aces of
affection and the offices of noble friendship, he was so excellent and
exemplary that he won and kept the undying regard of the most able men
of the most brilliant period of English literature--men who felt a
personal and unrequitable loss when he passed away, and who spoke of
him always with admiring tenderness.

In person he seems to have been small and dark. He describes himself
as of "swart and melancholy face." Yet his talk was most delightful,
and a strong proof of his wide popularity appears in the fact that he
is quoted not less than one hundred and fifty times in 'England's
Parnassus,' published as early as 1600. The tributes of his friends
are innumerable, from the "good Rowland" of Barnfield to the
"golden-mouthed Drayton, musicall," of Fitz-Geoffrey, the "man of
vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-preserved
carriage" of Meres, or the tender lines of his friend Ben Jonson:--

"Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
What they and what their children owe
To Drayton's name; whose sacred dust
We recommend unto thy trust.
Protect his memory, and preserve his story,
Remain a lasting monument of his glory.
And when thy ruins shall disclaim
To be the treasurer of his name,
His name, that cannot die, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee."

SONNET

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,--
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so clearly I myself can free:
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath.
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,--
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover!

THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT

Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marched towards Agincourt
In happy hour--
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopped his way,
Where the French gen'ral lay