These three manuscripts are obviously derived from one common source. They contain the same poems, except that _D_ has one more than _H49_, and both of these have some which are not in _Lec_. The order of the poems is the same, except that _D_ and _Lec_ show more signs of an attempt to group the poems than _H49_. The text, with some divergences, especially on the part of _Lec_, is identical. One instance seems to point to one of them being the source of the others. In the long _Obsequies to the Ld. Harrington, Brother to the Countess of Bedford_, the original copyist, after beginning l. 159 'Vertue whose flood', had inadvertently finished with the second half of l. 161, 'were [_sic_] blowne in, by thy first breath.' This error is found in all the three manuscripts. It may, however, have come from the common source of this poem, and there are divergences in order and text which make me think that they are thus derived from one common source. A special interest attaches to this collection, apart from the relative excellence of its text and soundness of its canon, from the probability that a manuscript of this kind was used for a large, and that textually the best, part of the edition of 1633. This becomes manifest on a close examination of the order of the poems and of their text. Mr. Gosse has said, in speaking of the edition of 1633: 'The poems are thrown together without any attempt at intelligent order; neither date, nor subject, nor relation is in the least regarded.' This is not entirely the case. Satires, Elegies, Epigrams, Songs are grouped to some extent. The disorder which prevails is due to two causes: (1) to the fact that the printer set up from a variety of sources. There was no previous collected edition to guide him. Different friends supplied collections, and of a few poems there were earlier editions. He seems to have passed from one of these to another as was most convenient at the moment. Perhaps some were lent him only for a time. The differences between copies of _1633_ show that it was prepared carefully, but emended from time to time while the printing was actually going on. (2) The second source of the order of the poems is their order in the manuscripts from which they were copied. Now a comparison of the order in _1633_ with that in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ reveals a close connexion between them, and throws light on the composition of _1633_.