Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/16

 was attached to the household of Sir Henry Goodere of Powlesworth; for in a dedicatory address prefixed to one of his ‘Heroical Epistles’ (Mary, the French queen, to Charles Brandon) he acknowledges that he was indebted to Sir Henry Goodere for the ‘most part’ of his education. Aubrey says that he was the son of a butcher; but Aubrey also describes Shakespeare's father as a butcher. We have it on Drayton's own authority (‘The Owle,’ 1604) that he was ‘nobly bred’ and ‘well ally'd.’ There is no evidence to show whether he was a member of either university. His earliest work, ‘The Harmonie of the Church,’ a metrical rendering of portions of the scriptures, was published in 1591. Prefixed is a dedicatory epistle, dated from London, 10 Feb. 1590–1, ‘To the godly and vertuous Lady, the Lady Jane Deuoreux of Merivale,’ in which he speaks of the ‘bountiful hospitality’ that he had received from his patroness. This book, which had been entered in the ‘Stationers' Register,’ 1 Feb. 1590–1, under the title of ‘The Triumphes of the Churche,’ for some unknown reason gave offence and was condemned to be destroyed; but Archbishop Whitgift ordered that forty copies should be preserved at Lambeth Palace. Only one copy, belonging to the British Museum, is now known to exist. ‘A Heavenly Harmonie of Spirituall Songs and Holy Hymnes,’ 1610 (unique), is the suppressed book with a different title-page. In 1593 appeared ‘Idea. The Shepheards Garland. Fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands Sacrifice to the Nine Muses.’ These eclogues, which were written on the model of the ‘Shepherd's Calendar,’ afterwards underwent considerable revision. There was room for improvement, the diction being frequently harsh and the versification inharmonious, though much of the lyrical part is excellent. In the fourth eclogue there is introduced an elegy, which was afterwards completely rewritten, on Sir Philip Sidney; and it is probably to this elegy (not, as some critics have supposed, to a lost poem) that N[athaniel?] B[axter?], in speaking of Sidney's death, makes reference in ‘Ourania,’ 1606:

In 1593 Drayton published the first of his historical poems, ‘The Legend of Piers Gaveston,’ 4to, which was followed in 1594 by ‘Matilda, the faire and chaste Daughter of the Lord Robert Fitzwater.’ Both poems, after revision, were reprinted in 1596, with the addition of ‘The Tragicall Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandie,’ the volume being dedicated to Lucy, countess of Bedford. After the dedicatory epistle comes a sonnet to Lady Anne Harington, wife of Sir John Harington. There is also an address to the reader, in which Drayton states that ‘Matilda’ had been ‘kept from printing’ because the stationer ‘meant to join them together in one little volume.’ The statement is curious, for the 1594 edition of ‘Matilda’ is dedicated to Lucy, daughter of Sir John Harington, afterwards Countess of Bedford, and must have been published with Drayton's knowledge. A poem in rhymed heroics on the subject of ‘Endymion and Phœbe,’ n.d., 4to, entered in the ‘Stationers' Register’ 12. April 1594, was doubtless published in that year. Lodge quotes from it in ‘A Fig for Momus,’ 1595. There are some interesting allusions to Spenser, Daniel, and Lodge. It was not reprinted, but portions were incorporated in ‘The Man in the Moone,’ and the dedicatory sonnet to the Countess of Bedford was included in the 1605 collection of Drayton's poems.

Before leaving Warwickshire Drayton paid his addresses to a lady who was a native of Coventry and who lived near the river Anker. In her honour he published, in 1594, a series of fifty-one sonnets under the title of ‘Ideas Mirrovr: Amours in Quatorzains,’ 4to. Drayton attached no great value to the collection, for twenty-two of the sonnets printed in ‘Ideas Mirrovr’ were never reprinted. The lady (celebrated under the name ‘Idea’) to whom the sonnets were addressed did not become the poet's wife, but he continued for many years to sing her praises with exemplary constancy. In the 1605 collection of his poems he has a ‘Hymn to his Lady's Birth-place,’ which is written in a strain of effusive gallantry. The magnificent sonnet, ‘Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,’ first appeared in the 1619 folio. An epistle, ‘Of his Lady's not coming to town,’ first published in the 1627 collection, shows that his devotion, after thirty years' service, was unchanged. All his biographers agree that he lived and died a bachelor; but it is to be noticed that Edmond Gayton (not a very sure guide), in ‘Festivous Notes on Don Quixote,’ 1654, p. 150, states that he was married.

The first poem planned on a large scale is ‘Mortimeriados,’ published in 1596, and republished with many alterations in 1603. under the title of ‘The Barrons Wars.’ To the revised edition Drayton prefixed an address to the reader, in which he states that, ‘as at first the dignity of the thing was the motive of the dooing, so the cause of this my second greater labour was the insufficient handling of the first.’ Originally the poem had been written in seven-line stanzas, but in the second edition the ‘ottava rima’ was