Part 3 (1/2)

It is an unwise generation that declines to take all its inheritance

I have heard once or twice of late that English poets in the future will set themselves to express emotions more complex and subtle than have ever yet been treated in poetry I shall be extrelad, of course, if this happen in my time But at present I incline to rejoice rather in an assured inheritance, and, when I hear talk of this kind, to say over to ht see that I can select from the poetry of this century:--

Thy boso have supposed dead; And there reigns Love and all Love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried

How ious love stol'n from s rerave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of ive; That due of es I lov'd I view in thee, And thou, all they, hast all the all oflines of the second stanza of this poeenerally been printed thus:

”Prier, With her bells dim”

And many have wondered how Shakespeare or Fletcher came to write of the ”bells” of a prih if we must read ”harebell” or ”harebells,” ”dim” would be a pretty and proper word for the color of that flower The conjecture takes so priether:

”Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azured harebell, like thy veins”

_Cymbeline_, iv 2

I have always suspected, however, that there should be a seer, with her bells dim,” refers to a totally different flower--the snowdrop, to wit And I have lately learnt from Dr Grosart, who has carefully examined the 1634 edition (the only early one), that the text actually gives a semicolon The snowdrop , which altogether ignores the process of the seasons

SAMUEL DANIEL

February 24, 1894 Sas of Samuel Daniel and the circuh known to all serious students of English poetry

And, though I cannot speak on this point with any certainty, I iers hold to the tradition of all their fathers, and that Daniel still

_renidet in angulo_

of their affections, as one who in his day did very lish verse; and proved hi he wrote, an artist to the bottom of his conscience As certainly as Spenser, he was a ”poet's poet” while he lived A couple of pages enuine compliments of his conte as poets write in English But the average reader of culture--the person who is honestly oes from time to time to his bookshelves for an antidote to the colect Daniel ale from the wretched insufficiency of his editions It is very hard to obtain anything beyond the two small volumes published in 1718 (an imperfect collection), and a volume of selections edited by Mr John Morris and published by a Bath bookseller in 1855; and even these are only to be picked up here and there I find it significant, too, that in Mr Palgrave's _Golden Treasury_ Daniel is represented by one sonnet only, and that by no ular to anyone who has observed how apt is the person whoe reader of culture” to be drawn to the perusal of an author's works by some attractive idiosyncrasy in the author's private life or character La instance of this attraction Hoe all love Lah he rejected it and called out upon it, ”gentle” reentleness and dignified melancholy of his life, Daniel stands nearer to Lalish writer, with the possible exception of Scott His circuloo man to read the scanty narrative of Daniel's life and think of him thereafter without sympathy and respect

Life

He was born in 1562--Fuller says in Soton, near Philip's Norton, or at Wilton in Wiltshi+re Anthony Wood tells us that he came ”of a wealthy family;” Fuller that ”his father was ais known; but in 1579 he was entered as a codalen Hall, Oxford, and left the university three years afterwards without taking a degree His first book--a translation of Paola Giovio's treatise on Emblems--appeared in 1585, when he was about twenty-two In 1590 or 1591 he was travelling in Italy, probably with a pupil, and no doubt busy with those studies that finally made him the first Italian scholar of his time In 1592 he published his ”Sonnets to Delia,” which at once made his reputation; in 1594 his ”Coedy of Cleopatra;” and in 1595 four books of his ”Civil Wars” On Spenser's death, in 1599, Daniel is said to have succeeded to the office of poet-laureate

”That wreath which, in Eliza's golden days, My master dear, divinist Spenser, wore; That which rewarded Drayton's learned lays, Which thoughtful Ben and gentle Daniel wore”

But history traces the Laureateshi+p, as an office, no further back than Jonson, and we need not follow Southey into the mists It is certain, however, that Daniel was a favorite at Elizabeth's Court, and in some way partook of her bounty In 1600 he was appointed tutor to the Lady Anne Clifford, a little girl of about eleven, daughter of Margaret, Countess of curatefully re his life and after But Daniel seereat houses as private tutor to the young The next year, when presenting his works to Sir Thoerton, he writes:--”Such hath been my misery that whilst I should have written the actions of men, I have been constrained to bide with children, and, contrary to mine own spirit, put out of that sense which nature had made my part”

Self-distrust

Now there is but one answer to this--that aspirit does not suffer himself to be ”put out of that sense which nature had made my part” Daniel's words indicate the weakness that in the end made futile all his powers: they indicate a certain ”donnish” timidity (if I enius Such a timidity and such a distrust often accompany very exquisite faculties: indeed, theyBut they explain why, of the two conteure in most men's conception of those tihost And his self-distrust was even then recognized as well as his exquisiteness He is indeed ”well-languaged Daniel,” ”sweet honey-dropping Daniel,” ”Rosaale,” revered and admired by all his compeers But the note of apprehension was also sounded, not only by an unknown contributor to that rare collection of epigrams, _Skialetheia, or the Shadow of Truth_

”Daniel (as soht mount, _if he list_; But others say he is a Lucanist”

--but by no e than Spenser hiain”:

”And there is a new shepherd late upsprung The which doth all afore hi Which late he sung unto a scornful lass