_Dead Love_, and for the only time, _Rowlands Madrigal_. In these songs,
Drayton offends least in grammar, always a weak point with him; in the
body of the Eclogues, in the earlier Sonnets, in the Odes, occur the
most extraordinary and perplexing inversions. Quite the most striking
feature of the Eclogues, especially in their later form, is their bold
attempt at greater realism, at a breaking-away from the conventional
images and scenery.

Having paid his tribute to one poetic fashion, Drayton in 1594 fell in
with the prevailing craze for sonneteering, and published _Ideas
Mirrour_, a series of fifty-one 'amours' or sonnets, with two prefatory
poems, one by Drayton and one by an unknown, signing himself _Gorbo il
fidele_. The title of these poems Drayton possibly borrowed from the
French sonneteer, de Pontoux: in their style much recollection of
Sidney, Constable, and Daniel is traceable. They are ostensibly
addressed to his mistress, and some of them are genuine in feeling; but
many are merely imitative exercises in conceit; some, apparently, trials
in metre. These amours were again printed, with the title of 'sonnets',
in _1599_[10], 1600, _1602_, 1603, _1605_, 1608, 1610, 1613, _1619_, and
1631, during the poet's lifetime. It is needless here to discuss whether
Drayton were the 'rival poet' to Shakespeare, whether these sonnets were
really addressed to a man, or merely to the ideal Platonic beauty; for
those who are interested in these points, I subjoin references to the
sonnets which touch upon them.[11] From the prentice-work evident in
many of the _Amours_, it would seem that certain of them are among
Drayton's earliest poems; but others show a craftsman not meanly
advanced in his art. Nevertheless, with few exceptions, this first
'bundle of sonnets' consists rather of trials of skill, bubbles of the
mind; most of his sonnets which strike the reader as touched or
penetrated with genuine passion belong to the editions from 1599