author's private life or character. Lamb is a staring instance of this
attraction. How we all love Lamb, to be sure! Though he rejected it
and called out upon it, "gentle" remains Lamb's constant epithet. And,
curiously enough, in the gentleness and dignified melancholy of his
life, Daniel stands nearer to Lamb than any other English writer, with
the possible exception of Scott. His circumstances were less gloomily
picturesque. But I defy any feeling man to read the scanty narrative
of Daniel's life and think of him thereafter without sympathy and
respect.


Life.

He was born in 1562--Fuller says in Somersetshire, not far from
Taunton; others say at Beckington, near Philip's Norton, or at
Wilmington in Wiltshire. Anthony Wood tells us that he came "of a
wealthy family;" Fuller that "his father was a master of music." Of
his earlier years next to nothing is known; but in 1579 he was entered
as a commoner at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and left the university three
years afterwards without taking a degree. His first book--a
translation of Paola Giovio's treatise on Emblems--appeared in 1585,
when he was about twenty-two. In 1590 or 1591 he was travelling in
Italy, probably with a pupil, and no doubt busy with those studies
that finally made him the first Italian scholar of his time. In 1592
he published his "Sonnets to Delia," which at once made his
reputation; in 1594 his "Complaint of Rosamond" and "Tragedy of
Cleopatra;" and in 1595 four books of his "Civil Wars." On Spenser's
death, in 1599, Daniel is said to have succeeded to the office of
poet-laureate.