About the town; this reckoning I will pay, It was no dream! I was awake, and saw. Lend me thy voice, O Fame, that I may draw Wonder to truth, and have my vision hurled Hot from thy trumpet round about the world. I saw a beauty, from the sea to rise, That all earth looked on, and that earth all eyes! There read I, straight, thy learned LEGENDS three, Heard the soft airs, between our swains and thee, Which made me think the old Theocritus, Or rural Virgil, come to pipe to us. But then thy Epistolar HEROIC SONGS, 16 This is one of Drayton's earliest pieces: Idea, or the Shepherd's Garland, fashioned in nine eglogs, 1593. The Legends are, I believe, those of Cromwell, Mortimer, and Matilda; the Songs are England's Heroical Epistles, published in 1598.-G. Perched overhead, the wise Athenian OwL: 17 I thought thee then our Orpheus, that wouldst try, Like him, to make the air one volary. And I had styled thee Orpheus, but, before A wild, and an unauthorized wickedness! stay Under one title; thou hast made thy way Or universal circumduction Of all that read thy POLY-OLBION; 18 That read it! that are ravished; such was I, 17 The Owl, published in 4to, 1604. The Barons' Wars, 1598. -G. 18 Drayton's principal work, and once exceedingly popu lar.. The poems to which Jonson alludes in the subsequent lines, are The Battle of Agincourt, The Miseries of Queen Margaret, The Quest of Cynthia, The Shepherds' Syrene, The Moon-Calf, and the well-known Nymphidia, or the Court of Fairies; all published in 1627. - B. 19 With every song, The poet's act; and for his country's sake, And will be bought of every lord and knight 19 This panegyric must be qualified by the opinion expressed to Drummond, who reports Jonson to have said "that Michael Drayton's Polyolbion, if he had performed what he promised to write (the deeds of all the worthies), had been excellent his long verses pleased him not." There is apparently some confusion in this reference to the Polyolbion; but it does not affect the fact of Jonson's dislike to the long measure. - B. I feel it by mine own, that overflow And stop my sight in every line I go. As on two flowery carpets, that did rise, Of thy strange MOON-CALF, both thy strain of mirth, And gossip-got acquaintance, as to us EPITAPH ON MICHAEL DRAYTON.20 Protect his memory, and preserve his story, Remain a lasting monument of his glory. 20 The authorship of this epitaph is doubtful. It has been ascribed to Quarles, Randolph, and others; but more commonly to Jonson, whose manner it resembles. — B. And when thy ruins shall disclaim TO MY TRULY BELOVED FRIEND, MASTER BROWNE; ON HIS PASTORALS. 21 Some men, of books or friends not speaking right, May hurt them more with praise, than foes with spite. But I have seen thy work, and I know thee: And, where the most read books, on authors' fames, Or, like our money-brokers, take up names More of our writers would, like thee, not swell With the how much they set forth, but the how well. 21 Prefixed to Britannia's Pastorals, the second book, by William Browne, fol., 1616, and 8vo., 1625. — G. |