effeminate disguises of the Men, in those times.  Elegies upon several occasions.  These are introduced by the vision of Ben Johnson on the Muse of his friend Michael Drayton, wherein he very particularly enumerates and praises his several compositions.  In 1630 he published another volume of poems in 4to, intitled the Muses Elizium, in ten sundry Nymphals, with three different poems on Noah’s flood; Moses his birth and miracles, and David and Goliath.  The pastoral poems are addressed to Edward Sackville Earl of Dorset, and Lord Chamberlain, who had now made him one of his family.  His divine poems are written in verse and various measures, and are dedicated to the Countess of Dorset; and there are some sublime images in them.  At the end of the first divine poem, there are copies of verses in praise of the author, by Bcal Sapperton, in Latin; Mr. John Fletcher, and Thomas Andrews in English; the last of whom is very lavish in displaying the great extent of our poet’s fame.

In 1631 Mr. Drayton died, or as it is expressed in his monumental inscription, exchanged his laurel for a crown of glory.  He was buried among the poets in Westminster-Abbey, and the handsome table monument of blue marble which was raised over his grave the same year, is adorned with his effigies in busto, laureated.  On one side is a crest of Minerva’s cap, and Pegasus in a scutcheon on the other.  Sir Aston Cokain composed an elegy upon him:  and Ben Johnson is said to have been the author of his epitaph, which is written in letters of gold upon his monument, with which I shall here present the reader.

  Epitaph.

  Do pious marble let thy readers know
  What they, and what their children owe
  To Drayton’s name, whose sacred dust
  We recommend unto thy trust: 
  Protect his memory, and preserve his story,
  Remain a lasting monument of his glory;
  And when thy ruins shall disclaim,
  To be the treasure of his name;
  His name, that cannot fade shall be,
  An everlasting monument to thee.

Mr. Drayton enjoyed the friendship and admiration of contemporary wits, and Ben Johnson who was not much disposed to praise, entertained a high opinion of him, and in this epitaph has both immortalized himself and his friend.  It is easy for those who are conversant with our author’s works to see how much the moderns and even Mr. Pope himself copy Mr. Drayton, and refine upon him in those distinctions which are esteemed the most delicate improvements of our English versification, such as the turns, the pauses, the elegant tautologies, &c.  It is not difficult to point out some depredations which have been made on our author by modern writers, however obsolete some of them may have reckoned him.  In one of his heroical epistles, that of King John to Matilda, he has the following lines.

  Th’ Arabian bird which never is but one,
  Is only chast because she is alone,
  But had our mother nature made them two,
  They would have done, as Doves and Sparrows do.