contemporaries, the robust Ben Jonson is to-day a living figure in
most men's conception of those times, while Samuel Daniel is rather a
fleeting ghost. And his self-distrust was even then recognized as well
as his exquisiteness. He is indeed "well-languaged Daniel," "sweet
honey-dropping Daniel," "Rosamund's trumpeter, sweet as the
nightingale," revered and admired by all his compeers. But the note of
apprehension was also sounded, not only by an unknown contributor to
that rare collection of epigrams, _Skialetheia, or the Shadow of
Truth_.

"Daniel (as some hold) might mount, _if he list_;
But others say he is a Lucanist"

--but by no meaner a judge than Spenser himself, who wrote in his
"Colin Clout's Come Home Again":

"And there is a new shepherd late upsprung
The which doth all afore him far surpass:
Appearing well in that well-tunéd song
Which late he sung unto a scornful lass.
_Yet doth his trembling Muse but lowly fly,
As daring not too rashly mount on height_;
And doth her tender plumes as yet but try
In love's soft lays, and looser thoughts delight.
Then rouse thy feathers quickly, DANIEL,
And to what course thou please thyself advance;
But most, meseems, thy accent will excel
In tragic plaints and passionate mischance."

Moreover, there is a significant passage in the famous "Return from