Samuel Daniel
Overview
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet
English poetry
The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. Consequently, the term English poetry is...
and historian
History of England
The history of England concerns the study of the human past in one of Europe's oldest and most influential national territories. What is now England, a country within the United Kingdom, was inhabited by Neanderthals 230,000 years ago. Continuous human habitation dates to around 12,000 years ago,...
.
Daniel was born near Taunton
Taunton
Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....
in Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, the son of a music-master. He was the brother of lutenist and composer John Danyel
John Danyel
John Danyel was an English lute player and songwriter. He was born in Wellow, Somerset, and was the younger brother of poet Samuel Daniel. His surviving works include "Coy Daphne Fled", about the nymph Daphne and her fate, and "Like as the lute delights".Sample lyrics from "Like as the lute...
. Their sister Rosa was Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
's model for Rosalind in his The Shepherd's Calendar; she eventually married John Florio. In 1579, Daniel was admitted to Magdalen Hall (now known as Hertford College) at Oxford University, where he remained for about three years and afterwards devoted himself to the study of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
.
Quotations
As that the walls worn thin, permit the mindTo look out thorough, and his frailty find. 1
History of the Civil War (1595), Book iv, Stanza 84, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made", Edmund Waller, Verses upon his Divine Poesy.
Sacred religion! mother of form and fear.
Musophilus (1599), Stanza 57, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world.
Musophilus (1599), Stanza 97, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
This is the thing that I was born to do.
Musophilus (1599), Stanza 100, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Unless above himself he canErect himself, how poor a thing is man!
To the Countess of Cumberland. Stanza 12, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).