Part 6

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.

To the Right Honourable, Sir Francis Bacone, Knight, Lord High Chancelor of England.

Anagr { Bacone { Beacon

Thy Vertuous Name and Office, joyne with Fate, To make thee the bright Beacon of the State.

I just observe, as my book passes through the Press, that ANTHONY A-WOOD quotes (probably) above, without naming the author.]

His name-sake, John Davies of Hereford similarly saluted him. His 'Lines' with others, will appear more fitly in the fuller 'Life.' Meanwhile, as carrying within it, perhaps the most memorable circumstance appertaining to these 'Epigrams,' I must ask attention here, to one of Wordsworth's finest minor poems--his

"POWER OF MUSIC.

An Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, Faith may grow bold, And take to herself all the wonders of old;-- Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same, In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name.

His station is there; and he works on the crowd, He sways them with harmony merry and loud; He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim-- Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?

What an eager assembly! what an empire is this! The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss; The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest; And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer opprest.

As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night, So He, where he stands, is a centre of light; It gleams on the face, there, of the dusky-browed Jack, And the pale-visaged Baker's, with basket on back.

That errand-bound 'Prentice was passing in haste-- What matter! he's caught--and his time runs to waste; The Newsman is stopped, though he stops on the fret; And the half-breathless Lamp-lighter--he's in the net!

The Porter sits down on the weight which he bore; The Lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;-- If a thief could be here he might pilfer at ease; She sees the Musician, 'tis all that she sees!

He stands, backed by the wall; he abates not his din; His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in, From the old and the young, from the poorest; and there! The one-pennied Boy has his penny to spare.

O blest are the hearers, and proud be the hand Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band; I am glad for him, blind as he is!--all the while If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile.

That tall Man, a giant in bulk and in height, Not an inch of his body is free from delight; Can he keep himself still, if he would? oh, not he! The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.

Mark that Cripple who leans on his crutch; like a tower That long has leaned forward, leans hour after hour!-- That Mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound, While she dandles the Babe in her arms to the sound.

Now, coaches and chariots! roar on like a stream; Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream: They are deaf to your murmurs--they care not for you, Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue!

What is this but a glorified version of a portion of Epigram 38? Here it is:--

"As doth the Ballad-singer's auditory, Which hath at Temple-barre his standing chose, And to the vulgar sings an Ale-house story: First stands a Porter: then, an Oyster-wife Doth stint her cry, and stay her steps to heare him; Then comes a Cut-purse ready with a knife, And then a Countrey-clyent passeth neare him; There stands the Constable, there stands the whore, And, listening to the Song, heed not each other; There by the Serjeant stands the debitor, And doth no more mistrust him than his brother: Thus Orpheus to such hearers giveth musick And Philo to such patients giveth physic."

Any charge of plagiarism were an outrage on Genius: but the coincidence is remarkable. It is just possible that the later Poet may have found the 'Epigrams' in his bookish friend SOUTHEY'S library, and that the rough lines lingered semi-unconsciously in his memory. The earlier is to the later, as a photograph of the actual coarse street-group to the idealizations of the Artist: nevertheless it has its own interest and value, neither are the Characters ill-chosen, nor without humour.

But on the other hand Davies, in his 47th Epigram, was no doubt influenced by a remembrance of Sidney's 30th Stella sonnet. The likeness as to the countries mentioned is remarkable.[52]

[Footnote 52: See my edition of Sidney, Vol. I.]

One flagrant appropriater of Davies' Epigrams must be nailed-up, in the person of William Winstanley in his "The Muses Cabinet stored with variety of Poems, both pleasant and profitable. London 1655." Thus we read "On Rembombo":--

"Rembombo having spent all his estate Went to the wars to prove more fortunate. Being return'd, he speaks such warlike words, No dictionary half the like affords: He talks of flankers, gabions and scalados, Of curtneys, parapets & palizados, Retreats & triumphs & of carnisadoes, Of sallies, halfe moones & of ambuscadoes: I to requite the fustian termes he uses, Reply with words belonging to the Muses; As Spondes, Dactiles & Hexameters, Stops, commas, accents, types, tropes, & pentameters, Madrigalls, Epicediums, elegies, Satyres, Iambicks, & Apostrophes, Acrosticks, Aquiuoques, & epigrams: Thus talking and being understood by neither, We part wise as when we came together."

(p. 43)

Let the Reader compare this with Davies' Epigram (Vol. II., p. 23-4). Various others are similarly transmogrified; and John Heath also is 'spoiled' (in a double sense). Yet has Winstanley the impudence to close his volume bitingly thus:--

"Cease Muse, here comes a criticke, close thy page, These lines are not strong enough for this age; The nice new-fangled readers of these times Will scarcely relish thy plain country rimes."

The Minor Poems, not hitherto collected, will reward critical perusal. Some of them are noticeable: quaint fancies, glances of wit and wisdom, felicitous epithet, racy similes, aphoristic sayings, bird-like notes of genuine music, and now and then, powerful sarcasm, will meet the studious reader. The HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED MSS., which include, besides secular poems, his long vainly-sought Metaphrase of certain Psalms, speak for themselves. And so I leave the Reader to raise the lid of the casket of gems now put into his hands. It demands robustness of brain and sensibilities of spirit to appreciate adequately Sir John Davies as a Poet; but if, in all humility of receptiveness and open-eyedness, these volumes be read, no one competent can go away unimpressed. Whether as Thinker or Singer he must be placed among the rare few who have enriched our highest Literature.

ALEXANDER B. GROSART.

POSTSCRIPT.

MINOR POEMS, ETC.