After a few general observations, therefore, on the poetry of this era, it is our intention to give short critical notices of the principal bards who flourished during its transit; and with the view of affording some idea of the extensive culture and diffusion of poetic taste, an alphabetical table of the minor poets, accompanied by slight memoranda, will be added. An account of the numerous Collections of Poetry which reflect so much credit on this age, and a few remarks and inferences, more particularly with respect to Shakspeare's study of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries in miscellaneous poetry, will complete this portion of our subject.

The causes which chiefly contributed to produce this fertility in poetical genius may, in a great measure, be drawn from what has been already remarked under the heads of superstition, literature, and romance.

The sun of philosophy and science, which had just risen with the most captivating beauty, and which promised a meridian of uncommon splendour, had not yet fully dissipated those mists that for centuries had enveloped and darkened the human mind. What remained, however, of the popular creed, was much less gross and less contradictory to common experience, than what had vanished from the scroll; these reliques were, indeed, such, as either appealed powerfully to a warm and creative imagination, or were intimately connected with those apprehensions which agitate the breast of man, when speculating on his destiny in another and higher order of existence.

Under the first of these classes may be included all that sportive, wild, and terrific imagery which resulted from a partial belief in the operations of fairies, witches, and magicians, and in the reveries of the alchemist, the rosicrusian, and the astrologer; and under the second will be found, what can scarcely be termed superstition in the customary sense, that awful and mysterious conception of the spiritual world, which supposes its frequent intervention, through the agency either of departed spirits, or superhuman beings.

The opinions which prevailed with regard to these topics in the days of Shakspeare, were such as exactly suited the higher regions of poetry, without giving any violent shock to the deductions of advancing philosophy. The national credulity had been, in fact, greatly chastised through the efforts of enquiry and research, and though it may still appear great to us, was in perfect accordance with the progress of civilisation, and certainly much better calculated for poetic purposes than has been any subsequent though purer creed.

The state of literature, too, was precisely of that kind which favoured, in a very high degree, the nurture of poetical genius. The vocabulary of our language was rich, beyond all example, both in natives and exotics; not only in "new grafts of old withered words[596:A]," but in a multitude of expressive terms borrowed from the learned languages; and this wealth was used freely and without restriction, and without the smallest apprehension of censure.

An enthusiastic spirit for literary acquisition had been created and cherished by the revival, the study, and the translation of the ancient classics; and through this medium an exhaustless mine of imagery and allusion was laid open to our vernacular poets.

Nor were these advantages blighted or checked by the fastidious canons of dictatorial criticism. Puttenham's was the only Art of Poetry which had made its appearance, and, though a taste for discussion of this kind was rapidly advancing, the poet was yet left independent of the critic; at liberty to indulge every flight of imagination, and every sally of feeling; to pursue his first mode of conception, and to adopt the free diction of the moment.

The age of chivalry and romance, also, had not yet passed away; the former, it is true, was verging fast towards dissolution, but its tone was still exalting and heroic, while the latter continued to throw a rich, though occasionally a fantastic light over every species of poetic composition. In short, the unrestricted copiousness of our language, the striking peculiarities of our national superstition, the wild beauties of Gothic invention, and the playful sallies of Italian fiction, combined with a plentiful infusion of classic lore, and operating on native genius, gave origin, not only to an unparalleled number of great bards, but to a cast of poetry unequalled in this country for its powers of description and creation, for its simplicity and energy of diction, and for its wide dominion over the feelings.

If we proceed to consider the versification, economy, and sentiment of the Elizabethan poetry, candour must confess, that considerable defects will be found associated with beauties equally prominent, especially in the first and second of these departments. We must be understood, however, as speaking here only of rhymed poetry, for were the blank verse of our dramatic poets of this epoch included, there can be no doubt but that in versification likewise the palm must be awarded to Shakspeare and his contemporaries. Indeed, even in the construction of rhyme, the inferiority of our ancestors is nearly, if not altogether, confined to their management of the pentameter couplet; and here, it must be granted, that, in their best artificers of this measure, in the pages of Daniel, Drayton, and Browne, great deficiencies are often perceptible both in harmony and cadence, in polish and compactness. It has been said by a very pleasing, and, in general, a very judicious critic, that "the older poets disdained stooping to the character of syllable-mongers; as their conceptions were vigorous, they trusted to the simple provision of nature for their equipment; and though often introduced into the world ragged, they were always healthy."[597:A] Now versification is to poetry, what colouring is to painting, and though by no means among the higher provinces of the art, yet he who disdains its cultivation, loses one material hold upon the reader's attention; for, though plainness and simplicity of garb best accord with vigour, sublimity, or pathos of conception, raggedness can never coincide in the production of any grand or pleasing effect.

