i o Introduction. 



The pedigree, as extracted, is as follows : 



Sir Walter Dennys. = Agnes, daughter and heir Robert Davers, or 



| Danvers. 



John Dennys of Pucklechurch. = Fortune, widow of Wm. Kemys, of Newport, and 



| daughter of Thos. Norton of Bristol. 



Hugh Dennys, died 1559. -- Katherine, daughter of Kdw. Trye, of Hardvvick, 



co. of Gloucester; died 1583, at Pucklechurch. 



John Dennys, died 1609, buried at Puckle- - Eliamr, or Helena, daughter of Thos. Millet, co. 



church. Warwick. 



Henry Dennys, son and heir. :-.... ... 



John Dennys eldest son and heir, died 1638. Margaret, daughter of Sir George Speke, of 



Whitehackington, co. Somerset. 



lohn Dennys owner of Bitton Farm, died 1660. = Mary, daughter and co-heir of Nat. Still, of 



Mutton : died 1698 annis plena : buried at Puckle- 

 church. 



No date, it will be perceived, is associated with Sir Walter Dennys, but 

 on referring to a more detailed pedigree from the same source, I find that his 

 eldest son, Sir William Dennys, "founded a guild in the year 1520." We may 

 therefore reasonably assign his birth to the latter part of the fifteenth century, 

 or to the very beginning of the sixteenth. These premises are borne out by 

 the fact that John, his second brother, (author of the " Secrets," according to 

 Sir Harris Nicolas) left a son, Hugh Dennys, who died in 1559, and at no 

 immature age, since he was married and had four offspring. If, therefore, Sir 

 Harris Nicolas's assumption be correct, we must ascribe the poem to the early 

 part, or at the latest, to the middle of the sixteenth century, whereas its. style 

 and general character belong, assuredly, to a later period. Collateral evidence, 

 on the side of Mr. Ellacombe's opinion, is to be found in the fact that R. J. 

 (Roger Jackson) in his dedication, does not throw the poem far back, in a 

 posthumous sense, but merely says : 



" This poem being sent unto me to be printed after the death of the 

 author, who intended to have done it, in his life, but was prevented by 

 death," &c. &c. 



Had the " Secrets " been in existence half a century, some allusion would 

 surely have been made to the circumstance. 



Mr. Carew Hazlitt, in his " Handbook to Early English Literature," cites 

 the bibliography of the book under notice as being "very unsettled." I had 



