In 1593, Drayton published _Idea, the Shepherds Garland_, in nine
Eclogues; in 1606 he added a tenth, the best of all, to the new edition,
and rearranged the order, so that the new eclogue became the ninth. In
these Pastorals, while following the _Shepherds Calendar_ in many ways,
he already displays something of the sturdy independence which
characterized him through life. He abandons Spenser's quasi-rustic
dialect, and, while keeping to most of the pastoral conventions, such as
the singing-match and threnody, he contrives to introduce something of a
more natural and homely strain. He keeps the political allusions,
notably in the Eclogue containing the song in praise of _Beta_, who is,
of course, Queen Elizabeth. But an over-bold remark in the last line of
that song was struck out in 1606; and the new eclogue has no political
reference. He is not ashamed to allude directly to Spenser; and indeed
his direct debts are limited to a few scattered phrases, as in the
_Ballad_ of _Dowsabel_. Almost to the end of his literary career,
Drayton mentions Spenser with reverence and praise.[9]

It is in the songs interspersed in the Eclogues that Drayton's best work
at this time is to be found: already his metrical versatility is
discernible; for though he doubtless remembered the many varieties of
metre employed by Spenser in the _Calendar_, his verses already bear a
stamp of their own. The long but impetuous lines, such as 'Trim up her
golden tresses with Apollo's sacred tree', afford a striking contrast to
the archaic romance-metre, derived from _Sir Thopas_ and its fellows,
which appears in _Dowsabel_, and it again to the melancholy, murmuring
cadences of the lament for Elphin. It must, however, be confessed that
certain of the songs in the 1593 edition were full of recondite conceits
and laboured antitheses, and were rightly struck out, to be replaced by
lovelier poems, in the edition of 1606. The song to Beta was printed in
_Englands Helicon_, 1600; here, for the first time, appeared the song of