The queen landed at Burlington on 22nd Feb. 1642, so that Cartwright may have written what precedes; but how could he have written what follows, the fifth stanza of the poem, which mentions an event that did not occur until six or seven years afterwards?

“Look on her enemies, on their Godly lies,
Their holy perjuries,
Their curs’d encrease of much ill gotten wealth,
By rapine or by stealth,
Their crafty friendship knit in equall guilt,
And the Crown-Martyr’s bloud so lately spilt.”

Hence arises my first question—­if Cartwright were not the author of this poem, who was?  Although Izaac Walton, Jasper Mayne, James Howell, Sir John Birkenhead, and a host of other versifyers, introduce the volume with “laudatory lays,” we are not to suppose that they meant to vouch for the genuineness of every production therein inserted and imputed to Cartwright.  Was the whole poem “On the Queen’s Return” foisted in, or only the two stanzas above quoted, which were excluded when the book was called in?

The next poem on which I have any remark to make immediately succeeds that “on the Queen’s Return,” and is entitled “Upon the Death of the Right Valiant Sir Bevill Grenvill, Knight,” who, we know from Lord Clarendon, was killed at Lansdown on 5th July, 1643, only five months before the death of Cartwright, who is supposed to have celebrated his fall.  This production is incomplete, and the subsequent twelve lines on p. 305, are omitted in the ordinary copies of Cartwright’s Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with other Poems:—­

    “You now that boast the spirit, and its sway,
     Shew us his second, and wee’l give the day: 
     We know your politique axiom, Lurk, or fly;
     Ye cannot conquer, ’cause you dare not dye: 
     And though you thank God that you lost none there,
     ’Cause they were such who liv’d not when they were;
     Yet your great Generall (who doth rise and fall,
     As his successes do, whom you dare call,
     As Fame unto you doth reports dispence,
     Either a——­ or his Excellence)
     Howe’r he reigns now by unheard-of laws,
     Could wish his fate together with his cause.”

It is clear to me, that these lines could not have been written in 1643, soon after the death of Sir B. Grenvill; and, supposing any part of the poem to have come from the pen of Cartwright, they must have been interpolated after the elevation of Cromwell to supreme power.

I have thrown out these points for information, and it is probable that some of your readers will be able to afford it:  if able, I conclude they will be willing.

It may be an error to fancy that the copy of Cartwright now in my hands, containing the cancelled and uncancelled leaves, is a rarity; but although in my time I have inspected at least thirty copies of his Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with other Poems, I certainly never met with one before with this peculiarity.  On this matter, also, I hope for enlightenment.