As there is no need to adopt a strictly chronological order for the poems included in the present volume, I have begun with the Orchestra and Nosce Teipsum of Sir John Davies (1569-1626), who was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant figures of the Elizabethan Age. Well-born and gently bred, educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford, Davies was exceptionally fortunate in escaping the pecuniary cares that harassed so many Elizabethan men of letters. From the Middle Temple he was called to the bar in 1595 (at the age of twenty-six). In the previous year Orchestra had been entered in the Stationers' Register, but the poem was first published in 1596. From the dedicatory sonnet to Richard Martin we learn that it was written in fifteen days. There are, however, no signs of haste in the writing, and it may fairly be claimed that this poem in praise of dancing is a graceful monument of ingenious fancy. Lucian composed a valuable and entertaining treatise on dancing, and I suspect that ?e?? ?????se?? gave Davies the idea of writing Orchestra.

In the opening stanzas[1] we are presented with a picturesque description of

lit with a thousand lamps on a festal night when the suitors had assembled, at the queen's invitation, to hear the minstrel Phoemius sing the praises of the heroes who had fought at Troy. With such beauty shone Penelope that the suitors were abashed at their temerity in having dared to woo her. But one 'fresh and jolly knight,' Antinous, so far from being dismayed,

She blushingly declined, and mildly chided him for trying to persuade her to new-fangled follies. Forthwith he launched into a rapturous disquisition on the antiquity of dancing, which began when Love persuaded the jarring elements—fire, air, earth, and water—to cease from conflict and observe true measure. The sun and moon, the fixed and wandering stars, the girdling sea and running streams, all 'yield perfect forms of dancing.' With exuberant fancy, fetching his illustrations from near and far, he pursues his theme through many richly-coloured stanzas. It may be worth while to remark (as his editors have been silent on the subject) that Davies does not scruple to borrow freely from Lucian. Take, for instance, stanza 80:—

Now hear Lucian:—

Here is another example (Stanza 17):—

With this compare Lucian (as Englished by Jasper Mayne): 'First, then, you plainly seem to me not to know that dancing is no new invention or of yesterday's or the other day's growth, or born among our forefathers or their ancestors. But they who most truly derive dancing, say it sprung with the first beginning of the universe, and had a birth equally as ancient as love.' It would be easy to multiply instances. Of course Davies' borrowings from Lucian do not for a moment detract from his poem's merit: indeed they give an added zest.

In the 1596 edition Orchestra ends with a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, and stanzas in praise of Spenser, Daniel, and others. Davies had evidently intended to write a sequel; for, when Orchestra was republished in the collective edition of his poems (1622), it was described on the title-page as 'not finished,' some new stanzas were added, and it ended abruptly in the middle of a simile. The poem is quite long enough as we have it in the 1596 edition, and we need not lament that Davies failed to carry out his intention of continuing it: ?d?? ??a?.

To his youthful days belong the Epigrams, which were bound up with Marlowe's translation of Ovid's Amores (with a Middleburgh imprint): occasionally indecorous, they are seldom wanting in wit and pleasantry.

In February 1597-8, Davies was disbarred for a breach of discipline. He quarrelled with Richard Martin (afterwards Recorder of London)—to whom he had dedicated Orchestra—and assaulted him at dinner in the Middle Temple Hall, breaking a cudgel over his head. Retiring to Oxford, he engaged in the more peaceful occupation of composing Nosce Teipsum, a poem on the immortality of the soul, which was published in 1599. It was an ambitious task that this young disbarred bencher took in hand, but he acquitted himself ably. Some of his modern admirers have exceeded all reasonable bounds in their praise of the poem. Rejecting these extravagant eulogies, we may claim that Davies, while he was leading the life of an inns-of-court man of fashion, had remained a steadfast lover of learning and letters; that he had stored his mind richly; and that his well-turned quatrains have had an inspiring influence on later poets. Young, in Night Thoughts, was under special obligation to Davies. Matthew Arnold had no enthusiasm for Elizabethan writers; but, unless I am greatly mistaken, he had glanced at Nosce Teipsum. In 'A Southern Night' Arnold wrote—

