Michael Drayton, 1563–1631. Born, at Hartshill, Warwickshire, 1563. Probably page in household of Sir Henry Goodere of Powlesworth. First work published (and suppressed), 1591. Wrote many poetical works. Wrote for stage, 1597–1602. Esquire to Sir Walter Aston, 1603. Probably not married. Died, 1631. Buried in Westminster Abbey. Works: “The Harmonie of the Church,” 1591 (suppressed; reissued as “A Heavenly Harmonie,” 1610); “Idea,” 1593; “The Legend of Piers Gaveston,” 1593; “Matilda,” 1594; “Endymion and Phœbe” [1594]; “Ideas Mirrour,” 1594; “Mortimeriados,” 1596 (reissued as “The Barrons’ Wars,” 1603); “Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall” [1605?]; “England’s Heroicall Epistles,” 1597; “The first part of the … Life of Sir John Oldcastle” (probably by Munday, Drayton, and others), 1600; “To the Majestie of King James,” 1603; “A Pæan Triumphall,” 1604; “The Owle,” 1604; “Moyses in a Map of his Miracles,” 1604; “Poems,” 1605; “Poems Lyrick and Pastorall: Odes, Eglogs, etc.” [1606?]; “The Historie of the Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell,” 1609; “Poly-Olbion,” pt. i. [1612]; pt. ii, 1622; “Poems,” 1619; “Certain Elegies” (anon., with Beaumont and others), 1620; “The Battaile of Agincourt, etc.,” 1627; “The Muses Elizium,” 1630; “Noah’s Floud” (anon.), 1630. He contrib. verses to Morley’s “First Book of Ballets,” 1595; Middleton’s “Legend of Duke Humphrey,” 1600; DeSerres’ “Perfect Use of Silk-wormes,” 1607; Davies’ “Holy Rood,” 1609; Murray’s “Sophonisba,” 1611; Tuke’s “Discourse against Painting … of Women,” 1616; Chapman’s “Hesiod,” 1618; Munday’s “Primaleon of Greece,” 1619; Vicars’ “Manuductio” [1620?]; Holland’s “Naumachia,” 1622; Sir J. Beaumont’s “Bosworth Field,” 1629. Collected works: in 1 vol., 1748; in 4 vols., 1753; ed. by J. P. Collier, 1856.

Personal

  As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported, among all writers to (have) been of an honest life and upright conversation: so Michael Drayton, quem toties honoris et amoris causa nomino, among scholars, soldiers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well governed carriage: which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times; when there is nothing but roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and craftiness are counted the cleanest wit and soundest wisdom.

  Drayton feared him; and he esteemed not of him.

	It hath been question’d, Michael, if I be
	A friend at all; or, if at all, to thee:
	Because, who made the question, have not seen
	Those ambling visits pass in verse, between
	Thy Muse and mine, as they expect: ’tis true,
	You have not writ to me, nor I to you.
	And though I now begin, ’tis not to rub
	Haunch against haunch, or raise a riming club
	About the town; this reckoning I will pay
	Without conferring symbols; this, my day.

  He was a pious Poet, his conscience having always the command of his fancy; very temperate in his life, slow of speech, and inoffensive in company. He changed his Laurel for a Crown of Glory, anno 1631; and is buried in Westminster Abby, near the South door, with this Epitaph:

	“Doe, pious Marble, let thy Readers know,
	What they and what their children owe
	To Draiton’s name, whose sacred dust
	We recommend unto thy trust.
	Protect his memory, and preserve his story,
	Remain a lasting Monument of his glory:
	And when thy ruins shall disclaime
	To be the Treasurer of his name;
	His name that cannot fade, shall be
	An everlasting Monument to thee.”

  Drayton was never married, and little is known of his private life. He loved a lady of Conventry, to whom he promises an immortality he had not been able to confer.

