DRAYTON'S COMPLETE WORKS.*

"Dsarrow ! " exclaims Goldsmith's Chinese philosopher, in the Citizen of the World—when he has been shown a monument in " Poets' Corner," adjoining those of Shakespeare, Milton, and Prior--" I never heard of him before ; but I have been told of one Pope, is he there ? " From this passage Mr. Hooper has taken occasion to speak querulously of a mighty reputation which has been eclipsed, like so many others, but cannot be permanently extinguished, by the narrow tastes and too presumptuous wit and ele- gance of our eighteenth-century writers; he cites recent and ancient encomiums of Drayton which appear to us somewhat wanting in discrimination, and admits that the author has become almost in- accessible through the long neglect of the general reader. The eighteenth century paid him the tribute of only one "pretended complete edition," which has since been embodied in the expen- sive collections of British poets bearing the names of Anderson • The Complete Works of Michael Drayton. Now first collected, with Introduction sad Notes, by the Rev. Richard Hooper, M.A. Vole. I., IL III. (" Polyolbion" and "Harmonie of the Church.") London: .1. R. Smith. 1876.

and Chalmers. To all appearance, the principal omission alluded to was that of the " Harmonic of the Church," a string of simple Scriptural paraphrases, which Mr. Hooper, honouring in it the first-fruits of the poet's genius, has already reprinted next after the "Polyolbion." This " Harmonie," printed in 1591, had the ill-luck to be suppressed by the authorities which then castigated our literature, perhaps from the effect of no other prejudice than one to which the plainness of its diction appeared too irreverend, as, indeed, Drayton's muse is seldom restrained by a fine sense of what is awkward and casually ridiculous. A few copies were re- tained by Archbishop Wbitgift, as appears by the register at Stationers' Hall. One of these found its way to the King's Library, and was reprinted for the Percy Society and the Roxburgh Club. No attempt had been made by Drayton himself to revive this work ; the list of his subsequent productions, eclogues, heroical epistles, " Barons' Wars," " Noah's Flood," &c., reminds us of the versatility of Ovid's pen. That charming Latin poet stooped in an unhappy period of his life to the demi-poetic theme of the " Fasti," which can only be specially liked by antiquarians, though it has been embellished as well as possible with the graces of verse and fanciful reflection. In like manner, the plan of the "Polyolbion," or chorographical description of Great Britain, in- vites us to a rich display of useful and polite information, in which much skill and " joli talent" may be exercised, but where we cannot expect to find the enthusiasm, absorption, or artistic in- tegrity of a fine poem. The work is too valuable to be lost, but we can only anticipate rare revivals of the vogue it once enjoyed in a period of expansive and unmethodic culture.

The economical editor of the "Polyolbion" must resign himself to a disagreeable necessity in omitting those curious maps of our counties or provinces which were inserted in the earliest editions.

The embellishments they presented to the eye were as quaint as old china, and not perfectly decorous, but essentially as innocent as the poem itself, and extremely well adapted to convey a general idea of its plan and conduct. To supply this defect, the reader need only trace distinctly the rivers of England and Wales, with their smallest tributaries, their estuaries, and the adjacent islands, and draw in each a nymph bathing, or a child where the water is extremely shallow ; and on the mountains, where there are any, shepherds in tall bats who are contemplating the prospect. He may then study the mutual approaches and retreatings of the streams, their unions with the main sea, and their apparent family re- lations ; he may imagine simple tales of love, strife, or friendship, to symbolise these curious phenomena ; and he will understand what it is to write a poetical " chorography," just as from a diagram of the Linnean system we may guess what sort of stuff the "Loves of the Plants" is made of. He may readily fancy the insertion of scraps of history, and especially of legends such as those of King Arthur and the Trojan Brutus; he will also find room for some serious dissertations (as, for example, on the decay of our forests) when he reaches the more civilised parts of the realm ; and he should here begin to, attire his nymphs with more decency, and let them carry in their hands some handsome models of cities and churches, like those saints in the old calendars who distinguished themselves by works of permanent utility. Sea-gods, maidens hunting the wild deer, dolphins sustaining one or two riders, &c., may be introduced in appropriate localities. The critical reader of this poetical lore who is anxious to separate history from fiction will be assisted, at least in eighteen songs out of the thirty, by the annotations of the learned Seldon, who, though destitute of the lights of the present age, was in many points almost too sceptical to keep company with the poet he professed to serve. The poem comprises some sixteen thousand lines, all regular alexandrines after the French fashion. The style is simple, though the inversions are at first puzzling. A regular summary of the contents seems needless, but we will proceed to glean from it a few extracts which appear characteristic or otherwise interesting.

The gloominess of the seasons through which we have just passed would make it painful to quote the opening lines of the "Polyolbion ;" they protest too much in favour of all the wonders, and especially the climate, of " Albion's glorious isle," and of " the summers not too short, the winters not too long." The Muse who has been invoked for such a vaunted theme turns for instruction

to the genius loci, and judiciously begs of him :— "Direct my course so right, as with thy hands to show

Which way thy forests range, which way thy rivers flow, Wise Genius, by thy help that so I may descry How thy fair mountains stand, and how thy valleys lie, From those clear, pearly cleaves which see the morning's pride, And check the surly imps of Neptune when they chide, Unto the big swoll'n waves in the Iberian stream Where Titan still unyokes his fiery-hoofed team, And oft his flaming locks in luscious nectar steeps, When from Olympus' top he plungeth in the deeps.

