hailed with intense delight,
may I inquire of some of your numerous readers, who seem to take as much
delight as myself in whatever concerns our great dramatist and his
writings, whether they can throw any light upon the subject?

Again: "A peculiar interest," Mr. Collier says, "attaches to one of the
pieces in John Dowland's _First Book of Songs_ (p. 57.), on account of
the initials of 'W. S.' being appended to it, in a manuscript of the
time preserved in the Hamburgh City Library. It is inserted in
_England's Helicon_, 4to., 1600, as from Dowland's _Book of Tablature_,
without any name or initials; and looking at the character and language
of the piece, it is at least not impossible that it was the work of our
great dramatist, to whom it has been assigned by some continental
critics. A copy of it was, many years ago, sent to the author by a
German scholar of high reputation, under the conviction that the poem
ought to be included in any future edition of the works of Shakspeare.
It will be admitted that the lines are not unworthy of his pen; and,
from the quality of other productions in the same musical work, we may
perhaps speculate whether Shakspeare were not the writer of some other
poems there inserted. If we were to take it for granted, that a sonnet
in _The Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599, was by Shakspeare, because it is
there attributed to him, we might be sure that he was a warm admirer of
Dowland,

'whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense.'

However, it is more than likely, that the sonnet in which this passage
is found was by Barnfield, and not by Shakspeare: it was printed by
Barnfield in 1598, and reprinted by him in 1605, notwithstanding the
intermediate appearance of it in _The Passionate Pilgrim_."

May I inquire if any new light has been thrown upon this disputed song
since the publication of Mr. Collier's _Lyric Poems_ in 1844?

The song is addressed to Cynthia, and, as Mr. Collier says, is not unworthy
of Shakspeare's muse. As it is not of any great length, perhaps it may be
thought worthy of insertion in "N. & Q."

"TO CYNTHIA.

"My thoughts are wing'd with hopes, my hopes with love;
Mount, love, unto the moone in cleerest night,
And say, as she doth in the heavens move,
In earth so wanes and waxes my delight:
And whisper this, but softly, in