vidual character are full of humour. Take the barrister, who guage of the Pleas and Bench:" "A motion, lady! Speak, Coscus. I have been Jonson well knew Donne's powers. Drummond records that " He esteemeth John Donne the first poet in the world in some things: his verses of the Lost Chain 'he hath by heart; and that passage of the 'Calm,' 'That dust and feathers do not stir, all was so quiet.' Affirmeth Donne to have written all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five years old." That "passage of the Calm" to which Jonson alludes, is found in his poetical letters "from the Island voyage with the Earl of Essex." Never were the changing aspects of the sea painted with more truth and precision than in the two Letters' of the Storm' and 'the Calm.' He made this island voyage in 1597. He is now again in London. What a life is before him of the most ardent love, of married poverty, of dedication to the sacred profession for which his mind was best fitted, of years of peace and usefulness! Jonson said that Donne, "for not being understood would perish." Not wholly so. There are some who will study him, whilst less profound thinkers are forgotten. ་ The diary of Henslowe during the last three years of the sixteenth century contains abundant notices of Michael Drayton as a dramatist. According to this record, of which we have no reason to doubt the correctness, there were extant in 1597 Mother Red Cap,' written by him in conjunction with Anthony Munday; and a play without a name, which the manager calls a "book wherein is a part of a Welchman," by Drayton and Henry Chettle. In 1598 we have The Famous Wars of Henry I. and the Prince of Wales,' by Drayton and Thomas Dekker; Earl Goodwin and his three Sons,' by Drayton, Chettle, Dekker, and Robert Wilson; the Second Part of Goodwin,' by Drayton; Pierce of Exton,' by the same four authors; The Funeral of Richard Cœur de Lion,' by Wilson, Chettle, Munday, and Drayton; 'The Mad Man's Morris,' 'Hannibal and Hermes,' and Pierce of Winchester,' by Drayton, Wilson, and Dekker; 'William Longsword,' by Drayton; Chance Medley,' by Wilson, Munday, Drayton, and Dekker: Worse Afeard than Hurt,' Three Parts of the Civil Wars of France.' and Connan, Prince of Cornwall,' by Drayton and Dekker. In 1600 we have the Fair Constance of Rome,' in two parts, by Munday, Hathway, Drayton, and Dekker. In 1601, The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,' by Munday, Drayton, Chettle, and Wentworth Smith. In 1602, 'Two Harpies,' by Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Webster, and Munday. This is a most extraordinary record of the extent of dramatic associations in those days; and it is more remarkable as it regards Drayton, that his labours, which, as we see, were not entirely in copartnership, did not gain for him even the title of a dramatic poet in the next generation. Langbaine mentions him not at all. Philipps says nothing of his plays. Meres indeed thus writes of him: "We may truly term Michael Drayton Tragediographus, for his passionate penning the downfalls of valiant Robert of Normandy, chaste Matilda, and great Gaveston." But this praise has clearly reference to the Heroical Epistles' and the 'Legends.' If The Merry Devil of Edmonton' be his, the comedy does not place his dramatic powers in any very striking light; but it gives abundant proofs, in common with all his works, of a pure and gentle mind, and a graceful imagination. Meres is enthusiastic about his moral qualities; and his testimony also shows that the character for upright dealing which Shakspere won so early was not universal amongst the poetical adventurers of that day: As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported among all writers to be of an honest and upright conversation, so Michael Drayton (quem toties honoris et amoris causa nomino), among scholars, soldiers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-governed carriage, which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and craftiness is counted the cleanest wit, and soundest wisdom." The good wits, according to Meres, are only parcel of the corrupt and declining times. Yet, after all, his dispraise of the times is scarcely original: "You rogue, here's lime in this sack too. There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man.” * Jonson was an exception to the best of his contemporaries when he said of Drayton that "he esteemed not of him." That Shakspere loved him we may * Henry IV., Part I., Act II., Sc. IV. readily believe. They were nearly of an age, Drayton being only one year his elder. They were born in the same county-they had each the same love of natural scenery, and the same attachment to their native soil. claims "My native country then, which so brave spirits hath bred, If there be virtues yet remaining in thy earth, Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth, Of all thy later brood th' unworthiest though I be." Drayton ex It is his own Warwickshire which he invokes. They had each the same familiar acquaintance with the old legends and chronicles of