Of the poems here printed from the Burley-on-the-Hill MS., none I
think is Donne's. The chief interest of the collection is that it
comes from a commonplace-book of Sir Henry Wotton, and therefore
presumably represents the work of the group of wits to which Donne,
Bacon, and Wotton belonged. I have found only one of them in other
MSS., viz. that which I have called _Life a Play_. This occurs in
quite a number of MSS. in the British Museum, and has been published
in Hannah's _Courtly Poets_. It is generally ascribed to Sir Walter
Raleigh; and Harleian MS. 733 entitles it _Verses made by Sir Walter
Raleigh made the same morning he was executed_. I have printed it
because with the first, and another in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_, it
illustrates Wotton's taste for this comparison of life to a stage, a
comparison probably derived from an epigram in the Greek Anthology,
which may be the source of Shakespeare's famous lines in _As You Like
It_. The epitaph by Jonson on Hemmings, Shakespeare's fellow-actor
and executor, is interesting. A similar epitaph on Burbage is found in
Sloane MS. 1786:
An Epitaph on Mr Richard Burbage the Player.
This life's a play groaned out by natures Arte
Where every man hath his alloted parte.
This man hath now as many men can tell
Ended his part, and he hath done it well.
The Play now ended, think his grave to bee
The retiring house of his sad Tragedie.
Where to give his fame this, be not afraid:
Here lies the best Tragedian ever plaid.