Note 2 — SONGS AND SONETS. (continued 2)

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 Ano 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.