Drayton is a sweet poet, and Selden's notes to the early part of the
Polyolbion are well worth your perusal. Daniel is a superior man; his
diction is pre-eminently pure,--of that quality which I believe has always
existed somewhere in society. It is just such English, without any
alteration, as Wordsworth or Sir George Beaumont might have spoken or
written in the present day.
Yet there are instances of sublimity in Drayton. When deploring the cutting
down of some of our old forests, he says, in language which reminds the
reader of Lear, written subsequently, and also of several passages in Mr.
Wordsworth's poems:--
----"our trees so hack'd above the ground,
That where their lofty tops the neighbouring countries
crown'd,
Their trunks (like aged folks) now bare and naked stand,
_As for revenge to Heaven each held a wither'd hand._" [1]
That is very fine.
[Footnote 1: Polyol VII.
"He (Drayton) was a poet by nature, and carefully improved his talent; one
who sedulously laboured to deserve the approbation of such as were capable
of appreciating and cared nothing for the censures which others might pass
upon him." 'Like me that list,' he says,
----'my honest rhymes
Nor care for critics, nor regard the times.'
And though he is not a poet _virum volitarc per ora_, nor one of those
whose better fortune it is to live in the hearts of their devoted
admirers,--yet what he deemed his greatest work will be preserved by its
subject; some of his minor poems have merit enough in their execution to
ensure their preservation; and no one who studies poetry as an art will
think his time misspent in perusing the whole, if he have any real love for
the art he is pursuing. The youth who enters upon that pursuit without a
feeling of respect and gratitude for those elder poets, who by their
labours have prepared the way for him, is not likely to produce any thing
himself that will be held in remembrance by posterity."-_The Doctor_, &c.
c. 36. P.I.
I heartily trust that the author or authors, as the case may be, of this
singularly thoughtful and diverting book will in due time continue it. Let
some people say what they please, there has not been the fellow of it
published for many a long day.--ED.]
_September_ 12. 1831.