Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/35

 All the best known ladies at court took part in the representation. In a preface to the reader Daniel protests that he did not willingly allow this publication, that he did not covet the distinction of being ‘seene in pamphlets,’ and that the scenery, on which the success of such performances entirely depends, was due to the ingenuity of Inigo Jones. This piece, unlike Daniel's other pieces, was never republished, and is the rarest of all his works. A copy is in the British Museum. A fourth masque by Daniel, with another dedication to Queen Anne, was issued in 1615. It was entitled, ‘Hymens Triumph. A pastorall Tragicomædie. Presented at the Queenes Court in the Strand, at her Maiesties magnificent intertainement of the Kings most excellent Maiestie, being at the Nuptials of the Lord Roxborough’ (London, by Francis Constable). This was played at Somerset House on 3 Feb. 1613–14, when Sir Robert Ker, lord Roxburgh, married Jane, third daughter of Patrick, lord Drummond. John Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, says: ‘The entertainment was great and cost the queen, they say, above 3,000l.; the pastoral by Samuel Daniel was solemn and dull, but perhaps better to be read than represented.’ On 7 June 1621 Drummond of Hawthornden, one of Daniel's many literary admirers, wrote to Sir Robert Ker, then Earl of Ancrum, that he had a manuscript of the masque which he intended to publish (see Hist. MSS. Comm. 1st Rep. 116). This manuscript is now among Drummond's books at the University Library, Edinburgh. That the piece attracted attention, although not always of the most complimentary kind, is proved by the remark of a character in ‘The Hog hath lost his Pearl’ (1614), that ‘Hymen's holidays or nuptial ceremonious rites’ is, ‘as the learned historiographer writes,’ a useful synonym for a marriage (, Plays, ed. Hazlitt, xi. 449). It is by an extract from this masque that Daniel is represented in Lamb's ‘Dramatic Poets,’ and Coleridge often insisted that it displayed most effectively the qualities of Daniel's genius.

For these courtly services Daniel received some reward. On 31 Jan. 1603–4, when Kirkham and others were licensed to form a company of ‘children of the reuels to the queen,’ ‘all plays’ were ‘to be allowed by Sam. Danyell,’ and on 10 July 1615 George Buck, master of the revels, wrote that ‘the king has been pleased at the mediation of the queen on behalf of Sam. Danyell to appoint a company of youths to perform comedies and tragedies at Bristol under the name of the Youths of Her Majesty's Royal Chamber of Bristol.’ Daniel was then living in the neighbourhood of Bristol. In 1618 the same post was conferred on John Daniel, whence it appears that Samuel Daniel resigned it to his brother. From 1607 onwards the poet also held the office of ‘one of the groomes of the Queenes Maiesties priuie chamber,’ and he is so styled on all the title-pages of works published in that and subsequent years. In 1613 he signs himself at the end of a poem prefixed to Florio's ‘Montaigne’ ‘one of the Gentlemen Extraordinarie of hir Maiesties most royall priuate chamber.’ As groom he received an annual salary of 60l.

Writing in 1607 (Apology in Philotas) Daniel speaks of himself as ‘liuing in the country about foure yeares since.’ It may thence be inferred that Daniel removed from London about 1603, and afterwards only visited it occasionally. The house and garden which he had occupied in London were, according to Langbaine, in Old Street. ‘In his old age,’ writes Fuller, ‘he turned husbandman and rented a farm in Wiltshire near to Devizes.’ This farm was called ‘Ridge,’ and was situated near Beckington. There his latest literary work was accomplished, and there he died in October 1619. Wood repeats some worthless gossip that he was for the most part ‘in animo catholicus.’ His will, dated 4 Sept. 1619, leaves to his sister, Susan Bowre, most of his household furniture, and to her children some pecuniary legacies. John Daniel, his brother, was the sole executor, and his ‘loving friend Mr. Simon Waterson’ (his publisher) and his ‘brother-in-lawe John Phillipps’ were nominated overseers. His old pupil, Lady Anne Clifford, ‘in gratitude to him’ erected a monument above his grave in Beckington church ‘in his memory a long time after [his death], when she was Countesse Dowager of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery.’ His brother and executor, John Daniel, brought out in 1623 ‘The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel, Esquire, in Poetrie,’ dedicated to Prince Charles. A few poems never published before were here inserted, of which the chief are ‘A Description of Beauty translated out of Marino,’ ‘An Epistle to James Montague, bishop of Winchester,’ and ‘A Letter written to a worthy Countesse,’ in prose.

Daniel seems to have been married, but Ben Jonson tells us that he had no children. John Florio [q. v.] has been claimed as his brother-in-law. In 1603 Daniel contributed a poem to Florio's translation of Montaigne which is superscribed ‘To my deere friend M. Iohn Florio.’ In 1611 he prefaced Florio's ‘New World of Words’ with a poem, ‘To my deare friend and brother M. Iohn Florio,