His best-known works are the sonnet cycle Delia, the epic poem The Civil Wars Between the Houses of Lancaster and York, the dialogue in verse Musophilus, and the essay on English poetry A Defence of Rhyme.

[2] The earliest evidence providing definitive details of his life is an entry in the signature book of Oxford University documenting his matriculation at Magdalen Hall (now Hertford College) on "17 Nov., 1581, aged 19".

[3] Daniel did not complete his degree at Oxford; Anthony à Wood in Athenae Oxonienses (1691) states that he "was more prone to easier and smoother studies, than in pecking and hewing at logic".

[8] Daniel's first published work was The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius, a translation of an Italian treatise on impresa or emblems by historian Paolo Giovio.

Dymoke wrote a letter of introduction on Daniel's behalf which allowed the young student to live in the English embassy in France between 1585 and 1586 as he advanced his studies.

[13] Daniel and Dymoke met the poet Giovanni Battista Guarini in Italy and defended English as a language worthy of poetry and great writers.

[14] Daniel's literary career was effectively launched in late 1591 with the unauthorized inclusion of some of his Delia sonnets in the posthumous first edition of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.

Daniel dedicated Delia to Mary Sidney and begged her forgiveness for the inclusion of his poems in the unauthorized edition of her brother's work, claiming that he had been "betrayed by the indiscretions of a greedy printer.

During the late 1590s to first years of the 1600s, Daniel took on the role of tutor to the young Anne Clifford, daughter of the Countess of Cumberland, the woman to whom he had dedicated A Letter to Octavia.

The Civil Wars was newly dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, likely reflecting Daniel's elevated stature as one of the leading poets of the day, regarded by some as the successor to Edmund Spenser, who had died in 1599.

Daniel became closely associated with King James's queen, Anne (or Anna) of Denmark, who commissioned him to write a masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, which was performed at Hampton Court in January 1604.

[36] More disturbingly for Daniel, his own play, The Tragedy of Philotas, performed before King James in January 1605, was believed to include political commentary on the seditious end of the Earl of Essex, who had been executed in 1601.

Although he was acquitted of any charges, the incident caused him great embarrassment, resulting in written apologies to his longtime friend Charles Blount (formerly Baron Mountjoy, then the Earl of Devonshire), whom he had inadvertently pulled into the affair, and to Robert Cecil, King James's advisor and Secretary of State.

In an epistle to Prince Henry, that accompanied the 1605 printed version of Philotas, Daniel reflected his new world-weary perspective, stating that "years hath done this wrong, / To make me write too much, and live too long.

[40] The title page of that collection of Daniel's works was the first to refer to him as "one of the Grooms of the Queen's Majesty's Privy Chamber", an elevated status that he shared with his friend John Florio.

In the dedication, Daniel also stated that he intended to write a prose "History of England, from the Conquest", introducing the principal project that was to occupy the rest of his literary career and life.

[44] Daniel spent most of the final decade of his life in semi-retirement, living at a country house in the small hamlet of Ridge (now Rudge) in the village of Beckington in Somerset.

[46] During the next few years, Daniel conducted research on English history, relying in part on the expertise and collections of his friends, the antiquarians William Camden and Robert Cotton.

In 1614, he wrote the pastoral play, Hymen's Triumph, which was performed to celebrate the wedding of Jean Drummond to Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe at Queen Anne's new palace, Somerset House.

[48] Daniel was said to have lost his place as a groom of the privy chamber to Anne of Denmark in 1618 for visiting a disgraced courtier, Robert Lloyd alias Flood.

[54] Many of Samuel Daniel's poems and plays were reprinted multiple times in collections of his writings during his lifetime, often in substantially revised editions that represented distinct versions of the works.

Both writers enjoyed success and came to be regarded as leading authors of the period, though Shakespeare was more associated with the popular stage and Daniel with courtly poetry and noble patrons.

There is no direct evidence that Daniel was friendly with Shakespeare or knew him personally, although they likely shared many common acquaintances, including John Florio, Henry Wriothesley, William Herbert, and Ben Jonson.

Lewis's assessment that Daniel "thinks in verse", his poetry often employs the more precise language of debate, self-doubt, and deep thought rather than passionate imagery.

Fellow poet Michael Drayton, a contemporary of Daniel's, called him "too much historian in verse" and stated that "His rimes were smooth, his meters well did close, / But yet his manner better fitted prose".

His belief that every culture and era had value to offer in its thought and writing, reflected in A Defence of Rhyme, and refusal to accept that poetry and art should be artificially held to classical standards, differed from the attitude of many humanist writers and thinkers of his time.

This humility is demonstrated in the following comment from his Collection of the History of England: Pardon us antiquity, if we miscensure your actions which are ever (as those of men) according to the vogue, and sway of times, and have only their upholding by the opinion of the present.

We deal with you but as posterity will with us (which ever thinks itself the wiser) that will judge likewise of our errors according to the cast of their imaginations.In many of his works, Daniel expressed a deep regard for the power of written language ("blessed letters") to reach across cultures and generations.

[118][119] Daniel's Tragedy of Cleopatra was staged by the University College London (UCL) Centre for Modern Exchanges in 2013 as part of a project to evaluate if the "closet drama" was performable.