Chapter II: Critical (1)

I shall limit myself in this second half of the Memorial-Introduction to a brief statement and examination of certain characteristics of the Poetry of Sir John Davies--the limitation being imposed by the contents of the present volumes.[47] There are Poets whose truest and most certain fame rests on so-called minor poems; and yet commonly their bulkier productions have over-shadowed these. From Milton to Wordsworth it is to be lamented that to the many they should be represented by "Paradise Lost" and "The Excursion"; or to descend, that Thomas _Campbell_ and Samuel _Rogers_ should have so hidden behind their "Pleasures of Hope" and "Pleasures of Memory" their rare and real faculty as Poets--for while in the larger poems of Milton and Wordsworth there is of the imperishable stuff that only genius of a lofty type weaves, it is rather (_meo judicio_) in "purple patches" than in the web as a whole. In Milton and Wordsworth you do not read them at their high_est_ in their Epics but in their shorter poems; while Campbell and Rogers should long since have died out of men's hearts had they left nothing behind them save the smooth and prize-poem-like common-places of their "Pleasures." In Milton the remark requires modification, for only in "Paradise Lost" has he put forth to uttermost daring his Imagination--than which no writer of all time has approached him for grandeur of vision and splendour of utterance. But substantially I think that those capable of discernment will agree with me that if Time may shut and leave unread except by an elect few, many pages of the 'great' and volume-filling poems, the lesser will assuredly draw more and more homage, and abide the regalia of our Literature.

[Footnote 47: His Prose is of no common order; and will be critically examined in the fuller Life, along with his Prose Works in the Fuller Worthies' Library, as before.]

It is different with Sir John Davies. His "Orchestra" and "Hymnes to Astræa" and Minor Poems, preceded considerably his "Nosce Teipsum," but it was his "Nosce Teipsum" that made King James I. prick up his ears on hearing his name, and it is "Nosce Teipsum" that is the poem that will secure immortality to Sir John Davies. His other poetry has special remarkablenesses--as will appear--but in "Nosce Teipsum" alone have we the inspiration and spontaneity, the insight and speculation, the subtlety and yet definiteness, the "burden" (in the prophetic sense) and the melody of the Poet as distinguished from the versifier or verse-Rhetorician.

I value "Nosce Teipsum" as a first thing for its _deep and original thinking_, i.e. for its _intellectual strength_--all the more remarkable that as the former part of the Memorial-Introduction shows, he was only in his 28th-29th year when he composed it. Of its art I shall have somewhat to say anon: but regarding it as a "_philosophical_ poem" and as a contribution to metaphysic, I place foremost the THOUGHT in it, as at once a characteristic and a merit (if merit be not too poor a word). DAVIES (along with FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE and DONNE) simply as Thinker on the profoundest problems of nature and human nature, seems to me to stand out pre-eminently, and in saying this, I regard it as sheer nonsense to exalt the workmanship at the expense of the material--to ask me to recognize in a bit of tin ingeniously and painstakingly etched into a kind of miracle of execution something co-equal with a solid bar of gold as it gleams i' the face of the sun in its purged and massive simpleness; or to put it unmetaphorically, I must pronounce judgment on the rank of a Poet _qua_ a Poet fundamentally on the kind and quality of the thought on higher and deeper things that he puts into his verse and that he strikes out in others. Your mere artist-Poet is surely third-rate and must even go beneath the music-composer of to-day.

"Nosce Teipsum" as it was practically the earliest so it remains the most remarkable example of deep reflective-meditative thinking in verse in our language or in any language. The student of this great poem will very soon discover that within sometimes homeliest metaphors there is folded a long process of uncommon thought on the every-day facts of our mysterious existence. I call the thinking deep, because "Nosce Teipsum" reveals more than eyes that looked on the surface--reveals penetrative and bold descent to the roots of our being and reachings upward to the Highest. Your mere realistic word-painter of what he sees, is shallow beside a Poet who passes beneath the surface and circumstance and fetches up from sunless depths or down from radiant altitudes fact and facts--each contributory to that ultimate philosophy which while it shall accept every proved fact, will not rush off hysterically shouting "eureka," with ribald accusations of all that generations have held to be venerable and sustaining. I call the thinking original, for there is evidence everywhere in "Nosce Teipsum" that the penitent recluse of Oxford made his own self his study--as really if not as avowedly as Wordsworth.

I am aware in claiming originality for Davies that in that huge waste-basket of our Literature--Nichols' Literary Illustrations (Vol. IV. pp. 549-50) there is a letter from an Alexander Dalrymple, Esq., who is designated "the great hydrographer" to "Mr. Herbert" (the Bibliographer I opine) wherein he takes different ground. We must traverse his charge. He thus writes:--"Dear Sir, I have lately purchased the following old books" (he enumerates several).... "I have also got 'Wither's translation of Nemesius de Naturâ hominis' by which I find Sir John Davies's poem on the Immortality of the Soul is chiefly taken from Nemesius" ... "I have picked up a tract in 4to. by Thomas Jenner, with some very good plates, the marginal notes of which seem to be what the heads of Tate's edition of Sir John Davies's are taken from."

