iculty in a manner more in accordance with epic
precedent by representing Henry's action as the effect of a divine
vision. Edward the Third or the Black Prince would have risen from the
grave to urge him to renew and complete their interrupted and now almost
undone work; or the ghosts of chiefs untimely slain would have
reproached him with their abandoned conquests and neglected graves.
Drayton has merely taken the story as he found it, without a thought of
submitting its dross to the alchemy of the re-creative imagination of
the poet. The same lack of selection is observable in his description of
the battle itself. He minutely describes a series of episodes, in
themselves often highly picturesque, but we are no better able to view
the conflict as a whole than if we ourselves had fought in the ranks. As
in painting, so in poetry, a true impression is not to be conveyed by
microscopic accuracy in minutiae, but by a vigorous grasp of the entire
subject.

Notwithstanding these defects, which one might have thought would have
been avoided even by a poet endowed with less of the bright and
sprightly invention which Drayton manifests in so many of his pieces,
"The Battaile of Agincourt" is a fine poem, and well deserving the
honour of reprint. It is above all things patriotic, pervaded throughout
by a manly and honourable preference for England and all things English,
yet devoid of bitterness towards the enemy, whose valour is frankly
acknowledged, and whose overweening pride, the cause of their disasters,
is never made the object of ill-natured sarcasm. It may almost be said
that if Drayton had been in some respects a worse man, he might on this
occasion have been a better poet. He is so sedulously regardful of the
truth of history, or what he takes to be such, that he neglects the
poet's prerogative of making history, and rises and falls with his model
like a moored vessel pitching in a flowing tide. When his historical
authority inspires, Drayton is inspired accordingly; when it is
dignified, so is he; with it he soars and sings, with it he also sinks
and creeps. Happily the subject is usually picturesque, and old
Holinshed at his worst was no contemptible writer. Drayton's heart too
was in his work, as he had proved long before by the noble ballad on
King Harry reprinted in this volume. If he has not shown himself an
artist in the selection and arrangement of his topics, he deserves the
name from another point of view by