It is remarkable, however, that, in lyrical composition, the poets of Elizabeth's reign, so far from being defective in harmony of metre, frequently possess the most studied modulation; and numbers of their songs and madrigals, as well as many stanzas of their longer poems constructed on the model of the Italian octava rima, exhibit in their versification so much high-finishing, and such an exquisite polish, as must render doubtful, in this province, at least, the assumed superiority of modern art.

A more striking desideratum in the poetry of this era has arisen from a want of economy in the use of imagery and ornament, and in the distribution of parts as relative to a whole. That relief, which is produced by a judicious management of light and shade, appears to have been greatly neglected; the eye, after having been fatigued by an unsubdued splendour and warmth of style, suddenly passes to an extreme poverty of colouring, without any intermediate tint to blend and harmonize the parts; in short, to drop the metaphor, after a prodigal profusion of imagery and description, the exhausted bard sinks for pages together into a strain remarkable only for its flatness and imbecillity. To this want of union in style, may be added an equal defalcation in the disposition, connection, and dependency of the various portions of an extended whole. These requisites, which are usually the result of long and elaborate study, have been successfully cultivated by the moderns, who, since the days of Pope, have paid a scrupulous attention to the mechanism of versification, to the consonancy and keeping of style, and to the niceties and economy of arrangement.

We can ascribe, however, to the poets of Elizabeth's reign the greater merit of excelling in energy and truth of sentiment, in simplicity of diction, in that artless language of nature which irresistibly makes its way to the heart. To excite the emotions of sublimity, of terror, of pity, an appeal to the artificial graces of modern growth will not be found successful; on the contrary, experience has taught us, that in the higher walks of poetry, where sensations of grandeur and astonishment are to be raised, or where the passions in all their native vigour are to be called forth, we must turn to the earlier stages of the art, when the poet, unshackled by the overwhelming influence of venerated models, unawed by the frowns of criticism, and his flow of thought undiverted by any laborious attention to the minutiæ of diction and cadence, looked abroad for himself, and drew fresh from the page of surrounding nature, and from the workings of his own breast, the imagery, and the feelings, which he was solicitous to impress. In consequence of this self-dependence, this appeal to original sources, the poetry of the period under our notice possesses a strength, a raciness, and verisimilitude which have since very rarely been attained, and which more than compensate for any subordinate defects in the ornamental departments of metre, or style.

It is conceivable, indeed, that a poet may arise, who shall happily combine, even in a long poem of the highest class, the utmost refinements of recent art, with the originality, strength, and independency of our elder bards; it is a phenomenon, however, rather to be wished for than expected, as the excellencies peculiar to these widely-separated eras appear to be, in their highest degree, nearly incompatible. Yet is the attempt not to be given up in despair; in short poems, especially of the lyric species, we know that this union has been effected among us; for Gray, to very lofty flights of sublimity, has happily united the utmost splendour of diction, and the utmost brilliancy of versification; and even in a later and more extended instance, in "The Pleasures of Hope" by Mr. Campbell, we find some of the noblest conceptions of poetry clothed in metre exquisitely sweet and polished, and possessing at the same time great variety of modulation, and a considerable share of simplicity in its construction.

If, however, upon the large scale, which the highest cast of poetry demands, the studied harmony of later times be found incapable of coalescing with effect, there can be no doubt what school we should adopt; for who would not prefer the sublime though unadorned conception of Michael Angelo to the glowing colouring even of such an artist as Titian?

