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 c 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 cies of poetry, from a trifling sonnet to a long topographical poem. If he anywhere sinks below himself, it is in his attempts at satire. In a most pedantic era, he was unaffected, and seldom exhibits his learning at the expense of his judgment.' Our limited space will allow us room for two brief extracts only from the writings of this truly interesting poet; and both those we shall select from the 'Polyolbion.' The first is a description of Morning in Warwickshire, and the other, a description of the River Trent. MORNING IN WARWICKSHIRE. When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave, Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole, In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply, As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw; And, but that nature (by her all-constraining law) Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite, They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night, (The more to use their ears,) their voices sure would spare, As man to set in parts at first had learn'd of her. And by that warbling bird, the wood-lark place we then, And of these chanting fowls, the goldfinch not behind, That hath so many sorts descending from her kind. The tydy for her notes as delicate as they, The laughing hecco, then the counterfeiting jay. The softer with the shrill (some hid among the leaves, 1 Headley. 2 Of all birds only the blackbird whistleth. M Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun, THE RIVER TRENT. But, Muse, return at last, attend the princely Trent, Or thirty kinds of fish that in my streams do live, And for the second place, proud Severn that doth strive, As of that princely maid, whose name she boasts to bear, And on her spacious breast (with heaths that doth abound) And of the British floods, though but the third I be, For that I am the mere of England, that divides EDWARD FAIRFAX, the celebrated translator of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, lived at the period before us, though of the history of his life we have very little knowledge. He was the natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, but neither the date of his birth, nor that of his death, has been preserved. That he flourished during the age of Elizabeth is entirely evident, for his great literary performance is dedicated to that princess; and it also appears that he was living in 1631; but nothing farther of him is certainly known, only that he spent his life at Fuystone, in the forest of Knaresborough, in the enjoyment of many blessings which rarely fall to the poetical race --competence, ease, rural scenes, and in ample command of the means of study. The poetical beauty and freedom of Fairfax's version of Tasso has been the theme of almost universal praise. Dryden ranked him with Spenser as a master of the English language, and Waller declared that he derived from him the harmony of his numbers. Collins too has finely alluded to his poetical and imaginative genius in the following lines: Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung. Besides the translation of the 'Jerusalem Delivered, Fairfax' wrote some minor poems, and also a work on Demonology, in the preface to which he remarks that in religion I am neither a fanatic Puritan, nor superstitious Papist; but so settled in conscience, that I have the sure ground of God's word to warrant all I believe, and the commendable ordinances of our English church to approve all I practice: in which course I live a faithful Christian, and an obedient subject, and so teach my family.' As Fairfax's original poems are comparatively little known, we shall pass them over, and take the following passage from the eighteenth book of the 'Jerusalem,' commencing with the twelfth stanza :— RINALDI AT MOUNT OLIVET AND THE ENCHANTED WOOD. XII. It was the time, when 'gainst the breaking day, |