  Next followed—such was the inequality of fortune—Drayton, of whom, after the lapse of not much more than a hundred years, Goldsmith, in his visit to the Abbey, could say, when he saw his monument, “Drayton! I never heard of him before.” Indeed, it was the common remark of London gossips—“Drayton, with half a nose, was next, whose works are forgot before his monument is worn out.” But at the time the “Polyolbion” was regarded as a masterpiece of art. It is uncertain whether he was buried in the Nave, or in this spot. But his bust was erected here by the same great lady who raised that to Spenser. Fuller, in his quaint manner, again revives their joint connexion with the grave of their predecessor:—“Chaucer lies buried in the south aisle of St. Peter’s, Westminster, and now hath got the company of Spenser and Drayton, a pair of royal poets, enough almost to make passengers’ feet to move metrically, who go over the place where so much poetical dust is interred.” How little the verdict of Goldsmith was then anticipated appears from the fine lines on Drayton’s monument, ascribed both to Ben Jonson and to Quarles, which, in invoking “the pious marble” to protect his memory, predict that when its

	Ruin shall disclaim
	To be the treasurer of his fame,
	His name, that cannot fade, shall be
	An everlasting monument to thee.

  In person, he was a swart little man, full of energy and an enthusiastic sense of his own powers; erudite, laborious, versatile; noted for the respectability of his life, and distinguished by the ardour of his orthodox and patriotic sentiments. I doubt whether he had any special call to poetry beyond the contagion of circumstances; ambition made his verses…. Drayton has a suspicious pride in the exercise of his gift: originality and versatility are the two qualities that he boasts of, as if he had overmastered the muse by intellectual force rather than won her by natural affinity.

  Drayton was buried in Westminster Abbey, according to Fuller “in the south aisle near to Chaucer’s grave and Spenser’s, where his monument stands;” but Dean Stanley believes that he lies near the small north door of the nave. Mr. Marshall, the stonecutter in Fetter Lane, told Aubrey that the lines on his “pious marble were writ by Francis Quarles, a very good man.” They declare that his name cannot fade; and yet when Goldsmith read them, a century later, he confessed that he had never heard the name before.

Idea, 1593

  The sixty-three sonnets, varied in different editions of Drayton’s “Idea,” are among the most puzzling of the whole group. Their average value is not of the very highest. Yet there are here and there the strangest suggestions of Drayton’s countryman, Shakespere, and there is one sonnet, No. 61, beginning, “Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part,” which I at least find it impossible to believe to be Drayton’s, and which is Shakespere all over. That Drayton was the author of “Idea” as a whole is certain, not merely from the local allusions, but from the resemblance to the more successful exercises of his clear, masculine, vigorous, fertile, but occasionally rather unpoetical style. The sonnet just referred to is itself one of the very finest existing—perhaps one of the ten or twelve best sonnets in the world.

Barons’ Wars, 1596–1603

  Though not very pleasing, however, in its general effect, this poem, “The Barons’ Wars,” contains several passages of considerable beauty, which men of greater renown, especially Milton, who availed himself largely of all the poetry of the preceding age, have been willing to imitate.

  His “Barons’ Wars” are not tame or prosaic, they are full of action and strife; swords flash and helmets rattle on every page. But unfortunately, Mortimer, the hero of the poem, the guilty favourite of Edward II.’s queen, is a personage in whom we vainly endeavour to get up an interest. There is much prolixity of description in this poem, due, it would seem, to imitation of Spenser, whose influence on Drayton’s mind and style are conspicuous. But it is one thing to be prolix in a work of pure imagination, when the poet detains us thereby in that magic world of unearthly beauty in which his own spirit habitually dwells, and quite another thing to be prolix in a poem founded upon and closely following historical fact…. If Drayton had known, like Tasso, how to associate imaginary Clorindas and Erminias with his historical personages, he might have been as discursive as he pleased. But this was “a grace beyond the reach” of his art; and the “Barons’ Wars” remain, therefore, incurably uninteresting.

