of the Ellesmere Collection_, some
of your readers may not be displeased to see it on the present occasion:--

"TO HIS VERY FRIEND MA. RICH. MARTIN.

"To whom shall I this dauncing Poeme send,
This suddaine, rash, halfe-capreol of my wit?
To you, first mover and sole cause of it,
Mine-owne-selves better halve, my deerest frend.
O, would you yet my Muse some Honny lend
From your mellifluous tongue, whereon doth sit
Suada in majestie, that I may fit
These harsh beginnings with a sweeter end.
You know the modest sunne full fifteene times
Blushing did rise, and blushing did descend,
While I in making of these ill made rimes,
My golden bowers unthriftily did spend.
Yet, if in friendship you these numbers prayse,
I will mispend another fifteene dayes."

The cause of quarrel between the two young lawyers is not known, but the
"offence," whatever it was, was not slight. In the year 1622, when Davies
reprinted his poetical works, we find that his feelings of resentment
against his once "very friend" had not abated, for in place of the
dedicatory sonnet to Richard Martin, is substituted a sonnet addressed to
Prince Charles; and at the conclusion of the poem, he left a _hiatus_ after
the one hundred and twenty-sixth stanza, on account of the same quarrel.

Sir John Davies's celebrated poem, _Nosce Teipsum_ (mentioned by Wood in
the previous extract), is said to have gained the author the favour of
James I., even before he came to the crown. Wood gives the precise period
of its composition, and, I think, with every appearance of truth, although
it does not accord with the statement of modern biographers, that it was
written at twenty-five years of age. (See Campbell's _Essay on Poetry_,
&c., ed. 1848, p. 184.) The first edition of this poem was printed in 4to.
in the year 1599, and has for its title the following:--

"_Nosce Teipsum_. This Oracle expounded in Two Elegies. 1. Of Humane
Knowledge. 2. Of the Soule of Man, and the Immortalitie thereof.
London, Printed by Richard Field, for John Standish. 43 leaves."

As I am deeply interested in all that relates to the subject of this note,
I have compiled a list of editions of the above poem, which shows its
popularity for more than a century and a half:--

1. 1599. _London_, 4to. First edition.
2. 1602. _ib._ 4to. Second ed.
3. 1608. _ib._ 4to. Third ed.
4. 1619. _ib._ 8vo.