Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/20

 into oblivion. Since the days of Charles Lamb and Coleridge his fame has revived, but no complete edition of his works has yet been issued. In 1856 Collier edited for the Roxburghe Club a valuable collection of the rarer works: ‘The Harmonie of the Church,’ ‘Idea. The Shepheards Garland,’ ‘Ideas Mirrour,’ ‘Endimion and Phœbe,’ ‘Mortimeriados,’ and ‘Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall.’ The Rev. Richard Hooper in 1876 issued an edition of the ‘Poly-Olbion’ in three volumes; and the same editor is preparing a complete critical edition of Drayton's entire works, with a full list of variæ lectiones, an undertaking which will involve vast labour. Facsimile reprints of the early editions are being issued by the Spenser Society. A volume of selections from Drayton's poems was edited by the present writer in 1883.

[Memoir by Collier, prefixed to the Roxburghe Club collection of Drayton's Poems, 1856; Collier's Bibl. Cat.; Corser's Collectanea; Hazlitt's Bibliographical Collections; Bibliotheca Heberiana, pt. iv.; Addit. MS. 24491 (Hunter's Chorus Vatum); Henslowe's Diary.] 

DRAYTON, NICHOLAS (fl. 1376), ecclesiastic and judge, was appointed warden of King's College, Cambridge, on 1 Dec. 1363, with a salary of fourpence a day, and an allowance of eight marcs per annum for robes. In 1369 he was suspected of heresy, and the Bishop of London was authorised to commit him to prison (20 March). In 1376 he was appointed a baron of the exchequer. The date of his death is uncertain. He is commonly described as ‘magister.’

[Rymer's Fœdera, ed. Clarke, iii. pt. ii. 716, 889, 1064; Foss's Lives of the Judges.] 

DREBBEL, CORNELIS (1572–1634), philosopher and scientific inventor, born in 1572 at Alkmaar in Holland, was the son of Jacob Drebbel, of a family of good position. He shared a house at one time with Hubert Goltzius, whose sister he married. In early life he executed some etchings, including a set of the ‘Seven Liberal Arts’ after Hendrik Goltzius, the ‘Judgment of Solomon’ after Karel van Mander, &c., and a bird's-eye view of Alkmaar, the original plate of which was preserved in the town hall there, permission being given in 1747 to Gysbert Boomkamp to publish it in his ‘Alkmaer en derzelfs Geschiedenissen.’ Drebbel, however, devoted most of his time to philosophy, i.e. science and mathematics, and soon gained great repute. About 1604 he came to England, perhaps accompanying his friend Constantyn Huygens, or at the instance of Sir William Boreel. He was favourably received by James I, who took a great interest in his experiments, and gave him an annuity and, apparently, lodgings in Eltham Palace. Drebbel here perfected an ingenious machine for producing perpetual motion, which he presented to the king, and which became one of the wonderful sights of the day. It is alluded to by Ben Jonson in one of his Epigrams,and in his comedy of ‘The Silent Woman’ (act v. scene 3), and also by Peacham in his ‘Sights and Exhibitions in England’ (prefixed to Coryat's ‘Crudities,’ 1611). Drebbel's machine is described and figured by Thomas Tymme in ‘A Dialogue Philosophicall, wherein Nature's secret closet is opened, &c., together with the wittie invention of an artificial perpetuall motion, presented to the King's most excellent Maiestie,’ 1612. On 1 May 1610 the Duke of Würtemberg, then on a tour in England, went to Eltham to see the machine, and his secretary describes Drebbel as ‘a very fair and handsome man, and of very gentle manners, altogether different from such like characters.’ Drebbel's fame reached the ears of the emperor of Germany, Rudolph II, himself an ardent student of science and philosophy, who entreated James I to allow Drebbel to come to his court at Prague to exhibit his inventions. After the emperor's death, in 1612, Drebbel seems to have again returned to England; but he revisited Prague, having been appointed tutor to the son of the emperor Ferdinand II. He had just settled down in great prosperity when Prague was captured by the elector palatine, Frederick V, in 1620, and Drebbel not only lost all his possessions, but was thrown into prison, from which he was only released at the personal intercession of the king of England. He then returned to England, and in 1625 attended James's funeral. In 1626 he was employed by the office of ordnance to construct water engines. He was also sent out by the Duke of Buckingham in the expedition to La Rochelle, being in charge of several fireships, at a salary of 150l. per month. He was one of a company formed to drain the fens and levels of eastern England. He died in London in 1634. Drebbel, who has been styled by some critics as a mere alchemist and charlatan, was highly thought of by such scientific authorities as Peiresc, Boyle, and others. Besides the machine for perpetual motion, he has been credited with the invention of the microscope, telescope, and thermometer, but he was more probably the first to introduce these important discoveries into England. He also invented a submarine boat, which was navigable, without the use of artificial light, from Westminster to Greenwich, and machines for