Page "Michael Drayton" Paragraph 13

Drayton was a friend of some of the most famous men of the age.

He corresponded familiarly with Drummond ; Ben Jonson, William Browne, George Wither and others were among his friends.

There is a tradition that he was a friend of Shakespeare, supported by a statement of John Ward, once vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, that " Shakespear, Drayton and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted.

" In one of his poems, an elegy or epistle to Mr Henry Reynolds, he has left some valuable criticisms on poets whom he had known.

That he was a restless and discontented, as well as a worthy, man may be gathered from his own admissions.

Drayton was also a contemporary of John Donne, though it is not known if Drayton and Donne ever knew each other.