Were this true it would utterly take from "Nosce Teipsum" the first characteristic and merit I claim for it--deep and original thought. But it is absolutely untrue, an utter delusion, as any one will find who takes the pains that I have done to read, either the original Nemesius, or what this sapient book-buyer mentions, Wither's translation. With my mind and memory full of "Nosce Teipsum" and the poem itself beside me, I have read and re-read every page, sentence and word of Nemesius and Wither (and there is a good deal of Wither in his translation: 1636) and I have not come upon a single metaphor or (as the old margin-notes called them) "similies," or even observation in "Nosce Teipsum" drawn from Nemesius or Wither. The only element in common is that necessarily Nemesius adduces and discusses the opinions of the Heathen Philosophers on the many matters handled by him, and Sir John Davies does the same with equal inevitableness. But to base a charge of plagiarism against "Nosce Teipsum" on this, is to reason on the connection between Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands (if the well-worn folly be a permissible reference). The following is the title-page of the quaint old tome and as it is by no means scarce, any reader can cross-question our witness: "The Nature of Man. A learned and useful Tract written in Greek by Nemesius, surnamed the Philosopher; sometime Bishop of a City in Ph[oe]necia, and one of the most ancient Fathers of the Church. Englyshed, and divided into Sections, with briefs of their principle contents by Geo. Wither. London: Printed by M. F. for Henry Taunton in St. Duncan's Churchyard in Fleetstreet. 1636." (12^{o} 21 leaves and pp. 661.) Chronologically--Wither's translation was not published until 1636, while "Nosce Teipsum" was published in 1599; but Nemesius' own book no more than Wither's warrants any such preposterous statements as this Alexander Dalrymple makes. Even in the treatment of the "opinions" of the Heathen Philosophers which come up in Nemesius, and in "Nosce Teipsum," the latter while 'intermedling' with the same returns wholly distinct answers in refutation. The "opinions" themselves as being derived of necessity from the same sources are identical; but neither their statement nor refutation. Nemesius is ingenious and well-learned, but heavy and prosaic. Sir John Davies is light of touch and a light of poetic glory lies on the lamest "opinion." The "Father of the Church" goes forth to war with encumbering armour: the Poet naked and unarmed beyond the spear wherewith he 'pierces' everything, viz. human consciousness. Jenner's forgotten book had perhaps been read by Tate, but that concerns Tate not Sir John Davies. I pronounce it a hallucination to write "Sir John Davies' poem on the immortality of the Soul is chiefly taken from Nemesius." Not one line was taken from Nemesius.

Before passing on it may be well to illustrate here from the "contents" of two chapters (representative of the whole) in Wither's Nemesius, the merely superficial agreement between them and "Nosce Teipsum." In the Poem under "The Soule of Man and the Immortalitie thereof" various opinions of its 'nature' are thus summarized:

"One thinks the _Soule_ is _aire_; another _fire_;
Another _blood_, diffus'd about the heart;
Another saith, the _elements_ conspire,
And to her _essence_ each doth giue a part.

_Musicians_ thinke our _Soules_ are _harmonies_,
_Phisicians_ hold that they _complexions_ bee;
_Epicures_ make them swarmes of _atomies_,
Which doe by chance into our bodies flee." (p. 26.)

In Nemesius, c. 2. § I, the 'headings' are: "I. The severall and different Opinions of the Ancients concerning the Sovl, as whether it be a Substance; whether corporeall, or incoporeall, whether mortal or immortal P. II. The confutation of those who affirme in general that the Sovl is a corporeall-substance. III. Confutations of their particular Arguments, who affirme that the Sovl is Blood, Water, or Aire." These are all common-places of ancient 'opinion' and of the subject; and anything less poetical than Nemesius' treatment of them is scarcely imaginable. Here if anywhere Davies' indebtedness must have been revealed; but not one scintilla of obligation suggests itself to the Reader. Again in the Poem, after a subtle and very remarkable 'confutation' of the notion that the Soul is a thing of 'Sense' only, there comes proof "That the Soule is more than the Temperature of the humours of the Body;" and nowhere does Davies show a more cunning hand than in his statement of the 'false opinion.' Turning once more to Nemesius c. II. § 3, these are its 'headings:'--"I. It is here declared, that the Soul is not (as Galen implicitly affirmeth) a Temperature in general. II. It is here proved also, that the Soul is no particular temperature or quality. III. And it is likewise demonstrated that the Soul is rather governesse of the temperatures of the Body, both ordering them, and subduing the vices which arise from the bodily tempers." Here again we would have expected some resemblances or suggestions; but again there is not a jot or tittle of either. Thus is it throughout. One might as well turn up the words used in "Nosce Teipsum" in a quotation-illustrated Dictionary of the English Language (such as Richardson's) and argue 'plagiarism' because of necessarily agreeing definitions, as from a few scattered places in "Nosce Teipsum" discussing the same topics, allege appropriation of Nemesius. Your mere readers of title-pages and contents, or glancers over indices are constantly blundering after this fashion. Dalrymple was one of these.

The headings of the successive sections--removed in our text from the margins to their several places--suffice to inform us of the original lines of thought and research and illustration pursued in "Nosce Teipsum" and thither I refer the Reader. The merest glance will show that in "Nosce Teipsum" you have the whole breadth of the field traversed--and that for the first time in Verse. I can only very imperfectly illustrate either the depth or the originality of the poem. Almost as at the opening of the book, take these uniting both:--

"And yet alas, when all our lamps are burnd,
Our bodyes wasted, and our spirits spent;
When we haue all the learnèd _Volumes_ turn'd,
Which yeeld mens wits both help and ornament:

What can we know? or what can we discerne?
When _Error_ chokes the windowes of the minde,
The diuers formes of things, how can we learne,
That haue been euer from our birth-day blind?

When _Reasone's_ lampe, which (like the _sunne_ in skie)
Throughout _Man's_ little world her beames did spread;
Is now become a sparkle, which doth lie
Vnder the ashes, halfe extinct, and dead:

How can we hope, that through the eye and eare,
This dying sparkle, in this cloudy place,
Can recollect these beames of knowledge cleere,
Which were infus'd in the first minds by grace?

So might the heire whose father hath in play
Wasted a thousand pound of ancient rent;
By painefull earning of a groate a day,
Hope to restore the patrimony spent.

The wits that diu'd most deepe and soar'd most hie
Seeking Man's pow'rs, haue found his weaknesse such:
"Skill comes so slow, and life so fast doth flie,
"We learne so little and forget so much.

For this the wisest of all morall men
Said, '_He knew nought, but that he nought did know_';
And the great mocking-Master mockt not then,
When he said, '_Truth was buried deepe below_.'

For how may we to others' things attaine,
When none of vs his owne soule vnderstands?
For which the Diuell mockes our curious braine,
When, '_Know thy selfe_' his oracle commands.

