He died in 1631, possibly on December 23, and was buried under the North wall of Westminster Abbey. Meres's[27] opinion of his character during his early life is as follows: 'As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported among al writers to be of an honest life and vpright conuersation: so Michael Drayton, _quem totics honoris et amoris causa nomino_, among schollers, souldiours, Poets, and all sorts of people is helde for a man of uertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well gouerned cariage; which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but rogery in villanous man, and when cheating and craftines is counted the cleanest wit, and soundest wisedome.'[28] Fuller also, in a similar strain, says, 'He was a pious poet, his conscience having the command of his fancy, very temperate in his life, slow of speech, and inoffensive in company.'
In conclusion I have to thank Mr. H.M. Sanders, of Pembroke College, Oxford, for help and advice, and Professor Raleigh and Mr. R.W. Chapman for help and criticism while the volume was in the press. Above all, I am at every turn indebted to Professor Elton's invaluable _Michael Drayton_,[29] without which the work of any student of Drayton would be rendered, if not impossible, at least infinitely harder.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Elegy viij, _To Henery Reynolds, Esquire_, p. 108.]
[Footnote 2: Sir Aston Cokayne, in 1658, says that he went to Oxford, while Fleay asserts, without authority, that his university was probably Cambridge.]
[Footnote 3: Cf. the motto of _Ideas Mirrour_, the allusions to _Ariosto_ in the _Nymphidia_, p. 129; and above all, the _Heroical Epistles_; Dedic. of _Ep._ of _D._ of _Suffolk to Q. Margaret_: 'Sweet is the _French_ Tongue, more sweet the _Italian_, but most sweet are they both, if spoken by your admired self.' Cf. _Surrey to Geraldine_, ll. 5 sqq., with Drayton's note.]
[Footnote 4: Cf. Sonnet xij (ed. 1602), p. 42, ''Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit.' (This sonnet may, of course, occur in the supposed 1600 ed., which would fix an earlier date for Drayton's beginning of love.)]
[Footnote 6: Cf. Morley's ed. of _Barons' Wars_, &c. (1887), p. 6.]
[Footnote 7: Cf. _E.H. Ep._ 'Mat. to K.J.,' 100 sqq., &c.]