  Setting aside “The Faerie Queene” and Shakespeare’s plays, Drayton’s “Barons’ Wars” must take rank as the best heroic poem written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The poet sought in all ways to give to the treatment of his subject epic dignity. The action is one great in itself and in its consequences, national, and associated with first principles of civil polity. There is greatness in the persons, and for the chief person Drayton uses all arts of the poet to enlarge and raise the character of Mortimer. The thoughts are noble, and associated clearly with the action. There is a strong passion of love well blended with strong passion of war. There is care to maintain the level of heroic thought in treatment of mere trivial incidents. There is even some suggestion of an episode of the past in the description of Edward’s glance over the chronicle of reigns of predecessors that he found, before his murder, in the prison. If there could have been a clearer view of greatness in the consequence of the action, that could have been presented to us by an episode of the future, this heroic poem, though without epic “machinery,” would rank among our epics. But it is enough to say that Drayton, with an eye towards epic, did achieve the writing of a true heroic poem, laboured carefully in the first writing, and twice revised.

England’s Heroical Epistles, 1597

  Michael Drayton’s Heroical Epistles are well worth the reading also for the purpose of our subject, which is to furnish an English historian with choice and copy of tongue.

  The style is flowing, fiery, and energetic, and withal extremely modern; it seems to anticipate the “full resounding line” of Dryden, and to rebuke the presumption of the poets of the Stuart age, who chose to say that English had never been properly and purely written till Waller and Denham arose.

Poly-olbion, 1612–22

  As Joannes Honterus, in Latin verse, wrote three books of Cosmography, with geographical tables; so Michael Drayton is now in penning in English verse, a poem called Poly-olbion [which is] geographical and hydrographical of all the forests, woods, mountains, fountains, rivers, lakes, floods, baths [spas], and springs that be in England.

  That Michael Drayton’s “Polyolbion,” if (he) had performed what he promised to writte (the deeds of all the Worthies) had been excellent: His long verses pleased him not.

  When I first undertook this Poem, or, as some very skilful in this kind have pleased to term it, this Herculean labour, I was by some virtuous friends persuaded, that I should receive much comfort and encouragement therein; and for these reasons: First, that it was a new, clear, way, never before gone by any; then, that it contained all the Delicacies, Delights, and Rarities of this renowned Isle, interwoven with the Histories of the Britans, Saxons, Normans, and the later English: And further that there is scarcely any of the Nobility or Gentry of this land, but that he is some way or other by his Blood interested therein. But it hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort, which my noble friends (from the freedom of their spirits) proposed as my due, I have met with barbarous ignorance, and base detraction; such a cloud hath the Devil drawn over the world’s judgment, whose opinion is in few years fallen so far below all ballatry, that the lethargy is incurable…. And as for those cattle whereof I spake before, Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo, of which I account them, be they never so great, and so I leave them. To my friends, and the lovers of my labours, I wish all happiness.

  Affords a much truer account of this kingdom, and the dominion of Wales, than could well be expected from the pen of a poet.

	Drayton, sweet ancient Bard, his Albion sung,
	With their own praise her echoing Valleys rung;
	His bounding Muse o’er ev’ry mountain rode,
	And ev’ry river warbled where he flow’d.

  His “Poly-Olbion” is one of the most singular works this country has produced, and seems to me eminently original. The information contained in it is in general so acute, that he is quoted as an authority both by Hearne and Wood. His perpetual allusions to obsolete traditions, remote events, remarkable facts and personages, together with his curious genealogies of rivers, and his taste for natural history, have contributed to render his work very valuable to the antiquary.

  His “Polyolbion” is certainly a wonderful work, exhibiting, at once, the learning of an historian, an antiquary, a naturalist, and a geographer, and embellished by the imagination of a poet.

  He has treated the subject with such topographical and minute detail as to chain his poetry to the map; and he has unfortunately chosen a form of verse which, though agreeable when interspersed with other measures, is fatiguing in long continuance by itself: still it is impossible to read the poem without admiring the richness of his local associations, and the beauty and variety of the fabulous allusions which he scatters around him. Such, indeed is the profusion of romantic recollections in the Poly-olbion, that a poet of taste and selection might there find subjects of happy description, to which the author who suggested them had not the power of doing justice; for Drayton started so many remembrances, that he lost his inspiration in the effort of memory.

