Drayton, Michael (1563-1631) English poet. Born in the same county (Warwickshire) as Shakespeare, Drayton matched the master in the range, if not the quality, of his poetic achievement. Always experimenting and continually revising, . Drayton Wrote Sonnets, dramas, Odes, mythological poems, satires, Pastorals, and historical verse narratives. His works include Idea, the Shepherd's Garland (1593); Idea's Mirror (1594), a Sonnet Sequence; England's Heroical Epistles (1597); Polyolbion (1612-22), a poetical survey of the topography of England; Nimphidia (1627), a charming minor epic set in a fairy atmosphere; Idea, a completely revised version of his earlier sonnet sequence; and, The Muses Elyzium (1630). Drayton also wrote a number of plays that have not survived. According to one tradition, it was as a result of a "merry meeting" with Drayton and Ben Jonson that Shakespeare contracted the illness that resulted in his death.