The handwriting is not identical with that in which the poems are transcribed, and it is impossible to say either when the poems were copied or when the title and date were affixed. One may not build too absolutely on its accuracy; but there are in the three first _Satires_ (which alone the MS. contains) some indications that point to 1593-5 as the probable date. Mr. Chambers notes the reference in 1., 80, 'the wise politic horse,' to Banks' performing horse, and says: 'A large collection of them' (i.e. allusions to the horse) 'will be found in Mr. Halliwell-Phillips's Memoranda on _Love's Labour's Lost_. Only one of these allusions is, however, earlier than 1593. It is in 1591, and refers not to an exhibition in London, but in the provinces, and not to Morocco, which was a bay, but to a white horse. It is probable, therefore, that by 1591 Banks had not yet come to London, and if so the date 1593 on the Harl. MS. 5110 of Donne's _Satires_ cannot be far from that of their composition.' But this is not the only allusion. The same lines run on: Or thou O Elephant or Ape wilt doe. This has been passed by commentators as a quite general reference; but the Ape and Elephant seem to have been animals actually performing, or exhibited, in London about 1594. Thus in _Every Man out of his Humour_, acted in 1599, Carlo Buffone says (IV. 6): ''S heart he keeps more ado with this monster' (i.e. Sogliardo's dog) 'than ever Banks did with his horse, or the fellow with the elephant.' Further, all three are mentioned in the _Epigrams_ of Sir John Davies, e.g.: In Dacum. Amongst the poets Dacus numbered is Yet could he never make an English rime; But some prose speeches I have heard of his, Which have been spoken many an hundred time: The man that keepes the Elephant hath one, Wherein he tells the wonders of the beast: Another Bankes pronounced long agon, When he his curtailes qualities exprest: Hee first taught him that keepes the monuments At Westminster his formall tale to say: And also him which Puppets represents, And also him that w^{th} the Ape doth play: Though all his poetry be like to this, Amongst the poets Dacus numbred is. And again: In Titum Titus the brave and valorous young gallant Three years together in the town hath beene, Yet my Lo. Chancellors tombe he hath not seene, Nor the new water-worke, nor the Elephant. I cannot tell the cause without a smile: Hee hath been in the Counter all the while. Colonel Cunningham has pointed out another reference in Basse's _Metamorphosis of the Walnut Tree_ (1645), where he tells how 'in our youth we saw the Elephant'. Grosart's suggestion that the Elephant was an Inn is absurd.