Grosart has made it appear most probable that Spenser's wife was an Elizabeth Boyle who lived at Kilcoran, that looks out upon the Bay of Youghal, and who was a kinswoman of Richard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, then only at the beginning of his prosperous career. It was in the following year, 1595, that Richard Boyle married at Limerick his first wife, Joan Ansley, who died in 1599, and left him an estate of £500 a year in lands.

Spenser's marriage, on the 11th of June 1594, was followed by the birth of a child in each of the four succeeding years. The names of the children were Sylvanus, Lawrence, Peregrine, and Catherine. His "Amoretti" and "Epithalamium" were sent to London and published in 1595. At the close of that year he went to London with the MS. of three more books of the "Faerie Queene." These were published as a second part of the poem in 1596. Among other pieces published in this latter time were the four "Hymns to Earthly and Heavenly Love and Beauty." It was at this time that Spenser wrote that "View of the State of Ireland" which is the first piece in the present volume. The publication of it in Spenser's lifetime was stayed by the course of events; but he had meant to publish it, and in the books of the Stationers' Company it was entered on the 13th of April 1598 for publication by Matthew Lownes "upon condicion that hee gett further aucthoritie before yt be prynted." It was not printed until 1633, when it was published at Dublin by Sir James Ware.

In 1597 Spenser had returned to his wife and three little ones, of three, two, and one year old, at Kilcolman. In the next year, 1598, the fourth child was born; and on the 30th of September 1598 Spenser was appointed Sheriff of Cork by the Queen's letters, which described him as "a gentleman dwelling in the County of Cork, who is so well known unto you all for his good and commendable parts, being a man endowed with good know

ledge in learning, and not unskilful or without experience in the wars."

Spenser had not been Sheriff of Cork for a month when all Munster had risen at the call of Tyrone. Fire was set to Kilcolman Castle, and Spenser fled with his family to Cork. There was tradition-only tradition-that a fifth child, an infant, perished in the flames. On the 9th of December 1598, Sir Thomas Norreys, President of Munster, wrote a despatch containing details of the rising, and in another, written on the 21st of the same month, he said that his despatch of the 9th had been "sent by Mr. Spenser." It reached Whitehall on the 24th of December; and Spenser, who had written a paper of his own upon the state of Munster, and the need of a strong force to quell rebellion, died within the next four weeks. John Chamberlain, writing on Sunday, January 17, 1599 (new style), a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, said in it-"Lady Cope is dead, and Spenser the Poet, who lately came from Ireland, died at Westminster last Saturday."

SIR JOHN DAVIES was of a Welsh family, of which one member came to England with Sir William Herbert, who was created Earl of Pembroke by Edward the Sixth, and settling near the Earl at Wilton, established a Wiltshire branch, of which came John Davies of Chisgrove, in the parish of Tisbury, father of Sir John. John Davies of Tisbury had been of New Inn. He practised law in Wiltshire, throve, and died when his three boys were young. John, the eldest of the three, was born in April 1569-that is to say, he was sixteen or seventeen years younger than Edmund Spenser. His mother-who before her marriage had been Mary Bennett, daughter of John Bennett, of Pitt House, Wiltshire,-took charge of the education of her boys, sent John to Winchester, and thence to Oxford, where he matriculated at. Queen's College in October 1585. In February 1588 (new style) John Davies

was admitted a member of the Middle Temple. In 1590 he took at Oxford his B.A. degree. In 1594 he had already written an ingenious poem that has wisdom in its wit, "Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing."

"Dancing, bright lady, then began to be

When the first seeds whereof the world did spring,-
The Fire, Air, Earth, and Water,-did agree

By Love's persuasion, Nature's mighty king,
To leave their first disordered combating,

And in a Dance such measures to observe

As all the World their motion should preserve."

The poem was left unfinished, but the hundred and thirty-one stanzas, which were first printed in 1596, a year after Davies had been called to the Bar, he wrote in fifteen days, while the humour of it lasted. In 1596 "Orchestra" was dedicated to a witty friend who was also of the Middle Temple, Richard Martin; but in February 1597 Davies was disbarred for breaking a cudgel over his friend Martin's head while dining in hall at the barristers' table. Expelled from the Middle Temple, Davies went back to Oxford as a sojourner, and, called by adversity to reckon up his wasted time, wrote his best poem, "Know Thyself, Nosce Teipsum."

