coincide with the received modern opinions.

In his later years Drayton enjoyed the patronage of the third Earl and
Countess of Dorset; and in _1630_ he published his last volume, the
_Muses Elizium_, of which he dedicated the pastoral part to the Earl,
and the three divine poems at the end to the Countess. The _Muses
Elizium_ proper consists of Ten Pastorals or Nymphals, prefaced by a
_Description of Elizium_. The three divine poems have been mentioned
before, and were _Noah's Floud_, _Moses his Birth and Miracles_, and
_David and Goliah_. The _Nymphals_ are the crown and summary of much of
the best in Drayton's work. Here he departed from the conventional type
of pastoral, even more than in the _Shepherd's Garland_; but to say that
he sang of English rustic life would hardly be true: the sixth
_Nymphal_, allowing for a few pardonable exaggerations by the
competitors, is almost all English, if we except the names; so is the
tenth with the same exception; the first and fourth might take place
anywhere, but are not likely in any country; the second is more
conventional; the fifth is almost, but not quite, English; the third,
seventh, and ninth are avowedly classical in theme; while the eighth is
a more delicate and subtle fairy poem than the _Nymphidia_. The fourth
and tenth _Nymphals_ are also touched with the sadder, almost satiric
vein; the former inveighing against the English imitation of foreigners
and love of extravagance in dress; while the tenth complains of the
improvident and wasteful felling of trees in the English forests. This
last _Nymphal_, though designedly an epilogue, is probably rather a
warning than a despairing lament, even though we conceive the old satyr
to be Drayton himself. As a whole the _Nymphals_ show Drayton at his
happiest and lightest in style and metre; at his moments of greatest
serenity and even gaiety; an atmosphere of sunshine seems to envelope
them all, though the sun sink behind a cloud in the last. His music now