  A work once famous, though now scarcely known except by its uncouth name…. It is, indeed, one of the most learned and ingenious poems in the language, and unique in literature; being a treasure-house of topographic, antiquarian, and traditional lore, which the heavy versification alone was sufficient to sink into neglect, even if public taste had not changed since the age of garrulity which it was written to instruct and entertain.

  Next to Daniel in time, and much above him in reach of mind, we place Michael Drayton…. Drayton’s “Polyolbion” is a poem of about 30,000 lines in length, written in Alexandrine couplets; a measure, from its monotony, and perhaps from its frequency in doggerel ballads, not at all pleasing to the ear. It contains a topographical description of England, illustrated with a prodigality of historical and legendary erudition. Such a poem is essentially designed to instruct, and speaks to the understanding more than to the fancy…. The style of Drayton is sustained, with extraordinary ability, on an equable line, from which he seldom much deviates, neither brilliant nor prosaic: few or no passages could be marked as impressive, but few are languid or mean. The language is clear, strong, various, and sufficiently figurative; the stories and fictions interspersed, as well as the general spirit and liveliness, relieve the heaviness incident to topographical description. There is probably no poem of this kind, in any other language, comparable together in extent and excellence to the “Polyolbion;” nor can any one read a portion of it without admiration for its learned and highly gifted author. Yet perhaps no English poem, known as well by name, is so little known beyond its name; for, while its immense length deters the common reader, it affords, as has just been hinted, no great harvest for selection, and would be judged very unfairly by partial extracts.

  Huge in length, as well as injudicious in purpose, Drayton’s work has seldom perhaps been read from beginning to end; but no one susceptible of poetic beauty can look into any part of it, without being fascinated and longing to read more. There is not in existence any instance so signal, of fine fancy and feeling, and great command of pure and strong language, thrown almost utterly away. Beautiful natural objects, striking national legends, recent facts, and ingenious allegorical and mythological inventions, are all lavished on this thankless design.

  The essential difficulty with the “Polyolbion” is, that, with all its merits, it is unreadable. The poetic feeling, the grace, the freshness, the pure, bright, and vigorous diction, which characterize it, appear to more advantage in the poet’s minor pieces, where his subjects are less unwieldy, and the vivacity of his fancy makes us forget his lack of high imagination.

  A miracle of industry and sustained enthusiasm.

  That very little read Drayton, whose great “Polyolbion” seems as if it might have filled the place of “Bradshaw’s Guide” to tourists of the Arcadia stamp. Let me tell you that you will find a great deal of very good poetry in that same “Polyolbion” if you venture to face it.

  Who now reads the “Polyolbion,” that river epic, which imitates its theme in its quaintly meandering course? Here and there may be seen a rapt angler for fine passages, scantily dotted along its banks, and there is no better angling in British poetry.

  Full of quaint and minute learning, local knowledge, and romantic touches, the poem, strange as it is, is singularly interesting. If it reaches no great height it sinks to no depth; we move, so to speak, with a kind of swinging motion along a lofty tableland where fresh, healthy breezes blow; we note the varying scenery, we watch the fish in the clear streams, and learn their names; we cull the flowers, we linger within the woods, or are present at the wedding of a Thames with an Isis.

  A huge British gazetteer in broken-backed twelve-syllable verse, is a portent of misplaced energy.

Battle of Agincourt, 1627

  His ode on the Battle of Agincourt is, perhaps, his masterpiece.

  It runs, it leaps, clashing its verses like swords upon bucklers, and moves the pulse to a charge.

  The Agincourt ballad,

“Fair stood the wind for France.”

is quite at the head of its own class of verse in England—Campbell’s two masterpieces, and the present poet-laureate’s direct imitation in the “Six Hundred,” falling, the first somewhat, and the last considerably, short of it. The sweep of the metre, the martial glow of the sentiment, and the skill with which the names are wrought into the verse, are altogether beyond praise.

