"Take away the will," says the Code of Justinian, "and all things are equal: That which we do not, and would do, is commonly accepted as done." Rewards and punishments are only received at the hands of those who are above us, and have power to examine and judge our deeds. The inward and secret good or evil, which God only knows, God only rewards or punishes, "for which cause, the Roman laws, called the Laws of the Twelve Tables, requiring offices of inward affection which the eye of man cannot reach unto, threaten the neglectors of them with none but divine punishment." In external actions men have authority over one another. How do they acquire it? Here follows that view of the social compact which especially caused John Locke to quote Hooker, and attach to his name again and again the adjective "judicious :"

The laws which have been hitherto mentioned do bind men absolutely even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do or not to do. But forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others. This was the cause of men's uniting themselves at the first in politic societies; which societies could not be without government, nor government without a distinct kind of law from that which hath been already declared. Two foundations there are which bear up public societies: the one, a natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship; the other, an order expressly or secretly agreed upon touching the manner of their union in living together. The latter is that which we call the Law of a Commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions as the common good requireth. Laws politic, ordained for external order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience unto the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide notwithstanding so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good for which societies are instituted: unless they do this, they are not perfect. It resteth, therefore, that we consider how nature findeth out such laws of government as serve to direct even nature depraved to a right end.

All men desire to lead in this world a happy life. That life is led most happily, wherein all virtue is exercised without impediment or let. The Apostle, in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more than very bare food and raiment, giveth us thereby to understand that those are even the lowest of things necessary; that if we should be stripped of all those things without which we might possibly be, yet these must be left; that destitution in these is such an impediment, as till it be removed suffereth not the mind of man to admit any other care. For this cause, first God assigned Adam maintenance of life, and then appointed him a law to observe. For this cause, after men began to grow to a number, the first thing we read they gave themselves unto was the tilling of the earth and the feeding of cattle. Having by this mean whereon to live, the prin

cipal actions of their life afterward are noted by the exercise of their religion. True it is, that the kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purposes and desires. But inasmuch as righteous life presupposeth life; inasmuch as to live virtuously it is impossible except we live; therefore the first impediment, which naturally we endeavour to remove, is penury and want of things without which we cannot live. Unto life many implements are necessary; more, if we seek (as all men naturally do) such a life as hath in it joy, comfort, delight, and pleasure. To this end we see how quickly sundry arts mechanical were found out, in the very prime of the world. As things of greatest necessity are always first provided for, so things of greatest dignity are most accounted of by all such as judge rightly. Although, therefore, riches be a thing which every man wisheth, yet no man of judgment can esteem it better to be rich, than wise, virtuous, and religious. If we be both or either of these, it is not because we are so born. For into the world we come as empty of the one as of the other, as naked in mind as we are in body. Both which necessities of man had at the first no other helps and supplies than only domestical; such is that which the Prophet implieth, saying, "Can a mother forget her child?" such as that which the Apostle mentioneth, saying, "He that careth not for his own is worse than an Infidel;" such as that concerning Abraham, "Abraham will command his sons and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord."

But neither that which we learn of ourselves nor that which others teach us can prevail, where wickedness and malice have taken deep root. If, therefore, when there was but as yet one only family in the world, no means of instruction human or divine could prevent effusion of blood; how could it be chosen but that when families were multiplied and increased upon earth, after separation each providing for itself, envy, strife, contention, and violence must grow amongst them? For hath not nature furnished man with wit and valour, as it were with armour, which may be used as well unto extreme evil as good? Yea, were they not used by the rest of the world unto evil; unto the contrary only by Seth, Enoch, and those few the rest in that line? We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times: not unjustly; for the days are evil. But compare them with those times wherein there were no civil societies, with those times wherein there was as yet no manner of public regiment established, with those times wherein there were not above eight persons righteous living upon the face of the earth; and we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed us exceedingly, and hath made us behold most happy days.

To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs, there was no way but only by growing unto composition and agreement amongst themselves by ordaining some kind of government public, and by yielding themselves subject thereunto; that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern, by them the peace, tranquillity, and happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always knew that when force and injury was offered they might be defenders of themselves. They knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered, but by all men and by all good means to be withstood. Finally they knew that no man might in reason take upon him to determine his own right, and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof, inasmuch as every man is towards himself and them whom he greatly affecteth partial; and therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon without which consent there was no reason that

one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another. Because, although there be according to the opinion of some very great and judicious men a kind of natural right in the noble, wise, and virtuous, to govern them which are of servile disposition, nevertheless for manifestation of this their right, and men's more peaceable contentment on both sides, the assent of them who are to be governed seemeth necessary.

