death of Julius Cæsar. May's "Lucan" caused Charles I. to command of him two original historical poems. These were, "The Reigne of King Henry the Second, in Seven Bookes" (1633), and, also in seven books, "The Victorious Reigne of King Edward the Third" (1635). In the Civil War, May took part with the Parliament, and was made its secretary and historiographer. In this character he published, in 1647, in folio, "The History of the Parliament of England which began Nov. 3, M.DC.XL.; with a Short and Necessary View of some Precedent Years:" an abridgment of this, in three parts, appeared in 1650, the year of his death. May also translated a selection from Martial's "Epigrams” and Barclay's "Argenis" and "Icon Animarum." 16. Stuart dramatists born within a year or two after the death of Elizabeth were Jasper Mayne, Thomas Randolph, and William Davenant. Jasper Mayne, born in 1604, at Hatherleigh, Devonshire, was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He held the livings of Cassington and Pyrton, in Oxfordshire, till he was deprived of them in 1648. He wrote in the time of Charles I. a comedy called "The City Match," printed in 1639, and the tragi-comedy of "The Amorous War," printed in 1648. After the Restoration he became Archdeacon of Chichester and chaplain to Charles II. He lived till 1672. 17. Thomas Randolph, born at Newnham, Northamptonshire, in 1605, was at Westminster School with Mayne. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, became M.A. and Fellow of his College, was a good scholar and good wit, lived gayly, and died in 1634, before he was thirty. In honor of sack and contempt of beer, he wrote a lively dramatic show, called "Aristippus" (1630), in which the jovial philosopher — whose name was given to sack (sec) or dry sherry-lectured to scholars on the virtues of that source of inspiration, till the scholars sang: "Your ale is too muddy, good sack is our study, Our tutor is Aristippus." Yet in another of Randolph's plays, "The Muses' Looking-Glass," there is a moralizing of the uses of the drama for the benefit of Puritan objectors; and after a dance of the seven sins, the opposite extremes which have a virtue in the mean—as servile Flattery and peevish Impertinence, extremes on either side of Courtesy; impious Confidence and overmuch Fear, extremes of Fortitude; swift Quarrelsomeness and the Insensibility to Wrong, extremes of Meekness are cleverly illustrated in successive dialogues. The Golden Mean appears early in the play, with a masque of Virtues, replying to the Puritans who said that the stage lived by vice: "Indeed, 'tis true, As the physicians by diseases do, Thomas Randolph wrote also a comedy, "The Jealous Lovers," acted, in 1632, before Charles and his queen by the students of Trinity College; and a graceful pastoral play, "Amyntas," acted before the king and queen at Whitehall, and first printed in 1638. Among Randolph's songs and poems is one to Ben Jonson, who loved him and other of the bright young poets of the day, and called them sons. I was not born, he says, to Helicon; "But thy adoption quits me of all fear, And makes me challenge a child's portion there. I am akin to heroes, being thine, And part of my alliance is divine." 18. Sir William Davenant, who was born in 1606, and died in 1668, and who personally knew both Shakespeare and Dryden, may be regarded as the connecting link between the Elizabethan dramatists and the dramatists of the Restoration. He began to write plays in his youth, and he continued to write them in his old age. He will be more particularly dealt with under the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century. CHAPTER V. FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: POETRY CHIEFLY NON-DRAMATIC. 1. Samuel Daniel. — 2. Michael Drayton.—3. William Browne. -4. Giles Fletcher; Phineas Fletcher.-5. George Wither.-6. William Drummond.—7. Later Euphuism in Poetry.-8. John Donne.-9. Thomas Coryat; John Taylor.— 10.-Francis Quarles.-11. George Herbert.-12. Richard Crashaw. - 13. Character Poetry; Overbury; Habington; Earle.-14. The Translators; George Chapman; George Sandys; Barten Holyday. — 15. Wits, Satirists, and Song-Writers; Joseph Hall. — 16. Sir John Harington.-17. Richard Corbet. -18. John Cleveland.-19. Thomas Carew.-20. Sir John Denham. — 21. Sir John Suckling.-22. William Cartwright.-23. Richard Lovelace.—24. Robert Herrick.-25. The Position of John Milton in Literature; His Earlier Poetry. 