Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/28

Daniel in 'To Nicotiana, a Rapture.' Samuel Daniel, C. Aleyn, and Drayton had strongly influenced him in his longer poems, but it is in the lighter fancies that he excels. He wrote 'Chronicles' and 'Eclogues,' and a paraphrase of 'Ecclesiasticus,' 1638-48. His 'Trinarchodia ' was finished in 1649. His 'Idyllia' were probably written in 1650, and revised in 1653. He married Elizabeth, daughter of William Ireland of Nostell, Yorkshire, by Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of Robert Molyneux of Euxton, Lancashire. The property she brought revived his failing fortunes. Their only son, a second George Daniel, died young, s.p., and was buried at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London. The mother's wealth descended to three daughters, Frances, Elizabeth, and Gerarda; the two latter married, but Gerarda alone left issue, Elizabeth, baptised 16 Feb. 1674-5, in whom the direct line from George Daniel ended. He died at Beswick in September 1657, and was buried on the 25th in the neighbouring church at Kilnwick (Burial Register). The engraved portrait by W. T. Alais does not adequately represent the poet, even from the poorest of the several extant oil-paintings, which are not improbably the work of George himself, as is also the full-length nude study of a nymph. The manuscript containing them is preserved in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 19255, folio), and the whole has been printed, verbatim et literatim, in four large 4to volumes, a hundred copies for private circulation, by Dr. Grosart, carefully and exhaustively edited.

 DANIEL, GEORGE (1789–1864), miscellaneous writer and book collector, born 16 Sept. 1789, was descended from Paul Danieli, a Huguenot who settled in England in the seventeenth century. His father died when he was eight years old, and his precocity declared itself in a copy of verses with which he is said to have commemorated his loss at the time. After receiving an education at Mr. Thomas Hogg's boarding school: at Paddington Green, he became clerk to a stockbroker in Tokenhouse Yard, and was engaged in commerce for the greater part of his life. But all his leisure was devoted to literature. He was always very proud to remember that Cowper the poet had patted him on the head when he visited the Deverells at Dereham, Norfolk, in 1799. At sixteen he printed 'Stanzas on Nelson's Victory and Death' (1805). Between 1808 and 1811 he contributed many poems to Ackerman's 'Poetical Magazine,' the chief of which was a mild satire in heroics entitled 'Woman.' In 1811 he issued anonymously, in a separate volume, a similar poem, entitled 'The Times, a Prophecy' (enlarged edit. 1813), and in 1812 he published under his own name 'Miscellaneous Poems,' which included 'Woman' and many more solemn effusions already printed in Ackerman's magazine. A prose novel in three volumes called 'Dick Distich,' which Daniel says he wrote when he was eighteen, was printed anonymously in 1812. It is an amusing story of the struggles of a Grub Street author, and displays a very genuine vein of humour. It was obviously Daniel's youthful ambition to emulate Churchill and Peter Pindar, and he found his opportunity at the close of 1811. According to his own version of the affair, it was then rumoured that Lord Yarmouth had horsewhipped the prince regent at Oatlands, the Duke of York's house, for making improper overtures to the Marchioness of Hertford, Yarmouth's mother-in-law. On this incident Daniel wrote a sprightly squib in verse, which he called 'R—y—l Stripes; or a Kick from Yar—th to Wa—s; with the particulars of an Expedition to Oat—ds and the Sprained Ancle: a poem, by P—— P——, Poet Laureat.' Effingham Wilson of Cornhill printed the poem and advertised its publication; but it was suppressed and bought up, before it was published, in January 1812, by order of the prince regent, and through the instrumentality of Lord Yarmouth and Colonel McMahon, a large sum being given to the author for the copyright. It was advertised and placarded, which drew public attention to it, and a copy was by some means procured by the parties above mentioned, who applied to the publisher before any copies were circulated. The author secured four copies only, one of which he sold to a public institution for five guineas. A man at the west end of the town who had procured a copy made a considerable sum by advertising and selling manuscript copies at half-a-guinea each' (Daniel's manuscript note in British Museum copy of R—y—l Stripes). But Daniel was not quieted, although his poem was suppressed. A large placard was issued announcing the issue of 'The Ghost of R—y—l Stripes, which was prematurely stifled in its birth in January 1812,' and under the pseudonym of P—— P——, poet laureate, he published other squibs on royal scandals, 