"If aught can teach us aught, Affliction's looks

Making us pry into ourselves so near-
Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were.

This mistress lately plucked me by the ear,
And many a golden lesson hath me taught ;
Hath made my senses quick, and reason clear,

Reformed my will and rectified my thought."

The poem reasoned faith in the immortal part within a man, and thenceforth John Davies weighed his life by a new scale. "Nosce Teipsum" was published in 1599, the year of Spenser's death, and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth at the suggestion of Charles Blount,

In

Lord Mountjoy, then Lord-Deputy in Ireland. Queen Elizabeth liked his poem, and had him sworn her servant-in-ordinary. In November 1601 he was readmitted to the Middle Temple, and returned to Parliament as member for Corfe Castle. In 1602 he wrote "A Contention betwixt a Wife, a Widow, and a Maid,” which was presented before Queen Elizabeth at Sir Robert Cecil's house in the Strand. After the Queen's death, in March 1603, Lord Hunsdon took John Davies northward to King James, who asked him whether he was 66 Nosce Teipsum," and when he said he was, embraced him graciously, and took him into favour. September 1603 James the First wrote to the Lord-Deputy Mountjoy that Davies should have the office, which Mountjoy had asked for him, of Solicitor-General for Ireland. He reached Dublin in November. At once he began to write to Cecil a series of most valuable letters upon the condition of the country and the remedies he wished to see applied. On the 29th of May 1606 John Davies succeeded Sir Charles Calthorpe as AttorneyGeneral for Ireland; directly afterwards he was made Sergeant-atLaw-at the same time with Sir Edward Coke—and knighted on the 11th of February 1607. His services were continuous. His letters of information and counsel were most welcome to Robert Cecil, who, in May 1605, had been created Earl of Salisbury, and whose confidence in John Davies was great. In March 1608 Sir John Davies married Eleanor Touchet, third daughter of George, Baron Audley; and in the same year he was sent to England with the Chief-Justice of Ireland to represent to King James the good effects of measures taken for the establishment, by equal laws, of peace and order. The Earl of Salisbury and Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, his two best friends in England, received him with new kindness, and took counsel with him upon those measures which were to be carried out for the plantation of Ulster. The manner of carrying them out he reported to Lord Salisbury in a letter written in 1610, which will be found in the

present volume. In 1612 Sir John Davies published, with a dedication to the King, his "Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued till the beginning of His Majesty's Reign," a masterpiece in English political literature, which here follows Spenser's "View of the State of Ireland."

In June 1612 Sir John Davies was appointed the King's Serjeant, and when, after seven-and-twenty years without the calling of an Irish Parliament, a Parliament at last was called, Sir John Davies was returned, in the same year 1612, as the first member who ever sat for Fermanagh. When the Parliament met there were returned to it 121 of the Protestant party and 101 of the Catholic, and there was hot conflict over the election of a Speaker. The nominee of the Crown was Sir John Davies. The Roman Catholics supported Sir John Everard, who had been an Irish judge, but resigned because he could not take the oath of supremacy. The result was a disputed election and political deadlock. The Lord-Deputy prorogued Parliament. The disputed question was argued in London. Bacon told King James that it was always safe to keep in the middle way between extremes. The King used his influence, and when the Parliament in Dublin met again in May 1613, Sir John Davies, as Speaker, delivered the speech that will be found in this volume, setting forth the early history of Parliamentary government in Ireland. That Parliament, after its stormy opening, did much good work before its dissolution in October 1615.

Sir John Davies returned to London in 1616; was active in the revival of the Society of Antiquaries; entered the English Parliament in 1620 as member for Newcastle-under-Lyne; and when he was known to be on the way to the office of Chief-Justice of England, he died of apoplexy, on the 7th of December 1626, the year of the death of his friend, Francis Bacon. He had only one son, an idiot, who was drowned in Ireland, and one daughter, who married the sixth Earl of Huntingdon.