he
epistles to the readers, and so have cousened the buyers with
imperfected books, which those that have undertaken the second part
have been forced to amend in the first, for _the small number that are
yet remaining in their hands_.

"And some of our outlandish, unnatural English (I know not how
otherwise to express them) stick not to say that there is nothing in
this island worth studying for, and take a great pride to be ignorant
in anything thereof. As for these cattle, _odi profanum vulgus, et
arceo_; of which I account them, be they never so great."

Yet, as a true poet, whose impulse, like fate, overturns all
opposition, Drayton is not to be thrown out of his avocation; but
intrepidly closes by promising "they shall not deter me from going on
with Scotland, if means and time do not hinder me to perform as much
as I have promised in my first song." Who could have imagined that
such bitterness of style, and such angry emotions, could have been
raised in the breast of a poet of pastoral elegance and fancy?

Whose bounding muse o'er ev'ry mountain rode,
And every river warbled as it flow'd.
KIRKPATRICK.

It is melancholy to reflect that some of the greatest works in our
language have involved their authors in distress and anxiety: and that
many have gone down to their grave insensible of that glory which soon
covered it.

FOOTNOTES:

[133] A letter found among the papers of the late Mr. Windham, which
Mr. Malone has preserved.

[134] There is an affecting _remonstrance_ of Dryden to Hyde, Earl of
Rochester, on the state of his poverty and neglect--in which
is this remarkable passage:--"It is enough for one age to have
_neglected_ Mr. Cowley and _starved_ Mr. Butler."

[135] The author explains the nature of his book in his title-page
when he calls it "A Chorographicall Description of tracts,
rivers, mountaines, forests, and other parts of this renowned
Isle of Great Britaine, with intermixture of the most
remarquable stories, antiquities, wonders, rarityes,
pleasures, and commodities of the same; digested in a Poem."
The maps with which it is illustrated are curious for the
impersonations of the nymphs of wood and water, the sylvan
gods, and other characters of the poem; to which the learned
Selden supplied notes. Ellis calls it "a wonderful work,