Davies' _Epigrams_ were first published along with Marlowe's version of Ovid's _Elegies_, but no date is affixed to any of the three editions which followed one another. But a MS. in the Bodleian which contains forty-five of the Epigrams describes them as _English Epigrammes much like Buckminsters Almanacke servinge for all England but especially for the meridian of the honourable cittye of London calculated by John Davies of Grayes Inne gentleman An^o 1594 in November_.[2] This seems much too exact to be a pure invention, and if it be correct it is very unlikely that the allusions would be to ancient history. Banks' Horse, the performing Ape, and the Elephant were all among the sights of the day, like the recently erected tomb of Lord Chancellor Hatton, who died in 1591. The atmosphere of the first _Satyre_, as of Davies' _Epigrams_, is that of 1593-5. The phrase 'the Infanta of London, Heire to an India', in which commentators have found needless difficulty, contains possibly, besides its obvious meaning, an allusion to the fact that since 1587 the Infanta of Spain had become in official Catholic circles heir to the English throne. In 1594 Parsons' tract, _A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England. By R. Doleman_, defended her claim, and made the Infanta's name a byword in England. If _H51_ is thus approximately right in its dating of the first Satire it may be the better trusted as regards the other two, and there is at least nothing in them to make this date impossible. The references to poetry in the second acquire a more vivid interest when their date or approximate date is remembered. In 1593 died Marlowe, the greatest of the brilliant group that reformed the stage, giving ideot actors means (Starving 'themselves') to live by 'their' labour'd sceanes; and Shakespeare was one of the 'ideot actors'. Shakespeare, too, was one of the many sonneteers who 'would move Love by rithmes', and in 1593 and 1594 he appeared among those 'who write to Lords, rewards to get'. It would be interesting if we could identify the lawyer-poet, Coscus, referred to in this Satire. Malone, in a MS. note to his copy of _1633_ (now in the Bodleian Library), suggested John Hoskins or Sir Richard Martin. Grosart conjectured that Donne had in view the _Gullinge Sonnets_ preserved in the Farmer-Chetham MS., and ascribed with probability to Sir John Davies, the poet of the _Epigrams_ just mentioned. Chambers seems to lean to this view and says, 'these sonnets are couched in legal terminology.' Donne is supposed to have mistaken Davies' 'gulling' for serious poetry. This is very unlikely. Moreover, only the last two of Davies' sonnets are 'couched in legal terminology': My case is this, I love Zepheria bright, Of her I hold my harte by fealty: and To Love my lord I doe knights service owe And therefore nowe he hath my wit in ward.