To fathers within their private families nature hath given a supreme power; for which cause we see throughout the world, even from the foundation thereof, all men have ever been taken as lords and lawful kings in their own houses. Howbeit over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one, and consisting of so many families as every politic society in the world doth, impossible it is that any should have complete lawful power, but by consent of men, or immediate appointment of God: because not having the natural superiority of fathers, their power must needs be either usurped, and then unlawful; or, if lawful, then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same, or else given extraordinarily from God, unto whom all the world is subject. It is no improbable opinion, therefore, which the Arch-philosopher was of, that as the chiefest person in every household was always as it were a king, so when numbers of households joined themselves in civil society together, kings were the first kind of governors amongst them. Which is also (as it seemeth) the reason why the name of Father continued still in them, who of fathers were made rulers; as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchisedec, and being kings to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the first, grew perhaps by the same occasion.

Howbeit not this the only kind of regiment that hath been received in the world. The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry other to be devised. So that in a word all public regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful; there being no impossibility in nature considered by itself, but that men might have lived without any public regiment. Howbeit, the corruption of our nature being presupposed, we may not deny but that the law of nature doth now require of necessity some kind of regiment; so that to bring things unto the first course they were in, and utterly to take away all kind of public government in the world, were apparently to overturn the whole world.

The case of man's nature standing therefore as it doth, some kind of regiment the law of nature doth require; yet the kinds thereof being many, nature tieth not to any one, but leaveth the choice as a thing arbitrary. At the first when some certain kind of regiment was once approved, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the matter of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion which were to rule; till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duties beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. If things be simply good or evil, and withal universally so acknowledged, there needs no new law to be made for such things. The first kind therefore of things appointed by laws human containeth whatsoever, being in itself naturally good or evil, is notwithstanding more secret than that it can be discerned by every man's present conceit, without some deeper discourse and judgment. In which discourse because

there is difficulty and possibility many ways to err, unless such things were set down by laws, many would be ignorant of their duties which now are not, and many that know what they should do would nevertheless dissemble it, and to excuse themselves pretend ignorance and simplicity, which now they

cannot.

And because the greatest part of men are such as prefer their own private good before all things, even that good which is sensual before whatsoever is most divine; and for that the labour of doing good, together with the pleasure arising from the contrary, doth make men for the most part slower to the one and proner to the other, than that duty prescribed them by law can prevail sufficiently with them: therefore unto laws that men do make for the benefit of men it hath seemed always needful to add rewards, which may more allure unto good than any hardness deterreth from it, and punishments, which may more deter from evil than any sweetness thereto allureth. Wherein as the generality is natural, Virtue rewardable and vice punishable; so the particular determination of the reward or punishment belongeth unto them by whom laws are made. Theft is naturally punishable, but the kind of punishment is positive, and such lawful as men shall think with discretion convenient by law to appoint.

In laws, that which is natural bindeth universally, that which is positive not so. To let go those kind of positive laws which men impose upon themselves, as by vow unto God, contract with men, or such like; somewhat it will make unto our purpose, a little more fully to consider what things are incident into the making of the positive laws for the government of them that live united in public society. Laws do not only teach what is good, but they enjoin it, they have in them a certain constraining force. And to constrain men unto any thing inconvenient doth seem unreasonable. Most requisite, therefore, it is that to devise laws which all men shall be forced to obey none but wise men be admitted. Laws are matters of principal consequence; men of common capacity and but ordinary judgment are not able (for how should they) to discern what things are fittest for each kind and state of regiment. We cannot be ignorant how much our obedience unto laws dependeth upon this point. Let a man though never so justly oppose himself unto them that are disordered in their ways, and what one amongst them commonly doth not stomach at such contradiction, storm at reproof, and hate such as would reform them? Notwithstanding even they which brook it worst that men should tell them of their duties, when they are told the same by a law, think very well and reasonably of it. For why? They presume that the law doth speak with all indifferency; that the law hath no side-respect to their persons; that the law is as it were an oracle proceeded from wisdom and understanding.

Howbeit laws do not take their constraining force from the quality of such that devise them, but from that power which doth give them the strength of laws. That which we spake before concerning the power of government must here be applied unto the power of making laws whereby to govern; which power God hath over all: and by the natural law, whereunto He hath made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself, and not either by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny.