  By far the best of the odes, however, is the noble “Battle of Agincourt,” which is Drayton’s greatest claim to the recognition of posterity, and the most spirited of all his lyrics.

Nymphidia

  Elegant simplicity, so necessary in Bucolic poetry, was no characteristic of the author of the “Fairy Queen.” In every requisite for this province of his divine art, he has been much excelled by Drayton, whose “Nymphidia” may be considered as one of the best specimens we have of the pastoral eclogue.

  The fairy poem of “Nymphidia” is one of the most graceful trifles in the language, possessing a dancing movement and a felicitous choice of imagery and language which triumphantly avoid the trivial on the one hand, and the obviously burlesque on the other.

General

  Drayton is termed “golden-mouthed,” for the purity and preciousness of his style and phrase.

	The Peeres of heav’n kept a parliament,
	And for Wittes-mirrour Philip Sidney sent:
	To keepe another when they doe intend,
	Twentie to one for Drayton they will send,
	Yet bade him leave his learning; so it fled
	And vow’d to live with thee since he was dead.

	And Drayton, whose well-written Tragedies,
	And sweet Epistles, soare thy fame to skies,
	Thy learned Name is equall with the rest,
	Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest.

  Draytons sweete muse is like a sanguine dy, Able to rauish the rash gazers eye. How euer he wants one true note of a Poet of our times, and that is this, hee cannot swagger it well in a Tauerne, nor dominere in a hot house.

	Our second Ovid, the most pleasing Muse
	That heav’n did e’er in mortal’s brain infuse,
	All-lovèd Drayton, in soul-raping strains,
	A genuine note, of all the nymphish trains
	Began to tune; on it all ears were hung,
	As sometime Dido’s on Æneas’ tongue.

	Draiton is sweet and Smooth; though not exact,
	Perhaps, to stricter Eyes; yet he shall live
	Beyond their Malice.

  Michael Drayton, contemporary of Spencer and Sir Philip Sydney, and for fame and renown in poetry, not much inferior in his time to either: however, he seems somewhat antiquated in the esteem of the more curious of these times, especially in his “Polyalbion,” the old fashion’d kind of verse whereof, seem somewhat to diminish that respect which was formerly paid to the subject, as being both pleasant and elaborate, and thereupon thought worthy to be commented upon by that once walking library of our nation, Selden; his “England’s Heroical Epistles,” are more generally lik’d; and to such as love the pretty chat of nymphs and shepherds, his Nymphals and other things of that nature, cannot be unpleasant.

  As we walked along to a particular part of the temple, there, says the gentleman, pointing with his finger, that is the poet’s corner; there you see the monuments of Shakspeare, and Milton, and Prior, and Drayton. Drayton! I replied, I never heard of him before.

  Of Drayton the best parts are pastoral, and these are indeed truly excellent; his “Legends,” however, his “Heroical Epistles” and his “Barons Warres,” contain many pathetic passages; but his most elaborate work the “Poly-Olbion” exhibits much more of the Antiquary than of the Poet. Drayton is frequently a pleasing but never a great poet.

  The excellent fable of the maddening rain I have found in Drayton’s “Moon Calf,” most miserably marred in the telling! vastly inferior to Benedict Fay’s Latin exposition of it, and that is no great thing. Vide his Lucretian Poem on the Newtonian System. Never was a finer tale for a satire, or, rather, to conclude a long satirical poem of five or six hundred lines.

