Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/19

 spoke disparagingly of the ‘Poly-Olbion,’ and had not a word to say in Drayton's praise.

Drayton's last work was ‘The Muses Elizium lately discovered by a new way over Parnassus … Noahs floud, Moses his birth and miracles. David and Golia,’ 1630, 4to. The pastorals were dedicated to the Earl of Dorset, and at p. 87 there is a fresh dedication to the Countess of Dorset, preceding the sacred poems. Of ‘Noah's floud’ and the two following poems there is little to be said; but ‘The Muses Elizium,’ a set of ten ‘Nimphalls,’ or pastoral dialogues, is full of the quaint whimsical fancy that inspired ‘Nimphidia.’ The description of the preparations for the Fay's bridal in the eighth ‘Nimphall’ is quite a tour de force.

Drayton died in 1631 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument was erected to him by the Countess of Dorset. The inscription (‘Do, pious marble, let thy readers know,’ &c.) is traditionally ascribed to Ben Jonson. It is quite in Jonson's manner, but it has also been claimed for Randolph, Quarles, and others. In Ashmole MS. 38, art. 92, are seven three-line stanzas which purport to have been ‘made by Michaell Drayton, esquier, poet laureatt, the night before hee dyed.’ There is a portrait of Drayton at Dulwich College, presented by Cartwright the actor. In person he was small, and his complexion was swarthy. He speaks of his ‘swart and melancholy face’ in his ‘Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandy.’ His moral character was unassailable, and he was regarded by his contemporaries as a model of virtue. ‘As Aulus Persius Flaccus,’ says Meres in 1598, ‘is reputed among all writers to be of an honest life and upright conversation, so Michael Drayton (quem toties honoris et amoris causa nomino) among schollers, souldiers, poets, and all sorts of people is helde for a man of vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-governed carriage.’ Similar testimony is borne by the anonymous author of ‘The Returne from Pernassus.’ 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. Some letters of Drayton to Drummond are published in the 1711 edition of Drummond's works. Another Scotch poet, Sir William Alexander, was his friend. Jonson told Drummond that ‘Sir W. Alexander was not half kinde unto him, and neglected him, because a friend to Drayton.’ In his epistle to Henry Reynolds he mentions ‘the two Beaumonts’ (Francis Beaumont and Sir John Beaumont) and William Browne as his ‘deare companions and bosome friends.’ Samuel Austin in ‘Urania,’ 1629, claims, acquaintance with Drayton. There is no direct evidence to show that Shakespeare and Drayton were personal friends, but there is strong traditional evidence. The Rev. John Ward, sometime vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, states in his manuscript note-book that ‘Shakespear, Drayton, and Ben Jhonson had a merry meeting, and, itt seems, drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted.’ The entry was written in 1662 or 1663. In the 1594 and 1596 editions of ‘Matilda’ there is a stanza relating to Shakespeare's ‘Rape of Lucrece.’ It was omitted in later editions, but no inference can be drawn from the omission, for Drayton was continually engaged in altering his poems. A stanza relating to Spenser was also omitted in later editions. Some critics have chosen to suppose that Drayton was the rival to whom allusion is made in Shakespeare's sonnets. It is not uninteresting to notice that Drayton was once cured of a ‘tertian’ by Shakespeare's son-in-law, Dr. John Hall (Select Observations on English Bodies, 1657, p. 26).

Drayton has commendatory verses before Morley's ‘First Book of Ballets,’ 1595; Christopher Middleton's ‘Legend of Duke Humphrey,’ 1600; De Serres's ‘Perfect Use of Silk-wormes,’ 1607; Davies's ‘Holy Rood,’ 1609; Murray's ‘Sophonisba,’ 1611; Tuke's ‘Discourse against Painting and Tincturing of Women,’ 1616; Chapman's ‘Hesiod,’ 1618; Munday's ‘Primaleon of Greece,’ 1619; Vicars's ‘ Manuductio,’ n. d. [1620?]; Holland's ‘Naumachia,’ 1622; Sir John Beaumont's ‘Bosworth Field,’ 1629. Some of these poetical compliments are subscribed only with the initials ‘ M. D.’ Poems of Drayton are included in ‘England's Helicon,’ 1600; some had been printed before, but others were published for the first time. There are verses of Drayton, posthumously published, in ‘Annalia Dubrensia,’ 1636. An imperfect collection of Drayton's poems appeared in 1748, fol., and again in 1753, 4 vols. 8vo; but 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