The author of 'Polyolbion,' was born in the parish of Atherston, in
Warwickshire, about the year 1563. He was the son of a butcher, but
displayed such precocity that several persons of quality, such as Sir
Walter Aston and the Countess of Bedford, patronised him. In his
childhood he was eager to know what strange kind of beings poets were;
and on coming to Oxford, (if, indeed, he did study there,) is said to
have importuned his tutor to make him, if possible, a poet. He was
supported chiefly, through his life, by the Lady Bedford. He paid court,
without success, to King James. In 1593 (having long ere this become
that 'strange thing a poet') he published a collection of his Pastorals,
and afterwards his 'Barons' Wars' and 'England's Heroical Epistles,'
which are both rhymed histories. In 1612-13 he published the first part
of 'Polyolbion,' and in 1622 completed the work. In 1626 we hear of him
being styled Poet Laureate, but the title then implied neither royal
appointment, nor fee, nor, we presume, duty. In 1627 he published 'The
Battle of Agincourt,' 'The Court of Faerie,' and other poems; and, three
years later, a book called 'The Muses' Elysium.' He had at last found an
asylum in the family of the Earl of Dorset; whose noble lady, Lady Anne
Clifford, subsequently Countess of Pembroke, and who had been, we saw,
Daniel's pupil, after Drayton's death in 1631, erected him a monument,
with a gold-lettered inscription, in Westminster Abbey.
The main pillar of Drayton's fame is 'Polyolbion,' which forms a poetical
description of England, in thirty songs or books, to which the learned
Camden appended notes. The learning and knowledge of this poem are exten-
sive, and many of the descriptions are true and spirited, but the space
of ground traversed is too large, and the form of versification is too
heavy, for so long a flight. Campbell justly remarks,--'On a general
survey, the mass of his poetry has no strength or sustaining spirit equal
to its bulk. There is a perpetual play of fancy on its surface; but the
impulses of passion, and the guidance of judgment, give it no strong
movements or consistent course.'
Drayton eminently suits a 'Selection' such as ours, since his parts are
better than his whole.