For why should wee the busie Soule beleeue,
When boldly she concludes of that and this;
When of her selfe she can no iudgement giue,
Nor how, nor whence, nor where, nor what she is?

All things without, which round about we see,
We seeke to knowe, and how therewith to doe;
But that whereby we _reason, liue and be_,
Within our selues, we strangers are thereto.

We seeke to know the mouing of each spheare,
And the strange cause of th' ebs and flouds of _Nile_;
But of that clock, within our breasts we beare,
The subtill motions we forget the while.

We that acquaint our selues with euery _Zoane_
And passe both _Tropikes_ and behold the _Poles_,
When we come home, are to our selues vnknown,
And vnacquainted still with our owne _Soules_.

We study _Speech_ but others we perswade;
We _leech-craft_ learne, but others cure with it;
We interpret _lawes_, which other men haue made,
But reade not those which in our hearts are writ."

(pp. 18-20.)

Again:--

IN WHAT MANNER THE SOULE IS UNITED TO THE BODY.

But how shall we this _union_ well expresse?
Nought ties the _soule_; her subtiltie is such
She moues the bodie, which she doth possesse,
Yet no part toucheth, but by _Vertue's_ touch.

Then dwels shee not therein as in a tent,
Nor as a pilot in his ship doth sit;
Nor as the spider in his web is pent;
Nor as the waxe retaines the print in it;

Nor as a vessell water doth containe;
Nor as one liquor in another shed;
Nor as the heat doth in the fire remaine;
Nor as a voice throughout the ayre is spread:

But as the faire and cheerfull _Morning light_,
Doth here and there her siluer beames impart,
And in an instant doth herselfe vnite
To the transparent ayre, in all, and part:

Still resting whole, when blowes th' ayre diuide:
Abiding pure, when th' ayre is most corrupted;
Throughout the ayre, her beams dispersing wide,
And when the ayre is tost, not interrupted:

So doth the piercing _Soule_ the body fill,
Being all in all, and all in part diffus'd;
Indiuisible, incorruptible still,
Not forc't, encountred, troubled or confus'd.

And as the _sunne_ aboue, the light doth bring,
Though we behold it in the ayre below;
So from th' Eternall Light the _Soule_ doth spring,
Though in the body she her powers doe show.

(pp. 61-2.)

Further, "An Acclamation":--

AN ACCLAMATION.

O! what is Man (great Maker of mankind!)
That Thou to him so great respect dost beare!
That Thou adornst him with so bright a mind,
Mak'st him a king, and euen an angel's peere!

O! what a liuely life, what heauenly power,
What spreading vertue, what a sparkling fire!
How great, how plentifull, how rich a dower
Dost Thou within this dying flesh inspire!

Thou leau'st Thy print in other works of Thine,
But Thy whole image Thou in Man hast writ;
There cannot be a creature more diuine,
Except (like Thee) it should be infinit.

But it exceeds man's thought, to thinke how hie
_God_ hath raisd _Man_, since _God a man_ became;
The angels doe admire this _Misterie_,
And are astonisht when they view the same.

(pp. 81-2.)

Again:--

THAT THE SOULE IS IMMORTAL, AND CANNOT DIE.

Nor hath he giuen these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the bodie's life depend;
The _Soule_ though made in time, _suruives for aye_,
And though it hath beginning, sees no end.

Her onely _end_, is _neuer-ending_ blisse;
Which is, _th' eternall face of God to see_;
Who _Last of Ends_, and _First of Causes_, is:
And to doe this, she must _eternall_ bee.

How senselesse then, and dead a soule hath hee,
Which _thinks_ his _soule_ doth with his body die!
Or _thinkes_ not so, but so would haue it bee,
That he might sinne with more securitie.

For though these light and vicious persons say,
Our _Soule_ is but a smoake, or ayrie blast;
Which, during life, doth in our nostrils play,
And when we die, doth turne to wind at last:

Although they say, '_Come let us eat and drinke_';
Our life is but a sparke, which quickly dies;
Though thus they _say_, they know not what to think,
But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise.

Therefore no heretikes desire to spread
Their light opinions, like these _Epicures_:
For so the staggering thoughts are comfortèd,
And other men's assent their doubt assures.

Yet though these men against their conscience striue,
There are some sparkles in their flintie breasts
Which cannot be extinct, but still reuiue;
That though they would, they cannot quite bee _beasts_;

But who so makes a mirror of his mind,
And doth with patience view himselfe therein,
His _Soule's_ eternitie shall clearely find,
Though th' other beauties be defac't with sin.

(pp. 82-3.)

Further, "An Acclamation":--

AN ACCLAMATION.

O ignorant poor man! what dost thou beare
Lockt vp within the casket of thy brest?
What iewels, and what riches hast thou there!
What heauenly treasure in so weak a chest!

Looke in thy _soule_, and thou shalt _beauties_ find,
Like those which drownd _Narcissus_ in the flood:
_Honour_ and _Pleasure_ both are in thy mind,
And all that in the world is counted _Good_.

Thinke of her worth, and thinke that God did meane.
This worthy mind should worthy things imbrace;
Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts vnclean,
Nor her dishonour with thy passions base;

Kill not her _quickning power_ with surfettings,
Mar not her _Sense_ with sensualitie;
Cast not her serious wit on idle things:
Make not her free-_will_, slaue to vanitie.

And when thou think'st of her _eternitie_,
Thinke not that _Death_ against her nature is;
Thinke it a _birth_; and when thou goest to die,
Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to blisse.

And if thou, like a child, didst feare before,
Being in the darke, where thou didst nothing see:
Now I haue broght thee _torch-light_, feare no more;
Now when thou diest, thou canst not hud-winkt be.

And thou, my _Soule_, which turn'st thy curious eye,
To view the beames of thine owne forme diuine;
Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly,
While thou art clouded with this flesh of mine.

Take heed of _ouer-weening_, and compare
Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's traine;
Study the best, and highest things, that are,
But of thy selfe, an humble thought retaine.

Cast down thy selfe, and onely striue to raise
The glory of thy Maker's sacred Name;
Vse all thy powers, that Blessed Power to praise,
Which giues the power to _bee_, and _use the same_.