English history; the same desire to present them to the people in forms which should associate the poetical spirit with a just patriotism. It was fortunate that they walked by different paths to the same object. However Drayton might have been associated for a few years with the minor dramatists of Shakspere's day, it may be doubted whether his genius was at all dramatic. Yet was he truly a great poet in an age of great poets. Old Aubrey has given us one or two exact particulars of his life :-" He lived at the bay window house next the east end of St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street." Would that bay window house were standing! Would that the other house of precious memory close by it, where Izaak Walton kept his haberdasher's shop, were standing also! He "who has not left a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stepped over) without honourable mention; and has animated hills and streams with life and passion above the dreams of old mythology;"* and he who delighted to sit and sing under the honeysuckle hedge while the shower fell so gently upon the teeming earth,they loved not the hills and streams and verdant meadows the less because they daily looked upon the tide of London life in the busiest of her thoroughfares. There is one minute touch in Aubrey's notice of Drayton that must not pass without mention:-"Natus in Warwickshire, at Atherstone-upon-Stour. Charles Lamb. He was a butcher's son." The writers of biography have let Aubrey's testimony pass. In spite of it they tell us he "was of an ancient and worthy family, originally descended from the town of Drayton, in Leicestershire, which gave name to his progenitors."* Not so indifferent has biography been to the descent of William Shakspere as recorded by the same historiographer: he "was born at Stratford-upon Avon, in the county of Warwick: his father was a butcher." The original record in each case is of precisely equal value. The Cleopatra' of Samuel Daniel places him amongst the dramatic poets of this period; but his vocation was not to the drama. He was induced, by the persuasion of the Countess of Pembroke, "To sing of state, and tragic notes to frame." After Shakspere had arisen he adhered to the model of the Greek theatre. According to Jonson, "Samuel Daniel was no poet." Jonson thought Daniel "envied him," as he wrote to the Countess of Rutland. He tells Drummond that "Daniel was at jealousies with him." Yet for all this even with Jonsor he was "a good honest man." Spenser formed the same estimate of Daniel's genius as the Countess of Pembroke did : "Then rouse thy feathers quickly, Daniel, And to what course thou please thyself advance: But most, meseems, thy accent will excel In tragic plaints, and passionate mischance." + Daniel did wisely when he confined his "tragic plaints" to narrative poetry. He went over the same ground as Shakspere in his Civil Wars;' and there are passages of resemblance between the dramatist and the descriptive poet which are closer than mere accident could have produced. The imitation, on whatever side it was, was indicative of respect. In the company at the Falcon we may place John Marston, a man of original talent, who had at that period won some celebrity. He was at this time probably about five and twenty, having taken his Bachelor's degree at Oxford in 1592. There is very little known with any precision about his life; but a pretty accurate opinion of his character may be collected from the notices of his contemporaries, and from his own writings. He began in the most dangerous path of literary ambition, that of satire, bitter and personal: "Let others sing, as their good genius moves, Of deep designs, or else of clipping loves. Quake, guzzle-dogs, that live on spotted lime, His first performance, The Metamorphoses of Pygmalion's Image,' has been thought by Warton to have been written in ridicule of Shakspere's Venus and Adonis. The author says, "Know, I wrot These idle rhymes, to note the odious spot In his parody, if parody it be, he has contrived to produce a poem, of which the licentiousness is the only quality. Thus we look upon a sleeping Venus of Titian, and see but the wonderful art of the painter; a dauber copies it, and then beauty becomes deformity. He is angry that his object is misunderstood, as well it might be: "O these same buzzing gnats That sting my sleeping brows, these Nilus rats, I slubbered up that chaos indigest, To fish for fools, that stalk in goodly shape: What though in velvet cloak, yet still an ape!" He had the ordinary fate of satirists—to live in a state of perpetual warfare, and to have offences imputed to him of which he was blameless. The "galled jade" not only winces, but kicks. The comedy of The Malecontent,' written in 1600, appears to have been Marston's first play; it was printed in 1605. He says in the Preface, "In despite of my endeavours, I understand some have been most unadvisedly over-cunning in misinterpreting me, and with subtilty (as deep as hell) have maliciously spread ill rumours, which springing from themselves, might to |