find some mention made of him, as being in esteem
with the gentlemen of the army. He early addicted
himself to the amusement of poetry, but all who have
written of him, have been negligent in informing us
how soon he favoured the public with any production
of his own. He was distinguished as a poet about
nine or ten years before the death of Queen Elizabeth,
but at what time he began to publish cannot be ascertained.
In the year 1593, when he was but 30 years of age,
he published a collection of his Pastorals; likewise
some of the most grave poems, and such as have transmitted
his name to posterity with honour, not long after saw
the light. His Baron’s wars, and England’s
heroical Epistles; his Downfals of Robert of Normandy;
Matilda and Gaveston, for which last he is called
by one of his contemporaries, Tragdiographus, and part
of his Polyolbion were written before the year 1598,
for all which joined with his personal good character;
he was highly celebrated at that time, not only for
the elegance and sweetness of his expressions, but
his actions and manners, which were uniformly virtuous
and honourable; he was thus characterised not only
by the poet; and florid writers of those days, but
also by divines, historians, and other Scholars of
the most serious turn and extensive learning.
In his younger years he was much beloved and patronized
by Sir Walter Aston of Tixhall in Staffordshire, to
whom for his kind protection, he gratefully dedicates
many of his poems, whereof his Barons Wars was the
first, in the spring of his acquaintance, as Drayton
himself expresses it; but however, it may be gathered
from his works, that his most early dependance was
upon another patron, namely, Sir Henry Goodere of
Polesworth, in his own county, to whom he has been
grateful for a great part of his education, and by
whom he was recommended to the patronage of the countess
of Bedford: it is no less plain from many of
his dedications to Sir Walter Ashton, that he was for
many years supported by him, and accommodated with
such supplies as afforded him leisure to finish some
of his most elaborate compositions; and the author
of the Biographia Britannica has told us, ’that
it has been alledged, that he was by the interest
of the same gentleman with Sir Roger Ashton, one of
the Bedchamber to King James in his minority, made
in some measure ministerial to an intercourse of correspondence
between the young King of of Scots and Queen Elizabeth:’
but as no authority is produced to prove this, it
is probably without foundation, as poets have seldom
inclination, activity or steadiness to manage any
state affairs, particularly a point of so delicate
a nature.
Our author certainly had fair prospects, from his services, or other testimonies of early attachment to the King’s interest, of some preferment, besides he had written Sonnets, in praise of the King as a poet. Thus we see Drayton descending to servile flattery to promote his interest, and praising a man as a poet contrary to his own judgment, because he was a King who was as devoid of poetry as courage.