—a stanza that bears a very suspicious resemblance to Davies' quatrain—

All the arguments for and against the immortality of the soul were threshed out ages ago, and there is little or nothing new to say on the subject. A poet's skill lies in graciously attiring the old commonplaces; in searching out the right persuasive words and uttering them so melodiously that dull 'approved verities'—sparkling with sudden lustre—are transmuted into something rich and strange. It is idle to talk about Davies' 'deep and original thinking.' Many stanzas can be brushed aside as tiresome and uncouth; but something will be left. In his handling of the ten-syllabled quatrain (with alternate rhymes) Davies showed considerable deftness. The metre has weight and dignity, but is apt to become stiff and monotonous. Davies certainly succeeded in securing more freedom and variety than might have been anticipated. Inspired by his example, Davenant chose this metre for Gondibert; and Davenant was followed by Dryden, who in the preface to Annus Mirabilis says all that can be said in favour of the quatrain (which was seen to best advantage in Gray's Elegy).

Though few may be at the pains to read through Nosce Teipsum at a blow, it is a poem that lends itself admirably to quotation. Towards the end there is a cluster of fine stanzas('O ignorant poor man,' etc.) that have found their way into many volumes of selected poetry; and even the arid tracts are dotted with green oases. Tennyson, with somewhat wearisome iteration, pleaded through stanza after stanza of In Memoriam that the longing which most men unquestionably have for immortality must needs be based on a sure foundation:—

Davies sums up pithily in a single line:—

A poet greater than Davies, greater than Tennyson, the august Lucretius, in the noble verses that he pondered through the still nights (seeking to do justice to the doctrine of his Master Epicurus), scathingly checks our vaulting aspirations. If we have enjoyed the banquet of life, why should we not rise content and pass to our dreamless sleep? If our life has been wastefully squandered and is become a weariness to us, why should we hesitate to make an end of it? 'Aufer abhinc lacrimas, balatro, et compesce querellas!'

AstrÆa, a series of acrostic verses on Queen Elizabeth, is merely a tour de force of courtly ingenuity. Much more interesting is Davies' group of graceful little poems, Twelve Wonders of the World, published in the second edition (1608) of Davison's Poetical Rhapsody.

In 1603 Davies was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, and in 1606 Attorney-General. His letters to Cecil give a valuable and vivid account of the state of Ireland; and his Discovery of the True Cause why Ireland was never entirely subdued, 1612, is a treatise of the first importance. Davies' political writings wait the attention of a competent editor, who would undoubtedly find absorbing interest in his task.

It was the poet's misfortune to marry a crazy rhapsodical woman (Eleanor Touchet, sister of the notorious Baron Audley), who annoyed him by putting herself into mourning and bidding him 'within three years to expect the mortal blow.' Three days before his death she 'gave him pass to take his long sleep.' He resented these admonitions, and testily exclaimed, 'I pray you weep not while I am alive, and I will give you leave to laugh when I am dead.' On 7th December 1626 he dined with Lord Keeper Coventry, and on the following morning was found dead of apoplexy. It was perhaps fortunate that his life had not been prolonged, for his views of kingly prerogative were high. He had supported the king's demand for a forced loan, and (when 'the mortal blow' really came) was about to succeed Lord Chief Justice Crew, who had been removed from office for refusing to affirm the legality of such loans.

Not much need be said about Six Idillia, 1588, the anonymous translations (pp. 123-146) from Theocritus. It is a performance worthy of George Turberville or 'that painful furtherer of learning' Barnabe Googe. On the verso of the title page is the Horatian inscription:—

Collier, misreading this dedication, claimed the Idillia for Sir Edward Dyer, and his mistake has been followed by some later bibliographers. But in the first place there is nothing to show that 'E.D.' was Sir Edward Dyer; and in the second it is perfectly plain that the translations were dedicated to 'E.D.,' not written by him. The rhymed fourteen-syllable lines are somewhat uncouth and do scant justice to the liquid melody of Theocritus' hexameters; but though these Idillia have no great literary value, the hardy pioneer is entitled to some credit for breaking new ground. Only one copy (preserved in the Bodleian Library) of the original edition is known. Some years ago a small edition, for private circulation, was issued from the press of Rev. H.C. Daniel.

