and especially by those of Magdalen College, to whom he addressed two complimentary Sonnets. The ensuing lines record his grateful feelings for the warm and flattering patronage he received while residing in that University:

To my much honored, and intirely beloved Patronesse,
the most famous Vniversitie of Oxford.

To mount aboue Ingratitude (base crime)
With double lines of single-twisted Rime;

I will (though needlesse) blaze the Sun-bright praise

Of Oxford, where I spend some gaining daies:

Who entertaines me with that kinde regard

That my best words, her worst deedes should reward:

For like a Lady full of roialtie,

Shee giues me Crownes for my Charactery:

Her Pupils crowne me for directing them,

Where like a King I liue, without a Realme:

They praise my precepts, and my Lessons learne,

So doth the worse the better wel gouerne.

But Oxford, ô I praise thy situation
Passing Pernassus, Muses habitation!

Thy Bough-deckt-dainty Walkes, with Brooks beset
Fretty, like Christall Knotts, in moulds of Iet.
Thy sable Soile's like Guians golden Ore,
And gold it yeelds, manur'd: no mould can more.
The pleasant Plot where thou hast footing found,
For all it yeelds, is yelke of English ground.
Thy stately Colledges like Princes courtes,
Whose gold-embossed, high-embattl'd Ports
With all the glorious workmanshippe within
Make Strangers deeme they haue in Heauen bin,
When out they come from those celestial places,
Amazing them with glorie and with graces.
But, in a word, to say how I like thee

For place, for grace, and for sweete companee,
Oxford is Heav'n, if Heau'n on Earth there be.
JOHN DAVIES.

Davies wrote numerous poems, some of them noticed hereafter, serving rather as proofs of his labour than of his genius, and also prefixed copies of verses to several works of other writers, in accordance with the custom of that period; but falling into great poverty and suffering, he died in London in 1618, and was buried at St. Giles's in the Fields. He had two brothers,

James and Richard, almost equally celebrated with himself for the same skill in penmanship, and a pupil of the name of Gething, who is said to have been his superior in the same art. There is a portrait of Davies in an oval prefixed to his Anatomy of faire Writing, 4to, 1631, which has been copied by Richardson. See some account of him, with a list of his numerous works, in Wood's Ath. Oxon., vol. ii. p. 260; in Dibdin's Libr. Comp., vol. ii. p. 310; Beloe's Anecd., vol. ii. p. 98; Grainger's Biogr. Hist., vol. ii. p. 132 and 165; and Lowndes' Bibliog. Manual, p. 598.

For a description of this rare volume consult the Cens. Liter., vol. ii. p. 216; and an article in Restituta by Mr. Park, vol. iii. p. 409, where several stanzas from the Preface are quoted in celebration of some of the persons of much note at that period. See also the Bibl. Ang. Poet., p. 211, respecting an allusion to Shakespeare and Richard Burbage the actor and painter, in a note on the 215th page. There was a second edition of the work published in 1611, a copy of which sold in Sir Mark M. Sykes's sale, pt. i. No. 842, for 51. 78. 6d. The edition of 1603 is priced in the Bibl. Ang. Poet., No. 211, at 127. 12s. It sold in Sir Francis Freeling's sale, No. 1037, for 17. 198.; Bright's ditto, No. 1628, 37. 11s.; Utterson's ditto, No. 670, 47.; Heber's ditto, pt. iv. No. 547, 57.; Midgley's ditto, No. 207, 51. 58.; and Gardner's ditto, No. 619, 67. 68. The present is a beautiful clean of this work, and was procured in 1833 at a sale in Manchester. It has bound up along with it N. Breton's Cornucopia, Pasquils Night-cap. Lond. 1612. 4to.

copy

Collation: Sig. A to Z 4, and Aa to Pp 2, in fours.

In Brown Calf, gilt leaves.

DAVIES, (JOHN.) - Bien Venu. Greate Britaines Welcome to hir Greate Friendes, and Deere Brethren the Danes.

When Love is well exprest in Worde, and Deede,

T'wixt Friendes, it showes they are right well agreed.

Imprinted at London for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be solde at his shoppe neere Saint Austens gate. 1606. 4to, pp. 24.

On July 11th, in the year 1606, Christian IV. King of Denmark, brother to Queen Anne, came into England, attended by his suite, on a visit to his sister, and his brother-in-law, James I. During his sojourn in this country

VOL. III. PART I.

L

he was received with all possible magnificence, and every species of diversion and entertainment was provided for his amusement. The arrival of the Royal visitor gave occasion to this poetical welcome from the Writing Master of Hereford, for the presentation copy of which he doubtless trusted to receive a handsome largess from our own learned Monarch. It is dedicated in a commendatory Sonnet "To the right noble Lord Philip Herbert Earle of Mountgomerie, Baron of Shurland: and the right worshipful Sir James Haies Knight," and consists of sixty octave stanzas, composed suddenly for the occasion, and possessing no peculiar claim to our notice in thought or versification. Davies had great fluency and industry in composition, but was utterly destitute of the fire and vigour of a genuine poet. A short extract from the Poem will suffice as a specimen, in which, whilst lamenting his own cares and obscurity, he yet acknowledges the delight which he feels in the charms of poesy, and ventures to express a hope for the immortality of his rhymes:

O! that my Muse were wing'd with Angels Plumes
That she might mount aboue the roofe of Heauen,
To viewe that glorie which no time consumes,

It to relate, in sacred numbers euen,

For thine example: that, as now, assumes
But glories shape, by Arte, and Nature geu'n,
I blessed were, and thou wert blest in mee,
By whom thou should'st beheauen all that see.
But ah! (alas) my short-wing'd Muse doth hant
None but the obscure corners of the Earth,
Where she with naught but care is conuersant:
Which makes her curse her case, and ban her birth:
Where she (except she would turne ignorant)
Must liue, till die she must, in mournfull mirth.
Which is the cherishing the World doth giue
To those that muse to die, not muse to liue.

