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Gentleman," are before commendatory verses prefixed to Munday's "Mirror of Mutabilitie," Ed. Knight

being signed at the end. This must be Webbe's

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Knyght" in the list of good poets-the only

Edward
Knight.

known person who might be the "E. K." of Spenser's "Shepheardes Calender," if he was not Edward Kirke.

Abraham

Fraunce.

Abraham Fraunce, born in Shropshire, is said to have been educated at Shrewsbury School, and to have found a patron in Philip Sidney, who sent him to Cambridge and afterwards befriended him. Fraunce became a pensioner at St. John's College in May, 1575, a Lady Margaret scholar in November, 1578, and a Fellow of his college in 1580. He proceeded B.A. in 1579-80, commenced M. A. in 1583, removed to Gray's Inn, and was in due time called to the Bar. Abraham Fraunce, as a poet, took strong interest in the reformed manner of versifying. Webbe knew him as a Cambridge man, and one of the enthusiasts in Ascham and Drant's college, St. John's, for writing English verse with Latin. He published nothing before 1586, his earliest printed verse being, in 1587, a translation into English hexameters of Thomas Watson's Latin poem of Amyntas," which had first appeared in 1585. We return to him, therefore, in a later chapter. But it may here be noted that a book on rhetoric "The Arcadian Rhetorike," published in 1588 --showed Fraunce to be in the circle of Philip Sidney's literary friends; for in this book he quoted passages out of "The Faerie Queene" two years before any part of that poem was published.

*

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John Grange is known only as author of a single love pamphlet called "The Golden Aphroditis: A pleasant Discourse, penned by John Grange, Gentleman, student in

"The Lamentations of Amintas for the death of Phillis: Paraphrastically translated out of Latine into English Hexameters."

John
Grange.

the Common Lavve of Englande. Wherevnto be annexed by the same Author as well certain Metres vpon sundry poyntes, as also diuers Pamphlets in prose, which he intituleth His Garden: pleasant to the eare, and delightful to the Reader, if he abuse not the scent of the flowres.

'Habet et musca splenem

Et formica sua bilis inest.'

Printed at London in 4to blackletter by Henry Bynneman, in 1577, and dedicated "to the right Honourable and his singular good Lord the Lord Sturton." It sets forth the love of N. O. for A. O. (Alpha and Omega), the first and last daughter of Endymion and Diana. N. O., of the race of Hippomenes, disdaining the froth of Venus, was struck with love toward A. O., by Venus, at a time when the gods, after their nectar, bend their eyes earthward and are merry. Upon this conceit is built a little fabric of love-letters, dialogues, and poems, written in the fashion of the customary love pamphlet, and all tending to the support of honest thought, being written, as Grange's motto has it, Tam Minerva quam Veneri. In the appended "Garden" all the pieces are of love, except one of dissuasion from the peril of the sea, if that be an exception.

Anthony
Munday.

Anthony Munday wrote as early as 1580 and as late as 1621. He was a London draper's son, of the same age as Spenser, born in 1553. Christopher Munday, his father, was dead in October, 1576, when Anthony Munday was apprenticed at Stationers' Hall to John Aldee for eight years. John Aldee, as a stationer, was much engaged in the printing of ballads and such small works as then formed a chief part of current literature. Since Munday was twenty-three years old when he apprenticed himself to a stationer, we may accept the record of an antagonist who said of him, "Munday was

