Yet not so satisfied, but on he goes, And where one Berrie's meane house stands, he shewes." Shakspeare's poem of Venus and Adonis is probably here stigmatized, with Davies's own amatory sonnets entitled Wittes Pilgrimage. "Another (ah, harde happe) mee vilifies And thou, O poet! that dost pen my plaint, Stubbes, Jonson, and Decker, claim the following gibe. "Some burden me, sith I oppresse the stage, With all the grosse abuses of this age, And presse me after, that the world may see (As in a soiled glasse) her selfe in me: Where each man in and out of's humour pries Upon myselfe, and laughs untill he cries: Untrussing humorous poets, and such stuffe As might put plainest patience in a ruffe," In the "Inquisition," or imitative continuation of Paper's Complaint, by A. H. the following censure may have been applied to Clapham's Briefe of the Bible's History, or Wastell's Microbiblion, and the commendation, to Sylvester, and other translators of Du Bartas "Others dare venture a diviner straine, Aud rime the BIBLE, whose foule feete profane Didst maske thy sacred furie, whose rare wit Gav'st Sunday-rayment to the Working-dayes." Other satiric shafts are directed against some of the poetasters of that time, and against the folly which gave encouragement to fraudulence, whence the author declares, England is all turn'd Yorkshire, and the age T. P. ART. CXXV. A Select Second Husband for Sir A SONNET-DEDICATION to William Earl of Pembroke is signed John Davies. This was not Sir John, the philosophical poet and the judge: but his namesake of Hereford, the verbose rhymer and writingmaster.* In a prose address to the reader, he affirms that "they make harsh musicke, who to please * Vide Athen. Oxon. I. 445. the judgment with the ditty, offend the ear with the accent; and he who sings much out of tune, though he sings well out of cry, may haply sing to please himself and few: but shall be sure to displease many. In well-doing, it is well to follow; but in ill, the imitation is worse than the example." Davies has here followed Overbury with no illaudable endeavour; but, like most servile imitators, appears to copy without discrimination the blemishes of his original. At the end of his Choice Husband are announced "Divers Elegies touching the death of the never toomuch-praised and pitied Sir Tho. Overhury:" but one elegy and one epitaph are all that appear in print. To these succeed "Mirum in Modum," a poem first published in 1602; and "Speculum Proditor," which has a conclusion to Sir T. O. that reaches the very acme of metrical bombast and word-catching absurdity. For the credit of the author, and in consonance with the present plan of concentrating these homogeneous productions in one point of view, a short extract is here in preference supplied from his principal poem. "Marriage, that is most noble, should have nought To scorne that frailty, and despise that thought Are ills, if good they be not made by these, In paradise it was ordain'd; and so For place its noble and if innocence : May make that noble which from thence doth flow, Nobilitie therein hath residence. The Lord of Love who hatred most doth hate, Then time, place, person, that did it effect, Woman was made for man, and for his aide Made of that holpe; that holpe, then, must be staid.” T. P. ART. CXXVI. The Unmasking of a feminine Machiavell. By Thomas Andrewe, Gent. Est nobis voluisse satis. Seene and allowed by authority. London: Printed by Simon Stafford, and are to be sold by George Loftis, at the Golden Ball in Pope's Head Alley. 1604. 4to. 22 leaves. DEDICATED "to his worthy and reverend uncle M. D. Langworth, Archdeacon of Wells." "To the vertuous Mistris Judith Hawkins." A Sonnet "to the Reader." A short prose address, wherein the author says, "some may imagin I have written of malice to some particular person, by reason of my title's strangenes, wherein whosoever is opi`nionate, is far wide: yet if any guilty conscience (that perhaps I know not) will wrest my writings, and interpret my meaning in other than the right sence, I am not to bee blamed, if that creature's corruption accuse it selfe." "To detraction," 22 lines, by the author. "In laudem authoris, &c." 10 lines Latin, sig. "Rob. Hunt, Heath-fieldensis." VOL. II. "To his worthy friend, &c." 6 lines, sig. “E. B. Gent." "To his respected and kind affected friend, Mr. Thomas Andrewe, Gent." two six-line stanzas, signed "Samuel Rowlands.” Then follows the poem. The story appears founded on the acts of a false female friend, while the author was gone abroad with (it may be supposed) the Scottish part of the army, in which he was at the battle at Newport, in Flanders, 22 June, 1600; and a description of that event forms a considerable portion of the work. The relation is made in the manner of a vision, and recounting the misfortunes of another. "The Argument of this Booke. Haplesse Andrea was he call'd, Whose heart with sorrowes deepe was gal'd. My Muse hath chosen for her theame." From about 900 lines, of which the poem consists, the selection of a specimen is difficult; there is not much interest in a long description, where |