Transcriber's Note: In this etext the following are represented by:-- Italics > _underscore_ Macron > [=r] Superscript > ^ oe ligature > [oe] ornate font > $ Greek language is shown in phonetics. * * * * * Early English Poets. SIR JOHN DAVIES. PRINTED BY ROBERT ROBERTS, BOSTON. Early English Poets. THE COMPLETE POEMS OF SIR JOHN DAVIES. EDITED, WITH Memorial-Introduction and Notes, BY THE REV. ALEXANDER B. GROSART. [Illustration] _IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I._ London: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 1876. To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE W. EWART GLADSTONE, M.P., &c., &c. SIR, I had the honour to place in your hands the complete Poems of SIR JOHN DAVIES in the Fuller Worthies' Library. In now publishing these Poems for a wider circle of readers and students, I re-dedicate them to you. That I should have wished (and wish) to inscribe the Works of a man famous as a prescient and practical Statesman, as a philosophic Thinker, as an Orator, as a Lawyer, and as a Poet, to you, is extremely natural; for in you, Sir,--in common with all Great Britain and Europe, and America,--I recognize his equal, and England's foremost living name, in nearly every department wherein the elder distinguished himself; while transfiguring and ennobling all, is your conscience-ruled and stainless Christian life. That you gave me permission so to do, with appreciative and kindly words, adds to my pleasure. Trusting that my fresh 'labour of love' (for which 'love of labour' has been necessary) on this Worthy may meet your continued approval, I am, Sir, With high regard and gratitude, Yours faithfully and truly, ALEXANDER B. GROSART. _Preface._ My edition of the Complete Poems of Sir John Davies in the Fuller Worthies' Library in 1869; since being followed up with a similarly complete collection of his much more extensive Prose, as Volumes II. and III. of his entire Works--met with so instant a Welcome, that very speedily I had to return the answer of 'out of print' to numerous applicants. Accordingly it was with no common satisfaction I agreed to the request of the Publishers that Sir John Davies' complete Poems should succeed Giles Fletcher's in their Early English Poets. In the preparation of this new edition I have carefully re-collated the whole of the original and early editions, with the same advantage and for the same reasons, as in Giles Fletcher's. I have likewise been enabled to make some interesting additions, as will appear in the respective places.