Daniel enjoyed the friendship and praises of the most eminent men of his age; particularly of
Sir Fulk Greville, Sir John Harrington, Sir Henry Spelman, Sir Robert Cotton, Dr. Cowell, Camden,
Spenfer, Jonfon, Drayton, and Browne.

Edmund Bolton and Gabriel Harvey, the former a profeffed critic, and the latter the friend of Spenfer, and a promoter of the literature of his country, both mention him with refpect, as a polisher and purifier of the English language. Spenser has given his character in " Colin Clout's come home again." Browne calls him "well-languaged Daniel;" and Drummond esteems him " for sweetnefs in rhyming, fecond to none."

He complains, however, in his dedication of Philotas, that, notwithstanding the fun-fhine of Court favour, and the joint applauses of almost all the great writers of his time, he had

out-liv'd the date

Of former grace, acceptance, and delight

but years hath done this wrong,

To make me write too much, and live too long.

His poems were collected and printed with his plays, in 4to, 1623, by his brother John Daniel, who appears to have been a musician belonging to the Court. They have been feveral times reprinted. The laft edition was in 2 vols. 8vo, 1718. They are now, for the first time, received into a collection of claffical English poetry.~

The ftyle of Daniel is distinguished from that of his contemporaries, by a peculiar neatnefs and fimplicity. The original rectitude of his judgment feems to have ferved him in place of examples. He uses no antiquated words, and has no fantastic incongruities. He has rejected, with equal propriety, the coarse and obfolete idioms of Spenfer, and the metaphyfical conceits of Donne. His expreffion is clear and concife, and his verfification correct and harmonious. He is not deficient in tenderness, and fometimes fhews fublimity; but want of fire and enthusiasm is his characteristic fault. He was unhappy in the choice of the Civil Wars, as the subject of his principal poem, as it obliged him to defcend to minute defcriptions; and nothing merely narrative is fufceptible of the higher ornaments of poetry. It has, however, confiderable merit in the execution. The defcriptions are often beautifully expreffive, and fome of the pathetic paffages, with which it abounds, are equal to any that are to be found in the whole compass of English poetry. In his Complaint of Rofamond, he has caught Ovid's manner very happily, and has often the softness of Rowe without his effeminacy. His Mufopbilus has a right to the merit of still higher excellence. It displays a correctness and manliness of thought, and a beauty and harmony of verfification that leave little to wifh. His Sonnets are entitled to the peculiar praise of having no obfcurities either of ftyle or language. In all his pieces are to be found marks of good sense and manly sensibility; free from pedantry and affectation, which have concurred to banish from use the productions of many of his contemporaries. He has undefervedly shared the neglect they have met with, as he is innocent of their faults, and highly worthy of the attention and esteem of the prefent age.

His merit as an historian has been judiciously estimated by Dr. Kennet.

"It is faid he had a good vein in poetry; and it is certain he has fhewn great judgment in keeping it, as he did, from infecting his profe, and deftroying that fimplicity which is a principal beauty in the style of an hiftorian. His narration is fmooth and clear, and carries every where an air of good fenfe and just eloquence; and his English is much more modern than Milton's, though he lived before him. But Milton chose to write (if the expreffion may be allowed) a hundred years backwards; whereas, it is particularly to he admired how Daniel could, fo long ago, express himself with the fame purity and grace as our most fenfible writers do now, though we flatter ourselves that we have confiderably improved the language."

The most accurate estimate that has been formed of his poetical character, is given by the amiable and ingenious Mr. Headley, whofe premature death may be justly regretted as a lofs to the litera

ture of his country.

"Though very rarely fublime, he has skill in the pathetic; and his pages are difgraced with neither VOL; IV.

H

END

pedantry nor conceit. We find both in his poetry and profe fuch a legitimate rational flow of lan guage, as approaches nearer the ftyle of the 18th than the 16th century; and of which we may fafely affert, that it will never become obfolete. He certainly was the Atticus of his day. It seems to have been his error to have entertained too great a diffidence of his own abilities. Constantly contented with the fedate propriety of good fenfe, which he no fooner attains than he seems to rest fatisfied, though his resources, had he but made the effort, would have carried him much farther. In this escaping censure he is not always entitled to praise. From not endeavouring to be great, he sometimes miffes of being refpectable. The constitution of his mind feems often to have failed him in the fultry and exhaufting regions of the Mufes; for, though generally neat, cafy, and perfpicuous, he too frequently grows flack, languid, and enervated. In perufing his long historical poem we grow fleepy at the dead ebb of the narrative, notwithstanding being occasionally relieved with some touches of the pathetic. Unfortunate in the choice of his subject, he seems fearful of fupplying its defects by digreffional embellishment; instead of fixing upon one of a more fanciful caft, which the natural coolness of his judgment would necessarily have corrected, he has cooped himself up within the limited and narrow pale of dry events; instead of cafting his eye on the general history of human nature, and giving his genius a range over her immeasurable fields, he has confined himself to an abstract diary of Fortune; inftead of presenting us with pictures of Truth from the effects of the paffions, he has verfified the truth of action only; he has fufficiently, therefore, fhewn the historian, but by no means the poet : for, to use a sentiment of Davenant's,“ Truth, narrative and past, is the idol of historians, (who worship a dead thing), and truth, operative and continually alive, is the mistress of poets, who hath not her existence in matter but in reason.”

To the High and Most Illuârious

PRINCE CHARLES HIS EXCELLENCE.