Daniel, Samuel

(1562-1619)

   One of the Renaissance poets and dramatists, thought to have been born near Taunton, Somerset. He left Magdalen Hall, Oxford, without graduating and was later employed as tutor to William Herbert, the future Earl of Pembroke at Wilton House, near Salisbury, and then to Lady Anne Clifford at Skipton Castle in Yorkshire. Sir Philip Sidney included twenty-seven of Daniel's sonnets in the 1591 edition of Astrophel and Stella; this brought Daniel into the limelight. He is mentioned by name in Spenser's "Colin Clouts Come Home Againe." There is a tradition that he succeeded Spenser as poet laureate. Early in the reign of James I he was often at court and wrote masques for the queen. Towards the end of his life, he retired to his farm in Somerset. Some of his poems: "A Description of Beauty," "A Panegyrike Congratulatorie to the Kings Most Excellent Majestie," "Delia: Contayning Certaine [50] Sonnets," "Hymen's Triumph," "The Complaint of Rosamond," "The Tragedie of Cleopatra," "To Her Sacred Majestie," "To the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. The Complete Life and Works of Samuel Daniel (http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/daniel.htm). The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel. Alexander B. Grosart, ed. Russell & Russell, 1963. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950. Helen Gardner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1972. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.