Till through the sleepy main to Thnly I have gone, And seen the frozen isles, the cold Deucalydon, Amongst whose iron rocks grim Saturn yet remains, Bound in those gloomy caves with adamantine chains."

These last lines announce a plan which the author never com- pleted, for his ej►orography of Great Britain does not regularly overpass the limits of England and Wales. Nevertheless, his Muse enters King James's dominions deliberately by way of the Channel Islands, but one of the sites which she first and most tastefully commemorates is St. Michael's Mount :—

" Before thou further pass, and leave this setting shore,

Whose towns unto the saints that lived here of yore (Their fasting, works, and prayers remaining to our shame ) Were rased, and justly call'd by their peculiar names, The builders honour still ; this due and let them have, As deign to drop a tear upon each holy grave ; Whose charity and zeal instead of knowledge stood ; For surely in themselves they were right simply good.

If credulous too much, thereby they offended Heaven, In their devout intents yet be their sins forgiven.'

Then from his ragged top the tears down trickling fell, And in his passion stirred, again began to tell Strange things that in his days Time's course had brought to pass : That forty miles to sea sometime firm foreland was, And that a forest then which now with him is flood, Whereof he first was called the Hoar Rook in the Wood."

We are now led over Cornwall and the adjoining counties, with some references to the death and birth of Arthur, to the fleets anchored in Plymouth Harbour (and fraught with Spanish spoils), and lastly, to the Trojan legend, which is ehaunted at a kind of Eisteddfod of the local deities. This, however, is a dry narrative ; but there is some humour in the introduction of the romantic ex- ploits of Sir Bevis, of Southampton, which are made the theme of a very wilful and loquacious Naiad, who persists in talking when all her companions are urging her to be quiet, to let them listen to wiser words. In songs 4-10 the poet plunges into Wales, and the achievements of the Britons, historic and prehistoric. As for his descriptions of the country, we can only guess from them that mountains were not very attractive in those days to the human eye, though some delectable objects might be seen from them. Indeed, a saucy nymph tells us—and her theory, according to the annotator, was derived from a grave theologian—that mountains are essentially the " off-scouring of all things," mere heaps of wrecks and refuse :- " To make you know yourselves, you this must understand, That our great Maker laid the surface of the land As level as the lake until the general flood,

When over all so long the troubled waters stood, Which, hurried with the blasts from angry beav'n that blew, Upon huge, massy heaps the loosened gravel threw. From hence we would ye knew, your first beginning came, Which since in tract of time, yourselves did mountains name, So that the earth by yon, to check her mirthful cheer, May always see from heav'n those plagues that poured were Upon the former world."

On the other hand, the spectacle of a fat valley, adorned with cornfields, gardens, pastures, and habitations of people who are thriving, has, for Drayton's fancy, as many charms as the person of the Shunrunmite (and we say this that we may dispense with proving it). Perhaps the modern tourist will now suspect that he was no poet at all, but a hardy and ingenious Philistine. He has, however, his own way of studying and admiring nature, and can sometimes display it with grace and fervour. We may see it if we return to England with him, and follow the hunted stag, or listen to the birds in the greenwood, or if even we take a walk, in a more unpretending guise, with the " hermit of Chester," who is thus described to us :—

"His happy time he spends the works of God to see

In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow, Whose sundry strange effects he only seeks to know, And in a little maund, being made of osiers small, Which serveth him to do full many a thing withal, He very choicely sorts his simples got abroad.

Hero finds he on an oak rheum-purging polypode, And in some open place that to the sun doth lie He fumitory gets, and eye-bright for the eye ; The healing tutsan then, and plantain for a sore ; The yarrowe, wherewithal he stops the wound-made gore ; And hard by these, again, he holy vervain finds, Which he about his head that bath the megrim binds."

But we have a long catalogue before us of herbs to be used out- wardly and inwardly, and we must hasten to the most universal and excellent specifics :—

" And for the labouring wretch that's troubled with a cough, Or stopping of the breath by phlegm that's hard and tough, Campeau here he crops, approved wondrous good,

As comfrey unto him that's braised, spitting blood ; And from the falling-ill by five-leaf cloth restore, And melancholy cures by sovereign hellebore."

How grand, and yet how plausible, is this conclusion ! Here is surely a Flora worth travelling for over huge tracts, even of ear- pestering railway. " Cestrensem helleborum est operre cognoscere, elves !" We could quote with equal pleasure Drayton's catalogue of the fruits of Kent, also that of the wild flowers with which he adorns a bridal chamber. But we will rather, that we may not seem to have too much disparaged his warlike stories, recommend his narrative of a great single 'combat in the time of Athelstan, •whose warriors appear to have been challenged by a formidable Dane, as when those about the two Atricke were defied by Hector. The King is then warned in a dream that he must select his champion from a company of pious palmers ; and an aged man, who has long renounced the pursuit of worldly reputa- tion, is thus moved, in a humble spirit and in obedience to the divine intimation, to enter the lista, and draw out of his staff a huge sword whose name is remembered with emotion. This champion was Guy of Warwick, and his opponent, " Colbrond the giant, that same mighty man ;" the passage of arms is embellished with many comparisons that are Homeric enough, at least in outline.

The last twelve songs of the " Polyolbion" are introduced with commendatory verses by Wither, which remind us forcibly that the claims of the poem to our notice are founded not less on its utility than its agreeableness. The author had at least some right to complain that the " nobility and gentry of this land " were not deeply interested in the information he had accumulated for them. But of the measure of success which Drayton attained in culti- vating poetry purely as a fine art we must speak in connection with his minor poems, if the task of re-editing them should be happily completed by Mr. Hooper.