Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) was an English contemplative poet. A contemporary of Shakespeare, Daniel wrote verse and prose distinguished by his philosophical sense of history.
Born near Taunton, Somerset, Daniel entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1597 but left without a degree. He was a tutor to Lord William Herbert, son of the 2nd Earl of Pembroke, and Anne Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, and in 1604, he was appointed to read new plays. He translated work from Latin to English and then began to publish his prose and verse.
In 1607, Daniel became one of the queen’s grooms of the privy chamber, and 1615–18, he had charge of a company of young players at Bristol. Although his contemporaries highly commended him, Ben Jonson described him as ‘a good honest man … but no poet.’
Daniel’s works include sonnets, epistles, masques, and dramas, but his chief production was a poem in eight books, A History of the Civil Wars between York and Lancaster. His Defence of Ryme (1602) is in good prose.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Samuel Daniel
Oh, now comes that bitter word—but, which makes all nothing that was said before, that smoothes and wounds, that strikes and dashes more than flat denial, or a plain disgrace.
—Samuel Daniel
He is not poor that has little, but he that desires much.
—Samuel Daniel
Topics: Poverty
And who in time knows whither we may vent the treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores this gain of our best glories shall be sent, ‘t unknowing Nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed Occident may come refined with the accents that are ours?
—Samuel Daniel
Topics: Language
Pity is sworn servant unto love, and this be sure, wherever it begin to make the way, it lets the master in.
—Samuel Daniel
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