1 THE LIFE OF DANIEL. SAMUEL DANIEL was the fon of a mufic-master, and born near Taunton in Somerset fhire, in the year 1561. At feventeen years of age he was admitted a Commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he continued about three years, and by the affistance of an able tutor, made a very confiderable proficiency in all the branches of academical learning. Those, however, which were of a graver nature, not fo well fuiting his genius, he applied himself principally to history and poetry, which continued to be his favourite pursuits during the remainder of his life. At the expiration of the above mentioned term, he left the university, without taking a degree, and profecuted his studies for fome time at Wilton, under the patronage and encouragement of Mary, Countess of Pembroke, the accomplished and amiable fister of the celebrated Sir Philip Sidney, as appears from the dedication of his Defence of Rhyme, to her fon William, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Steward of the Household, and Chancellor of Oxford. "If all rhyming is gross, vulgar, and barbarous, I cannot but blame the fortune of the times and my own genius that caft me upon so wrong a course, drawn with the current of custom, and an unexamined example: Having been first encouraged and framed thereunto by your most worthy and honourable Mother, and received the first notion for the formal ordering of these compofitions at Wilton, which I must ever acknowledge to have been my best school; and thereof am always to held a feeling and grateful memory: Afterward drawn farther on by the well-liking and approbation of my worthy Lord, the fofterer of me and my Mufe, I adventured to bestow all my whole genius therein, perceiving it agreed fo well with the complexion of the times and my own conftitution." Afterwards he became tutor to the high-spirited Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of George Clifford Earl of Cumberland, the celebrated adventurer, to whose beauty and accomplishments he pays many flattering compliments in his poems. His merit, fome time after, procured him the friendship and patronage of Charles Blount, Lord Montjoy, created Earl of Devonshire by King James, as he himself acknowledges in the introduction to his poem of the Civil Wars; and this acknowledgment of his is the more grateful and fincere, as it was made after the death of his benefactor. It appears alfo from his Epifles, that he experienced the munificence of Lucy, Countess of Bedford, the great patronefs of the poets, particularly Donne, Jonson, and Drayton, who frequently experienced her bounty; for which, in return, they were as lavish of their incenfe. He shared also with Shakspeare the munificent patronage of Henry Wriothefly, Earl of Southampton, the intimate friend of the valiant and accomplished Earl of Effex; and it is much to his honour, that he addreffed an Epiftle to that nobleman, on his difgrace, written in a manly and dignified ftrain of confolation. In 1585, he published a tranflation of the " Worthy Tract," as Wood calls it, of Paulus Jovius o!! Rart Inventions, &c., to which he prefixed an ingenious preface. In 1594, he published his Cleopatra, a tragedy, written after the manner of the ancients, with a chorus between each act. It is dedicated by a copy of verses to the Countess of Pembroke, and was much efteemed at that time. The fame year he published the Complaint of Rosamond, which was read with universal approbation, and completely established his poetical reputation. The popularity of this poem is supposed by Mr. Malone, to have occafioned the " Venus and Adonis," and " the Rape of Lucrece" of Shakspeare; and the Various Sonnets to Delia, which appeared not long after, are supposed by the fame learned critic, to have been the model of the " Sonnets" of the great poet of Nature. It was followed, in 1611, by A Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius, in the fame measure, and resembling it also in the subject and style, being written in the manner of Ovid, with great tendernefs and variety of passion. In 1599, he fucceeded Spenfer as Poet-Laureat to Queen Elizabeth; and Mr. Granger obferves, that " he was then thought to have merited the laurel." In 1603, he welcomed King James with a congratulatory poem, on his acceffion to the throne of England, in which he pays a grateful tribute to the memory of his renowned predeceffor. In King James's reign he was made Gentleman extraordinary, and afterwards one of the Grooms of the Privy Chamber to Queen Anne, who took great delight in his conversation and writings. His place at Court being of very little employment, the income of it enabled him to rent a handfome house and garden in Old-Street, near London, where Winftanley fays "he would lie obfcure some times two months together, the better to enjoy the company of the Mufes, and then would appear in public to recreate himself, and converse with his friends." In this retirement, he privately compofed, for the entertainment of the Court, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, a Mafque; prefented at Hampton Court, by the Queen's most excellent Majefty and ber Ladies, 1604-The Queen's Arcadia, a Pafloral Tragi-comedy; prefented to her Majefty and ber Ladies, by the University of Oxford, 1605-And Hymen's Triumph, a Pafloral Tragi-comedy; prefented at the Queen's Court, in the Strand, at her Majefty's magnificent entertainment of the King's most excellent Majefty, being at the nuptials of Lord Roxborough: It is dedicated to the Queen, and introduced by a prologue which is pretty; and in many parts of the piece, the paffions are touched with great delicacy. In 1604, he published his great work, The Hifery of the Civil Wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, a poem in eight books, dedicated to Prince Charles, which raised his reputation fo high as to procure him the title of the Englife Lucan. In 1611, he published A Defence of Rhyme, againfi a pamphlet, intituled, Observations on the Art of Englife Poefy, wherein is demonflratively proved, that rhyme is the fittest harmony of words. This piece is in profe, and it is addreffed to his patron, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. The fame year he published Philotas, a Tragedy. It is dedicated by a copy of verses to the Prince, afterwards Charles I. In this play, as well as in his Cleopatra, he has thewn great judgment by treading in the steps of the ancients. It met with fome oppofition, not on account of any deficiency in the poetry, or in the conduct of the defign, but from a fufpicion that the character of Piletas was drawn for the unfortunate Earl of Effex, from which he vindicated himself in an apology printed at the end of it. In 1613 and 1618, he published the first and second parts of his Hiftory of England, from the conquest, to the year 1376, which is written with fuch brevity and perfpicuity, that Langbaine "takes it to be the crown of all his works." Towards the end of his life he retired to a farm he had at Beckington, near Philips-Norton in Somersetshire, where, after fome time spent in learned leifure and religious contemplation, he died in October 1619, in the 57th year of his age. He was buried in the church of Beckington, where, in gratitude to him, a monument was erected to his memory by Lady Anne Clifford, a long time after, when the was Countefs-dowager of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery. The fame great lady had a portrait of him inferted in a full length picture of herself, at Appleby Caftle in Weftmoreland. He left no iffue by his wife Juftina, fifter of John Florio, author of the Italian dictionary, to whom he was married feveral years. |