Knowing the heart of man is set to be

The centre of this world, about the which
These revolutions of disturbances

Still roll; where all the aspects of misery
Predominate; whose strong effects are such
As he must bear, being powerless to redress;
And that, unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!

And this note, Madam, of your worthiness
Remains recorded in so many hearts,
As time nor malice cannot wrong your right
In the inheritance of fame you must possess:
You that have built you by your great deserts,
Out of small means, a far more exquisite
And glorious dwelling for your honoured name
Than all the gold of1 leaden minds can frame.

DRAYTON.

Michael Drayton, who is computed to have been born in 1563, and who died in 1631, is one of the most voluminous of our old poets; being the author, besides many minor compositions, of three works of great length:-his Barons' Wars (on the subject of the civil wars of the reign of Edward II.), originally entitled Mortimeriados, under which name it was published in 1596; his England's Heroical Epistles, 1598; and his Polyolbion, the first eighteen Books of which appeared in 1612, and the whole, consisting of thirty Books, and extending to as many thousand lines, in 1622. This last is the work on which his fame principally rests. It is a most elaborate and minute topographical description of England, written in Alexandrine rhymes; and is a very remarkable work for the varied learning it displays, as well as for its poetic merits. The genius of Drayton is neither very ima ginative nor very pathetic; but he is an agreeable and weighty writer, with an ardent, if not a highly creative, fancy. From the height to which he occasionally ascends, as well as from his power of keeping longer on the wing, he must be ranked, as he always has been, much before both Warner and Daniel. He has

1 The text before us has "that," which is nonsense.

greatly more elevation than the former, and more true poetic life than the latter. His most graceful poetry, however, is perhaps to be found in some of his shorter pieces-in his Pastorals, his very elegant and lively little poem entitled, Nymphidia; or, the Court of Fairy, and his verses on Poets and Poesy, in which occur the lines on Marlow that have been quoted in a preceding page. From a mass of verse extending in all to not far from 100,000 lines, the few extracts that we can give must be far from affording a complete illustration of the author's genius. The following is from the commencement of the Thirteenth Book, or Song, of the Polyolbion, the subject of which is the County of Warwick, of which Drayton, as he here tells us, was a native :—

Upon the mid-lands now the industrious muse doth fall;
That shire which we the heart of England well may call,
As she herself extends (the midst which is decreed)
Betwixt St. Michael's Mount and Berwick bordering Tweed,
Brave Warwick, that abroad so long advanced her Bear,
By her illustrious Earls renowned every where;
Above her neighbouring shires which always bore her head.
My native country, then, which so brave spirits hast bred,
If there be virtues yet remaining in thy earth,

Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth,
Accept it as thine own, whilst now I sing of thee,
Of all thy later brood the unworthiest though I be.

When Phoebus lifts his head out of the water's 1 wave,
No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring
But Hunt's up to the morn the feathered sylvans sing;
And, in the lower grove as on the rising knowl,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole
These quiristers are perched, with many a speckled breast:
Then from her burnished gate the goodly glittering East
Gilds every mountain-top, which late the humorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight;
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes
That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air
Seems all composed of sounds about them every where.
The throstle with shrill sharps, as purposely he song
To awake the lustless sun, or chiding that so long
He was in coming forth that should the thickets thrill;
The woosel near at hand; that hath a golden bill,

1 Or, perhaps, "watery." The common text gives "winter's."

As nature him had marked of purpose t' let us see
That from all other birds his tunes should different be:
For with their vocal sounds they sing to pleasant May;
Upon his dulcet pipe the merle doth only play.
When in the lower brake the nightingale hard by
In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply
As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw
And, but that Nature, by her all-constraining law,
Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite,
They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night

(The more to use their ears) their voices sure would spare, That moduleth her notes so admirably rare

As man to set in parts at first had learned of her.

To Philomel the next the linnet we prefer ;

And by that warbling bird the woodlark place we then,
The red-sparrow, the nope, the redbreast, and the wren;
The yellow-pate, which, though she hurt the blooming tree,
Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she.

And, of these chanting fowls, the goldfinch not behind,
That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.

The tydy, for her notes as delicate as they;

The laughing hecco; then, the counterfeiting jay.
The softer with the shrill, some hid among the leaves,
Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves,
Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.
And, near to these our thicks, the wild and frightful herds,
Not hearing other noise but this of chattering birds,
Feed fairly on the lawns; both sorts of seasoned deer :
Here walk the stately red, the freckled fallow there;
The bucks and lusty stags amongst the rascals strewed,
As sometime gallant spirits amongst the multitude.
Of all the beasts which we for our venerial name
The hart among the rest, the hunter's noblest game.
Of which most princely chace sith none did e'er report,
Or by description touch to express that wondrous sport
(Yet might have well beseemed the ancients' noble songs)
To our old Arden here most fitly it belongs.

