But still this crew with questions me pursues, "If souls deceased," say they, "still living be, Why do they not return, to bring us news Of that strange world where they such wonders see?" "Why do not the Esquimaux visit us and tell us about the North Pole?" Davies replies, not quite convincingly. Henry More or Glanvill would have answered that souls _do_ return, and made the question one of evidence. Davies's "The Orchestra," on dancing, is extremely graceful, melodious and ingenious; the stanzas describing Queen Elizabeth dancing "high and disposedly" are unfortunately lost. Even his acrostics on "Elizabetha Regina" are charming, and wonderfully varied in ornament and compliment--as _vers de société_ none of that age are more admirable. Davies returned to the Temple, rose in his profession, sat in the House of Commons, was admired by James VI for his poetry, was knighted, and in 1606 became Attorney-General in Ireland. In 1612 he published a valuable book on the Irish Question, which should be read with that of Spenser. He died after his return to England, Parliament, and the defence of the cause of an Irish Parliament for Ireland, in 1626. Giles and Phineas Fletcher. Drayton and Daniel were not influenced by their great forerunner Spenser, as were the two clerical brothers and poets, Phineas (born 1582?) and Giles Fletcher (born 1588). They were the sons of Giles Fletcher, author of "Lida," one of the many collections of sonnets published in 1593. He was a scholar, a man of business, and a diplomatist. "Christ's Victory and Triumph" (1610), the chief poem of the younger Giles is in stanzas one line shorter than the Spenserian; it begins by observing that the Infinite far greater grew By growing less, so that "'twere greatest were it none at all," as in the case of the other poet whose wound was "so great because it was so small". Thus does an unhappy point of wit, a "conceit," disturb the reader at the opening of a poem on the same solemn theme as Milton's "Paradise Regained". The poet admits us to the Councils of Eternity, and thus sets forth the topic of his sacred song; the stanza is a fair example of his manner:-- Ye sacred writings, in whose antique leaves The memories of Heav'n entreasur'd lie, Say what might be the cause that Mercy heaves The dust of Sin above th' industrious sky, And lets it not to dust and ashes fly? Could Justice be of sin so overwooed, Or so great ill be cause of so great good, That, bloody man to save, man's Saviour shed his blood The phrase that Mercy _heaves_ The _dust_ of Sin above th' in_dust_rious sky,