Richard Barnfield(1574-1627) had genuine poetical gifts, but seldom displayed them to advantage. Born in 1574 at Norbury, near Newport, Shropshire, he was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and is conjectured to have been a member of Gray's Inn. He seems to have spent most of his time in the country, leading the life of a country gentleman. In 1594 he published The Affectionate Shepheard (with a dedication to Lady Penelope Rich), and in 1595 Cynthia. His last work, The Encomion of Lady Pecunia, followed in 1598, a second edition (with changes and additions) appearing in 1605. He died in March 1626-7, leaving a son and a grand-daughter. In his will he is described as of 'Dorlestone, in the Countie of Stafford, Esquire.'[4]

The Affectionate Shepheard was inspired by Virgil's Second Eclogue. Though the choice of subject was not happy, it must be allowed that in describing country contentment and the pastimes of silly shepherds Barnfield shows un-laboured fluency and grace, with playful touches of quaint extravagance. The passage beginning 'And when th'art wearie of thy keeping Sheepe'(pp. 159, 160) and ending 'Like Lillyes in a bed of roses shed' is a pleasant piece of poetical embroidery. Barnfield doubtless adopted the six-line stanza in imitation of Venus and Adonis, 1593(which had in turn been modelled on Lodge's Glaucus and Scylla, 1589). It has been recently pointed out—by Mr. Charles Crawford in Notes and Queries—that some passages in The Affectionate Shepheard were closely imitated from Marlowe and Nashe's Dido (published in 1594), and that one line has been taken straight out of Marlowe's Edward II. Appended to The Affectionate Shepheard are The Complainte of Chastitie, in imitation of Michael Drayton, and Hellens Rape—a copy of 'English Hexameters' so atrociously bad that one wonders whether it was written to bring contempt on the metre which Gabriel Harvey and others were vainly striving to popularise.

To Cynthia is prefixed a copy of high-flying commendatory verses, from which very little sense can be extracted, by 'T.T.,' possibly Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of Shakespeare's Sonnets. In the address to 'The Curteous Gentlemen Readers' Barnfield claims indulgence for Cynthia on the ground that it was the first 'imitation of the verse of that excellent Poet, Maister Spencer, in his Fayrie Queene.' The poem is a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, who is adjudged by Jove to have merited the golden apple wrongly given by Paris to Venus. When Barnfield mentioned that he borrowed the metre of Cynthia from Spenser, he forgot to add that the matter was drawn from Peele's Arraignment of Paris. To Cynthia succeed twenty sonnets extolling, after the fashion of the age, the beauty and virtues of an imaginary youth, Ganymede. In the last sonnet Barnfield introduces compliments to Spenser (Colin) and Drayton (Rowland):—

The 'Ode' that follows the sonnets runs trippingly away in easy trochaics; but Cassandra is laboured and languid.

The Encomion of Lady Pecunia has an 'Address to the Gentlemen Readers,' in which Barnfield states that he had been at much pains to find an unhackneyed subject for his pen. After long consideration he had determined to write the praises of money, a theme both new (for none had ventured upon it before) and pleasing (for money is always in esteem). It was in pursuit of money that Hawkins and Drake had lost their lives. Barnfield wrote a fine epitaph on Hawkins:—

His lines on Drake are not quite so happy:—

The Encomion is smoothly written, and is not without humour. A country gentleman in easy circumstances, Barnfield could dally playfully with a subject that had for him no terrors. His example probably led 'T. A.' (Thomas Acheley?) to write The Massacre of Money, 1602. The Complaint of Poetrie for the Death of Liberalitie seems to be an imitation of Spenser's Teares of the Muses. More interesting are the Poems: in divers humors at the end of the booklet, for among them are the sonnet 'If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree,' and the 'Ode' beginning 'As it fell upon a day,' which were long ascribed erroneously to Shakespeare. In the poem entitled 'A Remembrance of some English Poets' Barnfield praises Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, and Shakespeare. For Sir Philip Sidney he had a deep admiration, but his 'Epitaph' was a poor tribute. The verse with which the tract ends,'A Comparison of the Life of Man,' is distinctly impressive:—

