SAMUEL DANIEL
Was the son of a music master, and born near Taunton in Somersetshire, in the year 1562. In 1579 he was admitted a commoner in Magdalen Hall in Oxford, where he remained about three years, and by the assistance of an excellent tutor, made a very great proficiency in academical learning; but his genius inclining him more to studies of a gayer and softer kind, he quitted the University, and applied himself to history and poetry. His own merit, added to the recommendation of his brother in law, (John Florio, so well known for his Italian Dictionary) procured him the patronage of Queen Anne, the consort of King James I. who was pleased to confer on him the honour of being one of the Grooms of the Privy-Chamber, which enabled him to rent a house near London, where privately he composed many of his dramatic pieces. He was tutor to Lady Ann Clifford, and on the death of the great Spenser, he was appointed Poet Laureat to Queen Elizabeth. Towards the end of his life he retired to a farm which he had at Beckington near Philips Norton in Somersetshire, where after some time spent in the service of the Muses, and in religious contemplation, he died in the year 1619. He left no issue by his wife Justina, to whom he was married several years. Wood says, that in the wall over his grave there is this inscription;
Here lies expecting the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the dead body of Samuel Daniel esquire, that excellent poet and historian, who was tutor to Lady Ann Clifford in her youth, she that was daughter and heir to George Clifford earl of Cumberland; who in gratitude to him erected this monument to his memory a long time after, when she was Countess Dowager of Pembroke, Dorset and Montgomery. He died in October, Anno 1619.
Mr. Daniel's poetical works, consisting of dramatic and other pieces, are as follow;
1. The Complaint of Rosamond.
2. A Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius, 8vo. 1611.
These two pieces resemble each other, both in subject and stile, being written in the Ovidian manner, with great tenderness and variety of passion. The measure is Stanzas of seven lines. Let the following specimen shew the harmony and delicacy of his numbers, where he makes Rosamond speak of beauty in as expressive a manner as description can reach.
Ah! beauty Syren, fair inchanting good,
Sweet silent rhetoric of persuading eyes;
Dumb eloquence whose power doth move the blood,
More than the words or wisdom of the wife;
Still harmony whose diapason lies, Within a brow; the key
which passions move,
To ravish sense, and play a world in love.
3. Hymen's Triumph, a Pastoral Tragi-Comedy presented at the Queen's Court in the Strand, at her Majesty's entertainment of the King, at the nuptials of lord Roxborough, London, 1623, 4to. It is introduced by a pretty contrived Prologue by way of dialogue, in which Hymen is opposed by avarice, envy and jealousy; in this piece our author sometimes touches the passions with a very delicate hand.
4. The Queen's Arcadia, a Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, presented before her Majesty by the university of Oxford, London 1623, 4to.
5. The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, presented in a Masque the 8th of January at Hampton-Court, by the Queen's most excellent Majesty and her Ladies. London 1604, 8vo. and 1623, 4to. It is dedicated to the Lady Lucy, countess of Bedford. His design under the shapes, and in the persons of the Twelve Goddesses, was to shadow out the blessings which the nation enjoyed, under the peaceful reign of King James I. By Juno was represented Power; by Pallas Wisdom and Defence; by Venus, Love and Amity; by Vesta, Religion; by Diana, Chastity; by Proserpine, Riches; by Macaria, Felicity; by Concordia, the Union of Hearts; by Astræa, Justice; by Flora, the Beauties of the Earth; by Ceres, Plenty; and by Tathys, Naval Power.
6. The Tragedy of Philotas, 1611, 8vo. it is dedicated to the Prince, afterwards King Charles I.
This play met with some opposition, because it was reported that the character of Philotas was drawn for the unfortunate earl of Essex, which obliged the author to vindicate himself from this charge, in an apology printed at the end of the play; both this play, and that of Cleopatra, are written after the manner of the ancients, with a chorus between each act.
7. The History of the Civil Wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, a Poem in eight books, London, 1604, in 8vo. and 1623, 4to. with his picture before it.
8. A Funeral Poem on the Death of the Earl of Devonshire, London, 1603, 4to.
9. A Panegyric Congratulatory, delivered to the King at Burleigh-Harrington in Rutlandshire, 1604 and 1623, 4to.
10. Epistles to various great Personages in Verse, London, 1601 and 1623, 4to.
11. The Passion of a Distressed Man, who being on a tempest on the sea, and having in his boat two women (of whom he loved the one who disdained him, and scorned the other who loved him) was, by command of Neptune, to cast out one of them to appease the rage of the tempest, but which was referred to his own choice. If the reader is curious to know the determination of this man's choice, it is summed up in the concluding line of the poem.
She must be cast away, that would not save.
