It was Drayton who said of
Marlowe, that he "had in him those brave translunary things that the
first poets had;" and there are brave things in Drayton, but they are
only occasional passages, oases among dreary wastes of sand. His
_Agincourt_ is a spirited war-song, and his _Nymphidia; or, Court of
Faery_, is not unworthy of comparison with Drake's _Culprit Fay_, and is
interesting as bringing in Oberon and Robin Goodfellow, and the popular
fairy lore of Shakspere's _Midsummer Night's Dream_.
The "well-languaged Daniel," of whom Ben Jonson said that he was "a good
honest man, but no poet," wrote, however, one fine meditative piece, his
_Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland,_ a sermon apparently on the text
of the Roman poet Lucretius's famous passage in praise of philosophy,
Suave, mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem.
But the Elizabethan genius found its fullest and truest expression in
the drama. It is a common phenomenon in the history of literature that
some old literary form or mold will run along for centuries without
having any thing poured into it worth keeping, until the moment comes
when the genius of the time seizes it and makes it the vehicle of
immortal thought and passion.
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