Of the larger poems of the age of Shakspeare, the defects may be considered as of two kinds, either apparent only, or real; under the first may be classed that want of high-finishing which is the result, partly of its incompatibility with greatness of design, and partly as the effect of a just taste; for much of the minor poetry of the reign of Elizabeth, as hath been previously observed, is polished even to excess; while under the second are to be placed the positive defects of want of union in style, and want of connection and arrangement in economy; omissions not resulting from necessity, and which are scarcely to be atoned for by any excellencies, however transcendent.

It is creditable to the present age, that in the higher poetry several of our bards have in a great degree reverted to the ancient school; that, in attempting to emulate the genius of their predecessors, they have judiciously adopted their strength and simplicity of diction, their freedom and variety of metre, preserving at the same time, and especially in the disposition of their materials, and the keeping of their style, whatever of modern refinement can aptly blend with or heighten the effect of the sublime, though often severely chaste outline, of the first masters of their art.

That meretricious glare of colouring, that uniform though seductive polish, and that monotony of versification, which are but too apparent in the school of Pope, and which have been carried to a disgusting excess by Darwin and his disciples, not only vitiate and dilute all developement of intense emotion, but even paralyse that power of picturesque delineation, which can only subsist under an uncontrolled freedom of execution, where, both in language and rhythm, the utmost variety and energy have their full play. He who in sublimity and pathos has made the nearest approach to our three immortal bards, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, and who may, therefore, claim the fourth place in our poetical annals, the lamented Chatterton; and he who, in the present day, stands unrivalled for his numerous and masterly sketches of character, and for the truth, locality, and vigour of his descriptions, the poet of Marmion and of Rokeby; are both well known to have built their fame upon what may be emphatically termed the old English school of poesy. The difference between them is, that while both revert to the costume and imagery of the olden time, one adheres, in a great measure, to the language of his day, while the other must be deemed a laborious though not very successful imitator of the phraseology and extrinsic garb of the remote period to which, for no very laudable purpose, he has assigned his productions.

These few remarks on the poetry of our ancestors being premised, the critical notices to which we have alluded, may with propriety commence; and in executing this part of the subject, as well as in the tabular form which follows, an alphabetical arrangement will be observed.

1. Beaumont, Sir John. Though the poems of this author were not published, yet were they written, during the age of Shakspeare, and consequently demand our notice in this chapter. He was the elder brother of Francis the dramatic poet, and was born at Grace-dieu, in Leicestershire, in 1582. He very early attached himself to poetical studies, and all his productions in this way were the amusements of his youthful days. Of these, the most elaborate is entitled "Bosworth Field," a very animated, and often a very poetical detail of the circumstances which are supposed immediately to precede and accompany this celebrated struggle. The versification merits peculiar praise; there is an ease, a vigour, and a harmony in it, not equalled, perhaps, by any other poet of his time; many of the couplets, indeed, are such as would be distinguished for the beauty of their construction, even in the writings of Pope. An encomium so strong as this may require some proofs for its support, and among the number which might be brought forward, three shall be adduced as specimens not only of finished versification, but of the energy and heroism of the sentiments which pervade this striking poem.

Ferrers, addressing Richard, exclaims,—

On the flight of Catesby, who advises Richard to embrace a similar mode of securing his personal safety, the King indignantly answers,

Of the conclusion of Bosworth Field, Mr. Chalmers has justly observed, that "the lines describing the death of the tyrant may be submitted with confidence to the admirers of Shakspeare."[602:A]

The translations and miscellaneous poems of Sir John include several pieces of considerable merit. We would particularly point out Claudian's Epigram on the Old Man of Verona, and the verses on his "dear sonne Gervase Beaumont."

Sir John died in the winter of 1628, aged forty-six.

