_Englands Helicon_, printed in 1600, is a collection of songs almost without exception in pastoral guise. The _Eclogue_ introducing the Somerset _Epithalamion_ is Donne's only experiment in this favourite convention. Donne's friend Christopher Brooke contributed an _Epithalamion_ to this collection, but not until 1614. It is remarkable that Donne's poem _The Baite_ did not find its way into _Englands Helicon_ which contains Marlowe's song and two variants on the theme. In 1600 Eleazar Edgar obtained a licence to publish _Amours by J. D. with Certen Oyr._ (i.e. other) _sonnetes by W. S._ Were Donne and Shakespeare to have appeared together? The volume does not seem to have been issued.] [Footnote 3: e.g. Among Drummond of Hawthornden's miscellaneous papers; in Harleian MS. 3991; in a manuscript in Emmanuel College, Cambridge.] [Footnote 4: So on the first page, and the opening sentences of the letter defend the use of the word 'Understanders'. Nevertheless the second and third pages have the heading, running across from one to the other, 'The Printer to the Reader.'] [Footnote 5: 'Will: Marshall sculpsit' implies that Marshall executed the plate from which the whole frontispiece is taken, including portrait and poem, not that he is responsible for the portrait itself. To judge from its shape the latter would seem to have been made originally from a medallion. Marshall, the _Dictionary of National Biography_ says, 'floruit c. 1630,' so could have hardly executed a portrait of Donne in 1591. Mr. Laurence Binyon, of the Print Department of the British Museum, thinks that the original may have been by Nicholas Hilyard (see II. p. 134) whom Donne commends in _The Storme_. The Spanish motto suggests that Donne had already travelled. The portrait does not form part of the preliminary matter, which consists of twelve pages exclusive of the portrait. It was an insertion and is not found in all the extant copies. The paper on which it is printed is a trifle smaller than the rest of the book.] [Footnote 6: One or two copies seem to have got into circulation without the _Errata_. One such, identical in other respects with the ordinary issue, is preserved in the library of Mr. Beverley Chew, New York. I am indebted for this information to Mr. Geoffrey Keynes, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, who is preparing a detailed bibliography of Donne's works.]