W. BROWNE.

Drayton published his Polyolbion first in eighteen parts; and the
second portion afterwards. In this interval we have a letter to
Drummond, dated in 1619:--

"I thank you, my dear sweet Drummond, for your good opinion of
Polyolbion. I have done twelve books more, that is, from the 18th
book, which was Kent (if you note it), all the east parts and north to
the river of Tweed; _but it lieth by me, for the booksellers and I are
in terms_; they are a company of base knaves, whom I scorn and kick
at."

The vengeance of the poet had been more justly wreaked on the buyers
of books than on the sellers, who, though knavery has a strong
connexion with trade, yet, were they knaves, they would be true to
their own interests. Far from impeding a successful author,
booksellers are apt to hurry his labours; for they prefer the crude to
the mature fruit, whenever the public taste can be appeased even by an
unripened dessert.

These "knaves," however, seem to have succeeded in forcing poor
Drayton to observe an abstinence from the press, which must have
convulsed all the feelings of authorship. The second part was not
published till three years after this letter was written; and then
without maps. Its preface is remarkable enough; it is pathetic, till
Drayton loses the dignity of genius in its asperity. In is inscribed,
in no good humour--

"TO ANY THAT WILL READ IT!

"When I first undertook this poem, or, as some have pleased to term
it, this Herculean labour, I was by some virtuous friends persuaded
that I should receive much comfort and encouragement; and for these
reasons: First, it was a new clear way, never before gone by any; that
it contained all the delicacies, delights, and rarities of this
renowned isle, interwoven with the histories of the Britons, Saxons,
Normans, and the later English. And further, that there is scarcely
any of the nobility or gentry of this land, but that he is some way or
other interested therein.

"But it hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort which
my noble friends proposed as my due, I have met with barbarous
ignorance and base detraction; such a cloud hath the devil drawn over
the world's judgment. Some of the stationers that had the selling of
the first part of this poem, because _it went not so fast away in the
selling_ as some of their beastly and abominable trash (a shame both
to our language and our nation), have despightfully left out t