2. Breton, Nicholas. Of this prolific poet few authenticated facts are known. His first publication, entitled, "A small handfull of fragrant flowers," was printed in 1575; if we therefore allow him to have reached the age of twenty-one before he commenced a writer, the date of his birth may, with some probability, be assigned to the year 1554. The number of his productions was so great, that a character in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, declares that he had undertaken "with labour and experience the collection of those thousand pieces—of that our honour'd Englishman, Nich. Breton."[602:B] Ritson has given a catalogue of twenty-nine, independent of his contributions to the "Phœnix Nest" and "England's Helicon," and five more are recorded by Mr. Park in the Censura Literaria.[603:A] Most of these are poetical, some a mixed composition of rhyme and prose, and a few entirely prose; they are all extremely scarce, certainly not the consequence of mediocrity or want of notice, for they have been praised by Puttenham[603:B], Meres[603:C], and Phillips; and one of his most beautiful ballads is inserted in "The Muse's Library," 1740. After a lapse of twenty-five years, Dr. Percy recalled the attention of the public to our author by inserting in his Reliques the same piece which Mrs. Cowper had previously chosen[603:D]; in 1801 Mr. Ellis favoured us with eight specimens, from his pamphlets and "England's Helicon[603:E]," and Mr. Park has since added two very valuable extracts to the number.[603:F] These induce us to wish for a more copious selection, and at the same time enable us to declare, that as a lyric and pastoral poet he possessed, if not a splendid, yet a pleasing and elegant flow of fancy, together with great sweetness and simplicity of expression, and a more than common portion of metrical harmony.

He is supposed, on the authority of an epitaph in the church of Norton, a village in Northamptonshire, to have died on the 22d of June 1624.[603:G]

3. Browne, William, was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in 1590, and, there is reason to suppose, began very early to cultivate his poetical talents; for in the first book of his Britannias Pastorals, which were published in folio, in 1613, when in his twenty-third year, he speaks of himself, "as weake in yeares as skill[603:H]," an expression which leads to the supposition that his earlier pastorals were written before he had attained the age of twenty. Indeed all his poetry appears to have been written previous to his thirtieth year. In 1614, he printed in octavo, The Shepherds Pipe, in seven eclogues; in 1616, the second part of his Britannias Pastorals was given to the public, and in 1620, his Inner Temple Mask is supposed to have been first exhibited.

Browne enjoyed a large share of popularity during his life-time; numerous commendatory poems are prefixed to the first edition of his pastorals; and, in a copy of the second impression of 1625, in the possession of Mr. Beloe, and which seems to have been a presentation copy to Exeter College, Oxford, of which Browne was a member and Master of Arts, there are thirteen adulatory addresses to the poet, from different students of this society, and in the hand-writing of each.[604:A] Among his earliest eulogists are found the great characters Selden, Drayton, and Jonson, by whom he was highly respected both as a poet and as a man; and as a still more imperishable honour, we must not forget to mention, that he was a favourite with our divine Milton.

Until lately, however, he has been under little obligation to subsequent times; nearly one hundred and fifty years elapsed before a third edition of his poems employed the press; this came out in 1772, under the auspices of Mr. Thomas Davies, and, with the exception of some extracts in Hayward's British Muse, this long interval passed without any attempt to revive his fame, by any judicious specimens of his genius.[604:B] A more propitious era followed the republication of Davies; in 1787, Mr. Headley obliged us with some striking proofs of, and some excellent remarks on, his beauties; in 1792, his whole works were incorporated in the edition of the poets, by Dr. Anderson; in 1801, Mr. Ellis gave further extension to his fame by additional examples, and in 1810 his productions again became a component part of a body of English poetry in the very elaborate and comprehensive edition of the English Poets, by Mr. Chalmers.

Still it appears to us, that sufficient justice has not, since the era of Milton, been paid to his talents; for, though it be true, as Mr. Headley has observed, that puerilities, forced allusions, and conceits, have frequently debased his materials; yet are these amply atoned for by some of the highest excellencies of his art; by an imagination ardent and fertile, and sometimes sublime; by a vivid personification of passion; by a minute and truly faithful delineation of rural scenery; by a peculiar vein of tenderness which runs through the whole of his pastorals, and by a versification uncommonly varied and melodious. With these are combined a species of romantic extravagancy which sometimes heightens, but more frequently degrades, the effect of his pictures. Had he exhibited greater judgment in the selection of his imagery, and greater simplicity in his style, his claim on posterity had been valid, had been general and undisputed. Browne is conjectured by Wood to have died in the winter of 1645.[605:A]

