Sir John Davies

“ I send forth this new edition of a great Poet assured that he has not yet gathered half his destined renown:—
"Ah! weak and foolish men are they Who lightly deem of Poet's lay, That turns e'en winter months to May, And makes the whole year warm: 'Tis this that brings back Paradise, Reveals its bowers by Art's device, Instructs the fool, delights the wise, And gives to Life its charm. ”

“ Fairest of men, whose lipps with grace abound,
Whom with eternall blessings God hath crown'd;
Gird Thy sharp sword vpon Thine armèd thigh,
And shew Thyselfe in power and majestie.
Ride on with Thy great honnour prosperously,
Raigne and trihumph, and bee Thou mounted high,
Borne vp with justice, truth and meeknes' wings:
And Thy right hand shall teach Thee dreadfull things;
Thine arrowes sharpe, shall make Thy foes to fall,
Which Thou shalt shoote and peirce their hearts withall.
Eternall is Thy judgement-seat O God! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ God cast His eyes from Heauen on all mankinde,
And lookt if Hee one righteous man could finde;
But all were wicked, all from God were gone,
Not one did good, in all the world, not one;
Their throat an open graue, their flattering tongue
And lyinge lips, like stinge of wasps haue stung.
With bitter cursing, they their mouthes doe fill;
Their feet are swift the guiltles blood to spill;
[Pg 142] Sad, wretched mischeife, in their wayes doth lye
But for the wayes of peace they passe them by;
Noe feare of God haue they before their eyes,
Nor knowledge, while these mischeifes they devise ”

“ Attending nigh about her Court, the braine:
By them the formes of outward things she learnes,
For they returne into the fantasie,
What euer each of them abroad discernes,
And there inrole it for the Minde to see.
But when she sits to iudge the good and ill,
And to discerne betwixt the false and true;
She is not guided by the Senses' skill,
But doth each thing in her owne mirrour view.
Then she the Senses checks, which oft do erre,
And euen against their false reports decrees;
And oft she doth condemne what they preferre,
For with a power aboue the Sense, she sees. ”

“ And from all trubles absolutely cleare them;
God's present helpe the Lord ['s own folk] doth finde,
And such Hee saues as are of humble minde.
The righteous into many trubles fall,
But God's sweet mercy brings them out of all;
Their very bones so keepe and count doth Hee,
As not one broken nor one lost, shall bee.
But some foule death shall on the wicked light,
And they which hate the just, shall perish quite;
But of his seruants, God the Sauiour is;
They trust in Him, their hope they cannot misse.
PSALM XXXV.
Plead Thou my cause, O Lord my Advocate! ”

“ Or how could she the world's great shape contain,
And in our narrow brests containèd bee?
All bodies are confin'd within some place,
But she all place within her selfe confines;
All bodies haue their measure, and their space,
But who can draw the Soule's dimensiue lines?
No body can at once two formes admit,
Except the one the other doe deface;
But in the soule ten thousand formes do sit,
And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.
All bodies are with other bodies fild,
But she receiues both heauen and earth together ”

“ That Nation hath true happines and blisse,
Whose God and Lord, the Lord Jehouah is;
Downe from the highest heauen the Lord did looke,
And of all men a full suruey Hee tooke;
From Heauen aboue the Lord did cast His eye,
And all mens wayes and wanderings did espie.
[Pg 172] Hee formèd all their hearts, and understands
Their thoughts, their words, and workes of all their hands.
The greatest armies cannot saue a Kinge,
Nor strength unto a stronge man safety bringe;
His trust is vaine who trusteth in his horse,
And seekes deliuerance by soe small a force ”

“ 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. ”

“ The just shall rule them when the sunne doth rise,
With them their pride and beauty buried lies;
But God shall from Deathe's power my soule deliuer,
When Hee shall take it to Himselfe for euer.
Then let not feare and enuy thee surprize,
When thou seest men in wealth and honnour rise,
For to their graues they naught away shall beare,
Nor shall their glory waite vpon them there;
Yet they themselues thought happie all their dayes,
For him who helps himselfe others will praise:
As his forefathers all are gon before,
Soe shall hee die and see the light noe more. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rich become poore, and lyons hungrie bee,
But such as feare the Lord noe want shall see.
Come then yee children, listen and giue eare,
And I will teach you this religious feare:
What man art thou that longest long to liue,
And wouldst that God to thee good dayes should giue;
Refraine thy tongue from speaking ill the while,
And from thy lipps let there proceed noe guile;
Doe that is good, decline from that is ill,
Seeke peace with God and men, and hould it still.
Upon good men God casts a gentle eye,
And bends a gentle eare unto their crye. ”

“ But here all the labyrinths and windings of the human frame are laid open: 'tis seen by what pullies and wheels the work is carried on, as plainly as if a window were opened in the breast: for it is the work of God alone to create a mind. ”

“ Forgett thy father's house and Cuntry deare.
Soe shall the Kinge take pleasure in thy beautie;
Hee is thy Lord, yield Him both loue and duty.
The Tyrian virgins shall bringe guifts to thee,
And merchants rich, thy suppliants shall bee.
The daughter of the Kinge is rich without,
Her gownes embroidered all with gould about;
And yet within, shee is more glorious farr,
The jewells of her minde more precious are. ”

“ Cowley with pleasing softness and plenty of imagination: none ever uttered more divine thought than Mr. Herbert; none more philosophical than Sir John Davies. His thoughts are moulded into easy and significant words; his rhymes never mislead the sense, but are led and governed by it: so that in reading such useful performances, the wit of mankind may be refined from its dross, their memories furnished with the best notions, their judgments strengthened, and their conceptions enlarged: by which means the mind will be raised to the most perfect ideas it is capable of in this degenerate state. ”

“ For the poet takes care in every line to satisfy the understandings of mankind: he follows step by step the workings of the mind, from the first strokes of sense, then of fancy, afterwards of judgment, into the principles both of natural and supernatural motives: hereby the soul is made intelligible, which comprehends all things besides ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Sith all God's creature's mortall and diuine,
Sith God Himselfe, is her eternall food.
Bodies are fed with things of mortall kind,
And so are subiect to mortalitie;
But Truth which is eternall, feeds the mind;
The Tree of life, which will not let her die.
[Pg 98]
Violence cannot destroy her.
Yet violence, perhaps the Soule destroyes:
As lightning, or the sun-beames dim the sight;
Or as a thunder-clap, or cannons' noyse,
The power of hearing doth astonish quite.
But high perfection to the Soule it brings,
T' encounter things most excellent and high ”

“ 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 ”