entitled "Commendatory Verses upon the Author of Prince Arthur and King Arthur;" but his first considerable work was "The History of the Last Parliament begun at Westminster, February 10, in the twelfth year of King William, a.d. 1700." It was published in 1702, and brought him into trouble; for the house of lords, thinking that his reflections on the memory of the king were of an unjustifiable description, ordered him to be prosecuted by the attorney-general. Drake was acquitted, however, in the following year. The rejection in 1704 of the bill to prevent occasional conformity, again induced him to appear before the public as an author; it being at this time that he published, in conjunction with Mr. Poley, member of parliament for Ipswich, the "Memorial of the Church of England, humbly offered to the consideration of all true lovers of our Church and Constitution," 8vo. This publication so highly enraged the treasurer Godolphin, and the other whigs who were then at the helm of affairs, that they represented it to the queen as injurious to her honour, inasmuch as it conveyed an evident intimation that the church was in danger under her administration. Her majesty adverted to it in her speech at the opening of the ensuing parliament, October 27, 1705, and received addresses from both houses. The commons afterwards petitioned her to issue a proclamation for discovering the author of the "Memorial." The secret, however, remained untouched. But to show the great excitement which the book produced, we may add, that the grand jury of the city of London prosecuted it at the sessions as a "false, scandalous, and traitorous libel," whereupon it was immediately burnt in presence of the court then sitting, and afterwards by the hands of the common hangman before the Royal Exchange. Drake was prosecuted in the queen's bench in 1706 for some passages in his newspaper, Mercurius Politicus. A flaw being found in the information, the trial was adjourned; but an acquittal followed in November of the same year. This prosecution is thought to have brought on the fever which carried him off, March 2, 1707. Drake's political writings are now forgotten; but his "System of Anatomy" is of considerable value.—R. M., A.
* DRAKE, Frederick, one of the best German sculptors, born in 1805, and a pupil of the celebrated Rauch, is especially known in this country on account of the figured pedestal from the monument of Frederic I. in the public garden at Berlin, which he exhibited in 1851 in Hyde Park, and again, under the form of a vase, at the crystal palace of Sydenham. Like his master, he couples in his style the worship of nature with the study of the ennobling ideal of ancient art. Besides more important works, he has produced several statuettes which have become as household gods—amongst them we may note with especial commendation those of Rauch, Goethe, Schinkel, Humboldt, Schiller, &c.—R. M.
DRAKE, Nathan, M.D, a noted British essayist was born at York in 1766. He studied medicine at the university of Edinburgh, and in 1792 settled as a practitioner at Hadleigh in Suffolk, where he died in 1836. He was a copious contributor to the critical and imaginative literature of his day, expending the resources of a genial fancy and a well-stored memory in writing poems, tales, and essays, in editing the works of British essayists, and in illustrating from original sources the life and times of Shakspeare. Dr. Drake was highly esteemed in his profession both for skill and courtesy, and in the refined society to which his literary labours introduced him, he was no less esteemed for the kindness of his heart than for his varied accomplishments.—J. S., G.
DRAKENBERG, Christian Jacobsen, a Norwegian, celebrated on account of the extreme old age to which he attained. He was born at Stravenger in Norway in 1624, and died at Aarrhuys in 1770 aged one hundred and forty-six. He is said to have been characterized by great modesty and good sense, and on this account stood in high favour with the numerous distinguished persons whom the circumstance of his remarkable longevity induced to visit him.—R. M., A.
DRAKENBORCH, Arnold, a distinguished philologist, was born at Utrecht, 1st January, 1684, became professor in the university of his native town in 1716. and died on the 16th of March, 1748. By his editions of Livius and Silius Italicus, he has earned a lasting reputation.—K. E.
DRAPER, Elizabeth, was the wife of Daniel Draper, counsellor at Bombay. She was by birth an East Indian, but her delicate health induced her to come to England, where she became acquainted with Sterne. A friendship of the closest nature sprang up between them, the purity of which may well be doubted. It was said at the time that the latter part of her life would not bear inspection. She was the Eliza to whom the ten celebrated letters of Yorick were addressed.—R. M., A.
