XIII

SIR JOHN DAVIES'S POEMS

(From the Athenæum for Sept. 2, 1876)

E have to thank Dr Grosart for what is probably a

W quite complete edition of Sir John Davies's Poems.

Besides Nosce Teipsum, the Hymns to Astræa, and other wellknown works, he gives us some 200 pages of pieces 'either printed for the first time, or for the first time published among Davies's Poems. These additions are more important for the sake of the completeness of the collection, than for their intrinsic merit. The metaphrase of some of the psalms, printed from a MS. in the possession of Dr David Laing, though superior to some other efforts of the same kind, is yet far from being a success. The work is executed with the editor's characteristic care and accuracy. A few misprints may have escaped him, as in ii. 30. ('He first taught him that keeps the monuments.') We do not know how he would read the second of these two lines: Brunns which deems himself a faire sweet youth,

Is thirty-nine yeares of age at least ;

Dyce reads:

Is nine-and-thirty years of age at least

with a note, 'So MS., except that it has thirtieth, and we

see no reason for altering or retaining the alteration of 'ranging' into 'raging' in the seventeenth Epig. :

To thoughts of drinking, thriving, duelling, war,

And borrowing money ranging in his mind.

But, so far as the collection and the text are concerned, Dr Grosart has done his work well.

Few will deny that it was work worth doing, and doing well. It is vain indeed to make definitions of poetry which would deprive any poet of his well-won title. Whatever may be said as to what poetry should be, the fact remains that the author of Nosce Teipsum is a poet.

In the kingdom of poetry, as has been said, are many mansions, and undoubtedly one of these belongs to Sir John Davies, however we may describe it, however we may censure its style and arrangement. Far be from us any such critical or scholastic formulæ as would prevent us from all due appreciation of such refined, imaginative thought and subtle, finished workmanship, as mark the first notable philosophical poem of our literature.

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The epigrams possess an interest of a very different kind, for Davies differed a good deal from himself, to speak in a Greek manner. Like Stephano's Monster, he had two voices. His forward voice' is heard when he discourses of the soul of man and the immortality thereof; 'his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and detract.' Dr Grosart, it seems, had 'compunctious visitings' as to republishing these latter utterances; but he had the good sense to resist them. Certainly he would have failed to do his duty had he not resisted them. And one must be careful not to judge in an exaggerated manner of what there is of grossness in these pieces. There are many worse ways

of speaking than plain language. Words that are nauseous to our fine palates had once no bad taste for natures that were certainly as truly healthful and as genuinely refined as we can boast to be. Anyhow, the life pictures these epigrams give are much too precious to be lost or thrown aside. They bring the old Elizabethan London vividly before us, with all its rough humours, its wild wit, its boisterous vitality. They did not play at living, those Elizabethans, but lived hard, and fully and furiously. It was not their way to sip at the cup of enjoyment, they drank deep, and jested loudly, and laughed louder.

Here is a portrait from the gallery :

Oft in my laughing times, I name a Gull;
But this new term will many questions breed ;
Therefore at first I will express in full,
Who is a true and perfect Gull indeed.

A Gull is he who fears a velvet gown,

And when a wench is brave dares not speak to her.

A Gull is he which traverseth the town,

And is for marriage known a common wooer.
A Gull is he which while he proudly wears

A silver-hilted rapier by his side,

Endures the lies and knocks about the ears,
Whilst in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide.
A Gull is he which wears good handsome clothes,
And stands in Presence stroking up his hair,
And fills up his imperfect speech with oaths,
But speaks not one wise word throughout the year.
But to define a Gull in terms precise;

A Gull is he which seems and is not wise.

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books as Mr Hubert Hall's Society in the Elizabethan Age and the volume now before us. Mr Hall's highly interesting and most useful work reproduces 'original matter,' and gives us information that is 'certainly new.' Mr Macray's work is itself a piece, or a set of pieces, of 'original matter.' It consists of three plays, two now printed for the first time, that brings vividly before us a certain phase of Elizabethan life, and might perhaps provide Mr Hall with some illustrations, if to his excellent gallery of the landlord, the burgess, the courtier, and the other persons he portrays, he should presently be inclined to add the literary man.

It is strange, indeed, that the two plays now printed for the first time should not have been discovered before. They

'The Pilgrimage to Parnassus, with the Two Parts of the Return from Parnassus. Three Comedies performed in St John's College, Cambridge, A.D. MDXCVII.-MDCI. Edited from MSS. by the Rev. W. D. Macray. (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.)

are referred to in a somewhat obscure passage in the Prologue to what we must now call the second part of The Return from Parnassus :

'The Pilgrimage to Parnassus and the Returne from Pernassus,' says Momus, 'haue stood the honest Stagekeepers in many a crownes expence for linckes and vizards; purchased many a Sophister a knock with a clubbe; hindred the buttlers box, and emptied the colledge barrells; and now vnlesse you know the subject well, you may returne home as wise as you came; for this last is the last part of the Returne from Parnassus, that is the last time that the authors wit wil turne vpon the toe in this vaine and at this time the scene is not at Parnassus, that is, lookes not good invention in the face.'

Which words seem to mean that the preceding plays had been extremely popular-had often been acted by link-light, had led to brawls, perhaps, by some at that time unmistakable personalities, greatly diminished the usual Christmas gambling, and led to the absorption of much college ale by those whom the performance with its excitement and shouting had made unquenchably thirsty. But we may presume the third play was yet more popular: perhaps because in its satire it appealed to a yet larger circle, and dealt with a subject about which there was just then much irritation. Its alternative name is 'the Scourge of Simony;' and among other things it gives a very full and vigorous picture of the disreputable traffic in 'livings'-the 'steeple-fairs '—that then prevailed. (Are they quite extinct in these 'enlightened' days?) However this may be, the third play was twice printed in 1606, and, though forgotten for a time, has long been well known and appreciated by Shakespearian scholars; the famous scene in Act IV., where Philomusus and Studioso in their desperate destitution think of betaking themselves to the stage, and apply to those distinguished professionals, Burbage and Kempe, and Burbage and Kempe boast of our fellow Shakespeare' and his prowess, having