Well, be it so, (though well it cannot be
That is so ill with those that meane but well)
A weake Pen holds the heauiest part of me
(Which is my heart) from death; and doth expell
The cares that kill it, by sweet Poesie,

Whereby in griefe, it seemes in heau'n to dwell:

Then, though it be a Portion for the poore:
Let me be rich in that, I seeke no more.

While Seas on either side, this Land shall bound
Your coming thus, and welcome shall appeare:
In faire eternall Lines which shall be found

In our best Histories, and Poems cleare,

The fame whereof through all worlds so shall sound
That it shall ring in Time's eternall eare:

Dido's deer welcome to the Troian Knight

Shall, through this welcom's lustre, lose their light.
For what made that in glory shine so long,
But Poets Pens pluckt from Archangel's wings:
And some we haue can sing as sweet a Song
As any Tuskane, though with him he brings
The Queen of Art, to right him, being wrong;
For, some can say their Muse was made for Kings:
But, be it made for Kings, or Gods, or men,
Soule-pleasing Helicon flowes from their pen.
And let none tax them for this selfe conceite
Sith such conceite to euery Maker is

Their shade, which on their Substance still doth waite :
Most Makers marre, yet make they none amisse :
Because their words haue measure (though not weight)
Which makes them meet, howeuer meane, by this:

Though some will say, there's more hope of a foole,
Then of the self-conceited in each Schoole.

This is one of the rarest of the productions from the pen of John Davies, and is found in few collections of our early Poetry. It is not in the Bibl. Ang. Poet; nor, with the single exception of a short article upon it by Mr. Collier in his P. P. Catal. of the Bridgewater Library, p. 87, do we find it noticed by any of our poetical bibliographers. Lowndes also seems to have been unable to refer to the sale of a single copy.

Collation: Sig. A to C 4, in fours.

Beautiful copy of this extremely rare work.

Bound by Lewis. Dark Green Morocco, gilt leaves.

DAVIES, (JOHN.)

-Summa Totalis, or All in All, and the

same for euer: Or, an Addition to Mirum in Modum. By the first Author, Iohn Davies.

Those Lines which all, or none perceiue aright

Haue neither Iudgement, Art, Wit, Life, or Spright.

London Printed by William Iaggard dwelling in Barbican. 1607. 4to, pp. 76.

The present work forms an addition to, or continuation of, Davies's first Poem of Mirum in Modum, which, as we have seen, was published in 1602. It is inscribed in a dedicatory Sonnet "To the right Honourable mine ap. proved good Lord and Master, Thomas Lord Elsmere, Lord Chancellor of England and to his Right Noble Lady and Wife Alice, Countesse of Derby, my good Lady and Mistresse." The Poem is composed in the same stanza of nine lines each as the former portion, and is written in the same mystical and metaphysical character, claiming little merit as a poetical publication, but entitled to some favour for its moral and religious sentiments. Davies seems to have delighted in this ethical style of writing, and believed that he was doing good service to the cause of religion and piety by his poems on these abstruse subjects, not sufficiently consulting his own fame and reputation as a worshipper of the Muses. His works are very frequently dull and tedious, and have in consequence, perhaps justly, sunk into obscurity and neglect, which not even their rarity can resuscitate. Davies is not noticed by Phillips in his Theatr. Poet., nor by Ellis nor Campbell. Winstanley's account of him is taken from Fuller's Worthies of England. Some of the single descriptive verses, placed at the commencement of each change of subject, as in the Mirum in Modum, prove that Davies could have written in a pleasing and poetical manner, had he not unfortunately chosen such dull and abstract subjects. Take for example a couple of these

verses:

Now Heavens bright Eye (awake by Vespers sheene)
Peepes through the purple windowes of the East,
While Night doth sinke beneath the Earth vnseene;
Fearing with lightnes to be sore opprest;

Then vp my wakefull Muse to worke for rest.

Thou shalt not soundly sleepe till thou hast view'd
Thy iournies end: wherein who ends are blest:
Then, let thy course be zealously pursu'd
To find the rest of true Beatitude.

Now o're the Eastern Mountaines headles height
We see that Eye (by which our Eies do see)
To peepe, as it would steale on theeuish Night,
Which from that Eyes-sight, like a Theefe, doth flee,
Least by the same it should surprized be:

Then is it time (my Muse) thy wings to stretch
(Sith they are short, too short, the worse for thee)
For this daies Iournie hath a mightie reach,
And manie a compasse thou therein must fetch.