce Penniless's Supplication." The following poem of three stanzas, without any author's name, is there found set to music, and it will be observed that the first six lines agree precisely with the stanza supplied by G. L., and inserted on p. 79 of Vol. I. of "The Shakespeare Society's Papers."

"Praise blindnesse, eyes, for seeing is deceit ;

Be dumbe, vaine tongue, words are but flattering windes;
Breake, hart, and bleed, for there is no receit
To purge inconstancy from most men's mindes.
And so I wakt amaz'd, and could not move:
I know my dreame was true, and yet I love.

"And if thine eares, false heralds to thy hart,
Convey unto thy head hopes to obtaine,
Then, tell thy hearing thou art deafe by art,
Now love is art that wonted to be plaine.
And so I wak't, &c.

"Now none is bald, except they see his braines;

Affection is not known, till one be dead;
Rewards for love are labours for his paines,

Loves quiver made of gold, his shafts of lead.
And so I wak'd," &c.

The two last stanzas are hardly equal to the first, but this quotation establishes the correctness of G. L., when he stated his opinion that the first stanza was part of a poem which had no connection with the two stanzas which conclude Nash's edition of Sir P. Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella," printed in 1591. It is remarkable that these two stanzas are also set to music in Dowland's "Second Booke of Songs or Ayres," 1600, so that both poems are contained in the same work; and it is possible that from thence they were copied (one only partially) by the writer of the MS. in the Bodleian Library. They differ however in Dowland's work both from that MS. and from Nash's edition of "Astrophel and Stella," and on this account I subjoin them :

"If fluds of teares could cleanse my follies past,
And smoakes of sighes might sacrifice for sinne;
If groning cries might salve my fault at last,
Or endles mone for error pardon win;
Then would I cry, weepe, sigh, and ever mone
Mine error, fault, sins, follies past and gone.

"I see my hopes must wither in their bud,
I see my favours are no lasting flowers;

I see that woords will breede no better good
Then losse of time, and lightening but at houres.
Thus when I see, then thus I say therefore,

That favours, hopes, and words can blinde no more."

What seems to make it doubtful whether the writer of the MS. in the Bodleian Library copied these stanzas from

Dowland's work is, that they there stand in the order in which they occur in Nash's "Astrophel and Stella," whereas in Dowland's work they are reversed. What I have said does not at all tend to settle the question, whether either or both were by Nash: that must still remain a matter of speculation, founded upon similarity of style; and it may lead to the important conclusion, that the anonymous poems in Dowland's work (and none of them there have signatures or initials) were written by Nash, expressly for music, and that they are to be added to the list of his few extant poetical productions. On the other hand, a poem of five stanzas beginning

"Faction, that ever dwells

In courts where wit excells,"

is contained both in Dowland's "Second Booke of Songs or Ayres," and in Nash's edition of "Astrophel and Stella,” and in the latter it has the initials E. O. at the end, which most probably were meant to indicate the Earl of Oxford. This, of course, was not by Nash, unless we suppose him to have written it, and to have passed it upon the world as the production of a then well-known poetical nobleman. This, as it seems to me, is highly improbable.

April 2nd, 1845.

T. J. SCOTT.