(pp. 114-16.)

Finally, here is a simile well-wrought in itself and accidentally to be for ever associated with a celebrated criticism:--

THE MOTION OF THE SOULE.

.... how can shee but immortall bee?
When with the motions of both _Will_ and _Wit_,
She still aspireth to eternitie,
And neuer rests, till she attaine to it?

Water in conduit pipes, can rise no higher
Then the wel-head, from whence it first doth spring:
Then sith to eternall GOD shee doth aspire,
Shee cannot be but an eternall thing.

(p. 85.)

The second stanza contains a metaphor that was stolen and murdered as well, by Robert Montgomery. Concerning _his_ use of it Macaulay thus wrote in his merciless review:--"We would not be understood, however, to say that Mr. Robert Montgomery cannot make similitudes for himself. A very few lines further on we find one which has every mark of originality and on which we will be bound, none of the poets whom he has plundered will ever think of making reprisal:--

'The soul aspiring, pants its source to mount,
As streams meander level with their fount.'

"We take this to be on the whole the worst similitude in the world. In the first place, no stream meanders, or can possibly meander level with its fount. In the next place, if streams did meander level with their fount, no two motions can be less like each other than that of meandering level and that of mounting upwards." True; but none the less is the original 'spoiled' and despoiled metaphor, accurate and vivid.

If the Reader will surrender himself to the task, he will be rewarded for studying and re-studying the entire poem of "Nosce Teipsum;" and, unless I very much mistake, will then regard Hallam's judgment on it as inadequate rather than exaggerate, as (with intercalated remarks), thus: "A more remarkable poem [than Drayton's and Daniel's] is that of Sir John Davies, afterwards Chief Justice of Ireland [a mistake], entitled, 'Nosce Teipsum,' published in 1599, usually, though rather inaccurately, called 'On the Immortality of the Soul.' Perhaps no language can produce a poem, extending to so great a length, of more condensation of thought, or in which fewer languid verses will be found. Yet, according to some definitions [of poetry] the 'Nosce Teipsum' is wholly unpoetical, inasmuch as it shows no passion [a greater blunder still] and little fancy [a third mistake]. If it reaches the heart at all, it is through the reason. But since strong argument in terse and correct style fails not to give us pleasure in prose, it seems strange that it should lose its effect when it gains the aid of regular metre to gratify the ear and assist the memory. Lines there are in Davies which far out-weigh much of the descriptive and imaginative poetry of the last two centuries, whether we estimate them by the pleasure they impart to us, or by the intellectual vigour they display. Experience has shown that the faculties familiarly deemed poetical are frequently exhibited in a considerable degree, but very few have been able to preserve a perspicuous beauty without stiffness or pedantry (allowance made for the subject and the times), in metaphysical reasoning, so successfully as Sir John Davies."[48] The alleged "no passion" is contradicted by the various pathetic autobiographic introspections and confessions brought out in this Memorial-Introduction, and not less so by the outbursts of adoration and praise that thunder up like the hosannahs before the great White Throne. The similarly alleged "little fancy" is one of manifold proofs that the critic was the most superficial of all imaginable readers with so much pretention. "Nosce Teipsum" is radiant as the dew-bedabbled grass with delicacies of fancy, not a few of the "fancies" being as exquisitely touched as divine work.

[Footnote 48: Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries: Vol. II., p. 227, edn. 1860.]

Campbell in his "Essay on English Poetry" (prefixed to his "Specimens") may be read with interest after Hallam. Accepting from Johnson as Johnson from Dryden the name of "metaphysical poets," he observes:--"The term of metaphysical poetry would apply with much more justice to the quatrains of Sir John Davies and those of Sir Fulke Greville, writers who, at a later period, found imitators in Sir Thomas Overbury and Sir William Davenant. Davies's poem on the Immortality of the Soul, entitled "_Nosce teipsum_," will convey a much more favourable idea of metaphysical poetry than the wittiest effusions of Donne and his followers. Davies carried abstract reasoning into verse with an acuteness and felicity which have seldom been equalled. He reasons undoubtedly with too much labour, formality, and subtlety, to afford uniform poetical pleasure. The generality of his stanzas exhibit hard arguments interwoven with the pliant materials of fancy so closely, that we may compare them to a texture of cloth and metallic threads, which is cold and stiff, while it is splendidly curious. There is this difference, however, between Davies and the commonly-styled metaphysical poets, that _he_ argues like a hard thinker, and _they_, for the most part, like madmen. If we conquer the drier parts of Davies' poem, and bestow a little attention on thoughts which were meant, not to gratify the indolence, but to challenge the activity of the mind, we shall find in the entire essay fresh beauties at every perusal: for in the happier parts we come to logical truths so well illustrated by ingenious similes, 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 poems seems to start more vividly from the surrounding shades of abstraction."

The 'coldness' of 'cloth and metallic threads' which the critic applies to the 'hard arguments' of _Nosce Teipsum_ is a mere imagination. But besides, the 'metallic threads' are not for warmth but for splendour. The lining of the 'splendidly curious' garment is to be looked for for warmth. Similarly the 'hard arguments' would have been unpoetical as unphilosophical had they been 'warm' with the warmth of the 'clothing' in similes and fancies. The 'hardness' is where it ought to be--in the thinking: but it is a hardness like the bough that is green with leafage and radiant with bloom and odorous with 'sweet scent' and pliant to every lightest touch of the breeze. The leaf and bloom start from the 'hard' bough rightly, fittingly 'hard' to its utmost twig. The alleged 'too much labour' is singularly uncharacteristic. As for the 'madness' I can but exclaim--Oh for more of such 'fine lunacy' as in Donne is condemned! His and compeers' 'madness' is worth cart-loads of most men's sanity.

