"YET IF HIS MAJESTY, OUR SOVEREIGN LORD."
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR...] SIR,—The Spectator of February 18th, in a review of " A Treasury of Elizabethan Lyrics," quotes from that book a poem beginning " Yet if His Majesty, our Sovereign Lord," and describes it as probably a new poem, not printed before. But in fact the poem occurs in " Seventeenth Century Lyrics," edited by Professor Saintsbury. My copy, which is of the third edition (undated), I must have had at least seven years. Ina note Professor Saintsbury says, " This magnificent descant was discovered by Mr. Bullen in a manuscript music- book at Christ Church, Oxford, and first printed in his More Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-books.' I should not have reprinted it here without the leave which he most kindly gave me. With him most readers will cry Aut Silurista aut diabolus ; and yet the breath of the Lord of Lyric was so widely diffused then that we cannot be certain of Vaughan's authorship."—I am, Sir, &c., LILIAN M. BAGGE. Stra,sett Hall, Downharn Market.
[Other correspondents, including Mrs. erase, the editor of the anthology reviewed by us last week, mention that the poem is included in numerous modern anthologies. Our ignorance was, we admit, inexcusable. We do not regret it, however, since it incited us to do honour to so splendid a piece of verse.—ED. Spectator.]
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