12. Musophilus, a Defence of Learning; written dialogue-wise, addressed to Sir Fulk Greville.
13. Various Sonnets to Delia, 57 in number.
14. An Ode. 15. A Pastoral. 16. A Description of Beauty. 17. To the Angel Spirit of Sir Philip Sidney. 18. A Defence of Rhime. All these pieces are published together in two volumes, 12 mo. under the title of the poetical pieces of Mr. Samuel Daniel.
But however well qualified our author's genius was for poetry, yet Langbain is of opinion that his history is the crown of all his works. It was printed about the year 1613, and dedicated to Queen Anne. It reaches from the state of Britain under the Romans, to the beginning of the reign of Richard II. His history has received encomiums from various hands, as well as his poetry: It was continued by John Trusul, with like brevity and candour, but not with equal elegance, 'till the reign of Richard III. A.D. 1484. Mr. Daniel lived respected by men of worth and fashion, he passed through life without tasting many of the vicissitudes of fortune; he seems to have been a second rate genius, and a tolerable versifier; his poetry in some places is tender, but want of fire is his characteristical fault. He was unhappy in the choice of his subject of a civil war for a poem, which obliged him to descend to minute descriptions, and nothing merely narrative can properly be touched in poetry, which demands flights of the imagination and bold images.
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Sir JOHN HARRINGTON,
Born at Kelston near the city of Bath, was the son of John Harrington esquire, who was imprisoned in the Tower in the reign of Queen Mary, for holding a correspondence with the Lady Elizabeth; with whom he was in great favour after her accession to the crown, and received many testimonies of her bounty and gratitude. Sir John, our author, had the honour to be her god-son, and both in respect to his father's merit, and his own, he was so happy to possess her esteem to the last[1]. He had the rudiments of his education at Eaton; thence removing to Cambridge, he there commenced master of arts, and before he arrived at his 30th year, he favoured the world with a translation of the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, by which he acquired some reputation. After this work, he composed four books of epigrams, which in those times were received with great applause; several of these mention another humorous piece of his called Misacmos Metatmorphosis, which for a while exposed him to her Majesty's resentment, yet he was afterwards received into favour. This (says Mrs. Cooper) is not added to the rest of his works, and therefore she supposes was only meant for a Court amusement, not the entertainment of the public, or the increase of his fame. In the reign of King James I. he was created Knight of the Bath[2], and presented a manuscript to Prince Henry, called a Brief View of the State of the Church of England, as it stood in Queen Elizabeth and King James's reign in the year 1608. This piece was levelled chiefly against the married bishops, and was intended only for the private use of his Highness, but was some years afterwards published by one of Sir John's grandsons, and occasioned much displeasure from the clergy, who did not fail to recollect that his conduct was of a piece with his doctrines, as he, together with Robert earl of Leicester, supported Sir Walter Raleigh in his suit to Queen Elizabeth for the manor of Banwell, belonging to the bishopric of Bath and Wells, on the presumption that the right reverend incumbent had incurred a Premunire, by marrying a second wife.
Sir John appears to be a gentleman of great pleasantry and humour; his fortune was easy, the court his element, and which is ever an advantage to an author, wit was not his business, but diversion: 'Tis not to be doubted, but his translation of Ariosto was published after Spenser's Fairy Queen, and yet both in language and numbers it is much inferior, as much as it is reasonable to suppose the genius of Harrington was below that of Spenser.
Mrs. Cooper remarks, that the whole poem of Orlando is a tedious medley of unnatural characters, and improbable events, and that the author's patron, Cardinal Hippolito De Este, had some reason for that severe question. Where the devil, Signior Ludovico, did you pick up all these damned lies? The genius of Ariosto seems infinitely more fit for satire than heroic poetry; and some are of opinion, that had Harrington wrote nothing but epigrams, he had been more in his own way.
We cannot certainly fix the time that Sir John died, but it is reasonable to suppose that it was about the middle, or rather towards the latter end of James I's reign. I shall subjoin an epigram of his as a specimen of his poetry.
IN CORNUTUM.
What curl'd pate youth is he that sitteth there,
So near thy wife, and whispers in her eare,
And takes her hand in his, and soft doth wring her.
Sliding his ring still up and down her finger?
Sir, 'tis a proctor, seen in both the lawes,
Retain'd by her in some important cause;
Prompt and discreet both in his speech and action,
And doth her business with great satisfaction.
And think'st thou so? a horn-plague on thy head!
Art thou so-like a fool, and wittol led,
To think he doth the bus'ness of thy wife?
He doth thy bus'ness, I dare lay my life.
[Footnote 1: Muses Library, p. 296.]
[Footnote 2: Ubi supra.]
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