In our own day Dr. George Macdonald has spoken more wisely if still somewhat superficially of "_Nosce Teipsum_" in his charming "England's Antiphon." Having explained that by "Immortality of the Soul" is intended "the spiritual nature of the soul, resulting in continuity of existence," he proceeds:--"It [_Nosce Teipsum_] is a wonderful instance of what can be done for metaphysics in verse, and by means of imaginative or poetic embodiment generally. Argumentation cannot of course naturally belong to the region of poetry, however well it may comport itself when there naturalized; and consequently, although there are most poetic no less than profound passages in the treatise, a light scruple arises whether its constituent matter can properly be called poetry. At all events, however, certain of the more prosaic measures and stanzas lend themselves readily, and with much favour, to some of the more complex of logical necessities. And it must be remembered that in human speech, as in the human mind, there are no absolute divisions: power shades off into feeling; and the driest logic may find the heroic couplet render it good service." (pp. 105-6). The 'scruple' must be 'light' indeed that has to decide whether the 'reasoning' of "Nosce Teipsum" be or be not 'poetry.' It is astounding that at this time o' day any should attempt to exclude the highest region of the intellect and its noblest occupation from poetry. Poetry I must hold absolutely is poetry, whatever be its matter and form if the thinking be glorified by imagination or tremulous with emotion. It is sheer folly to refuse to the Poet any material within the compass of the universe. Especially deplorable is it to have to argue for possibilities of poetry in the greatest of all thinking, viz., metaphysics, in the face of such actualities of achievement as in Davies and Lord Brooke and Donne.

A second characteristic of "Nosce Teipsum" that calls for notice is its _perfection of workmanship_ shown in the _mastery of an extremely difficult stanza_, as well as its solidity of material. Here unquestionably Sir John Davies far excels Lord Brooke and Donne, and later, Sir William Davenant in "Gondibert." The two former are occasionally (it must be granted) semi-inarticulate, and the last is very often monotonous and trying. "Nosce Teipsum" is throughout articulate and unmistakeable, and never flags. You have a fear o' times that a metaphor will prove grotesque or mean: or a vein of thought pinch and go out from ore to bare limestone. But invariably an imaginative touch, or a colour-like epithet, or a thrill of emotion, lifts up the mean into a transfiguring atmosphere as of sun-set purples and crysolites, and gives to grotesquest gargoyles (as of cathedrals) a strange fitness. Then when a thought or illustration seems about to end, debasedly, another forward-carrying and ennobling, swiftly succeeds.

There is more than dexterity, there is consummate art--the art of a conscious master--in the inter-weaving of the lines and stanzas of "Nosce Teipsum." Professor Craik recognised the difficulty and the triumph, but fails by ultra-ingenuity in accounting for either the selection of the measure or the miracle of its continuous success. His criticism is worth recalling, thus:--"A remarkable poem of this age ... is the 'Nosce Teipsum' of Sir John Davies ... a philosophical poem, the earliest of the kind in the language. It is written in rhyme, in the common heroic ten-syllable verse, but disposed in quatrains, like the early play of Misogonus, already mentioned, and other poetry of the same era, or like Sir Thomas Overbury's poem of 'The Wife,' the 'Gondibert' of Sir William Davenant, and the 'Annus Mirabilis' of Dryden, at a later period. No one of these writers has managed this difficult stanza so successfully as Davies: it has the disadvantage of requiring the sense to be in general closed at certain regularly and quickly-recurring turns, which yet are very ill adapted for an effective pause; and even all the skill of Dryden has been unable to free it from a certain air of monotony and languor,--a circumstance of which that poet may be supposed to have been himself sensible, since he wholly abandoned it after one or two early attempts. Davies, however, has conquered its difficulty; and, as has been observed, 'perhaps no language can produce a poem, extending to so great a length, of more condensation of thought, or in which fewer languid verses will be found.' (Hallam, as before.) In fact, it is by this condensation and sententious brevity, so carefully filed and elaborated, however, as to involve no sacrifice of perspicuity or fulness of expression, that he has attained his end. Every quatrain is a pointed expression of a separate thought, like one of Rochefoucault's maxims; each thought being, by great skill and painstaking in the packing, made exactly to fit and to fill the same case. It may be doubted, however, whether Davies would not have produced a still better poem if he had chosen a measure which would have allowed him greater freedom and real variety; unless, indeed, his poetical talent was of a sort that required the suggestive aid and guidance of such artificial restraints as he had to cope with in this; and what would have been a bondage to a more fiery and teeming imagination, was rather a support to his."[49]

[Footnote 49: _A Compendious History of English Literature_, &c., Vol. I., p. 577, edn. 1866.]

Most of this must be read _cum grano salis_. Davies elected his measure and stanza with evidently entire spontaneity; and it is an odd reversal of the simple matter of fact to ascribe the 'artificial restraints' chosen, to an absence 'of a fiery and teeming imagination,' when, as all observation demonstrates, the more fiery and fecund the imagination of a Poet, the more exquisitely obedient is he to the subtlest and most intricate movements of his measure--just as the bluest-blooded race-horse is a law to itself whereas your stolid dray-cart or plough-drawer needs the "artificial restraints" of all kinds of gear, and the constraint of whip and blow and vociferation. I can well suppose that but for the "Fairy Queen" Sir John Davies might have chosen its stanza, but just as to-day "In Memoriam" has taken to itself its form and music to the exclusion of every other--though a very ancient English measure--so Spenser's immortal poem precluded "Nosce Teipsum" following in the same. I cannot admit "artificial restraints" in the sense of needed restraints or aid. There was the stanza, and the genius of Sir John Davies appropriated it--since Spenser's, in all worship, could not be taken--and, like a great Vine, clad its natural slenderness and poorness of build with wealth of bright green leafage and clustered fruitage. The nicety and daintiness of workmanship, the involute and nevertheless firmly-completed and manifested imagery of "Nosce Teipsum" wherewith this nicety and daintiness are wrought, place Sir John Davies artistically among the finest of our Poets. Southey wrote decisively on this:--"Sir John Davies and Sir William Davenant, avoiding equally the opposite faults of too artificial and too careless a style, wrote in numbers which, for precision and clearness, and felicity and strength, have never been surpassed." For 'felicity' I should have said 'flexibility.'[50]

[Footnote 50: To Southey's praise be it remembered, that he was the first emphatically to regret that there had been no collective edition of Sir John Davies's Works, as thus: "It may be regretted that he did not leave representatives who would have thought it a duty and an honour to publish all that could be collected of his writings; thus erecting the best and most enduring monument to his memory." (British Poets: Chaucer to Jonson: p. 686). Our edition of his Prose and Verse fulfils Southey's wish.]