4. Chalkhill, John. This poet was the intimate friend of Spenser, a gentleman, a scholar, and, to complete the encomium, a man of strict moral character. He was the author of a pastoral history, entitled, Thealma and Clearchus; but "he died," relates Mrs. Cooper, "before he could perfect even the Fable of his poem, and, by many passages in it, I half believe, he had not given the last hand to what he has left behind him. However, to do both him and his editor justice, if my opinion can be of any weight, 'tis great pity so beautiful a relique should be lost; and the quotations I have extracted from it will sufficiently evidence a fine vein of imagination, a taste far from being indelicate, and both language and numbers uncommonly harmonious and polite."[606:A]

The editor alluded to by Mrs. Cooper was the amiable Isaac Walton, who published this elegant fragment in 8vo. in 1683, when he was ninety years old, and who has likewise inserted two songs by Chalkhill in his "Complete Angler."[606:B]

The pastoral strains of Chalkhill merit the eulogium of their female critic; the versification, more especially, demands our notice, and may be described, in many instances, as possessing the spirit, variety, and harmony of Dryden. To verify this assertion, let us listen to the following passages; describing the Golden age, he informs us,

How beautifully versified is the opening of his picture of the Temple of Diana!

Pourtraying the cell of an Enchantress, he says,

Mr. Beloe, in the first volume of his Anecdotes, p. 70., has given us a Latin epitaph on a John Chalkhill, copied from Warton's History of Winchester. This inscription tells us, that the person whom it commemorates died a Fellow of Winchester College, on the 20th of May, 1679, aged eighty; and yet Mr. Beloe, merely from similarity of name and character, contends that this personage must have been the Chalkhill of Isaac Walton; a supposition which a slight retrospection as to dates, would have proved impossible. Walton, in the title-page of Thealma and Clearchus, describes Chalkhill as an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser; now as Spenser died in January, 1598, and the subject of this epitaph, aged 80, in 1679, the latter must consequently have been born in 1599, the year after Spenser's death! The coincidence of character and name is certainly remarkable, but by no means improbable or unexampled.

5. Chapman, George, who was born in 1557 and died in 1634, aged seventy-seven, is here introduced as the principal translator of his age; to him we are indebted for Homer, Musæus, and part of Hesiod. His first published attempt on Homer appeared in 1592[607:B], under the title of "Seaven Bookes of the Shades of Homere, Prince of Poets;" and shortly after the accession of James the First, the entire Iliad was completed and entitled, "The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets. Never before in any language truly translated. With a comment upon some of his chief places: done according to the Greeke."

This version, which was highly prized by his contemporaries, is executed in rhymed couplets, each line containing fourteen syllables; a species of versification singularly cumbrous and void of harmony; and, notwithstanding this protracted metre, fidelity is, by no means, the characteristic of Chapman. He is not only often very paraphrastic, but takes the liberty of omitting, without notice, what he could not comprehend. It has been asserted by Pope, that a daring fiery spirit, something like what we might imagine Homer himself to have written before he arrived to years of discretion, animates his translation, and covers his defects[608:A]; an opinion which seems rather the result of partiality than unbiassed judgment; for though Chapman is certainly superior to his successor Hobbes, and occasionally exhibits some splendid passages, he must be considered by every critic of the present day as, in general, coarse, bombastic, and often disgusting; a violator, indeed, in almost every page, of the dignity and simplicity of his original.

The magnitude and novelty of the undertaking, however, deserved and met with encouragement, and Chapman was induced, in 1614, to present the world with a version of the Odyssey. This is in the pentameter couplet; inferior in vigour to his Iliad, but in diction and versification more chaste and natural. Of his Musæus and his Georgics of Hesiod, we shall only remark that the former was printed in 1616, the latter in 1618, and that the first, which we have alone seen, does not much exceed the character of mediocrity. As an original writer, we shall have to notice Chapman under the dramatic department, and shall merely add now, that he was, in a moral light, a very estimable character, and the friend of Spenser, Shakspeare, Marlowe, Daniel, and Drayton.

