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' industrious sky,