I shall limit myself in this second half of the Memorial-Introduction to a brief statement and examination of certain characteristics of the Poetry of Sir John Davies--the limitation being imposed by the contents of the present volumes.[47] There are Poets whose truest and most certain fame rests on so-called minor poems; and yet commonly their bulkier productions have over-shadowed these. From Milton to Wordsworth it is to be lamented that to the many they should be represented by "Paradise Lost" and "The Excursion"; or to descend, that Thomas _Campbell_ and Samuel _Rogers_ should have so hidden behind their "Pleasures of Hope" and "Pleasures of Memory" their rare and real faculty as Poets--for while in the larger poems of Milton and Wordsworth there is of the imperishable stuff that only genius of a lofty type weaves, it is rather (_meo judicio_) in "purple patches" than in the web as a whole. In Milton and Wordsworth you do not read them at their high_est_ in their Epics but in their shorter poems; while Campbell and Rogers should long since have died out of men's hearts had they left nothing behind them save the smooth and prize-poem-like common-places of their "Pleasures." In Milton the remark requires modification, for only in "Paradise Lost" has he put forth to uttermost daring his Imagination--than which no writer of all time has approached him for grandeur of vision and splendour of utterance. But substantially I think that those capable of discernment will agree with me that if Time may shut and leave unread except by an elect few, many pages of the 'great' and volume-filling poems, the lesser will assuredly draw more and more homage, and abide the regalia of our Literature. [Footnote 47: His Prose is of no common order; and will be critically examined in the fuller Life, along with his Prose Works in the Fuller Worthies' Library, as before.] It is different with Sir John Davies. His "Orchestra" and "Hymnes to Astræa" and Minor Poems, preceded considerably his "Nosce Teipsum," but it was his "Nosce Teipsum" that made King James I. prick up his ears on hearing his name, and it is "Nosce Teipsum" that is the poem that will secure immortality to Sir John Davies. His other poetry has special remarkablenesses--as will appear--but in "Nosce Teipsum" alone have we the inspiration and spontaneity, the insight and speculation, the subtlety and yet definiteness, the "burden" (in the prophetic sense) and the melody of the Poet as distinguished from the versifier or verse-Rhetorician.