The authenticity of all the poems ascribed to Donne in the old editions is a question which has never been systematically and fully considered by his editors and critics. A number of poems not included in these editions have been attributed to him by Simeon (1856), Grosart (1873), and others on very insufficient grounds, whether of external evidence or internal probability. Of the poems published in _1633_, one, Basse's _An Epitaph upon Shakespeare_, was withdrawn at once; another, the metrical _Psalme 137_, has been discredited and Chambers drops it.[1] Of those which were added in _1635_, one _To Ben Ionson. 6 Ian. 1603_, has been dropped by Grosart, the Grolier Club edition, and Chambers on the strength of a statement made to Drummond by Ben Jonson.[2] But the editors have accepted Jonson's statement without apparently giving any thought to the question whether, if this particular poem is by Roe, the same must not be true of its companion pieces, _To Ben. Ionson. 9 Novembris, 1603_. and _To Sir Tho. Roe. 1603_. They are inserted together in _1635_, and are strikingly similar in heading, in style, and in verse. Nor has any critic, so far as I know, taken up the larger question raised by rejecting one of the poems ascribed to Donne in _1635_, namely, are not all the poems then added made thereby to some extent suspect, and if so can we distinguish those which are from those which are not genuine? I propose then to discuss, in the light afforded by a wider and more connected survey of the seventeenth-century manuscript collections, the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Donne in the old editions, and to ask what, if any, poems may be added to those there published. For this discussion an invaluable starting-point is afforded by the edition of 1633, the manuscript group _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and the manuscript group _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. Taken together, and used to check one another, these three collections provide us with a _corpus_ of indubitable poems which may be used as a test by which to try other claimants. Of course, it must be clearly understood that the only proof which can be offered that Donne is the author of many poems is, that they are ascribed to him in edition after edition and manuscript after manuscript, and that they bear a strong family resemblance. There is no edition issued by himself or in his lifetime.[3]