Again our examples of the mastery and perfection of workmanship must be brief; but take these:--

"Nor can her wide imbracements fillèd bee;
For they that most, and greatest things embrace,
Inlarge thereby their minds' capacitie,
As streames inlarg'd, inlarge the channel's space.

_All things receiu'd, doe such proportion take,
As those things haue, wherein they are receiu'd_:
So little glasses little faces make,
And narrow webs on narrow frames be weau'd;

Then what vast body must we make the _mind_
Wherin are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands;
And yet each thing a proper place doth find,
And each thing in the true proportion stands?

Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnes
Bodies to spirits, by _sublimation_ strange;
As fire conuerts to fire the things it burnes
As we our meats into our nature change.

From their grosse _matter_ she abstracts the _formes_,
And draws a kind of _quintessence_ from things;
Which to her proper nature she transformes,
To bear them light on her celestiall wings:

This doth she, when, from things _particular_,
She doth abstract the _universall kinds_;
Which bodilesse and immateriall are,
And can be lodg'd but onely in our minds:

And thus from diuers _accidents_ and _acts_,
Which doe within her obseruation fall,
She goddesses, and powers diuine, abstracts:
As _Nature_, _Fortune_, and the _Vertues_ all."

(pp. 42-44.)

Again:--

_Are they not sencelesse_ then, that thinke the Soule
Nought but a fine perfection of the _Sense_;
Or of the formes which _fancie_ doth enroule,
A _quicke resulting_, and a _consequence_?

What is it then that doth the _Sense_ accuse,
Both of _false judgements_, and _fond appetites_?
What makes vs do what _Sense_ doth most refuse?
Which oft in torment of the _Sense_ delights?

_Sense_ thinkes the _planets_, _spheares_ not much asunder;
What tels vs then their distance is so farre?
_Sense_ thinks the lightning borne before the thunder;
What tels vs then they both together are?

When men seem crows far off vpon a towre,
_Sense_ saith, th'are crows; what makes vs think them men?
When we in _agues_, thinke all sweete things sowre,
What makes vs know our tongue's false iudgement then?

What power was that, whereby _Medea_ saw,
And well approu'd, and prais'd the better course,
When her rebellious _Sense_ did so withdraw
Her feeble powers, as she pursu'd the worse?

Did _Sense_ perswade _Vlisses_ not to heare
The mermaid's songs, which so his men did please;
As they were all perswaded, through the eare
To quit the ship, and leape into the _seas_?

Could any power of _Sense_ the _Romane_ moue,
To burn his own right hand with courage stout?
Could _Sense_ make _Marius_ sit vnbound, and proue
The cruell lancing of the knotty gout?

Doubtlesse in _Man_ there is a _nature_ found,
Beside the _Senses_, and aboue them farre;
'Though most men being in sensuall pleasures drownd,
'It seems their _Soules_ but in their _Senses_ are.'

If we had nought but _Sense_, then onely they
Should haue sound minds, which haue their _Senses_ sound;
But _Wisdome_ growes, when _Senses_ doe decay,
And _Folly_ most in quickest _Sense_ is found.

If we had nought but _Sense_, each liuing wight,
Which we call _brute_, would be more sharp then we;
As hauing _Sense's apprehensiue might_,
In a more cleere, and excellent degree.

But they doe want that _quicke discoursing power_,
Which doth in vs the erring _Sense_ correct;
Therefore the _bee_ did sucke the painted flower,
And _birds_, of grapes, the cunning shadow, peckt.

_Sense_ outsides knows; the Soule throgh al things sees;
_Sense_, _circumstance_; she, doth the _substance_ view;
_Sense_ sees the barke, but she, the life of trees;
_Sense_ heares the sounds, but she, the concords true.

(pp. 35-38.)

Once more:--

I know my bodie's of so fraile a kind,
As force without, feauers within can kill;
I know the heauenly nature of my minde,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will:

I know my _Soule_ hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blinde and ignorant in all;
I know I am one of Nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a paine and but a span,
I know my _Sense_ is mockt with euery thing:
And to conclude, I know my selfe a MAN,
Which is a _proud_, and yet a _wretched_ thing.

(p. 24.)

If the pathos and grandeur of Pascal be anticipated in
these lines, Pope has certainly appropriated Davies'
favourite metaphor of the 'spider.' Witness the Sense
of Feeling illustrated:--

Much like a subtill spider, which doth sit
In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;
If ought doe touch the vtmost thred of it,
Shee feeles it instantly on euery side.

(p. 70).

So in the _Essay of Man_:--

"The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine,
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."

Another now familiar 'metaphor' also occurs in "Nosce Teipsum":--

"Heere _Sense's apprehension_, end doth take;
As when a stone is into water cast,
One circle doth another circle make,
Till the last circle touch the banke at last."

(p. 72.)

