Sir Henry Wotton thus expresses himself on the circumstance which I conceive to have been misinterpreted: "For the work itself [a dainty piece of entertainment, by Milton] I had viewed some good while before with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R.'s _Poems_, printed at Oxford; whereunto [it] is added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader _con la bocca dolce_."--_Reliquiæ Wottonianæ_, 1672. In the poems of Milton, as edited by himself in 1645, the date of this letter is "13th April, 1638;" and as the _Poems_ of "Thomas Randolph, master of arts, and late fellow of Trinity colledge in Cambridge," were printed at Oxford in that year, in small quarto, it may be assumed that the gift of _Mr. R._ was a copy of that volume, with the addition of the _Maske_, as printed in the same size in 1637. Such was the conclusion of Warton, and such is mine. The question at issue is, Who was _Mr. R._? Warton says, "I believe _Mr. R._ to be John Rouse," the keeper of the Bodleian library. Is it not more probable that _Mr. R._ means Robert Randolph, master of arts, and student of Christchurch--a younger brother of Thomas Randolph, and the editor of his poems? I must first dispose of the assertion that the friendship between Rouse and Milton "appears to have subsisted in 1637." There is no evidence of their friendship till 1647; and that evidence is the ode to Rouse, to which this address is prefixed: "Jan. 23. 1646. Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis academiæ bibliothecarium. De libro poematum amisso, _quem ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat_, ut cum aliis nostris in bibliotheca publica reponeret, ode." It seems that Milton did not send the volume of 1645 till a copy of it had been requested; no evidence, certainly, of old friendship! I admit the probability that Wotton and Rouse were friends; but why should Rouse _officiously stitch up_, as Warton expresses it, the _Mask_ of Milton with the _Poems_ of Thomas Randolph, and present the volume to Wotton? Did he give away that which is still wanting in the Bodleian library? Admit my novel conjecture, and all the difficulties vanish. Thomas Randolph, says Phillips, was "one of the most pregnant young wits of his time;" and Robert, who was also noted as a poet, could scarcely fail to offer the poems of his brother to so eminent a person as sir Henry Wotton. As sir Henry _yearly went to Oxford_, he may have made acquaintance with Robert; and Robert may have been introduced to Milton by Thomas, who was for eight years his cotemporary at Cambridge, and in the enjoyment of much more celebrity. The _Maske_ may have been added as an experiment in criticism.