But even this is not all. In Ellis’s “Specimens of the early English Poets,” 5th edition, 1845, among the pieces credited to Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke) is a “Song,” with these words in brackets:
“To be found in ‘England’s Helicon,’ where it is signed Ignoto.”
On turning to the edition of 1614 we find that song entitled “Another, of his Cynthia.” It is preceded by two, evidently by the same pen, entitled, “To his Flocks,” and “To his Love” and is followed by still “Another to his Cynthia.” But all these are anonymous
in the edition of 1614, and the editor appends to the last one the following remark:
“These three [or four?] ditties were taken out of Maister John Dowland’s Book of Tableture for the Lute. The authors’ names not there set down, and therefore left to their owners.”
But it happens that the four ditties are all credited to “Ignoto” in the Table of Contents, prepared by the _other editor_, so that in the edition of 1614 “Ignoto” has twenty pieces, besides the one assigned to Marlowe.
With all this confusion what are we to believe in regard to “Ignoto”? Was he sometimes Raleigh, sometimes Barnfield, sometimes Dyer, sometimes Greville,
and sometimes Shakspere, or some one else? Or was he a single person who “loved better to be a poet than to be counted so” and who affected to hoodwink the above-named Greville by writing to him in 1596: “For poets I can commend none, being resolved to be ever a stranger to them”?
And here let us note a bit of internal evidence that Bacon wrote the little poem in praise of the “Faery Queen” signed “Ignoto.” One couplet of it is as follows:
“For when men know the goodness of the wine, ’Tis needless for the host to have a sign.”
No. 517 of Bacon’s “Promus of Formularies and Elegancies” is this:
The word “bush” as applied to wine is thus defined by Webster:
“branch of ivy (as sacred to Bacchus) hung out at vintners’ doors, or as a tavern sign; hence a tavern sign, or the tavern itself.”
“‘If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.’” Shak.[As You Like It.]
We leave the reader to put this and that together argument or comment is superfluous.
And now what shall we say in regard to Marlowe’s ostensible authorship of a popular song, which was attributed to Shakspere in 1599? Is it not presumable that “Ignoto,” who wrote the “Nymph’s Reply,” and followed it with “Another of the same nature made since” in imitation of the song subscribed “Chr. Marlowe”—is it not probable that “Ignoto” ascribed his own original song to Marlowe?