The seventeenth-century editions of Francis Beaumont's poems include unattributed verse by other authors; thus, the canon is uncertain. For example, the 1653 edition and later collections include "A Song," which is the first two stanzas of John Donne's "Song. Goe, and catch a falling star," and Thomas Carew's "Secresie Protested." Peter Beal in Index of English Literary Manuscripts accepts the verse canon established by Beaumont's editor Alexander Dyce with the following modifications: "Like a ring without a finger" reassigned to Sir Walter Ralegh; "On the Life of Man" reassigned to Henry King; "On the Tombs in Westminster" reassigned to William Basse. "On Madame Fowler desiring a sonnet to be writ on her," "To Mr B[en]. J[onson]," and "Why should not pilgrims to thy body come" are added to the canon by Beal.

Francis Beaumont, the third son of Francis Beaumont, judge of the common pleas, and younger...