  The language of Drayton is free and perspicuous. With less depth of feeling than that which occasionally bursts from Cowley, he is a less excruciating hunter of conceits, and in harmony of expression is quite a contrast to Donne. A tinge of grace and romance pervades much of his poetry: and even his pastorals, which exhibit the most fantastic views of nature, sparkle with elegant imagery…. On a general survey, the mass of his poetry has no strength or sustaining spirit adequate to its bulk. There is a perpetual play of fancy on its surface; but the impulses of passion, and the guidance of judgment give it no strong movements nor consistent course. In scenery or in history he cannot command selected views, but meets them by chance as he travels over the track of detail. His great subjects have no interesting centre, no shade for uninteresting things. Not to speak of his dull passages, his description is generally lost in a flutter of whimsical touches. His muse has certainly no strength for extensive flights, though she sports in happy moments on a brilliant and graceful wing.

  Michael Drayton’s “Poly-Olbion” is a work of great length and of unabated freshness and vigour in itself, though the monotony of the subject tires the reader. He describes each place with the accuracy of a topographer, and the enthusiasm of a poet, as if his Muse were the very genius loci. His “Heroical Epistles” are also excellent. He has a few lighter pieces, but none of exquisite beauty or grace. His mind is a rich marly soil that produces an abundant harvest, and repays the husbandman’s toil, but few flaunting flowers, the garden’s pride, grow in it, nor any poisonous weeds.

  Drayton wrote well in every metre which he attempted: but what he thus says of the Italian stanza may be more truly said of the English one invented by Spenser, and used by him in one of the noblest works of human genius. And he committed a great error when he fixed upon the Alexandrine as the measure in which to write his “Polyolbion;” for of all measures it is that which, in our language, admits the least variety.

  It was at one time a question in the mind of Tyrwhitt, whether the date of the “Nymphidia” was prior to that of the “Midsummer Night’s Dream;” but his decision in favour of the priority of the latter was determined by observing that Don Quixote, which did not make its appearance till five years after Shakspeare’s drama, is cited in Drayton’s poem.

  It was the misfortune of Drayton not to have been a popular poet; which we may infer from his altercations with his booksellers, and from their frequent practice of prefixing new title pages, with fresher dates, to the first editions of his poems. That he was also in perpetual quarrel with his Muse, appears by his frequent alteration of his poems. He often felt that curse of an infelicitous poet, that his diligence was more active than his creative power. Drayton was a poet of volume; but his genius was peculiar: from an unhappy facility in composition, in reaching excellence he too often declined into mediocrity. A modern reader may be struck by the purity and strength of his diction: his strong descriptive manner lays hold on the fancy; but he is always a poet of reason, and never of passion. He cannot be considered as a poet of mediocrity, who has written so much above that level; nor a poet who can rank among the highest class, who has often flattened his spirit by its redundance.

	Hail to thee, Michael! true, pains-taking wight.
	So various that ’tis hard to praise thee right;
	For driest fact and finest faery fable
	Employ’d thy genius indefatigable.
	What bard more zealous of our England’s glory,
	More deeply versed in all her antique story,
	Recorded feat, tradition quaint and hoary?
	What muse like thine so patiently would plod
	From shire to shire in pilgrim sandal shod,
	Calling to life and voice, and conscious will,
	The shifting streamlet and the sluggish hill?
	Great genealogist of earth and water,
	The very Plutarch of insensate matter.

  The market-value, both of his poetry and virtue, was small, and he seems to have been always on bad terms with the booksellers. His poems, we believe, were the first which arrived at second editions by the simple process of merely reprinting, with additions, the title-pages of the first,—a fact which is ominous of his bad success with the public. The defect of his mind was not the lack of materials, but the lack of taste to select, and imagination to fuse, his materials.

  Drayton eminently suits a “Selection” such as ours, since his parts are better than his whole.

  The genius of Drayton is neither very imaginative nor very pathetic; but he is an agreeable and weighty writer, with an ardent if not a highly creative, fancy. From the height to which he occasionally ascends, as well as from his power of keeping longer on the wing, he must be ranked, as he always has been, much before both Warner and Daniel. He has greatly more elevation than the former, and more true poetic life than the latter.