1. Samuel Daniel was born near Taunton, in 1562, the son of a music-master. From 1579 to 1582 he was studying as a commoner at Magdalene Hall, Oxford, but he did not take a degree. In 1585, at the age of twenty-three, he translated from the Italian "The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius, contayning a Discourse of rare Inventions, both Militarie and Amorous, called Impresse. Whereunto is added a Preface, contayning the Arte of Composing them, with many other Notable Devises." Daniel became tutor to the Lady Anne Clifford, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, and became historian and poet under the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke's family. He began his career as an original poet, strongly influenced by the Italian writers, in 1592, with "Delia: contayning certayne Sonnets, with the Complaint of Rosamond." This he dedicated to Mary, Countess of Pembroke, Sidney's sister; augmented editions, bringing the number of sonnets to fiftyseven, followed in 1594 and 1595. In 1595, Daniel combined his functions of historian and poet by publishing "The First Fowre Books of the Civille Warres betweene the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke." This poem is in stanzas of the octave rhyme, established by Boccaccio as the Italian measure for narrative poetry, used by Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso. Strongly influenced by Italian forms, and often paraphrasing and translating from Italian, Daniel took naturally to octave rhyme for his poem on the civil wars. It was, like Sackville's tragedy of Buckingham, in the "Mirror for Magistrates," too much of a history to be a poem in the true artistic sense; but it was musical in versification, patriotic and religious, and somewhat diffuse in moralizing, with so much of the conservative tone, that, in church matters, some thought Daniel inclined towards Catholicism. In 1597 appeared his "Tragedy of Philotas; "in 1599, Musophilus," and other" Poetical Essayes." The poem on the civil wars was also extended to five books in 1599; a sixth book followed in 1602. Daniel's "Musophilus" was a general defence of learning in dialogue between Philocosmus, a lover of the world, and Musophilus, a lover of the Muses. It has been said that after the death of Spenser, in 1599, Daniel succeeded him as poet-laureate. But there was in Elizabeth's time no recognized court office of poet-laureate. He wrote in prose a "Collection of the History of England,” first published in 1613 and 1618. It begins with Roman Britain, and ends with the reign of Edward III. 66 2. Michael Drayton, born at Hartshill, Warwickshire, was of about the same age as Daniel, but a poet with more sensibility, more vigor and grace of thought. Like Daniel, he began to write after 1590, and became a busy poet. He is said to have been maintained for a time at Oxford by Sir Henry Goodere, of Polsworth, and he had a friend and patron in Sir Walter Aston, of Tixhall, in Staffordshire. In 1591, Drayton began his career as poet with a sacred strain : "The Harmony of the Church, containing the Spiritual Songs and Holy Hymns of Godly Men, Patriarchs, and Prophets, all sweetly sounding to the Glory of the Highest." This was followed, in 1593, by Idea; the Shepherd's Garland, fashioned in Nine Eclogues; ""Rowland's Sacrifice to the Nine Muses; " in 1594, by his " Matilda," and his "Idea's Mirror, Amours in Quatorzains." In 1596, "Matilda" re-appeared in a volume which showed Drayton's Muse to be then running parallel with Dan 66 66 iel's in choice of subject, and to be passing from love pastorals and sonnets to a strain from the past history of England. A after Daniel's Civil Wars" appeared Drayton's Tragiyear cal Legend of Robert Duke of Normandy, with the Legend of Matilda the Chaste, Daughter of the Lord Robert Fitzwater, poysoned by King John; and the Legend of Piers Gaveston, the latter two by him newly corrected and augmented; and in the same year, 1596,-year of the second part of The Faery Queen," and of Spenser's last publications, appeared Drayton's "Mortimeriados: the Lamentable Civell Warres of Edward the Second and the Barrons," a poem afterwards known as the "Barons' Wars." It was in stanzas of octave rhyme, like that poem on the civil wars of Lancaster and York which Daniel had published in part, and was still at work upon. The poets chose these themes because they yielded much reverse of fortune that could point a moral in the spirit illustrated by the still popular "Mirror for Magistrates." In 1598 Drayton again made poetry of history by publishing — their idea taken from Ovid - England's Heroical Epistles; " letters from Rosamond to Henry II. and from Henry II. to Rosamond, with like pairs of letters between King John and Matilda, Mortimer and Queen Isabel, and so forth. At the accession of James I., Drayton wrote "To the Majestie of King James; a Gratulatore Poem," but turned from the king disappointed; published, in 1604, his fable of "The Owle;" and in 1607 the "Legend of Great Cromwell," which appeared again in 1609 as "The Historie of the Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell, some time Earl of Essex and Lord Chancellor of England." In 1613 appeared his "Polyolbion " (the word means Many-ways-Happy), a poetical description of his native land, in nearly sixteen thousand lines of Alexandrine verse, with maps of counties, and antiquarian notes by the author's friend, John Selden. This poem was another illustration of the quickened patriotism of the English. Thus Drayton sang when he came to his own county of Warwick, that he and Shakespeare loved: "My native country, then, which so brave spirits hast bred, |