Laws they are not, therefore, which public approbation hath not made so. But approbation not only they give who personally declare their assent by voice, sign, or act, but also when others do it in their names by right originally at the least derived from them. As in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies, although we be not personally ourselves present, notwithstanding our assent is, by reason of others agents there in our behalf. And what we do by others, no reason but that it should stand as our deed, no less effectually to bind us than if ourselves had done it in person. In many things assent is given, they that give it not imagining they

do so, because the manner of their assenting is not apparent. As for example, when an absolute monarch commandeth his subjects that which seemeth good in his own discretion, hath not his edict the force of a law whether they approve or dislike it? Again, that which hath been received long sithence and is by custom now established, we keep as a law which we may not transgress; yet what consent was ever thereunto sought or required at our hands?

Of this point therefore we are to note, that sith men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof we are part hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Wherefore as any man's deed past is good as long as himself continueth; so the act of a public society of men done five hundred years sithence standeth as theirs who presently are of the same societies, because corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and they in their successors do live still. Laws therefore human, of what kind soever, are available by consent.

We shall have to glance back at this passage when illustrating, in another volume, the political philosophies of Hobbes and Locke. Laws made

for the ordering of politic societies either establish duties whereunto all men by the law of reason did before stand bound; or else, for particular reasons, make that a duty which before was none. Where a law of society punishes outward transgression of a law of reason or conscience, that law being in part natural, or of divine establishment, is mixedly human. Where it concerns only what reason may under particular conditions hold to be convenient, as the manner in which property shall pass after its owner's death, such law is merely numan. Laws whether mixedly or merely human are made by politic societies: some only as those societies are civilly united; some, as they are spiritually joined and form a church. Of human laws in this latter kind the third book of "Ecclesiastical Polity" would treat.

Besides (1) the natural Law of Reason that concerned men as men, and (2) that which belongs to them as they are men linked with others in some form of politic society, there is (3) the law touching the public commerce of the several bodies politic with one another, that is, the Law of Nations. Civil society contents us more than solitary living, for it enlarges the good of mutual participation; not content with this, we covet a kind of society and fellowship even with all mankind. In all these kinds of

law the corruption of men has added to the Primary Laws that suffice for the government of men as they ought to be, Secondary Laws which are needed for men as they are, "the one grounded upon sincere, the other built upon depraved nature. Primary laws of nations are such as concern embassage, such as belong to the courteous entertainment of foreigners and strangers, such as serve for commodious traffic, and the like. Secondary laws in the same kind are such as this present unquiet world is most familiarly acquainted with; I mean laws of arms, which yet are much better known than kept."

Besides this law for civil communion, Christian nations have judged a like agreement needful in regard even of Christianity; and General Councils of the Church represent this kind of correspondence, so that the Church of God here on earth may have her laws of spiritual commerce between Christian nations. "A thing," says Hooker

A thing whereof God's own blessed Spirit was the author; a thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves; a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the world; a thing never otherwise than most highly esteemed of, till pride, ambition, and tyranny began by factious and vile endeavours to abuse that divine invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes. But as the just authority of civil courts and parliaments is not therefore to be abolished, because sometime there is cunning used to frame them according to the private intents of men overpotent in the commonwealth; so the grievous abuse which hath been of councils should rather cause men to study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to that first perfection, than in regard of stains and blemishes sithence growing be held for ever in extreme disgrace.

To speak of this matter as the cause requireth would require very long discourse. All I will presently say is this. Whether it be for the finding out of anything whereunto divine law bindeth us, but yet in such sort that men are not thereof on all sides resolved; or for the setting down of some uniform judgment to stand touching such things, as being neither way matters of necessity, are notwithstanding offensive and scandalous when there is open opposition about them be it for the ending of strifes touching matters of Christian belief, wherein the one part may seem to have probable cause of dissenting from the other; or be it concerning matters of polity, order, and regiment in the church; I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better frame themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour with so great instancy gave as concerning peace and unity, if we did all concur in desire to have the use of ancient councils again renewed, rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and that of all other the worst, which is by sword.

Here ends the section of the book which speaks of the origin of natural and human law, and Hooker passes to that other Law which became needful, and which God Himself made known by Scripture for our aid in attainment of the highest good. Our desire is to the sovereign good or blessedness, the highest that we know. The ox and ass desire the food, and propose to themselves no end in feeding; they desire food for itself. Reasonable man eats that he may

live, lives that he may work; seeks wealth, health, virtue, knowledge, still as means to other ends. "We labour to eat, and we eat to live, and we live to do good, and the good which we do is as seed sown with reference to a future harvest."

