SIR JOHN DAVIES (1570-1626), an English barrister, at one time Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, was the author of a long philosophical poem, On the Soul of Man and the Immortality Thereof,' supposed to have been written in 1598, and one of the earliest poems of that kind in our language. Davies is a profound hinker and close reasoner: 'in the happier parts of his poem,' says Campbell, we come to logical truths so well illustrated by ingenious simi.es, that we know not whether to call the thoughts more poetically or philosophically just. The judgment and fancy are reconciled, and the imagery of the poem seems to start more vividly from the surrounding shades of abstraction.' The versification of the poem (long quatrains) was afterwards copied by Davenant and Dryden. In another production, entitled Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing, in a Dialogue between Penelope and one of her Wooers,'

he is much more fanciful He there represents Penelope as declining to dance with Antinous, and the latter as proceeding to lecture her upon the antiquity of that elegant exercise, the merits of which he describes in verses partaking, as has been justly remarked, of the flexibility and grace of the subject. The following is one of the most imaginative passages:

The Dancing of the Air.

And now behold your tender nurse, the Air,
And common neighbour, that aye runs around,
How many pictures and impressions fair

Within her empty regions are there found,
Which to your senses dancing do propound;

For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds;
But dancings of the air in sundry kinds?

For when you breathe, the air in order moves,
Now in, now out, in time and measure true;
And when you speak, so well she dancing loves,
That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,
With thousand forms she doth herself endue:
For all the words that from your lips repair,
Are nought but tricks and turnings of the air.

Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born,
That dances to all voices she can hear;
There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn,
Nor any time wherein she will forbear
The airy pavement with her feet to wear;
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,
For after time she endeth every trick.

And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life,
The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech,
Loadstone of fellowship, charming rod of strife,
The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech,
With thine own tongue thou trees and stones can teach,
That when the air doth dance her finest measure,
Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure,

Lastly, where keep the winds their revelry,

Their violent turnings, and wild whirling hays,
But in the airs' translucent gallery?

Where she herself is turned a hundred ways,
While with those maskers wantonly she plays;
Yet in this misrule, they such rule embrace,
As two at once encumber not the place.

Afterwards, the poet alludes to the tidal influence of the moon, and the passage is highly poetical in expression:

For lo, the sea that fleets about the land,
And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
Music and measure both doth understand;
For his great crystal eye is always cast
Up to the moon, and on her fixed fast;
And as she danceth in her palid sphere
So danceth he about the centre here.

Sometimes his proud green waves in order set,
One after other flow into the shore,
Which when they have with many kisses wet,
They ebb away in order as before;

And to make known his courtly love the more,
He oft doth lay aside his three-forked mace,

And with his arms the timorous earth embrace.

The poem on dancing is said to have been written in fifteen days. It was published in 1596. The Nosce Teipsum,' or Poem of the Immortality of the Soul, was first published in 1599, and four other editions appeared in the author's lifetime-namely, in 1602, 1608, 1619, and 1622. This work gained the favour of James I. who made Davies successively solicitor-general and attorney-general for Ireland. He was also a judge of assize, and was knighted by the king in 1607. The first Reports of Law Cases published in Ireland were made by this able and accomplished man, and his preface to the volume is considered 'the best that was ever prefixed to a law-book.'

Reasons for the Soul's Immortality.

All moving things to other things do move

Of the same kind, which shews their nature such;
So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above,
Till both their proper elements do touch.

And as the moisture which the thirsty earth
Sucks from the sea to fill her empty veins,
From out her womb at last doth take a birth,
And runs a lymph along the grassy plains:
Long doth she stay, as loath to leave the land,
From whose soft side she first did issue make;
She tastes all places, turns to every hand,
Her flowery banks unwilling to forsake.
Yet nature so her streams doth lead and carry
As that her course doth make no final stay,
Till she herself unto the sea doth marry.
Within whose watery bosom first she lay.
E'en so the soul, which, in this earthly mould,
The Spirit of God doth secretly infuse,
Because at first she doth the earth behold,
And only this material world she views.

At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear,
And doth embrace the world and worldly things;
She flies close by the ground, and hovers here,
And mounts not up with her celestial wings:
Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught
That with her heavenly nature doth agree;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented be.

