epresented
in these poems, grew with his years, for the 'love-parting' is first
found in the edition of 1619. But for us the question should not be, are
these sonnets genuine representations of the personal feeling of the
poet? but rather, how far do they arouse or echo in us as individuals
the universal passion? There are at least some of Drayton's sonnets
which possess a direct, instant, and universal appeal, by reason of
their simple force and straightforward ring; and not in virtue of any
subtle charm of sound and rhythm, or overmastering splendour of diction
or thought. Ornament vanishes, and soberness and simplicity increase, as
we proceed in the editions of the sonnets. Drayton's chief attempt in
the jewelled or ornamental style appeared in 1595, with the title of
_Endimion and Phoebe_, and was, in a sense, an imitation of Marlowe's
_Hero and Leander_. _Hero and Leander_ is, as Swinburne says, a shrine
of Parian marble, illumined from within by a clear flame of passion;
while _Endimion and Phoebe_ is rather a curiously wrought tapestry, such
as that in Mortimer's Tower, woven in splendid and harmonious colours,
wherein, however, the figures attain no clearness or subtlety of
outline, and move in semi-conventional scenery. It is, none the less,
graceful and impressive, and of a like musical fluency with other poems
of its class, such as _Venus and Adonis_, or _Salmacis and
Hermaphrodius_. Parts of it were re-set and spoilt in a 1606 publication
of Drayton's, called _The Man in the Moone_.

In 1593 and 1594 Drayton also published his earliest pieces on the
mediaeval theme of the 'Falls of the Illustrious'; they were _Peirs
Gavesson_ and _Matilda the faire and chaste daughter of the Lord Robert
Fitzwater_. Here Drayton followed in the track of Boccaccio, Lydgate,
and the _Mirrour for Magistrates_, walking in the way which Chaucer had
derided in his _Monkes Tale_: and with only too great fidelity does
Drayton adapt himself to the dullnesses of his model: fine rhetoric is
not altogether wanting, and there is, of course, the consciousness that
these subjects deal with the history of his beloved country, but neither
these, nor _Robert, Duke of Normandy_ (1596), nor _Great Cromwell, Earl
of Essex_ (1607 and 1609), nor the _Miseries of Margaret_ (1627) can
escape the charge of tediousness.[12] _England's Heroical Epistles_ were
first published in 1597, and other editions, of 1598, 1599, and 1602,
contain new epistles. The