Owing to the almost perfect identity of these verses with some by a German
poet, George Rudolph Weckerlin, a doubt has been expressed in a German work
as to whether they are to be considered the production of Sir Henry Wotton,
or a translation from the _Geistliche und weltliche Gedichte_ of Weckerlin,
a lyrical poet of considerable eminence and popularity in his day, and who
died in London in 1651. Weckerlin was employed in important affairs
connected with the Protestants in Germany during the Thirty Years' War, as
secretary to an embassy in London from that country; and was also employed
on several occasions by James I. and Charles I. An edition of Weckerlin's
_Poems_ was edited by him while he resided in London, and was printed at
Amsterdam in 1641, and again in 1648. A previous collection had {421}
appeared at Stutgart in 1618. Many of his poems, which he had left in MS.
with his brother Ludwig in Germany, perished with him during the horrors of
the war. "What has become," Weckerlin feelingly exclaims, "of my _Myrta_,
that dear poem, composed of so many sonnets and stanzas?"
Perhaps some of the readers of "N. & Q.," who are conversant with the
literature of England and Germany during the period alluded to, may be able
to solve the question as to the real author of the verses mentioned.