SOURCE: "An English Epic by Alfred Noyes," in The New York Times Book Review, February 19, 1910, p. 92.

In the following review, Le Gallienne classifies Drake as an anachronism, but not quite an epic

There is no denying that at first sight Mr. Alfred Noyes's epic has the look of a fearsomely ponderous performance. The very make of the book, handsomely made as it is, with its reproductions of old portraits and old prints, suggests rather a weighty historical treatise than a poem. The words "Books I., xii.," on the title page, also, and the serried lines of 343 pages of blank verse tend to deepen one's misgivings—though here and there the eye catches with a ray of hope the italicised lyrics set like sprays of blossom in the solid unrelenting text.

It is true that we have on the cover quotations of praise from Mr. Kipling and Mr. Swinburne...