Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/85

 thermore, though "our costes" in line n means England, it seems very unlikely that "thy kinde Country-man" in the second line would have been written by one who had every reason to consider the English translator quite as much his own countryman as Dimmock's.

Sidney or a dozen other Elizabethans might be proved Italians by such evidence as this. But it should be remembered that Daniel's brother and perhaps his father were musicians in an age when most musicians were foreigners; Ferrebosco, Bassano, Lupo, and others were all Italians. The name Daniel, or Daniell, should cause no difficulty, since it was borne by the Italian mentioned in the payment, and since it differs but slightly from the Italian forms Daniele, Danielli, or Danielle.

In short, the value of the evidence depends on its cumulative effect. We have a payment to an Italian named Daniel from the same source and not long after a payment to the poet; we know that the latter came of a family of musicians, that he traveled in Italy, translated from Italian writers, spoke the language, and had as his best friend a man of the same stock. In the absence of exact information regarding his birth and parentage, these seem sufficient reasons for assuming that the styh'stic purity of "well-languaged" Daniel was that of a writer for whom English was not strictly the mother tongue.

If this be true, it may help to explain the statement of a German traveler in England in 1615 that the Queen's household, with the exception of the secretary and comptroller, was largely French and Italian. The motive for such a choice of servants would be her half open acceptance of the Catholic faith. Daniel himself, according to Wood, was "in animo catholicus."

During his reign in England, as has already been pointed out, James took no very active interest in poetry, being