We now reach a group of elegies (pp. 271-318) by various hands on Sir Philip Sidney, printed as an Appendix to Spenser's Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, 1595, with a dedication to Sidney's widow, who by her second marriage had become Countess of Essex. There was no man more generally beloved than Sidney, and none whose loss was more sincerely deplored. Numberless were the tributes paid in verse and prose to his memory. The present collection embraces 'Astrophel,' by Spenser; the 'Dolefull Lay of Clorinda,' by Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke; 'The Mourning Muse of Thestylis' and 'A Pastorall Æglogue,' both by Lodowick Bryskett; 'An Elegie, or Friends Passion, for his Astrophel,' by Matthew Roydon; 'An Epitaph,' probably by Sir Walter Ralegh; and 'Another of the same' (i.e. on the same subject), which Malone was inclined to attribute to Sir Edward Dyer, while Charles Lamb ascribed it on internal evidence to Fulke Greville. Although Colin Clouts Come Home Againe was first published in 1595, the dedicatory epistle to Sir Walter Ralegh is dated from Kilcolman, 27th December 1591. All the elegies were doubtless written soon after Sidney's death. Lodowick Bryskett's two poems had been entered in the Stationers' Register on 22nd August 1587, but are not known to have been separately published. Matthew Roydon's elegy had appeared in the Phoenix Nest, 1593, where also are found the 'Epitaph' and 'Another of the Same. Excellently written by a most woorthy gentleman.'

In The Ruines of Time (1591) there are some fine stanzas to Sidney's memory; but if the literary public expected an elaborate elegy from Spenser, 'Astrophel' must have disappointed their hopes. When we recall Moschus' lament over Bion, or Ovid's tribute to Tibullus, or Lycidas, or Adonais, Spenser's elegy on Sidney seems thin and colourless. Scores of poets who had not a tithe of Spenser's genius have left elegies that far transcend 'Astrophel.' Lady Pembroke's sisterly tribute of affection will be read with respect; but however much we may commend the pious intentions of the naturalised Italian Ludowick Bryskett, it is impossible to find a word of praise for such 'rude rhymes' as

Matthew Roydon's elegy is too diffuse, but has some most happy and memorable stanzas. As we gaze at Isaac Oliver's beautiful miniature of Sidney, in the Windsor Palace collection, those oft-quoted lines of Roydon inevitably leap to the lips:—

The 'Epitaph' beginning, 'To praise thy life, or waile thy worthie death' appears to have been written by Sir Walter Ralegh. Sir John Harington, in the notes appended to the sixteenth book of his translation of Orlando Furioso (1591), refers to 'our English Petrarke, Sir Philip Sidney, or (as Sir Walter Rawleigh in his Epitaph worthily calleth him) the Scipio and the Petrarke of our time' (see the last stanza of the poem). Harington had evidently seen the 'Epitaph' in ms.; and there is not the slightest reason for questioning the accuracy of his ascription, for he was well acquainted with the poets of the time, and curious information may be gathered from his Notes. I find Ralegh's elegy somewhat obscure; pregnant, but harshly worded. Nor can I profess any great admiration for 'Another of the same,' where the vehemence of the writer's grief choked his utterance.

Of the first edition of Alcilia: Philoparthen's Loving Folly, 1595 (pp. 319-362), only one copy is known, preserved in the public library at Hamburgh. On the last page are subscribed the author's initials 'J.C.', which have been altered in ink to 'J.G.' in the Hamburgh copy. The poem was reprinted in London in 1613, 1619, and 1628, being accompanied by Marston's Pygmalion's Image and Samuel Page's Amos and Laura. Who 'J.C.' may have been is unknown; for the wild conjecture that he was John Chalkhill, author of Thealma and Clearchus and friend of Izaak Walton, is chronologically untenable. For the space of two years the unknown poet had pressed his attentions upon the lady whom he called Alcilia. She finally rejected his addresses, and young 'J.C.' was not sorry to escape from bondage. Hardly a trace of genuine passion can be found in Alcilia, which is merely (as the author freely admits) a collection of odds and ends written 'at divers times and upon divers occasions.' It is somewhat surprising that there was a demand for new editions. 'J.C.' wrote with elegance and facility, but the note of originality is wanting. Had the poem appeared a few years earlier, it would have been entitled to more consideration; but the achievements of Greene, Lodge, and others had made it possible in the closing years of the sixteenth century for any young writer of respectable talents to compose such verse as we find in Alcilia.

