In praising the poetic talent of Queen Elizabeth the author of The Arte of English Poesie (1589) exclaims that she
easily surmounteth all the rest that have writte before her time or since, for sence, sweetnesse and subtillitie, be it in Ode, Elegie, Epigram, or any other kinde of poeme Heroick or Lyricke, wherein it shall please her Maiestie to employ her penne, …
Few examples of her work survive to provide a basis for measuring the relative amounts of critical judgment and expected flattery in this praise. To these few one more can now perhaps be added. It is a Latin epigram attributed to the Queen that was printed by Paul Melissus, the German humanist, poet, and musician, at the end of a collection of his own Latin poems entitled P. Melissi Mele sive Odae … Epigrammata, published at Nuremberg in 1580. So far as I can determine, modern scholars have not been aware of this poem or of the circumstances that make highly plausible its authenticity as the work of Elizabeth.