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SAMUEL DANIEL (1562-1619)

The following article is reprinted from A Dictionary of the Drama. W. Davenport Adams. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1904.

Poet and dramatist Samuel Daniel was born in 1562 and died in 1619. The son of a music teacher, he was educated at Oxford and was tutor to William Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke. Between 1603 and 1614 four masques of his were performed at Court, and he received in 1607 from Queen Anne, wife of James I, a place in her household, which he resigned in favour of life as a farmer in Somersetshire, his native country. His dramatic works include Cleopatra, a tragedy (1593), The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, a masque (1604), Philotas, a tragedy (1605), The Queen's Arcadia, a pastoral tragi-comedy (1605), Tethys' Festival, an interlude (1610), and Hymen's Triumphs, a pastoral tragi-comedy (1615). An edition of his "whole Works" appeared in 1623; they were edited, with a biographical and critical introduction, by Dr. Grosart, in 1883-96.

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