Daiphantus, or The Passions of Love, 1604 (pp. 363-404), is described on the title-page as 'By An. Sc. Gentleman,' assumed to stand for Antony Scoloker. In the days of Henry VIII there was an Antony Scoloker, a printer and translator, with whom 'An. Sc.' was doubtless connected In the humorous prose address there is an interesting reference to Shakespeare:—'It should be like the never-too-well-read Arcadia where the Prose and Verse, Matter and Words, are like his Mistress eyes, one still excelling another and without corrival; or to come home to the Vulgar's element, like friendly Shake-speare's Tragedies, where the Comedian rides when the Tragedian stands on tiptoe. Faith it should please all like Prince Hamlet. But, in sadness, then it were to be feared he would run mad. In sooth I will not be moonsick to please, nor out of my wits though I displease all. What? Poet, are you in passion or out of Love? This is as strange as true.' In the poem itself there is another reference to 'mad Hamlet,' though Scoloker there seems to be glancing at the older play on the subject of Hamlet. For the reader's guidance an 'Argument' is obligingly prefixed, but it is to be feared that even with the help of this Argument he will not find the poem very intelligible or of engrossing interest. Daiphantus, of which only one copy (in the Douce Collection) is known, was perhaps intended merely for circulation among the author's friends, who may have been able to read between the lines. Appended is the fine poem, 'The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage,' beginning:—

Possibly the publisher tacked on these verses without Scoloker's knowledge. It is quite certain that they were not written by the author of Daiphantus, and there are good reasons for assigning them to Sir Walter Ralegh (see Hannah's edition of Ralegh's Poems, 1885).

The 'Odes' of Michael Drayton (pp. 405-441), drawn from Poems Lyrick and Pastorall (1606?), and the later collection of 1619, contain some of his best writing. There is no need to praise the glorious 'Ballad of Agincourt,' but it may be noted that Drayton spent considerable pains over the revision of this poem. It was fine in its original form, but every change found in the later version was a clear improvement. No signs of the file are visible, and we should certainly judge—unless we had evidence to the contrary—that this imperishable 'ballad' had been thrown off at a white heat. Only inferior to 'Agincourt' is the stirring ode 'To the Virginian Voyage.' Professor Arber, a high authority, is of opinion that it was composed some time before 12th August 1606, on which day the Plymouth Company despatched Captain Henry Challons' ship to North Virginia. In this valedictory address Drayton writes:—

Captain Challons sailed to Madeira, St. Lucia, Porto Rico, and thence towards North Virginia. His little ship of fifty-five tons, with a crew of twenty-nine Englishmen (and two native Virginians), had the ill-luck on 10th November to fall in with the Spanish fleet of eight ships returning from Havanna. It was captured by the Spaniards and the crew were taken prisoners to Spain.

In a lighter vein, the ode beginning 'Maidens, why spare ye,' was worthy to have been set to music by Robert Jones. The seventh ode was written from the Peak in winter—

where Charles Cotton afterwards resided. Drayton's statement in the ninth ode—

will draw a smile from any reader who has ever seriously attempted to grapple with his multitudinous works. But in these odes, and in the other 'lyric poesies' added in the 1619 edition, he was careful to curb his tendency to diffuseness. He employed a variety of metres, and his experiments were not always happy. Ode 5, 'An Amouret Anacreontic,' cannot be unreservedly commended, and Ode 9, 'A Skeltoniad,' could be spared. One of the most attractive poems is the address 'To his Rival,' a capital piece of good-natured raillery. In his early work Drayton frequently taxes the reader's patience by his disregard for grammatical proprieties, and some of these maturer Odes are so ineptly harsh that one has to grope for the writer's meaning (while one bans the punctuation of old printers and modern editors alike). Hence it is particularly pleasant to meet such a poem as 'To his Rival,' which never swerves awry, but runs on blithely without an encountering obstacle. The 'Hymn to his Lady's Birthplace' is a polished compliment, and very charming is the canzonet 'To his Coy Love.' I end with expressing a hope that the extracts here given from Michael Drayton may induce the reader to make further acquaintance[8] with the writings of one of the most lovable of our elder poets.

A.H. BULLEN.