  The “Polyolbion” is nothing less than a versified gazetteer of England and Wales,—fortunately Scotland was not yet annexed, or the poem would have been even longer, and already it is the plesiosaurus of verse. Mountains, rivers, and even marshes are personified, to narrate historical episodes, or to give us geographical lectures. There are two fine verses in the seventh book, where, speaking of the cutting down some noble woods, he says,—

	“Their trunks like aged folk now bare and naked stand,
	As for revenge to heaven each held a withered hand;”

and there is a passage about the sea in the twentieth book that comes near being fine; but the far greater part is mere joiner-work. Consider the life of man, that we flee away as a shadow, that our days are as a post, and then think whether we can afford to honor such a draft upon our time as is implied in these thirty books all in alexandrines! Even the laborious Selden, who wrote annotations on it, sometimes more entertaining than the text, gave out at the end of the eighteenth book. Yet Drayton could write well, and had an agreeable lightsomeness of fancy, as his “Nymphidia” proves.

  Drayton’s jewels five words long are of the rarest, and their sparkle when they do occur is not of the brightest or most enchanting lustre. But considering his enormous volume, he is a poet of surprisingly high merit. Although he has written some fifty or sixty thousand lines, the bulk of them on subjects not too favourable to poetical treatment, he has yet succeeded in giving to the whole an unmistakably poetical flavour, and in maintaining that flavour throughout. The variety of his work, and at the same time the unfailing touch by which he lifts that work, not indeed into the highest regions of poetry, but far above its lower confines, are his most remarkable characteristics.

  Drayton’s touch is less delicate than Daniel’s, and his poetry is of a heavier character; it is dull.

  His poetry won him applause from many quarters. He is mentioned under the name of “Good Rowland” in Barnfield’s “Affectionate Shepheard,” 1594, and he is praised in company with Spenser, Daniel, and Shakespeare in Barnfield’s “A Remembrance of some English Poets,” 1598. Lodge dedicated to him in 1595 one of the epistles in “A Fig for Momus.” In 1596 Fitzgeoffrey, in his poem on Sir Francis Drake, speaks of “golden-mouthed Drayton musicall.” A very clear proof of his popularity is shown by the fact that he is quoted no less than a hundred and fifty times in “England’s Parnassus,” 1600. Drummond of Hawthornden was one of his fervent admirers…. His poetry was little to the taste of eighteenth-century critics. From a well-known passage of Goldsmith’s “Citizen of the World” it would seem that his very name had passed into oblivion. Since the days of Charles Lamb and Coleridge his fame has revived, but no complete edition of his works has yet been issued.

  Lyrical sweetness, fertility of invention, richness of descriptive power, are Drayton’s most characteristic qualities, but along with these he has the great style of an heroic time. He has, perhaps, little of the dramatic gift, as usually understood, though, as Mr. Symonds has admonished us, much of the so-called dramatic work of the Elizabethans is really lyrical. Besides, Drayton had one essential of the dramatic gift: he could at least make single figures live and move before us…. Drayton seems to have exercised no selection upon his materials, but to have followed the chronicler almost slavishly from point to point.

  During the eighteenth century, at least, no non-dramatic poet of our period was so much read or so often reprinted as Drayton. Joseph Hunter expressed no opinion shocking to his generation when he claimed for Drayton a place in the first class of English poets. His ease, correctness, and lucidity were attractive to our elder critics, and outweighed the lack of the more exquisite qualities of style. If Drayton can no longer be awarded such superlative honours as were formerly paid to him, he is nevertheless a poet of considerable originality and merit, whose greatest enemy has been his want of measure. His works form far too huge a bulk, and would be more gladly read if the imagination in them were more concentrated and the style more concise. Drayton attempted almost every variety of poetic art, and his aim was possibly a little too encyclopædic for his gifts.

  Has left some Pastorals, so quick and airy in touch, so attractive in feeling, that it is vexing to find how completely the landscape which he saw and must have enjoyed was silenced or exiled from his poetry by the mere conventionalities of pseudo-classicalism.

  Grave-minded, with the ethical poet’s fuller ambition, and touched with the new and deeper lyric feeling that utters itself most perfectly in Shakespeare’s sonnets.