6. Churchyard, Thomas. This author merits notice rather for the quantity than the quality of his productions, though a few of his pieces deserve to be rescued from utter oblivion. He commenced a writer, according to his own account[609:A], in the reign of King Edward the Sixth, and as Wood informs us that at the age of seventeen he went to seek his fortune at court, and lived four years with Howard Earl of Surry, who died 1546, it is probable that he was born about 1524. Shrewsbury had the honour of producing him, and he continued publishing poetical tracts until the accession of James the First. Ritson has given us a catalogue, which might be enlarged, of seventeen of his publications, with dates, from 1558 to 1599, independent of a variety of scattered pieces; some of these are of such bulk as to include from twelve to twenty subjects, and in framing their titles the old bard seems to have been very partial to alliteration; for we have Churchyards Chippes, 1575; Churchyards Choice, 1579; Churchyards Charge, 1580; Churchyards Change; Churchyards Chance, 1580; Churchyards Challenge, 1593; and Churchyards Charity, 1595.[609:B] In the "Mirror for Magistrates," first published in 1559, he contributed "The Legend of Jane Shore," which he afterwards augmented in his "Challenge," by the addition of twenty-one stanzas; this is perhaps the best of his poetical labours, and contains several good stanzas. His "Worthiness of Wales," also, first published in 1587, and reprinted a few years ago, is entitled to preservation. This pains-taking author, as Ritson aptly terms him, died poor on April 4th, 1604, after a daily exertion of his pen, in the service of the Muses, for nearly sixty years.

7. Constable, Henry, of whom little more is personally known, than that he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1579[609:C]; that he was compelled to leave his native country from a zealous attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, and that, venturing to return, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but released towards the close of 1604.[610:A] Constable possessed unrivalled reputation with his contemporaries as a writer of sonnets; Jonson terms his muse "ambrosiack[610:B];" in The Return from Parnassus, 1606, we are told that

and Bolton calls him "a great master in English tongue," and adds, "nor had any gentleman of our nation a more pure, quick, or higher delivery of conceit; witness among all other, that Sonnet of his before his Majesty's Lepanto."[610:D] In consequence of these encomia more modern authors have prolonged the note of praise; Wood describes him as "a noted English poet[610:E];" Hawkins, as the "first, or principal sonnetteer of his time[610:F]," and Warton, as "a noted sonnet-writer."[610:G]

To justify the reputation thus acquired, we have two collections of his sonnets still existing; one published in 1594, under the title of "Diana, or the excellent conceitful sonnets of H. C. augmented with divers quatorzains of honorable and learned personages, devided into viij Decads;" and the other a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Todd, consisting of sonnets divided into three parts, each part containing three several arguments, and every argument seven sonnets.[610:H]

From the specimens which we have seen of his Diana, and from the sonnet extracted by Mr. Todd from the manuscript collection, there can be little hesitation in declaring, that the reputation which Constable once enjoyed, was built upon no stable foundation, and that mediocrity is all which the utmost indulgence of the present age can allow him.

8. Daniel, Samuel, a poet and historian of no small repute, was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562. Having received a classical education at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and being afterwards enabled to pursue his studies under the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke's family, he became the most correct poet of his age. He commenced author as early as 1585, by a translation of Paulus Jovius's Discourse of rare Inventions; but his first published poems appear to have been his Delia, a collection of Sonnets, with the complaint of Rosamond, 1592. He continued to write until nearly the close of his life, for the Second Part of his History of England was published in 1618, and he died on the 14th of October 1619.

Of the poetry of Daniel, omitting for the present all notice of his dramatic works, the most important are his Sonnets to Delia, the History of the Civil War, the Complaint of Rosamond and the Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius; the remainder consisting of occasional pieces, and principally of Epistles to his friends and patrons.