These two characteristics, viz., (1) _deep and original thinking_, (2) _perfection of workmanship, or mastery of an extremely difficult stanza_--embrace that in "Nosce Teipsum," regarded broadly, which I am anxious to have the Reader recognize and 'prove' for himself. Subsidiary to them is one other thing--not shared with many of our Poets and therefore demanding specific statement--viz. its _condensation throughout_. Hallam and Craik have called attention to this; and the student cannot fail to be struck with it. It is not simply that the stanzas are as so many rings of gold each complete in itself--much as Proverbs are--but that whether it be idea or opinion or metaphor there is no beating of it out, as though yards of gold-leaf or tin-foil were more valuable than the relatively small solid ore that has been so manipulated: or the common mistake of imagining that a pound of feathers is heavier than a pound of lead. From Dean Donne until now "comparisons are odious." Nevertheless when one recalls the attenuated thought and the blatant verbiage of not a few of our Poets, this resolute sifting out of everything extraneous is not less noticeable than commendable. It assures us that the Poet was conscious of his resources--of his unused wealth of thought and imagination and fancies. He who compacts his carbon into a Koh-i-noor has infinite supplies of it. Similarly a Poet who could and did so lavishly add great thought to great thought and vivid metaphor to vivid metaphor, and still go on adding in smallest possible compass, declares his intellect to be of the highest. I take two stanzas as illustrative equally of condensed thought and condensed metaphor concerning our First Parents:--

When their reasons eye was sharpe and cleare,
And (as an eagle can behold the sunne)
Could haue approcht th' Eternall Light as neare,
As the intellectuall angels could haue done:

Euen then to them the _Spirit of Lyes_ suggests
That they were blind, because they saw not ill;
And breathes into their incorrupted brests
A curious _wish_, which did corrupt their _will_.

Your Rhetorician-poet would have expatiated on his 'Eagle' through a hundred lines. Your mere Metaphysician would have entangled himself with distinctions between 'wish' and 'will' endlessly. Similarly how succinctly memorable is this of man's un-willinghood to know himself--every stanza a perfect circle but all the circles interlinked:--

We study _Speech_ but others we perswade;
We _leech-craft_ learne, but others cure with it;
We interpret _lawes_, which other men haue made,
But reade not those which in our hearts are writ.

Is it because the minde is like the eye,
Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees--
Whose rayes reflect not, but spread outwardly:
Not seeing it selfe when other things it sees?

No, doubtlesse; for the mind can backward cast
Vpon her selfe, her vnderstanding light;
But she is so corrupt, and so defac't,
As her owne image doth her selfe affright.

As in the fable of the Lady faire,
Which for her lust was turnd into a cow;
When thirstie to a streame she did repaire,
And saw her selfe transform'd she wist not how:

At first she startles, then she stands amaz'd,
At last with terror she from thence doth flye;
And loathes the watry glasse wherein she gaz'd,
And shunnes it still, though she for thirst doe die:

Euen so _Man's Soule_ which did God's image beare,
And was at first faire, good, and spotlesse pure;
Since with her _sinnes_ her beauties blotted were,
Doth of all sights her owne sight least endure:

For euen at first reflection she espies,
Such strange _chimeraes_, and such monsters there;
Such toyes, such _antikes_, and such vanities,
As she retires, and shrinkes for shame and feare.

And as the man loues least at home to bee,
That hath a sluttish house haunted with _spirits_;
So she impatient her owne faults to see,
Turnes from her selfe and in strange things delites.

For this few _know themselues_: for merchants broke
View their estate with discontent and paine;
And _seas_ are troubled, when they doe reuoke
Their flowing waues into themselues againe.

(pp. 20-22.)

How daintily-put and how divinely ennobled by the sacred reference is this of the soul's yearning after that higher ideal that is ever receding horizon-like to our vision:--

Then as a _bee_ which among weeds doth fall,
Which seeme sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay;
She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But pleasd with none, doth rise, and soare away;

So, when the _Soule_ finds here no true content,
And, like _Noah's_ doue, can no sure footing take;
She doth returne from whence she first was sent,
And flies to _Him_ that first her wings did make. (p. 87)

For condensed and close-packed thought and imagery the 'Reasons' for the 'Immortalitie of the Soule' (pp. 83-99) are not to be equalled anywhere.

We may not linger over "Nosce Teipsum." Passing to the "Hymnes to Astræa" and "Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dauncing" while they have the same characteristics with "Nosce Teipsum," they yet suggest another characteristic in Davies as a Poet--_unexpectedness of brilliant and great things_. You count on the Lark's up-springing and the Lark's idyllic song, if you are traversing its bladed or daisied possession; but you are startled if it rise from the mired or dusty street or the inodorous slum. You look for the eagle when you have climbed Shehallion and other Highland mountain fastnesses; but suppose it were to flap out upon you as you paced into your semi-suburban villa. So in "Nosce Teipsum," as seen, deep thought perfectly worked is what knowing the Poet you look for therein; but even in "Hymnes to Astræa" and "Orchestra" you very soon discover that it is still the Poet of "Nosce Teipsum" who sings. The moods of thought are airier and more vivacious substantively, but the thinking and shaping and colouring of imagination is the same; and 'unexpected' is really _the_ word that seems to me to express the out-flashing of the higher faculty. Turning to the "Hymnes to Astræa," how exquisite are the fancy and the flattery of Hymne V., "To the Larke," as she is wooed by the Poet-Courtier to be his minstrel to 'sing' of Elizabeth. You do not for a moment feel the 'artificial restraint' of the margin-letters that go to form Elizabetha Regina:--

Earley, cheerfull, mounting Larke,
Light's gentle vsher, Morning's clark,
In merry notes delighting;
Stint awhile thy song, and harke,
And learn my new inditing.

Beare vp this hymne, to heau'n it beare,
Euen vp to heau'n, and sing it there,
To heau'n each morning beare it;
Haue it set to some sweet sphere,
And let the Angels heare it.
Renownd Astræa, that great name,
Exceeding great in worth and fame,
Great worth hath so renownd it;
It is Astræa's name I praise,
Now then, sweet Larke, do thou it raise,
And in high Heauen resound it.

(p. 133.)

Meet companion to this is Hymne VII., "To the Rose:"--

Eye of the Garden, Queene of flowres,
Love's cup wherein he nectar powres,
Ingendered first of nectar;
Sweet nurse-child of the Spring's young howres,
And Beautie's faire character.

Best iewell that the Earth doth weare,
Euen when the braue young sunne draws neare,
To her hot Loue pretending;
Himselfe likewise like forme doth beare,
At rising and descending.

Rose of the Queene of Loue belou'd;
England's great Kings diuinely mou'd,
Gave Roses in their banner;
It shewed that Beautie's Rose indeed,
Now in this age should them succeed,
And raigne in more sweet manner.

