DRAYTON, MICHAEL, was born at Hartshill in the county of Warwick, in the year 1563. His life is involved iu great obscurity, and different circumstances concerning him are rather conjectured than affirmed. It is supposed that he went to the University of Oxford, but without taking any degree, and also that he was in the army at an early period of life. Nine or ten years before the death of Queen Elizabeth be is said to have written poems. His earliest work was a collection of pastoral poems, published in 1593, under the title of the Shepherd's Garland ; ' it was afterwards revised and reprinted in 1619, under the name of ' Eclogues.' Shortly after the 'Shepherd's Garland' appeared his long historical poems, ' The Barons' Wars,' 'England's Heroical Epistles,' &c. His Polyolbion,' a descriptive poem on England, her natural productions and legends, made its appearance in 1613. This is the moat celebrated of all his works : independently of its merits as a poem, the most respectable antiquaries refer to it for information, and consider it as authority : the curious Notes appended to it were written by Selden. In 1626 we hear of Drayton as poet-laureate. He died in 1631.
The merits of Drayton as a poet are very great. His historical poems have about them a heavy magnificence, the most gorgeous images and the boldest descriptions follow in stately array, clothed in well-turned and appropriate verse, but unfortunately the obscurity of diction renders them unattractive. The construction is most painfully
involved : a nominative case is often parted from its verb by an inter val of six or seven lines; and hence, though these poems contain but few obsolete words, the reading of them is a serious study. The same observations will apply to the ' Polyolbion,' which is an immense mass of good sterling matter. All the counties and rivers of England are named one after another, but the descriptions are so close that what we gain in instruction we lose in amusement. This poem is written in Alexandrines, and the measure is admirably managed. The Wars of the Barons' are written in ottava rime. Drayton has left one work which, in its way, has never been surpassed—a short fairy poem, called Nymphidia.' A more elfin work than this could not be penned : the author has contrived to throw himself into the feelings of the diminu tive beings whom he represents. His descriptions of helmets made of beetles, ear-wigs being need as chargers, and other oddities of a like nature, display the very highest powers of fancy : a Lilliputian air breathes through the whole performance. Had Drayton written nothing but ' Nymphidia,' he would deserve immortality.
In Campbell's 'Selections from the British I'oets,' a specimen is given of every style in which this fine old author wrote. Drayton has a tomb in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.