DRAPER, Sir William, son of Ingleby Draper, Esq., of the custom's service at Bristol, was born there in 1721. After studying at Eton and Cambridge he entered the army, and served with credit in the East Indies, particularly at the taking of Madras in 1758. Having received his colonelcy two years later, he commanded a brigade at the capture of Belleisle, and afterwards accompanied the expedition to the Manillas under Admiral Cornish. On his return home, he was honoured with the knighthood of the bath, but fell under the lash of Junius, in consequence of his attempt to defend the marquis of Granby from the charges brought against him by the anonymous censor. He was subsequently lieutenant-governor of Minorca under General Murray, against whom he laid accusations which he failed to substantiate. He died at Bath in 1787.—W. B.
DRAYTON, Michael, an English poet of the Elizabethan age, born in 1563 at Harsull in Warwickshire; he was senior to Shakspeare by a year, and died in 1631, fifteen years after the death of the great dramatist. We have few details of Drayton's early life. His childhood was marked by a peculiar sweetness of temper, and early indications of the genius which subsequently developed itself in his works. "What sort of creatures are those poets? of all things make me one"—was a q uestion which his tutor afterwards remembered and handed down as a memorial of his promising pupil. At the age of ten Drayton served as a page to some person of distinction, whose name has not been transmitted to us. We hear of him again as an Oxford student, and later in life as holding a post in Queen Elizabeth's army. In neither of these capacities does he appear to have acquired much distinction, and we may believe that his contemplative tastes withdrew his energies from the studies of the college and the activities of the camp. The elaborate description of the woodland scenery of England in the "Poly-olbion" shows the intensity of the author's passion for nature. Drayton made his first appearance as an author in 1593 by the publication of a small volume of pastorals, followed at no long interval by the "Baron's Wars." The first part of the "Poly-olbion" was issued in 1613, the year in which Shakspeare retired to Stratford; the second part of the same poem appeared in 1622. Four years later its author was created poet-laureate, and held the office till his death. Drayton wrote odes, elegies, fables, epistles, sonnets; but amid his voluminous mass of writing the "Poly-olbion" and the "Nymphidia" alone are inseparably associated with his memory—two works contrasted in their manner as in their purpose. The former described by the author himself as "a strange herculean toil," is an attempt to register in verse the topography and antiquities of England. The verse, a sort of broken Alexandrine, is remarkable for nervous strength, and the poem abounds in beauties of imagery and illustration; but as a whole it is somewhat cumbrous. It wants the grace and melody essential to relieve the tedium of the subject. Antiquarians have referred to the "Poly-olbion" as a high authority; it endures still as a monument of learning, ingenuity, and research; but its historical is greater than its literary value, and mere lovers of poetry shrink from the "herculean toil" of reading it. The "Nymphidia" on the other hand teems with exuberant and playful fancy. A faery poem about faery land, it recalls the Midsummer Night's Dream, on which it is founded. The author has entered fully into the spirit of his subject; and his verse trips along with an aery cadence which perfectly suits the tone of this triumph of grotesque. Drayton names his sonnets "Ideas;" and the full and rounded thought of each separate piece, shows that he was as successful in his illustration as correct in his conception of that species of poetry. Some of his lighter pieces display remarkable force and fire, with an easy flow of expression. He sweeps with a free hand a lyre of many strings. Drayton's remains repose in Westminster abbey among the other "sacri vates" of the land, beneath a noble epitaph, the device of Ben Jonson or Quarles. The judgment of posterity, to which it appeals, awards him a safe and distinguished place in the second rank of English poets.—J N.
DREBBEL, Cornelius van, a famous Dutch physician, born at Alkmaar in 1572; died in London in 1634. He shares with Santorio the honour of being considered the inventor of the
