[Footnote 4:  Life ubi supra p. 52].

[Footnote 5:  Walton, p. 39, 41.]

[Footnote 6:  Walton ut Supra, p. 46]

* * * * *

MICHAEL DRAYTON

A Renowned poet, who lived in the reigns of Elizabeth, James and Charles I. sprung from an ancient family, originally descended from the town of Drayton in Leicestershire,[1] but his parents removing into Warwickshire, he was born there, as he himself declares in his Poly-olbion, Song 13.  A little village called Harsul in that county claims the honour of his birth, by which accident it is raised from obscurity; he was born in the year 1573, according to the most accurate computation that can be made from the dates of his works.  When he was but very young he gave such discoveries of a rising genius as rendered him a favourite with his tutors, and procured him the patronage of persons of distinction.  In the year 1573, being then but about ten years of age, he was page to some honourable person, as may be collected from his own words:  In some of his epistles to Henry Reynold esquire, it appears that even then he could construe his Cato, and some other little collections of sentences, which made him very anxious to know, what sort of beings the poets were, and very pressing upon his tutor to make him, if possible, a poet.  In consequence of this he was put to the reading of Virgil’s Eclogues, and ’till even then, says one of his Biographers, he scorned any thing that looked like a ballad, though written by Elderton himself.  This Elderton was a famous comedian in those days, and a facetious companion, who having a great readiness at rhiming, composed many catches on Love and Wine, which were then in great vogue among the giddy and volatile part of the town; but he was not more celebrated for drollery than drinking, so that he obtained the name of the bacchanalian buffoon, the red-nosed ballad-maker, &c. and at last by the excessive indulgence of his favourite vice, he fell a martyr to it 1592, and Mr. Camden has preserved this epitaph on him, which for its humour, I shall here give a place.

  Dead drunk, here Elderton does lie;
  Dead as he is, he still is drie. 
  So of him it may well be said,
  Here he, but not his thirst, is laid.

If after this our author did not finish his education at the university of Cambridge, it is evident from the testimony of Sir Alton Cohain, his intimate friend, who mentions him in his Choice Poems of several Sorts, that he was for some time a student at Oxford; however, he is not taken notice of by Wood, who has commemorated the most part of the writers who were educated there.  In 1588 it appears from his poem, entitled Moses his Birth and Miracles, that he was a spectator at Dover of the Spanish invasion, which was arrogantly stiled Invincible, and it is not improbable that he was engaged in some military employment there, especially as we