condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn accordingly, in 1595, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. Throughout all the scenes of suffering to which he was exposed, Southwell conducted himself with a mildness and fortitude which nothing but a well-regulated mind and a satisfied conscience could have induced. The life of Southwell, though short, was full of sorrow; and the prevailing tone of his poetry is, therefore, that of religious resignation under grief. His two principal poems, St. Peter's Complaint, and Mary Magdalene's Farewell Tears, were, like many other works of which the world has had reason to be proud, written in prison; and it is remarkable that, though composed while suffering under the most unfeeling persecution, no trace of anger against any human being or any human institution, occurs throughout either work. The general tone and quality of the author's writings may be gathered from the following pieces : THE IMAGE OF DEATH. Before my face the picture hangs, That daily should put me in mind Do think hereon, that I must die. I often look upon a face Most ugly, grisly, bare and thin; I often view the hollow place Where eyes and nose had sometime been; I see the bones across that lie, Yet little think that I must die. I read the label underneath, That telleth me whereto I must; I see the sentence, too, that saith, But yet, alas! how seldom I Do think, indeed, that I must die! Continually at my bed's head A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell That I ere morning may be dead, Though now I feel myself full well; But yet, alas! for all this, I Have little mind that I must die. The gown which I am used to wear, The knife wherewith I cut my meat; My ancestors are turn'd to clay, And many of my mates are gone; My youngers daily drop away, And can I think to 'scape alone? If none can 'scape Death's dreadful dart; If strong, if wise, if all do smart, Then I to 'scape shall have no way: SCORN NOT THE LEAST. Where words are weak, and foes encount'ring strong, The feebler part puts up enforced wrong, And silent sees, that speech could not amend; While pike doth range, the silly tench doth fly These fleet afloat, while those do fill the dish; The merlin can not ever soar on high, Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase; In Haman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, DANIEL, the writer next to be noticed among the miscellaneous poets of England, divided his attention so equally between different departments of literature, that it is difficult to determine with which to assign him his place. As his minor poems, however, more particularly marked the peculiar character of his genius than any other of his performances, we have concluded to notice him in the present connection. Samuel Daniel was the son of a music-master, and was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562. In 1579, he was admitted a commoner in Magdalene College, Oxford, where he continued three years, and being aided in his studies, during the whole of that period, by an excellent tutor, he made very considerable progress in academical learning; but his genius and taste inclining him more to poetry and history than to severer studies, he left the university without his degree, and immediately repaired to London, to mingle with the wits of the metropolis. His first literary performance after he arrived in London, was the translation of a tract of Paul Jovius, containing A Discourse of rare Inventions, both Military and Civil, the reception of which was very flattering. On the death of Spenser, he succeeded to the vacant laureate, but was soon after displaced by Ben Jonson. On the accession of James the First to the crown of England, Daniel became one of the grooms of the privy chamber, and was patronized by the king's consort, Queen Anne, who took much pleasure in his conversation. The royal favor thus extended to him, together with his own personal qualifications, readily introduced him to the acquaintance and friendship of many of his ingenious and learned contemporaries; and occupying a house in the suburbs of London, he was accustomed there to receive and entertain his literary associates with much taste and elegance. After spending some years in this manner, Daniel became tutor to Lady Anne Clifford, and having closed the duties which this interesting and important relation imposed upon him, he retired into the country, where he passed the remainder of his days in devotion to poetry and to religious contemplation, and where he died in the month of October, 1619, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. He was buried in the church at Beckington, and a splendid monument was erected over his grave by Lady Anne Clifford, afterward Countess of Pembroke, in testimony of her gratitude to his memory, for the assiduous care and attention which he had bestowed upon her education. The works of Daniel are numerous, and consist of dramas, histories, and miscellaneous poems. Of his dramas, Hymen's Triumphs, The Vision, The Tragedy of Cleopatra, and The Tragedy of Philotus, are the chief. His principal historical work treated of that period of English history which extended from the Conquest, in 1066, to the close of the reign of Edward the Third, in 1377. Of this historical performance, the following remark is made in the preface to Kennet's Complete History of England. "The author had a place at court, in the reign of King James the First, and seems to have taken all the refinement a court could give him. It is said, he had a good vein in poetry; and it is certain, he has shown great judgment in keeping it, as he did, from infecting his prose, and destroying that simplicity which is the principal beauty in the style of an historian. His narrative is smooth and clear, and carries everywhere an air of good sense and just eloquence, and his English is much more modern than Milton's, though he lived before him.' It is, however, chiefly through his minor pieces and sonnets that Daniel preserves his literary reputation; and from these therefore we shall take our extracts. His Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland, from which the following passage is selected, is a fine effusion of meditative thought :— TO THE COUNTESS OF CUMBERLAND. He that of such a height hath built his mind, His settled peace, or to disturb the same: And with how free an eye doth he look down Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars, Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill. To this passage we shall add the following very beautiful Sonnet on Sleep-a most fruitful subject with the sonnet writers of that period. Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, MICHAEL DRAYTON, a poet of very different genius from Daniel, was born at Harshall in the parish of Atherston, Warwickshire, in 1563. His family, though poor, was very ancient, and originally belonged to the town of Drayton in Leicestershire, the place whence his ancestors derived their name. His genius so early developed itself that when only ten years of age, he became page to some person of quality—a situation which was not, in that age, thought too humble for the sons of gentlemen. He entered the university of Oxford, but for some reason did not remain there long enough to take a degree. Immediately after he left the university, he entered into the service of the Countess of Bedford, with whom he remained for a number of years, and by whom he was very highly esteemed. In 1593, Drayton appeared before the public as an author, in the publication of a collection of his pastorals; and in the course of the few following years he gave to the world his more elaborate poems, The Baron's Wars, and England's Heroical Epistles. In the latter productions we see the first symptoms of that taste for poetized history, as it may be called, which marked the age—which is first seen in Sackville's design of 'The Mirror for Magistrates,' and was now developing itself strongly in the historical plays of Marlow, Shakspeare, and others. On the accession of James the First in 1603, Drayton acted as squire to Sir Walter Aston, in the ceremony of his installation as a Knight of the Bath. The poet now expected some patronage from the new sovereign, but being disappointed, he again courted the muses, and in 1612, published the first part of his most elaborate work, the Polyolbion, the second part of which appeared in 1622. This great performance forms a poetical description of England in thirty books, and is, both in its subject, and in the manner of its execution, entirely unlike any other work in English poetry. It is full of topographical and antiquarian details, with innumerable allusions to remarkable events and persons, as connected with various localities; yet such is the poetical genius of the author, so happily does he idealize almost every thing upon which he touches, and so lively is the flow of his verse, that we do not readily tire in perusing this vast map of intelligence. The information which the 'Polyolbion' imparts, is in general so accurate that it is frequently quoted as authority. In 1627 Drayton published a volume containing The Battle of Agincourt, The Court of Faerie, and other poems; and three years after appeared his last volume, entitled The Muse's Elysium, from which it appears that he had found a final shelter in the family of the Earl of Dorset. On his death, which occurred in 1631, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument, containing an inscription in letters of gold, was raised to his memory by the wife of that nobleman, the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke. Drayton, throughout the whole of his writings, voluminous as they are, shows the fancy and feeling of the true poet. 'He possessed a very considerable fertility of mind, which enabled him to distinguish himself in almost every spe |