CONTENTS

PAGE
[Sir John Davies—Orchestra, or A Poem of Dancing,] 1596,1
[Sir John Davies—Nosce Teipsum:]—

}

{ 1. Of Human Knowledge,
{ 2. Of the Soul of Man, 1599,		41
[Sir John Davies—Hymns of Astræa, in Acrostic Verse, 1599,]107
[Six Idillia, that is six small or petty poems or Æglogues of
Theocritus translated into English Verse (Anon),] Oxford, 1588,		123
[*Richard Barnfield—The Affectionate Shepheard.] Containing
the Complaint of Daphnis for the love of Ganymede, 1594,147
[*Richard Barnfield—Cynthia.] With Certaine Sonnets and the
Legend of Cassandra, 1595,187
[*Richard Barnfield—The Encomion of Lady Pecunia:]
or The Praise of Money, 1598,		227
[*Richard Barnfield—The Complaint of Poetrie] for
the Death of Liberalitie, 1598,		241
[*Richard Barnfield—The Combat,] betweene Conscience and
Covetousnesse in the minde of Man, 1598,253
[*Richard Barnfield—Poems: in divers humors,] 1598,261
[Astrophel. A Pastoral Elegy upon the death of the most noble]
and valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney. A group of
elegies by Spenser and other hands printed as an
Appendix to Spenser's Colin Clouts come home again, 1595,271
[J. C.—Alcilia: Philoparthen's Loving Folly,] 1595,319
[Antony Scoloker—Daiphantus,] or The Passions of Love, by
An. Sc. Whereunto is added The Passionate Man's
Pilgrimage, 1604,363
[Michael Drayton—Odes [drawn from Poems Lyrick and Pastorall,]
1606, and the later Poems of 1619],405

*The items indicated by an asterisk are new additions to An English Garner.

INTRODUCTION

As there is no need to adopt a strictly chronological order for the poems included in the present volume, I have begun with the Orchestra and Nosce Teipsum of Sir John Davies (1569-1626), who was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant figures of the Elizabethan Age. Well-born and gently bred, educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford, Davies was exceptionally fortunate in escaping the pecuniary cares that harassed so many Elizabethan men of letters. From the Middle Temple he was called to the bar in 1595 (at the age of twenty-six). In the previous year Orchestra had been entered in the Stationers' Register, but the poem was first published in 1596. From the dedicatory sonnet to Richard Martin we learn that it was written in fifteen days. There are, however, no signs of haste in the writing, and it may fairly be claimed that this poem in praise of dancing is a graceful monument of ingenious fancy. Lucian composed a valuable and entertaining treatise on dancing, and I suspect that Περὶ ᾽Ορχήσεως gave Davies the idea of writing Orchestra.

In the opening stanzas[1] we are presented with a picturesque description of