is humbled. He seems to have been quelled by Shakespeare's reproof in the 38th Sonnet, and is compelled to admit that his Muse "wants might," the sun of favour being withdrawn from him, his May is nipped, hence his lines are "wintry-bare." He can offer Lord Herbert but a meagre, wintry garland, although he conceives it is the office of his Muse, in spite of all reproof, to give the Earl his due; but as another stands in his way he must await his removal. Then he consoles himself when he receives the sunshine of favour, he may have power to make him flourish. In the last line he plainly imitates the last lines of Shakespeare's 86th. He also alludes to the 4th line of the 79th, and intimates that the place then given his Muse, she was worthy to keep, and might, as well as any other, preserve the glory of his spring ever flourishing, which was the peculiar office of Shakespeare's Muse.

Davies was entirely silenced by Shakespeare's reproofs, since he, in spite of his early promises, in but the above instance addressed the Earl till the year of Shakespeare's death (1616), but this dedication volume, through its excessive rarity, I have not been able to see; but I find from the Biblio Anglo Poetica, that the inscription opens in his usual fantastic fashion, "To the right right noble, for all that is in nobility, art or nature, William Earl of Pembroke," etc. His satire, "The Scourge of Folly," is too long for insertion; the reader will probably have had quite enough with these extracts towards its conclusion. They are given to show his jealous feeling and rivalry.

"Alas!

That e'er this dotard made me such an ass;

To hear such, and that in such a thing

We call chronicle, so on me bring

A world of shame; a shame upon them all,

That make mine injuries historical,

To wear out time that never (without end)
My shame may last, without some one it mend.
And if a sens'less creature (as I am

And so am made by those whom thus I blame),
My judgment give, from those I know it well,
His notes for art and judgment doth excel.
Well fare thee, man of art and world of wit,
That by supremest mcrcy livest yet.

Yet dost but live, yet liv'st thou to the end,
But so thou past for time, which thou dost spend."

Ending with

"So may ye grace me with eternal lines,

That compass can and gage the deep'st designs."

On account of Davies taking a vulgar view of the subject, his poem, for the chief part, is but a picture of his own jealousy, rivalry, and spite, and proves, as he himself predicted, both his lasting shame and glory. In an address to the reader at the end of the volume, he apologises for his foolish "licentious reprehensions." He confesses he has taxed some with his "pen's tongue," whose "names suppressed are," he imputes his licentious writing to the change his "pleasant disposition" had received. had received. He had been "disgraced with fell disasters,” or, in other words, some shame he had received put him in a bitter mood, and instigated him to pen "The Scourge of Folly."

It is evident the satire was written in revenge for Shakespeare having made sport of him to the Earl, and under the name of Paper he pours forth his own grievances, and directs his utmost indignation against one who had obtained the patronage he himself had sought, the more so as that writer was a dramatic writer, one who was not content with his gains by the stage, but must seek to thrive better by recording the unworthy actions of a lord. Davies throughout the piece severely censures the chro

niclers of petty events, from the historians of English history to the relator of a living noble's " sedges," as he derisively called them; but what most grieved him to the heart was to be perpetually chronicled in Shakespeare's poetic diary, in terms only of ridicule. He, therefore, pens in imitation of Shakespeare a satirical poem, and speaks sometimes in the name of Paper Personified, and sometimes in his own name. He mentions two disreputable dramatic writers, Marlowe and Greene; the latter he triumphantly says is "now well nigh forgot." He blames Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," for which its author had apologised, and had redeemed himself in the following year by penning a graver labour, "The Lucrece." To Shakespeare Davies couples himself, admitting faults in his own pen, which he briefly censures for its style, not its matter; and as a parallel to their enmity, he complains of Nash and Harvey's paper war, and blames their 'ugly satirising;" but, in his opinion, the doctor got the best of it. Users of "new affected words," said to be "the death of Poetry," are upbraided. He instances the word "Equipage," used by Shakespeare in Sonnet 32, hence fortune, he avows, frowns upon poetry as a work of darkness, whose soul is all satire. Yet he jeeringly tells it to be blythe to feed on air, adding

"But if air fat thee not as through thee it passes,

Live upon sentences 'gainst golden asses.'

He relates how Ben Jonsen and Dekker made themselves public laughing stocks through a quarrel, and is especially indignant at writers for the stage exalting kings to gods, by putting majestic words into their mouths. But of what avail is that, he exclaims, "if for an hunger starven

fee, they foolishly make an idol of a golden ass :" he gives advice; be scanty of praise to your kind patrons, and not for a little gain "with rich praise books to lade," such shadowing beauty forth in other's praise" is folly, when they soon die, forgotten. This is but an echo of Shakespeare's Sonnets 71 to 74, but this consolation is offered to those against whom his satire is levelled :

"You are half gods and more, so cannot die

By reason of your wit's divinity."

They are blamed also for writing in a subtle manner, creating obscure mysteries, but their chief offence lay in penning epistles to lords. Davies wisely points at others, lest his object should appear too obvious; he feared to point at his great rival in too open a manner. Davies could not see that by his own foolish verses he became the subject of his own satire. He again and again speaks of the folly of dedicating to a lord, imputing to Shakespeare the worst of motives, for to no other can the allusion apply, no one having written as he did to a patron; and I have reasons to suspect that Davies was prompted to this by Drayton, who, perhaps, was the intelligencer alluded to in Sonnet 86, as aiding Davies. like an evil spirit, with dark suggestions. I partly infer this from the turn the satire takes, being a direct echo of Drayton's lines upon Shakespeare, see p. 15, and also on account of that poet being a friend of Davies's, as sonnets between them prove, but more especiaily as Drayton during Shakespeare's life and also after his death, appears to have been extremely jealous of him, besides the latter has several satirical allusions to him in his Sonnets before Davies appeared as a rival; but it appears in this, as in

every other instance of Shakespeare's connexion with his contemporaries, that he, like Raphael, occasioned enmity more by his merit then his manners, both being of a like gentle loving nature. Whenever Shakespeare is mentioned it is almost always either as "loving countryman," "loving good friend," "friendly Shakespeare," "gentle Shakespeare," "Sweet swan of Avon," etc.

Shakespeare cared but little whether the Sonnet writers of his day were offended, he knew the foremost wits of the time, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and others, looked upon the mistress-sonnetters with contempt, and would view his Sonnets as of a satirical tendency, and delight in the scheme. They would at once see that the Sonnets were used in an order and continuity, and with a mastery the halting sonnet-writers had never conceived, and could never equal, in regard to whom Shakespeare looked upon himself as a nightingale among a choir of common song birds.