62 The Real Author of the " Secrets" 



"Walton" (continues Mr. Westwood) 

 "had previously ascribed the Secrets to 

 John Davors, and others (Hewlett among 

 them) to Donne and Davies. The volume 

 contains commendatory verses signed * lo 

 Daues,' and is dedicated by the stationer 

 R. J. to Mr. John Harborne, of Tackley, 

 in the county of Oxford. 



"Beloe says of the book that 'perhaps 

 there does not exist in the circle of 

 English literature a rarer volume.' Sir 

 John Hawkins confessed ' he could never 

 get a sight of it.' 



" There is every reason to suppose that 

 Mr. John Dennys, who is shown by the 

 pedigree of the Dennys family to have 

 died at Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, in 

 1609, is the real author of the Secrets , not 

 the grandson of Sir Walter Dennys, put 

 forward for that honour by Sir Harris 

 Nicolas. No date is associated with Sir 

 Walter Dennys, but, on referring to a more 

 detailed pedigree from the same source, 

 it appears 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 



