seventh _Nymphals_, and occasionally in the tenth, there is real
dramatic movement. Closely connected with this question is the
consideration of humour, which is wrongly denied to Drayton. Humour is
observable first, perhaps, in the _Owle_ (1604); then in the _Ode to his
Rival_ (1619); and later in the _Nymphidia_, _Shepheards Sirena_, and
_Muses Elyzium_. The second _Nymphal_ shows us the quiet laughter, the
humorous twinkle, with which Drayton writes at times. The subject is an
[Greek: agôn] or contest between two shepherds for the affections of a
nymph called Lirope: Lalus is a vale-bred swain, of refined and elegant
manners, skilled, nevertheless, in all manly sports and exercises;
Cleon, no less a master in physical prowess, was nurtured by a hind in
the mountains; the contrast between their manners is admirably
sustained: Cleon is rough, inclined to be rude and scoffing, totally
without tact, even where his mistress is concerned. Lalus remembers her
upbringing and her tastes; he makes no unnecessary or ostentatious
display of wealth; his gifts are simple and charming, while Cleon's are
so grotesquely unsuited to a swain, that it is tempting to suppose that
Drayton was quietly satirizing Marlowe's _Passionate Shepherd_. Lirope
listens gravely to the swains in turn, and makes demure but provoking
answers, raising each to the height of hope, and then casting them both
down into the depths of despair; finally she refuses both, yet without
altogether killing hope. Her first answer is a good specimen of her
banter and of Drayton's humour.[18]

On the accession of James I, Drayton hastened to greet the King with a
somewhat laboured song _To the Maiestie of King James_; but this poem
was apparently considered to be premature: he cried _Vivat Rex_, without
having said, _Mortua est eheu Regina_, and accordingly he suffered the
penalty of his 'forward pen',[19] and was severely neglected by King and
Court. Throughout James's reign a darker and more satirical mood