Elizabethans

IT had been A. H. Bullen's intention to re-write and enlarge these papers and to issue them from the Press he had established at Stratford-on-Avon. So long ago as the spring of 1889 he had delivered at Oxford six lectures on English poets and dramatists, lectures that to the Oxford of that date (before his anthologies had made, of Elizabethan poetry-, common knowledge), must have come almost as a revelation. It was said of him then-" He had lived among his poets: from Drayton to Campion all were his familiar friends." In after years this judgment was amply confirmed by Mr. John Masefield, writing shortly after Bullen's death: " He talked of Elizabethan books and people much as though they were alive in the streets outside, like the time come back." The brief general introduction belongs to the old Oxford days, but the " Michael Drayton " is an amplification of an address written in 1916 and given at Stratford-on-Avon during the Shakespeare Tercentenary. Probably the " Daniel," " Chapman," and " Dekker " still stand much in their original form, but from the " Nicholas Breton " several pages are missing, pages seemingly cut away of set purpose. Their place has been filled by MS. notes, and extracts from early work now out of print, and it is hoped that this rough patchwork will be found to make a not incongruous whole. As the footnotes explain, the " Thomas Campion " is obviously untouched. Swinburne had written (16th December 1888), " I must congratulate you as cordially as I thank you. In issuing this first edition of Campion's Works you have added a name to the roll of English poets, and one that can never be overlooked. Certainly his long neglected ghost ought now to be rejoicing in Elysium." Since then " the long neglected ghost " has taken his place among the undying ones, and Bulkn's warning, in 1903, that Campion " now runs the risk of uncritical adulation" may well be repeated.