Yet shall she not invoke the Muses to her aid,

But thee, Diana bright, a goddess and a maid;

In many a huge-grown wood, and many a shady grove
Which oft hast borne thy bow, Great Huntress, used to rove,
At many a cruel beast, and with thy darts to pierce
The lion, panther, ounce, the bear, and tiger fierce;
And, following thy fleet game, chaste mighty forest's queen,
With thy dishevelled nymphs attired in youthful green,

About the lawns hast scoured, and wastes both far and near,
Brave huntress! But no beasts shall prove thy quarries here
Save those the best of chase, the tall and lusty red.

The stag, for goodly shape and stateliness of head,

Is fittest to hunt at force. For whom when, with his hounds,
The labouring hunter tufts the thick unbarbed grounds,
Where harboured is the hart, there often from his feed
The dogs of him do find; or, thorough skilful heed,
The huntsman by his shot, or breaking earth, perceives,
Or entering of the thick by pressing of the greaves,
Where he had gone to lodge. Now, when the hart doth hear
The often bellowing hounds to vent his secret leir,'
He rousing rusheth out, and through the brakes doth drive,
As though up by the roots the bushes he would rive;
And, through the cumbrous thicks as fearfully he makes,
He with his branched head the tender saplings shakes,
That, sprinkling their moist pearls, do seem for him to weep,
When after goes the cry, with yellings loud and deep,
That all the forest rings, and every neighbouring place.
And there is not a hound but falleth to the chace;
Rechating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers,
Whilst still the lusty stag his high-palmed head uprears,
His body showing state, with unbent knees upright,
Expressing, from all beasts, his courage in his flight.
But when, the approaching foes still following, he perceives
That he his speed must trust, his usual walk he leaves,
And o'er the champain flies; which when the assembly find,
Each follows as his horse were footed with the wind.
But, being then embost, the noble stately deer
When he hath gotten ground (the kennel cast arear)
Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soil;

That serving not, then proves if he his scent can foil,

And makes amongst the herds, and flocks of shag-woolled sheep,
Them frighting from the guard of those who had their keep;
But, whenas all his shifts his safety still denies,

Put quite out of his walk, the ways and fallows tries.

Whom when the ploughman meets, his team he letteth stand,

To assail him with his goad; so, with his hook in hand,
The shepherd him pursues, and to his dog doth hollo,

When, with tempestuous speed, the hounds and huntsmen follow;
Until the noble deer, through toil bereaved of strength,

His long and sinewy legs then failing him at length,
The villages attempts, enraged, not giving way
To any thing he meets now at his sad decay.
The cruel ravenous hounds and bloody hunters near,
This noblest beast of chace, that vainly doth not fear,

1 Lair.

2

2 "But" is the common reading.

Some bank or quick-set finds; to which his haunch opposed,
He turns upon his foes, that soon have him inclosed,
The churlish-throated hounds then holding him at bay ;
And, as their cruel fangs on his harsh skin they lay,
With his sharp-pointed head he dealeth deadly wounds.
The hunter, coming in to help his wearied hounds,
He desperately assails; until, oppressed by force,
He, who the mourner is to his own dying corse,
Upon the ruthless earth his precious tears lets fall.

This passage, though long, will scarcely be felt to be tedious. It is one of the most animated descriptions in poetry. We add a short specimen of Drayton's lighter style from his Nymphidia— the account of the equipage of the Queen of the Fairies, when she set out to visit her lover Pigwiggen. The reader may compare it with Mercutio's description in Romeo and Juliet:

Her chariot ready straight is made;
Each thing therein is fitting laid,
That she by nothing might be stayed,
For nought must be her letting;
Four nimble guests the horses were,
Their harnesses of gossamer,

Fly Cranion, her charioteer,
Upon the coach-box getting.

Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
Which for the colours did excel,
The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning;
The seat the soft wool of the bee,
The cover (gallantly to see)
The wing of a pied butterflee;

I trow 'twas simple trimming.

The wheels composed of cricket's bones,
And daintily made for the nonce;
For fear of rattling on the stones
With thistle down they shod it;

For all her maidens much did fear

If Oberon had chanced to hear

That Mab his queen should have been there,
He would not have abode it.

She mounts her chariot with a trice,

Nor would she stay for no advice

Until her maids, that were so nice,

To wait on her were fitted;