The Sonnets are not generally constructed on the legitimate or Petrarcan model; but they present us with some beautiful versification and much pleasing imagery. The "Civil Wars between the two houses of Lancaster and York," the first four books of which were published in 1595, and the eighth and last in 1609, form the magnum opus of Daniel, and to which he looked for fame with posterity. That he has been disappointed, must be attributed to his having too rigidly adhered to the truth of history; for aspiring rather at the correctness of the annalist than the fancy of the poet, he rarely attempts the elevation of his subject by any flight of imagination, or digressional ornaments. Sound morality, prudential wisdom, and occasional touches of the pathetic, delivered in a style of then unequalled chastity and perspicuity, will be recognised throughout his work; but neither warmth, passion, nor sublimity, nor the most distant trace of enthusiasm can be found to animate the mass. In the Complaint of Rosamond, and in the Letter from Octavia, he has copied the manner of Ovid, though with more tenderness and pathos than are usually found in the pages of the Roman.

In short, purity of language, elegance of style, and harmony of versification, together with an almost perfect freedom from pedantry and affectation, and a continual flow of good sense and just reflection, form the merits of Daniel, and resting on these qualities he is entitled to distinguished notice, as an improver of our diction and taste; but to the higher requisites of his art, to the fire and invention of the creative bard, he has few pretensions.

Daniel was the intimate friend of Shakspeare, Marlowe, Chapman, Camden, and Cowel; and was so highly esteemed by the accomplished Anne, Countess of Pembroke, that she not only erected a monument to his memory in Beckington church, Somersetshire, but in a full length of herself, at Appleby Castle in Cumberland, had a small portrait of her favourite poet introduced.[612:A] This partiality seems to have sprung from a connection not often productive of attachment; Daniel had been her tutor when she was only thirteen years old, and in his poems he addresses an epistle to her at this early age, which, as Mr. Park has justly said, "deserves entire perusal for its dignified vein of delicate admonition."[612:B] Dissatisfied with the opinions of his contemporaries as to his poetical merit, which appears to have been similar to the estimate that we have just given[612:C], he relinquished the busy world, and spent the closing years of his life in the cultivation of a farm.

9. Davies, Sir John, was born at Chisgrove in Wiltshire in 1570. Though a lawyer of great eminence, he is chiefly known to posterity through the medium of his poetical works. His Nosce Teipsum, or poem on the Immortality of the Soul, on which fame rests, was published in 1599, and not only secured him the admiration of his learned contemporaries, among whom may be recorded the great names of Camden, Harrington, Jonson, Selden, and Corbet, but accelerated his professional honours; for being introduced to James in Scotland, in order to congratulate him on his accession to the throne of England, the king, on hearing his name, enquired "if he was Nosce Teipsum? and being answered in the affirmative, graciously embraced him, and took him into such favour, that he soon made him his Solicitor, and then Attorney-General in Ireland."[613:A]

Beside this philosophical poem, the earliest of which our language can boast, Sir John printed, in 1596, a series of Epigrams, which were published at Middleburg, at the close of Marlowe's translation of Ovid's Epistles, and in the same year the first edition of his "Orchestra, or a poeme of dauncing;" these, with twenty-six acrostics on the words Elizabetha Regina, printed in 1599, and entitled "Hymns of Astræa," complete the list of his publications.

His "Nosce Teipsum" is a piece of close reasoning in verse, peculiarly harmonious for the period in which it appeared. It possesses, also, wit, ingenuity, vigour and condensation of thought, but exhibits few efforts of imagination, and nothing that is either pathetic or sublime. In point of argument, metaphysical acuteness and legitimate deduction, the English poet is, in every respect, superior to his classical model Lucretius; but how greatly does he fall beneath the fervid genius and creative fancy of the Latian bard!

Sir John died suddenly on the 7th of December 1626, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.

10. Davors, John. Of this poet little more is known, than that he published, in 1613, the following work: "The Secrets of Angling: teaching the choicest Tooles, Baits, and Seasons, for the taking of any Fish, in Pond or River: practised and familiarly opened in three Bookes." 12mo.

Upon a subject so technical and didactic, few opportunities for poetical imagery might naturally be expected; but Davors has most happily availed himself of those which occurred, and has rendered his poem, in many places, highly interesting by beauty of sentiment, and warmth of description. A lovely specimen of his powers may be found in the "Complete Angler" of Isaac Walton[614:A], and the following invocation, from the opening of the First Book, shall be given as a further proof of the genuineness of his inspiration, and with this additional remark, that his versification is throughout singularly harmonious:—