and M.P. for first Barnstaple, and later for Cirencester. He appears, too, as the associate of Ben Jonson, John Selden, and others of the foremost.4 But as a youthful law-student he was wild.' He fell under the lash of the Benchers, having been expelled from the Middle Temple in February, 1591, for the part he took in a riot at the prohibited festival of the Lord of Misrule. He was fast of tongue and ribald of wit, with a dash of provocative sarcasm. Evidently he was one of those men who would rather (as the saying puts it) lose his friend than his joke (however poor the joke and rich the friend). A consideration of the whole facts seems to show that again restored to the Middle Temple he had let loose his probably winecharged sarcasms at his friend Davies. was so or not, he was ignobly punished. all "good manners "not to speak of the "law" and discipline of the Court, Master Davies came into the Hall with his hat on, armed with a dagger, and attended by two persons with swords. Master Martin was Whether it For against 4 See Woolrych, as before, and the authorities therein given. At the end of Thomas Coriate's "Traveller for the English Wits," W. Jaggard, 1616 (4to), is a list of his acquaintances, to whom he desires "the commendations of my dutiful respects." Among them occurs "Mr. Richard Martin, Counsellor." seated at dinner at the Barristers' Table. Davies pulling a bastinado or cudgel from under his gown, went up to his insulter and struck him repeatedly over the head. The chastisement must have been given with a will; for the bastinado was shivered to pieces-arguing either its softness or the head's asinine thickness. Having "avenged" himself, Davies returned to the bottom of the Hall, drew one of the swords belonging to his attendants, and flourished it repeatedly over his head, turning his face towards Martin, and then hurrying down the water-steps of the Temple, threw himself into a boat. This extraordinary occurrence happened at the close of 1597 or January of 1598. In 1595 he had been called to the bar; but in February 1598 Davies was expelled by a unanimous sentence; "disbarred" and deprived for ever of all authority to speak or consult in law." These outbreaks " and expulsions were familiar incidents; and make us exclaim with Othello: "O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil "—" O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their 5 Lord Stowell wrote an elaborate Paper on the whole matter, and the restoration of Davies. It appeared in " Archæologia," Vol. XXI. I propose to write the narrative in extenso in my fuller Life, as before. 6 Lord Stowell, as before. brains! that we should with joy, pleasure, revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts" (ii. 3). This is the all-too-plain solution of these "high jinks." It was a disaster of the most ominous kind. Nevertheless the dark cloud that thus fell across the noon of the fulland-hot-blooded young Barrister folded in it a "bright light:" or if we may fetch an illustration from Holy Scripture, as Moses the great Lawgiver of ancient Israel through the slaying of the Egyptian was compelled to be a fugitive in the wilderness and therein to master his native impulsiveness and passion, so was the "offender" in the Hall of the Middle Temple through the disgrace and penalties incurred forced into retirement and introspection. It was a costly price to pay. But it is to be doubted whether if the enforced return to Oxford and the self-scrutiny and penitence that calm reflection wrought there had not arrested him, he ever would have given our literature "Nosce Teipsum." His great poem bears witness to very poignant self-accusation and humiliation. Towards the close you seem to catch the echo of sobs and the glistening of tears; nor is it "preaching" to recognize a diviner element still-his unrest and burden alike laid on Him Who alone can sustain and help a "wounded spirit" in its trouble. Besides the hazardous as disastrous incident with Martin, his "Epigrams" by their abandon and general allusiveness reveal that he was the associate of the "young gallants" of the city and lived "fast;" and so give significance and interpretation to his later passionate regrets, self-accusations and self-rebuke. How abased and yet in touches how noble is this! 66 O ignorant poor man! what dost thou beare Lockt vp within the casket of thy brest? Looke in thy soule, and thou shalt beauties find, Thinke of her worth, and think that God did meane, Kill not her quickning powers with surfettings, Cast not her serious wit on idle things: And when thou think'st of her eternitie, Thinke not that death against her nature is, Take heed of over-weening, and compare Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's traine; But of thyselfe an humble thought retaine."7 "Expelled" and "disbarred," he retired to Oxford and there" followed his studies, although he wore a cloak." (Wood's Athenæ, as before, ii. 401). To lighten severer studies he now leisurely composed that "Nosce Teipsum" from which has just been quoted the remarkable close. His vein must have been a "flowing" one; for it was published within a year of his disgrace, viz. in 1599.8 It was dedicated to the "great Queen;" without 7 Vol. I., pp. 115-116, "Nosce Teipsum." 8 See Vol. I., pp. 9-11. The date 1592, sometimes (modernly) appended to the dedication of " Nosce Teipsum," has no authority, and is in contradiction with all the known facts and circumstances. Equally erroneous and misleading is the ultra-rhetorically given chronology in "Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne," (2 Vols., 8vo., 1864), which bears the name of the present Duke of Manchester, as thus :-"This Templar.... who wrote a noble work on the immortality of the soul in the very hey-day of his young blood, who afterwards became famous for his gravity as a judge, his wisdom as a politician, and his soundness as a statesman, terminated his literary career as the author of a poem in praise of dancing," (Vol. I., p. 289). This is precisely the reverse of the fact. In his earlier hot-blooded days he threw off his gay and self-named "light" verses. In an interval of penitent selfinspection and worthier aspiration, he wrote "Nosce Teipsum," and |