appears to him, and asks why the past heroes of England are neglected by her poets. For himself, his task is now to show the evil that has been, "and only tell the worst of every reign;" but he does not fail to celebrate the praise of Henry V., after whose short reign followed an infant king. The trouble follows of the reign of Henry VI.—“a right good man, but yet an evil king; unfit for what he had in managing " "Of humble spirit, of nature continent; No thought to increase he had, scarce keep, his own : For pardoning apter than for punishment; He chokes his power, to have his bounty known. Whose holy mind so much addicted is On the world to come, that he neglecteth this." Presently comes into the tale the marriage with Margaret of Anjou. The murder of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the queen's favour to the Earl of Suffolk, his seizure and death by violence at sea, the passion of the queen at this, and the Jack Cade insurrection in Kent, are the other incidents of the Fifth Book. In the Sixth Book, published in 1602—the last that appeared in the reign of Elizabeth-Daniel represents Nemesis calling upon Pandora to give two gifts of knowledge out of her box to the peaceful nations of Europe-one of the art of printing, and the other of the art of making gunpowder-the one to publish, the other to defend, impious contention and proud discontents. Spenser had said of the monster Error in fight with the Red Cross Knight, "Her vomit full of books and papers was; " Daniel now finds a dispersed mischief in the art of printing "Whereby all quarrels, titles, secrecies, May unto all be presently made known; That (with a self-presumption overgrown) They may of deepest mysteries debate, Control their betters, censure acts of state." Here, as throughout, Daniel writes with a clear bias towards authority. The death of Talbot and his son in France is an important incident also in this Book. Two more Books, the seventh and eighth, were first added in 1609 to an edition of Daniel's "Civil Wars" then published. They ended with Edward IV.'s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. Daniel said in the dedication to the Countess of Pembroke that he hoped to continue the work "unto the glorious Union of Henry VII.,” but he never did. Peaceful succession of James I. had taken away the reason for a work begun when dread lest there should be civil war after Elizabeth's death made discourse upon such themes, what every true English poet's work should be, a real part of the life of England. Drayton, like Daniel, in opening his poem, after statement of his theme, has a stanza of invocation that puts aside convention. This was Daniel's “Come, sacred Virtue; I no Muse but thee That may thy glory and my pains commend: This was Drayton's: "O Thou, the wise Director of my Muse, Upon whose bounty all my powers depend, Ravish my spirit this great work to attend : Drayton's poem, first published in Chaucer's stanza as Drayton's "Barons' Wars." "Brave Mortimer, that somewhat more than man, The poet seeks to give to the character of Mortimer an epic dignity. The tale of war being throughout associated with Mortimer's fortunes, that include a single theme of love in Mortimer's relations with Queen Isabella, Drayton's poem excels Daniel's in artistic unity. Drayton has one man at the centre of the tale from first to last. In Daniel's poem, though there is one struggle, it is continued through successive generations. It is heroic without a hero, for it is not based on the story of one man, unless he be Richard II., from whose want of heroism the succeeding evils had their rise. Daniel sings Arms; Drayton sings Arms and the Man. "The Barons' Wars." "The bloody factions and rebellious pride Of a strong nation, whose ill-managed might With whom wrong was no wrong, right was no right, What Care planted, Dissension strove to crop. The Church took the sword, instead of opposing to bloodthirsty war the Word of God. After a glance over the preceding course of events, when Gaveston was Edward II.'s minion, Drayton swiftly comes to the beginning of his action in the hatred of the Barons for the new favourites, the Spensers, a hatred shared by the Queen Isabella. Among those with whom she now took counsel was young Roger Mortimer, a baron from the Welsh Marches, who became her intimate companion. "This was the man, at whose unusual birth And in aspects of happiness and mirth Marked him a spirit to greatness to aspire, That had no mixture of the drossy earth, But all compact of perfect heavenly fire; Barons complain of the dishonour to the State; the queen grieves for her husband's alienation from her. Then Mortimer appears. She temporises with the factious Barons, while still, in the English counties and among the Welsh, men muster for battle. "Yet while they play this strange and doubtful game Drayton's First Canto closes with success of Edward II. against the Welsh Marchers and his sending the Mortimers to the Tower. The Second Canto tells, in heroic strain mixed with lament for vigour misapplied, of Edward's forcing the passage of the river at Burton-onTrent. Then follows the king's victory at Boroughbridge and the execution of the Earl of Lancaster. The Third Canto tells of Mortimer's escape out of the Tower by contrivance of Queen Isabella, who mixed sleepy potions for his keepers. Keeping still to the spirit of heroic poetry, the queen is likened to Medea in her cell, and the recipe for her sleeping draught is a prescription in It was a potion a stanza. "In which she plantain and cold lettuce had, With cypress flowers that with the rest were pound; The brain of cranes among the rest she takes, Mixed with the blood of dormice and of snakes." Mortimer's escape from the Tower is told in poetical detail throughout, admirably blended with Isabella's love and care for him. "She sighed and prayed, and sighed again and wept, Our soul much farther than our eyes can see." A little later in this canto comes the stanza, describing Mortimer, that recalls Antony's praise of Brutus at the close of Shakespeare's “Julius Cæsar.” * The stanza was not in the first edition of 1596, but in 1603 it stood thus: "Such one he was, of him we boldly say, In whose rich soul all sovereign powers did suit, In whom in peace the elements all lay So mixed, as none could sovereignty impute; As all did govern, yet did all obey : His lively temper was so absolute, That 't seemed, when heaven his model first began, So the stanza stood in editions of "The Barons' Wars" published in 1605, 1607, 1608, 1610, and 1613; but in 1619, after Shakespeare's death, it was brought by revision into still closer resemblance to the passage in "Julius Cæsar." Then it became, as final text: "He was a man, then boldly dare to say, In whose rich soul the virtues well did suit ; He of a temper was so absolute As that it seemed, when Nature him began, In the Fourth Canto of "The Barons' Wars," says the Argument, "The Queen in Hainault mighty friends doth win, King Edward of his safety is deprived, Flieth to Wales, at Neath receivéd in, Whilst many plots against him are contrived: The Fifth Canto tells of the dethronement of King Edward, his seizure from under the protection of the Earl of Leicester, and his murder in "His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, This was a man!" -Julius Cæsar: Act v., sc. 5. |