To Delia & The Complaint of Rosamund: 'Love is a sickness full of woes, all remedies refusing''

By Samuel Daniel

Sir Henry John Newbolt, CH was born on 6th June 1862 in Bilston, Wolverhampton, the son of the vicar of St Mary's Church, the Rev. Henry Francis Newbolt, and his second wife, Emily née Stubbs. After his father's death, in 1866, the family moved to Walsall.

There Newbolt attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and Caistor Grammar School, from where he gained a scholarship to Clifton College, where he was head of the school and editor of the school magazine. Upon graduation from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1887 and practised until 1899.

He married Margaret Edwina née Duckworth, of the prominent publishing family, and they had two children: Margaret Cecilia (1890) and Arthur Francis (1893).

Behind the steady Edwardian façade lay intimate complications; a ménage à trois. His wife had a long-running affair with her cousin, Laura Isabella 'Ella' Coltman to whom Newbolt had dedicated one of his own poems and was also involved with. Newbolt divided his time between the two women so there was no jealousy. Although it could equally be argued they divided their time.

His first book was a novel, ‘Taken from the Enemy’ (1892), and this was followed in 1895 by a play, the tragedy, ‘Mordred’. But it was with ‘Admirals All’ (1897), that his reputation was set. There followed further volumes of uplifting verse, including ‘The Island Race’ (1898), ‘The Sailing of the Long-ships’ (1902), ‘Songs of the Sea’ (1904) and ‘Songs of the Fleet’ (1910). Among the most stirring and patriotically heroic of his poems are the often anthologised ‘Vitaï Lampada’ and ‘Drake's Drum’.

As well as writing he was also, from October 1900 to September 1904, the editor of the Monthly Review.

In 1914, Newbolt published Aladore, a fantasy novel about a bored, dutiful knight who abandons his estate to pursue his heart's desire and woo a half-fae enchantress.

As the First World War engulfed Europe, Newbolt, and another 20 British writers, were absorbed into the War Propaganda Bureau. Their talents were put to use promoting Britain's interests and to maintain public opinion in favour of the war.

He was knighted in 1915 and became the Controller of Telecommunications at the Foreign Office. Among his war poems was ‘The War Films’, printed in The Times on 14th October 1916, in reference to the shock cinema audiences felt on seeing footage of the Battle of the Somme.

Newbolt was knighted in 1915 and was appointed Companion of Honour in 1922.

In 1921 he authored the government Report ‘The Teaching of English in England’ which helped to establish the foundations for modern English Studies and professionalised the teaching of English Literature. With it he established a canon, and was unequivocal that English must become the linguistic and literary standard throughout the Empire.

Newbolt was also part of an inner advisory circle of Asquith's government and also advised on policy in Ireland.

Sir Henry John Newbolt, CH died at his home in Campden Hill, Kensington, London, on 19th April 1938, at the age of 75. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's church on an island in the lake on the Orchardleigh Estate of the Duckworth family in Somerset.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Feb 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781787807143

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To Delia and The Complaint of Rosamund by Samuel Daniel

Samuel Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset in 1562, the son of a music-master.

In 1579, Daniel was admitted to Magdalen Hall at Oxford University, where he remained for about three years and afterwards devoted himself to the study of poetry and philosophy. A Samuel Daniel is recorded in 1586 as being the servant of Edward Stafford, the Baron of Stafford and the English ambassador in France. This is probably the same person as the poet.

He was first encouraged and, by his own account, taught in verse, by the Countess of Pembroke, whose honour he was never weary of proclaiming. He had entered her household as tutor to her son, Lord Herbert. His first known work, a translation of Paulus Jovius, to which some original matter is appended, was printed in 1585.

His first known volume of verse is dated 1592; it contains the cycle of sonnets addressed to Delia and a romance called The Complaint of Rosamond.

To an edition of Delia and Rosamond, in 1594, was added the tragedy of Cleopatra, written in classical style, in alternately rhyming heroic verse, with choral interludes. The First Four Books of the Civil Wars, a historical poem on the subject of the Wars of the Roses, in ottava rima, appeared in 1595.

It was not until 1599 that there was published a volume entitled Poetical Essays, which contained, besides the Civil Wars, Musophilus and A letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius, poems in Daniel's finest and most mature manner. About this time he became tutor to Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of the Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland. On the death of Edmund Spenser, in the same year, Daniel received the somewhat vague office of Poet Laureate, which he seems, however to have shortly resigned in favour of Ben Jonson. At about this time, and at the recommendation of his brother-in-law, Giovanni Florio, he was taken into favour at court and wrote a Panegyricke Congratulatorie in ottava rima] which he offered to King James I of England at Burleigh Harrington in Rutland during James' initial progression from Edinburgh to claim the throne in London.

The Panegyricke is included in the presentation folio of 1601, the first folio volume of collected works by a living English poet, but would not have been presented or published until after Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603. Many later editions contained in addition his Poetical Epistles to his patrons and an elegant prose essay called A Defence of Rime. This was not just a defense of rhyme in the formal sense, but of the idea of there being positive post-classical literary developments.

In 1603, Daniel was appointed master of the queen's revels. In this capacity he brought out a series of masques and pastoral tragi-comedies—of which were printed The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (1604); The Queen's Arcadia, an adaptation of Guarini's Pastor Fido (1606); Tethys' Festival or the Queenes Wake, written on the occasion of Prince Henry's becoming a Knight of the Bath (1610); and Hymen's Triumph, in honour of Lord Roxburghe's marriage (1615). As a dramatist, Daniel maintained a traditional relationship with Court and University, and had little to do with the popular drama that was such a striking development of his culture in his era. As a result, he was largely insulated from the turmoil that sometimes enveloped the popular drama—though not totally: a 1604 performance of his play Philotas led to his being called before the Privy Council. The hero of the play was perceived to resemble Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex—a troubling connection, given the Earl's 1601 execution for treason.

In 1605, Certain Small Poems appeared, with the tragedy of Philotas. Certaine small Workes heretofore divulged by Samuel Daniel (1607) was a heavily revised version of all his works except Delia and the Civil Wars, considered by some to be