A Surprising Misattribution to Rochester by Bragge

In 1706, the disreputable publisher Benjamin Bragge initiated what, under the subsequent revisions by Edmund Curll and a succession of anonymous publishers, would become the most popular edition of Rochester's poems during the rest of the century: The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honourable the late Earls of Rochester and Roscommon. 1 The poems attributed to Rochester comprise the first part of the volume, and almost entirely consists of satiric and libertine verse; the lyric facility admired by his contemporaries is represented by just two poems, neither currently linked with him ('At the sight of my Phillis from every part' and 'Why do'st thou shade thy lovely face?O why').While 28 of the 36 poems were already circulating in print under his name, only eight are nowadays recognized as genuine.Three years later, Bragge issued a small duodecimo collection of thirteen 'Ingenuous