There was yet no literary public to appeal to, to save the neglected work which the great Selden had deemed worthy of his studies: but there was, as the poet indignantly designates them, “a cattle, odi profanum vulgus et arceo, of which I account them, be they never so great.” And “the cattle” conceived that there was nothing in this island worthy studying. We had not yet learned to esteem ourselves at a time when six editions of Camden’s “Britannia,” in the original Latin, were diffusing the greatness of England throughout Europe.
But though this poet devoted much of his life to this great antiquarian and topographic poem, he has essayed his powers in almost every species of poetry; fertility of subject, and fluency of execution, are his characteristics. He has written historical narratives too historical; heroic epistles hardly Ovidian; elegies on several occasions, or rather, domestic epistles, of a Horatian cast; pastorals, in which there is a freshness of imagery, breathing with the life of nature; and songs, and satire, and comedy. In comedy he had not been unsuccessful, but in satire he was considered more indignant than caustic. There is one species of poetry, rare among us, in which he has been eminently successful; his “Nymphidia, or Court of Faerie,” is a model of the grotesque, those arabesques of poetry, those lusory effusions on chimerical objects. There are grave critics who would deny the poet the liberty allowed to the painter. The “Nymphidia” seems to have been ill understood by some modern critics. The poet has been censured for “neither imparting nor feeling that half-believing seriousness which enchants us in the wild and magical touches of Shakespeare;” but the poet designed an exquisitely ludicrous fiction. Drayton has, however, relieved the grotesque scenes, by rising into the higher strains of poetry, such as Gray might not have disdained.
It was the misfortune of Drayton not to have been a popular poet, which we may infer from his altercations with his booksellers, and from their frequent practice of prefixing new title pages, with fresher dates, to the first editions of his poems. That he was also in perpetual quarrel with his muse, appears by his frequent alteration of his poems. He often felt that curse of an infelicitous poet, that his diligence was more active than his creative power. Drayton was a poet of volume, but his genius was peculiar; from an unhappy facility in composition, in reaching excellence he too often declined into mediocrity. A modern reader may be struck by the purity and strength of his diction; his strong descriptive manner lays hold of the fancy; but he is always a poet of reason, and never of passion. He cannot be considered as a poet of mediocrity, who has written so much above that level; nor a poet who can rank among the highest class, who has often flattened his spirit by its redundance.
There was another cause, besides his quarrel with his muse, which threw a shade over the life of Drayton. He had been forward to greet James the First, on his accession to the throne of England, with a congratulatory ode; but for some cause, which has not been revealed, he tells us, “he suffered shipwreck by his forward pen.” The king appears to have conceived a personal dislike to the bard, a circumstance not usual with James towards either poets or flatterers. It seems to arise from some state-matter, for Drayton tells us,
I feare, as I do stabbing, this word, state.
According to Oldys, Drayton appears to have been an agent in the Scottish king’s intercourse with his English friends; some unlucky incident probably occurred, which might have indisposed the monarch towards his humble friend. The unhappy result of his court to the new sovereign cast a sour and melancholy humour over his whole life; Drayton, in his “Elegy” to his brother-poet, Sandys, has perpetuated his story.
[1] Dr. Johnson has ascribed the invention of local poetry to Denham, who, he thought, had “traced a new scheme of poetry, copied by Garth and Pope, after whose names little will be gained by an enumeration of smaller poets.” Johnson and the critics of his day were wholly unacquainted with the Fathers of our poetry; nor is it true that we have not had loco-descriptive poems since Garth and Pope, which may rank with theirs.
[2] Perhaps none of our poets have been more luckless in their editors than Drayton. He himself published a folio edition of his works in 1619; but some of his more interesting productions, now lying before me, are contained in a small volume, 1631—the year in which he died.
A modern folio edition was published by Dodsley in 1748. The title-page assures us that this volume contains all his writings; while a later edition, in four volumes 8vo, 1753, pretends to supply the deficiencies of the former, which at length Dodsley had discovered, but it is awkwardly done by an Appendix, and is still deficient. The rapid demand for a new edition of Drayton between 1748 and 1753 bears a suspicious aspect. An intelligent bibliopolist, Mr. Rodd, informs me that this octavo edition is in fact the identical folio, only arranged to the octavo form by a contrivance, well known among printers, at the time of printing the folio. The separation of the additional poems in the Appendix confirms this suggestion.