Volume 1 — APPENDIX C. I. POEMS FROM ADDITIONAL MS. 25707. Page 433.

The authorship of the four poems here printed from A25 has been discussed in the Text and Canon, &c. There is not much reason to doubt that the first is what it professes to be. The order of the names in the heading, and the character of the verses both suggest that the second and corresponding verses are Donne's contribution. There is a characteristic touch in each one. I cannot find anything eminently characteristic in any of the rest of the group. The third poem refers to the poetical controversy on Love and Reason carried on with much spirit between the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Benjamin Rudyerd in their Poems as printed by the younger Donne in 1660. A much finer fragment of the debate, beginning—

is attributed to Donne by the Bridgewater MS. and the MS. in the library of the Marquess of Crewe. It is part of a poem by Rudyerd in the debate in the volume referred to.