John Leland, sixteenth-century antiquary and defender of the Arthurian legend against Polydore Vergil, is probably better known to historians than to literary scholars. Nevertheless he was an assiduous writer of Latin verse during most of his life, published seven volumes of poetry before his death, and left in manuscript a large collection of epigrams and other occasional verses. In a Bodleian manuscript in Leland's own hand (MS. Top. gen. c. 4, p. 301) we have evidence that he had himself collected these poems for preservation, for he says there, in connection with a poem of his on Chaucer, “in libris meorum epi-grammaton his uersibus eius gloriae assurgo.” This manuscript collection seems not to have been preserved, even in the generation following Leland's death. Our present knowledge of Leland's poemata, aside from those printed during his lifetime, is based upon a manuscript in the hand of John Stow (Bodleian MS. Tanner 464. iv) and a printed edition of 1589 edited by Thomas Newton. A note from Newton to Stow, written on the outside of Stow's manuscript, shows that he had examined this manuscript, but his text is obviously based on a different one. Not only are there many differences in the readings of individual poems, but there is also the fact that the Stow manuscript contains twenty-eight poems not included in the printed edition.