after: "the griefe," says a contemporary, "of this unhappie love brought him to his end.”

His unfortunate Countess lingered but a short time after him, and died in a miserable obscurity. -Such is the history of Sydney's STELLA.

Three of her sons became English earls; the eldest, Earl of Warwick; the second, Earl of Holland; and the third (her son by Mountjoy) Earl of Newport. The earldoms of Warwick and Holland were held by her lineal descendants, till the death of that young Lord Warwick, whose mother married Addison.

* Memoirs of King James's Peers, by Sir E. Brydges.

CHAPTER XVII.

COURT AND AGE OF ELIZABETH.

DRAYTON, DANIEL, DRUMMOND, &c.

THE voluminous Drayton* has left a collection of sonnets under the fantastic title of his IDEAS. Ideas they may be,-but they have neither poetry, nor passion, nor even elegance:—a circumstance not very surprising, if it be true that he composed them merely to show his ingenuity in a style which was then the prevailing fashion of his time. Drayton was never married, and little is known of his private life. He loved a lady of Coventry, to whom he promises an immortality he has not been able to confer.

How many paltry, foolish, painted things
That now in coaches trouble every street,

*Died 1631.

Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,

E'er they be well wrapp'd in their winding-sheet;

While I to thee eternity shall give,

When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And Queens hereafter shall be glad to live
Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise ;
Virgins and matrons reading these my rhimes,
Shall be so much delighted with thy story,
That they shall grieve they liv'd not in these times,
To have seen thee, their sex's only glory :
So thou shalt fly above the vulgar throng,
Still to survive in my immortal song.

There are fine nervous lines in this Sonnet: we long to hail the exalted beauty who is announced by such a flourish of trumpets, and are proportionably disappointed to find that she has neither a local habitation nor a name." Drayton's

66

little song,

I prythee, love! love me no more,

Take back the heart you gave me!

stands unique, in point of style, among the rest of his works, and is very genuine and pas

sionate.

Daniel, who was munificently patronized by the Lord Mountjoy, mentioned in the preceding sketch, was one of the most graceful sonnetteers of that time; and he has touches of tenderness as well as fancy; for he was in earnest, and the object of his attachment was real, though disguised under the name of Delia. She resided on the banks of the river Avon, and was un

moved by the poet's strains. weighed love and genius.

sonnets

Rank with her out

Daniel says of his

Though the error of my youth in them appear,
Suffice they show I lived, and loved thee dear.

The lines

Restore thy tresses to the golden ore,

Yield Citherea's son those arcs of love,

are luxuriantly elegant, and quite Italian in the flow and imagery. Her modesty is prettily set forth in another Sonnet

A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,

Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love,

*Died in 1619.

The wonder of all eyes that look upon her,

Sacred on earth, designed a Saint above!

After a long series of sonnets, elaborately plaintive, he interrupts himself with a little touch of truth and nature, which is quite refreshing;

I must not grieve my love! whose eyes should read
Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;
The flowers have time before they come to seed,

And she is young, and now must sport the while.
And sport, sweet maid! in season of these years,
And learn to gather flow'rs before they wither;
And where the sweetest blossom first appears,

Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither.

If the lady could have been won by poetical flattery, she must have yielded. At length, unable to bear her obduracy, and condemned to see another preferred before him, Daniel resolved to travel; and he wrote, on this occasion, the most feeling of all his Sonnets.

And whither, poor forsaken! wilt thou go?

Daniel remained abroad several years, and returning, cured of his attachment, he married Giustina Florio, of a family of Waldenses, who