_And ~Drayton~, whose wel-written Tragedies_ _And sweet Epistles, soare thy fame to skies._ _Thy learned Name, is æquall with the rest;_ _Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest._ _And ~Shakespeare~ thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine,_ _(Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine._ _Whose ~Venus~, and whose ~Lucrece~ (sweete and chaste)_ _Thy Name in fames immortall Booke hath plac’t._ _Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer:_ _Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer._ The praise of MASSINGER will not seem overstrained; although he never affects us with the sense of supreme genius, as does Marlowe. The recognition of GEORGE CHAPMAN’S grandeur, and the power with which this recognition is expressed, show how tame is the influence of Massinger in comparison. There need be little question that it was to Dekker’s mind and pen we owe the nobler portion of the Virgin Martyr. Massinger, when alongside of Marlow, Webster, and Dekker, is like Euripides contrasted with Æschylus and Sophocles. We think of him as a Playwright, and successful; but these others were Poets of Apollo’s own body-guard. Drayton sings: _Next MARLOW, bathed in the ~Thespian~ springs,_ _Had in him those brave translunary things_ _That the first poets had, his raptures were_ _All air and fire, which made his verses clear;_ _For that fine madness still he did retain,_ _Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain._ ROBERT DABORNE is chiefly interesting to us from his connection in misfortunes and dramatic labours with Massinger and Nat Field; and as joining them in the supplication for advance of money from Philip Henslow, while they lay in prison. The reference to Daborne’s clerical, as well as to his dramatic vocation, and to his having died (in Ireland, we believe, leaving behind him sermons,) “Amphibion by the Ministry,” confirms the general belief. JO: SYLVESTER’S translation of Du Bartas, 1621; THOMAS MAY’S of Lucan’s Pharsalia, GEORGE SANDYS’ of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, need little comment here; some being referred to, near the end of our volume. DUDLEY DIGGES (1612-43), born at Chilham Castle, near Canterbury (now the seat of Charles S. Hardy, Esq.); son of Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls, wrote a reverent Elegy for _Jonsonus Virbius_, 1638. L[eonard] Digges had, fifteen years earlier, written the memorial lines beginning “Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give || The World thy Workes:” which appear at beginning of the first folio _Shakespeare_, 1623. To SAMUEL DANIEL’S high merits we have only lately awakened: his “Complaint of Rosamond” has a sustained dignity and pathos that deserve all Barnfield’s praise; the “Sonnets to Delia” are graceful and impressive in their purity; his “Civil Wars” may seem heavy, but the fault lies in ourselves, if unsteady readers, not the poet: thus we suspect, when we remember the true poetic fervour of his Pastoral, _O happy Golden Age!_