Daniel

Daniel, SAMUEL, poet, was the son of a music-master, and was born in 1562 near Taunton, Somersetshire. He entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1579, but 'his glory being more prone to easier and smoother studies than in pecking and hewing at logic,' quitted the university without taking a degree. He was some time tutor at Wilton to William Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Philip Sidney's sister; afterwards at Skipton to Anne Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland. In 1603 he was appointed to read new plays, and twelve years later he had for some time charge of a company of young players at Bristol. In 1607 he became one of the queen's groomers of the privy chamber. Towards the close of his life he retired to a farm which he possessed at Beckington, in his native county, where he died in October 1619. Daniel was highly praised by his contemporaries, as Lodge, Carew, Drummond of Hawthornden, although Ben Jonson described him as 'a good honest man . . . but no poet,' and Drayton quotes the opinion of some wise men that he was 'too much historian in verse,' besides saying for himself that 'his manner better fitted prose.' Of modern critics, Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt unite in praising him. As a sonneteer Daniel is altogether admirable. Some of the 'Delia' series rank near the best examples of this form in English. Daniel is indeed an elegant if not a great poet. His writings are pervaded by a moral thoughtfulness and purity of taste remarkable indeed, but lacking that vital energy of movement and memorableness of expression which spring from genuine inspiration. The 'well-languaged Daniel' is therefore not the most interesting of the Elizabethans, although his style is quite modern. His works include sonnets, epistles, masks, and dramas; but his chief production is a poem in eight books, entitled a History of the Civil Wars between York and Lancaster. His Defence of Ryme (1602) is written in admirable prose. Dr Grosart reprinted Daniel's works in the Huth Library (3 vols. 1885-87).