to be replaced by lovelier poems, in the edition of 1606.  The song to Beta was printed in Englands Helicon, 1600; here, for the first time, appeared the song of Dead Love, and for the only time, Rowlands Madrigal.  In these songs, Drayton offends least in grammar, always a weak point with him; in the body of the Eclogues, in the earlier Sonnets, in the Odes, occur the most extraordinary and perplexing inversions.  Quite the most striking feature of the Eclogues, especially in their later form, is their bold attempt at greater realism, at a breaking-away from the conventional images and scenery.

Having paid his tribute to one poetic fashion, Drayton in 1594 fell in with the prevailing craze for sonneteering, and published Ideas Mirrour, a series of fifty-one ‘amours’ or sonnets, with two prefatory poems, one by Drayton and one by an unknown, signing himself Gorbo il fidele.  The title of these poems Drayton possibly borrowed from the French sonneteer, de Pontoux:  in their style much recollection of Sidney, Constable, and Daniel is traceable.  They are ostensibly addressed to his mistress, and some of them are genuine in feeling; but many are merely imitative exercises in conceit; some, apparently, trials in metre.  These amours were again printed, with the title of ‘sonnets’, in 1599[10], 1600, 1602, 1603, 1605, 1608, 1610, 1613, 1619, and 1631, during the poet’s lifetime.  It is needless here to discuss whether Drayton were the ‘rival poet’ to Shakespeare, whether these sonnets were really addressed to a man, or merely to the ideal Platonic beauty; for those who are interested in these points, I subjoin references to the sonnets which touch upon them.[11] From the prentice-work evident in many of the Amours, it would seem that certain of them are among Drayton’s earliest poems; but others show a craftsman not meanly advanced in his art.  Nevertheless, with few exceptions, this first ‘bundle of sonnets’ consists rather of trials of skill, bubbles of the mind; most of his sonnets which strike the reader as touched or penetrated with genuine passion belong to the editions from 1599 onwards; implying that his love for Anne Goodere, if at all represented 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