Henry Newbolt

Samuel Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset in 1562, the son of a music-master.

In 1579, Daniel was admitted to Magdalen Hall at Oxford University, where he remained for about three years and afterwards devoted himself to the study of poetry and philosophy. A "Samuel Daniel" is recorded in 1586 as being the servant of Edward Stafford, the Baron of Stafford and the English ambassador in France. This is probably the same person as the poet.

He was first encouraged and, by his own account, taught in verse, by the Countess of Pembroke, whose honour he was never weary of proclaiming. He had entered her household as tutor to her son, Lord Herbert.

His first known volume of verse is dated 1592; it contains the cycle of sonnets addressed to "Delia" and a romance called The Complaint of Rosamond.

To an edition of Delia and Rosamond, in 1594, was added the tragedy of Cleopatra, written in classical style, in alternately rhyming heroic verse, with choral interludes. The First Four Books of the Civil Wars, a historical poem on the subject of the Wars of the Roses, in ottava rima, appeared in 1595.

It was not until 1599 that there was published a volume entitled Poetical Essays, which contained, besides the "Civil Wars," "Musophilus" and "A letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius," poems in Daniel's finest and most mature manner. About this time he became tutor to Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of the Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland. On the death of Edmund Spenser, in the same year, Daniel received the somewhat vague office of Poet Laureate, which he seems, however to have shortly resigned in favour of Ben Jonson. At about this time, and at the recommendation of his brother-in-law, Giovanni Florio, he was taken into favour at court and wrote a Panegyricke Congratulatorie in ottava rima] which he offered to King James I of England at Burleigh Harrington in Rutland during James' initial progression from Edinburgh to claim the throne in London.

In 1603, Daniel was appointed master of the queen's revels. In this capacity he brought out a series of masques and pastoral tragi-comedies—of which were printed The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (1604); The Queen's Arcadia, an adaptation of Guarini's Pastor Fido (1606); Tethys' Festival or the Queenes Wake, written on the occasion of Prince Henry's becoming a Knight of the Bath (1610); and Hymen's Triumph, in honour of Lord Roxburghe's marriage (1615). As a dramatist, Daniel maintained a traditional relationship with Court and University, and had little to do with the popular drama that was such a striking development of his culture in his era. As a result, he was largely insulated from the turmoil that sometimes enveloped the popular drama—though not totally: a 1604 performance of his play Philotas led to his being called before the Privy Council. The hero of the play was perceived to resemble Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex—a troubling connection, given the Earl's 1601 execution for treason.

In 1612 Daniel published a prose History of England, from the earliest times down to the end of the reign of Edward III.

Daniel was made a gentleman-extraordinary and groom of the chamber to Queen Anne, sinecure offices which did not interfere with his literary career. He was acknowledged as a leading writer of the time. William Shakespeare, John Selden, Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman were among the few friends allowed to visit his secluded home in Old Street, St Luke's, where, Thomas Fuller tells us, he would "lie hid for some months together, the more retiredly to enjoy the company of the Muses, and then would appear in public to converse with his friends."

Late in life Daniel threw up his titular posts at court and retired to a farm called "The Ridge", in the hamlet of Beckington, Somerset, now called Rudge. Samuel Daniel died there on 14th October 1619.

He was buried in the graveyard of St George's Church in Beckington; inside the church there is a memorial to him.

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