(p. 135.)

That the large and intense homage of Davies (among his illustrious contemporaries), in these "Hymnes" was genuine not simulated, spontaneous not mercenary, the apostrophe to Envy protests. With an echo of the old 'exegi monumentum' or reminiscence of Shakespeare's then not long published Sonnets, he thus writes:--

Enuy, goe weepe; my Muse and I
Laugh thee to scorne; thy feeble eye
Is dazeled with the glory
Shining in this gay poesie,
And little golden story.

Behold how my proud quill doth shed
Eternall _nectar_ on her head;
The pompe of coronation
Hath not such power her fame to spread,
As this my admiration.

Respect my pen as free and franke
Expecting not reward nor thanke,
Great wonder onely moues it;
I never made it mercenary,
Nor should my Muse this burthen carrie
As hyr'd, but that she loues it.

(p. 154.)

Then in "Orchestra" you are again and again reminded that, mere sport of wit though it be, "suddaine, rash, half-capreol of my wit," as he himself calls it to Martin (p. 159), it is a man of rare genius who sports. So much so that ever and anon you perceive, as Cleopatra of her Anthony:

------"his delights
Were dolphin-like; _they show'd his tack above_
_The element they lived in_." (v. 2.)

That is, even among the trivialities about 'Dauncing' and the frivolities of laudation, you are re-called to grander things--as in the Summer one sees breaks of blue in the over-arching sky above some miserable Pick-nick party desecrating some glorious forest-dell. I cull two out of manifold examples of the unexpectedness that I now wish to point out--as thus of the antiquity yet vitality of 'Dauncing':--

"Thus doth it equall age with age inioy,
And yet in lustie youth for euer flowers;
Like loue his sire, whom Paynters make a boy,
Yet is the eldest of the heau'nly powers;
Or like his brother Time, whose wingèd howers
Going and comming will not let him dye,
But still preserve him in his infancie."

(p. 169.)

That is 'brilliant' but this is 'great,' indeed magnificent, of the Sea:--

"Loe the _Sea_ that fleets about the Land,
And like a girdle clips her solide waist,
Musicke and measure both doth vnderstand;
For his great chrystall eye is always cast
Vp to the Moone, and on her fixèd fast;
And as she daunceth in her pallid spheere,
So daunceth he about her Center heere." (p. 179.)

I know not where, outside of Milton, to match that personification of the Sea, with its "great chrystall eye"; and 'palid' is as tenderly delicate as the other is grand. Coleridge must have carried it in his omniverous memory, for surely one of the most memorable of the stanzas in his "Ancient Mariner" drew its inspiration thence, as thus:--

"Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast--
If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him."
(Pt. VI.)

At this point it may interest some to read Sir John Harington's welcome to the Poet on the publication of 'Orchestra', thus:--

_Of Master_ John Dauies _Booke of Dancing_. _To Himselfe._

While you the Planets all doe set to dancing,
Beware such hap, as to the Fryer was chancing:
Who preaching in a Pulpit old and rotten,
Among some notes, most fit to be forgotten:
Vnto his Auditory thus he vaunts,
To make all Saints after his pype to dance:
It speaking, which as he himselfe aduances,
To act his speech with gestures, lo, it chances,
Downe fals the Pulpit, sore the man is brusèd,
Neuer was Fryer and Pulpit more abusèd.
Then beare with me, though yet to you a stranger,
To warne you of the like, nay greater danger.
For though none feare the falling of those sparkes,
(And when they fall, t'will be good catching Larkes)
Yet this may fall, that while you dance and skip,
With female Planets, sore your foote may trip,
That in your lofty Caprioll and turne
Their motion may make your dimension burne."

(Epigrams, Book II. 67.)

I am tempted to further critical examination of this very remarkable Poetry; but feel constrained by already transgressed limits to withhold them for the present. But I must say something on the Epigrams and Minor Poems. I have 'compunctious visitings' in re-publishing them, even though they have been included by Dyce and by Colonel Cunningham in their successive editions of Marlowe. In my Note (Vol. II., pp. 3-6), I give bibliographical and other details concerning these Epigrams; and I correct a mis-assignation of certain by Dyce to Davies that belong to Henry Hutton. It must be conceded that the Epigrams have dashes of the roughness, even coarseness, of the age. They self-drevealingly belong to the wild-oats sowing of the Poet's youthful period. Nevertheless, I have ventured their reproduction in integrity for four reasons:--

(_a_) These Epigrams, from their subjects and style, are valuable, as expressing the _tone_ of society at the time.

(_b_) It would be _suppressio veri_ to withhold them, toward an accurate estimate of their Author. They furnish elements of judgment.

(_c_) They were what gained the Poet 'a name': even when tartly spoken of by Guilpin he is called the 'English Martial' from them.

(_d_) These Epigrams belong to a section of our early Literature that contemporaneously was abundant; and it were advantageous if characteristics of particular periods were more recognised in literary criticism.

Besides Guilpin, a very rare volume of early Verse by Ashmore, furnishes a hitherto overlooked Epigram, wherein "Nosce Teipsum" and the Epigrams, are noticed with well-put praise. I am fortunate enough to be able to give it, which I do in its English form only, the Latin being poor and inaccurate. It is inscribed "Ad D. Io. Davies, Milite Iudicem Itinerium" and thus runs:--

"If Plato lived and saw those heaven-breathed Lines
Where thou the Essence of the Soule confines;
Or merry Martiale read thy Epigrammes,
Where sportingly, these looser times thou blames:
Though both excel, yet (in their severall wayes)
They both ore-come, would yeeld to thee the Prise."[51]

[Footnote 51: Ashmore (J). Certain Selected Odes of Horace Englished, with Poems of divers Subiects translated. Whereunto are added, both in Latin and English, sundry new Epigrammes, Anagrammes, Epitaphes. 1621 sm. 4^{o}. As this Volume is seldom to be met with, I take the opportunity of adding here the Anagram to Bacon, which does not appear to have been known to his Editors or Biographers.