Daniel, Samuel (cl562-1619) English poet and dramatist. Daniel is known for the purity of his diction, the smoothness and grace of his verse: he was called "well languaged Daniel" by contemporaries. His works include the famous Sonnet Sequence Delia (1592, with numerous later "augmented" editions); The Complaint of Rosamund (1592), a first-person narrative of the sort found in the Mirror For Magistrates; The Civil Wars (1595-1609), a verse history of the Wars of The Roses; A Defense of Rime (1603), an essay answering Thomas Campion's attack on English rhymed and accentual verse; and The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (1604), the first Masque to be written for the new court Of James I. He wrote two tragedies in the style of Seneca, Cleopatra (cl 593) and Philotas (1604).