For each means to an end the desire is proportioned to its convenience; but for the last end the desire is infinite. "So that unless the last good of all, which is desired altogether for itself, be also infinite, we do evil in making it our end; even as they who placed their felicity in wealth, or honour, or pleasure, or anything here attained; because in desiring anything as our final perfection which is not so, we do amiss." "No good is infinite but only God; therefore He is our felicity and bliss. Moreover, desire tendeth unto union with that which it desireth." Our final desire therefore is to be with God, and live, as it were, the life of God.

Happiness is that estate whereby we attain, as far as possible, the full possession of that which is simply for itself to be desired, the highest degree of all our perfection, which is not attainable in this world. The creatures under man are less capable of happiness, because they have their chief perfection in that which is best for them, but not in that which is simply best, and whatever external perfection they may tend to is not better than themselves. Is it probable that God should frame the hearts of all men so desirous of that which no man may obtain ? Beyond the complete satisfactions of the flesh; beyond the completeness in knowledge and virtue that brings social estimation; man covets a perfection that is more than all, " yea, somewhat above capacity of reason, somewhat divine and heavenly, which with hidden exultation it rather surmiseth than conceiveth." This highest perfection man conceives in the nature of a reward. Rewards presuppose duties performed. Our natural means to this infinite reward are our works; nor is it possible that nature should ever find any other way to salvation than only this. But our works cannot deserve; there is none who can say, My ways are pure. "There resteth, therefore, either no way unto salvation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which could never have entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine, if God Himself had not revealed it extraordinarily." Thus Hooker passes from the Law of Reason to the Revealed Way of Salvation to Faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; Hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; Charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensible beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ, the Son of the living God. Laws concerning these things are supernatural, being "such as have not in nature any cause from which they flow, but were by the voluntary appointment of God ordained besides the course of nature, to rectify nature's obliquity withal." The revealed law of God does not supersede natural law, but is added to it, and is indeed fraught with precepts of the other also. These precepts are used to prove things less manifest; they are applied with singular use and profit to particular cases; "besides, be they

:

plain of themselves or obscure, the evidence of God's own testimony added to the natural assent of Reason concerning the certainty of them, doth not a little comfort and confirm the same." Here we are at the second resting-place in Hooker's argument, at which he pauses again to glance over the ground he has traversed, in a little summary. His second summary is this:—

We see, therefore, that our sovereign good is desired naturally; that God, the author of that natural desire, had appointed natural means whereby to fulfil it; that man having utterly disabled his nature unto those means hath had other revealed from God, and hath received from heaven a law to teach him how that which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained: finally, we see that because those later exclude not the former quite and clean as unnecessary, therefore together with such supernatural duties as could not possibly have been otherwise known to the world, the same law that teacheth them, teacheth also with them such natural duties as could not by light of nature easily have been known.

In the first age of the world memories served for books, but the writing of the Law of God has been by God's wisdom a means of preserving it from oblivion and corruption. The writing is not that which adds authority and strength to the Law of God; but it preserves it from the hazards of tradition. "When the question therefore is, whether we be now to seek for any revealed Law of God otherwhere than only in the sacred Scripture; whether we do now stand bound in the sight of God to yield to traditions urged by the Church of Rome the same obedience and reverence we do to His written law, honouring equally and adoring both as divine: our answer is, no." Hooker next dwells on the fact that "the principal intent of Scripture is to deliver the laws of duties supernatural," and discusses the sense in which Scripture is said to contain all things necessary to salvation. It does not contain necessarily everything in the law of reason that man can discover for himself, but this is no defect. "It sufficeth that Nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort, that they both jointly, and not severally either of them, be so complete, that unto everlasting felicity we need not the knowledge of anything more than these two may easily furnish our minds with on all sides; and therefore they which add traditions, as a part of supernatural necessary truth, have not the truth, but are in error.

Laws are imposed (1) by each man on himself; (2) by a public society upon its members; (3) by all nations upon each nation; (4) by the Lord Himself on any or all of these. In each of these four kinds of law there are (a) Natural laws which always bind, and (b) Positive laws which only bind after they have been expressly and wittingly imposed. Only the positive laws are mutable, but of these not all; some are permanent, some changeable, as changes in the matter concerning which they were first made may exact. All laws that concern supernatural duties are positive. They concern men either as men, or as members of a church. To concern them as men supernaturally, is to concern them as duties which belong of necessity to all. It is so also with

laws that concern them as members of a church, so far as they are without respect to such variable accident as the state of the Church in this world is subject to.

