to
which, considering that Shakespeare and Milton belonged undeniably to
Class 2, I refuse to assent. The question, however, is not to be
argued here. I have only to point out in this place that the early
work of all poets in Class 2 is largely imitative. Virgil was
imitative, Keats was imitative--to name but a couple of sufficiently
striking examples. And Daniel, who belongs to this class, was also
imitative. But for a poet of this class to reach the heights of song,
there must come a time when out of imitation he forms a genuine style
of his own, _and loses no mental fertility in the transformation_.
This, if I may use the metaphor, is the _mauvais pas_ in the ascent of
Parnassus: and here Daniel broke down. He did indeed acquire a style
of his own; but the effort exhausted him. He was no longer prolific;
his ardor had gone: and his innate self-distrustfulness made him quick
to recognize his sterility.

Soon after the accession of James I., Daniel, at the recommendation
of his brother-in-law, John Florio, possibly furthered by the interest
of the Earl of Pembroke, was given a post as gentleman extraordinary
and groom of the privy chamber to Anne of Denmark; and a few months
after was appointed to take the oversight of the plays and shows that
were performed by the children of the Queen's revels, or children of
the Chapel, as they were called under Elizabeth. He had thus a snug
position at Court, and might have been happy, had it been another
Court. But in nothing was the accession of James more apparent than in
the almost instantaneous blasting of the taste, manners, and serious
grace that had marked the Court of Elizabeth. The Court of James was a
Court of bad taste, bad manners, and no grace whatever: and
Daniel--"the remnant of another time," as he calls himself--looked
wistfully back upon the days of Elizabeth.

"But whereas he came planted in the spring,
And had the sun before him of respect;
We, set in th' autumn, in the withering
And sullen season of a cold defect,
Must taste those sour distastes the times do bring
Upon the fulness of a cloy'd neglect.
Although the stronger constitutions shall
Wear out th' infection of distemper'd days ..."

And so he stood dejected, while the young men of "stronger
constitutions" passed him by.

In this way it happened that Daniel, whom at the outset his
contemporaries had praised with wide consent, and who never wrote a
loose or