For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth,
Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find?
Who ever ceas d to wish, when he had health,
Or, having wisdom, was not vexed in mind ?

Then, as a bee which among weeds doth fall,
Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay,
She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away.

So, when the soul finds here no true content,
And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take,
She doth return from whence she first was sent,
And flies to him that first her wings did make.

EDWARD VERE, EARL OF OXFORD.

This nobleman, so highly popular in the court of Elizabeth (1540 ?1604), and conspicuous on inany memorable occasions-as in the trial of Mary Queen of Scots-is now known only for some verses in the miscellany entitled the Paradise of Dainty Devices.' He was famed in his own day for comedies, or courtly entertainments, none of which has been preserved. Stow states that this nobleman was the first that brought to England from Italy embroidered gloves and perfumes, which Elizabeth no doubt approved of as highly as his sonnets or madrigals.

Come hither, shepherd swain !

I

Sir, what do you require ?

Fancy and Desire.

pray thee shew to me thy name My name is Fond Desire.

Tell me where is thy dwelling-place?
In gentle hearts I rest.

What thing doth please thee most?
To gaze on beauty still.

Whom dost thou think to be thy foe!
Disdain of my good will.

Doth company displease?
Yes, surely, many one.

Where doth Desire delight to live?
He loves to live alone.

Doth either time or age

Bring him into decay?
No, no! Desire both lives and dies
A thousand times a day.

Then, Fond Desire, farewell!
Thou art no mate for me;

I should be loath, methinks, to dwell
With such a one as thee.

SIR EDWARD DYER.

Another courtly poet, SIR EDWARD DYER (circa 1540-1607), is author of several copies of verses, including the following popular piece:

My Mind to me a Kingdom is.

My mind to me a kingdom is,

Such present joys therein I find,

That it excels all other bliss

That earth affords or grows by kind:

Though much I want which most would

have,

Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
Nor force to win the victory;

No wily wit to salve a sore,

No shape to feed a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall,
For why, my mind doth serve for all

I see how plenty surfeits oft,

And hasty climbers soon do fall; 1 see that those which are aloft,

Mishap does threaten most of all; These get with toil, they keep with fear: Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content to live, this is my stay;

I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies:
Lo! thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have and seek no more.

They are but poor, though much they
have,

And I am rich with little store: They poor, I rich; they beg, I give; They lack, I leave: they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another's loss;

I grudge not at another's gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain :
I fear no foe, I fawn no friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will;
Their treasure is their only trust;

A cloaked craft their store of skill:
But all the pleasure that I find,
Is to maintain a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease:
My conscience clear my chief defence;
I neither seek by bribes to please,

Nor by deceit to breed offence:
Thus do I live; thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I!

THOMAS STORER.

The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey,' 1594, is deserving of notice as illustrating the tendency to adopt historical events as materials for poetry, and because this work probably, in conjunction with Cavendish's Life of Woolsey,' incited Shakspeare to the composition of his Henry VIII.' In some parts the dramatist has followed Cavendish's narrative even in the language; and the following lines from Storer's poem seem also to have been present to his memory:

Look how the God of Wisdom marbled stands
Bestowing laurel-wreaths of diguity

In Delphos isle, at whose impartial hands
Hung antique scrolls of gentle heraldry,
And at his feet ensigns and trophies lie:

Such was my state when every man did follow
A living image of the great Apollo!

If once we fall, we fall Colossus like,

We fall at once like pillars of the sun;

They that between our stride their sails did strike,
Make us sea-marks where they their ships do run-
E'en they that had by us their treasure won.

Perchance the tenor of my morning verse
May lead some pilgrim to my tombless grave,
Where neither marble monument, nor hearse,
The passenger's attentive view may crave,
Which honours now the meanest persons have;
But well is me where'er my ashes lie,

If one tear drop from some religious eye.

Storer was a native of London; he was entered of Christchurch, Oxford, in 1587, took his degree of M. A. in 1594, and besides his po-" etical biography of Wolsey, was author of some pastoral airs and madrigals collecte 1 in England's Helicon.' Storer died in 1604.