On the other side, laws that were made for men or societies or churches, in regard of their being such as they do not always continue, but may perhaps be clean otherwise a while after, and so may require to be otherwise ordered than before; the laws of God Himself which are of this nature, no man endued with common sense will ever deny to be of a different constitution from the former, in respect of the one's constancy and the mutability of the other. And this doth seem to have been the very cause why St. John doth so peculiarly term the doctrine that teacheth salvation by Jesus Christ, Evangelium æternum, an eternal Gospel; because there can be no reason wherefore the publishing thereof should be taken away, and any other instead of it proclaimed, as long as the world doth continue whereas the whole law of rites and ceremonies, although delivered with so great solemnity, is notwithstanding clean abrogated, inasmuch as it had but temporary cause of God's ordaining it.

We may pass now to Hooker's third summary.

Thus far therefore we have endeavoured in part to open, of what nature and force Laws are, according unto their several kinds :-the law which God with himself hath eternally set down to follow in his own works; the law which he hath made for his creatures to keep; the law of natural and necessary agents; the law which angels in heaven obey; the law whereunto by the light of reason men find themselves bound in that they are men; the law which they make by composition for multitudes and politic societies of men to be guided by; the law which belongeth unto each nation; the law that concerneth the fellowship of all; and lastly, the law which God himself hath supernaturally revealed. It might peradventure have been more popular and more plausible to vulgar ears, if this first discourse had been spent in extolling the force of laws, in shewing the great necessity of them when they are good, and in aggravating their offence by whom public laws are injuriously traduced. But forasmuch as with such kind of matter the passions of men are rather stirred one way or other, than their knowledge any way set forward unto the trial of that whereof there is doubt made; I have therefore turned aside from that beaten path, and chosen though a less easy yet a more profitable way in regard of the end we propose. Lest, therefore, any man should marvel whereunto all these things tend, the drift and purpose of all is this, even to shew in what manner, as every good and perfect gift, so this very gift of good and perfect laws is derived from the Father of lights; to teach men a reason why just and reasonable laws are of so great force, of so great use in the world; and to inform their minds with some method of reducing the laws whereof there is present controversy unto their first original causes, that so it may be in every particular ordinance thereby the better discerned, whether the same be reasonable, just, and righteous, or no. Is there any thing which can either be thoroughly understood or soundly judged of, till the very first causes and principles from which originally it springeth be made manifest? If all parts of knowledge have been thought by wise men to be then most orderly delivered and proceeded in, when they are drawn to their first original; seeing that our whole question concerneth the quality of Ecclesiastical Laws, let it not seem a labour superfluous that in the entrance thereunto all these several kinds of laws have been considered, inasmuch as they all concur as

principles, they all have their forcible operations therein, although not all in like apparent and manifest manner. By means whereof it cometh to pass that the force which they have is not observed of many.

Then after enforcing the value of a study of the origin of Law and of a discrimination of its several kinds as an aid to just inquiry in the religious controversies of the day, Hooker adds an example, drawn from food, of the true distinguishing of laws. and of their several forms according to the different kind and quality of our actions; so that one and the selfsame thing may be under divers considerations conveyed through many laws; and thus the first book of "Ecclesiastical Polity" closes :

Wherefore that here we may briefly end: Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

In

Let us complete the illustration of English Religious Thought under Elizabeth with Sir John Davies's "Nosce Teipsum" (Know Thyself), a poem published in 1599, when he was plain John Davies, on "The Origin, Nature, and Immortality of the Human Soul." Its author, born in 1570, was the third son of a lawyer practising in Tisbury, Wiltshire. 1580 he lost his father, and his mother took charge of the education of the children. In Michaelmas term, 1585, he went as a commoner to Queen's College, Oxford; in February, 1588 (new style), he entered the Middle Temple; in July, 1590, four months after the death of his mother, he graduated as B.A. at Oxford. John Davies incurred in the Middle Temple more than an average share of the fines and punishments then usual for breach of discipline, and he was called to the grade of utter barrister in July, 1595. In 1593 he had written "Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing," and it was published in 1596, with a dedication "to his very friend, Master Richard Martin." He was still wild, and after he had cudgelled "his very friend, Master Richard Martin," whom he had called in a sonnet "his own selves better half," at a dinner in the Temple Hall, Davies was disbarred and expelled from his inn in February, 1598. Martin was himself given to pranks, a wit and a poet, who like Davies outlived follies of youth. He became M.P. and Recorder of London, and was one of the friends of Selden and Ben Jonson. John Davies went back to Oxford, and there sojourned with sober thoughts, of which the fruit appeared in 1599 in his fine poem on Self-knowledge and the Higher Life of Man, "Nosce Teipsum." The poem and the resolve on a true life that gave birth to it, soon helped John Davies upward in the world. He became known at the Court of Elizabeth, whom he had pleased not only by the dedication of his poem to her, but by writing and publishing also in 1599 twenty-six acrostics in