himself into a boat.[14] 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.[15] 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 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 full-and-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! [Footnote 14: 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.] [Footnote 15: Lord Stowell, as before.] "O ignorant poor man! what dost thou beare Lockt vp within the casket of thy brest? What iewels and what riches hast thou there! What heauenly treasure in so weake a chest! Looke in thy soule, and thou shalt beauties find, Like those which drownd Narcissus in the flood: Honour and Pleasure both are in thy mind, And all that in the world is counted good.