Parnassus," first acted at Cambridge during the Christmas of 1601:

"Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage
War with the proudest big Italian
That melts his heart in sugar'd sonneting,
_Only let him more sparingly make use
Of others' wit and use his own the more._"


The 'mauvais pas' of Parnassus.

Now it has been often pointed out that considerable writers fall into
two classes--(1) those who begin, having something to say, and are
from the first rather occupied with their matter than with the manner
of expressing it; and (2) those who begin with the love of expression
and intent to be artists in words, _and come through expression to
profound thought_. It is fashionable just now, for some reason or
another, to account Class 1 as the more respectable; a judgment to
which, considering that Shakespeare and Milton belonged undeniably to
Class 2, I refuse to assent. The question, however, is not to be
argued here. I have only to point out in this place that the early
work of all poets in Class 2 is largely imitative. Virgil was
imitative, Keats was imitative--to name but a couple of sufficiently
striking examples. And Daniel, who belongs to this class, was also
imitative. But for a poet of this class to reach the heights of song,
there must come a time when out of imitation he forms a genuine style
of his own, _and loses no mental fertility in the transformation_.
This, if I may use the metaphor, is the _mauvais pas_ in the ascent of
Parnassus: and here Daniel broke down. He did indeed acquire a style
of his own; but the effort exhausted him. He was no longer prolific;