first a stage player, after an apprentice." The opponent's record * goes on to say of Munday's apprenticeship, “which time he well served with deceiving of his master; then wandering towards Italy, by his own report became a cozener in his journey." Munday produced a certificate from John Aldee to disprove the charge that he had deceived his master, but did not deny the assertion that he began life as a player and had gone back to the stage. He did not serve long as an apprentice, but his indentures seem to have been cancelled with the goodwill of John Aldee. A little publication, not now to be found, was entered at Stationers' Hall in November, 1577, to John Charlwood, as "The Defence of Poverty against the Desire of Worldly Riches, dialoguewise, collected by Anthony Mundaye"; but Munday says that John Aldee printed his first work, and Aldee published in October, 1579, what Munday may well have regarded as his first piece of substantial work, a religious companion to "The Mirror for Magistrates," called "The Mirrour of Mutabilitie; or, principal part of the Mirrour of Magistrates, selected out of the sacred scriptures." Mirrors were in fashion. There was a "Theatre or Mirror of the World," in 1569; a "Mirror of Madness," in 1576; a "Mirror of Modestie had been licensed to Edward White in April, 1579; there was afterwards a "Mirror of Mirth," in 1583; a "Mirror of Man's Miseries," in 1584; a " Mirror of Magnanimity," in 1599; a Mirror of Martyrs," in 1601, with more of the kind. Mathematics, Politics, and the Latin Tongue were shown also in Mirrors. "The Mirrour of Mutabilities "

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"The Mirrour of

Muta

bilitie."

* In "A true reporte of the death and martyrdome of M. Campion, Jesuite and preiste, and M. Sherwin and M. Bryan, preistes, at Tiborne, the first of December, 1581. Observed and written by a Catholike preist which was present therat. Whereunto is annexid certayne verses made by sundrie persons." This pamphlet is on twenty-six leaves, printed at Douay.

was a series of metrical tragedies in two parts, the first illustrating the Seven Deadly Sins with seven stories: Pride, with the story of Nebuchadnezzar; Envy, with that of Herod; Wrath, by Pharaoh; Lechery, by David; Gluttony, by Dives, in the parable; Avarice, by Judas; and Sloth by Jonah, "for his slothful slackness in obeying the commandment of the Lord, being sent to preach to the Ninevites." In the next book were eleven Complaints: as of Absalom, for vain aspiring; of Jephthah, for his rash vow; and so forth. Each poem had its moral theme set before it in an acrostic; the poems illustrating the Seven Deadly Sins thus give occasion for seven prefatory acrostics on their names, of which this is one—

Slothe.

66 Sloth is a foe unto all virtuous deeds,

Learning surmounts the golden heaps of gain :

Of idle life therefore destroy the weeds,

Think what renown Dame Science doth maintain :
Henceforth subdue all idle thoughts in thee,
Example good to all thy life will be."

When "The Mirror of Mutabilitie" was published, Munday had already travelled through France to Rome. In France he had been robbed and stripped by soldiers between Boulogne and Abbeville. At Rome he had been received as the Pope's scholar into the English Seminary. On the eighth of March, 1580, there was licensed to John Charlwood, at Stationers' Hall, "a ballet made by Anthony Monday of the encoragement of an Englishe soldier to his fellow mates."

In 1580 Munday published "The Paine of Pleasure, Profitable to be perused of the wise, and necessary to be followed by the wanton," and also a piece suggested immediately by the success of Lyly's Euphues" the year before, "Zelavto. The

Early
Pamphlets.

Fountaine of Fame. Erected in an Orchard of Amorous Adventures. Containing a Delicate Disputation, gallantly discoursed between two noble Gentlemen of Italye. Given for a friendly entertainment to Euphues, at his late arrivall into England. By A. M. seruaunt to the Right Honourable the Earle of Oxenford." Yet again, in 1580, Munday's busy pen supplied the printers. His third pamphlet of this year—which, like the other two, bore the motto, Honor alit artes-was suggested by the murder of a hosier in Newgate Market, and was called “A View of Sundry Examples. Reporting many strange murthers, sundry persons perjured, signes and tokens of God's anger towards us. What straunge and monstrous Children have

of late beene borne: And all memorable murthers since the murther of Maister Saunders by George Browne" [1573] "to this present and bloody murther of Abell Bourne, Hosyer, who dwelled in Newgate Market 1580. Also short discourse of the late Earthquake, the sixt of Aprill. Gathered by A. M. Honor alit artes. Imprinted at London for William Wright, and are to be sold at the long shop, adjoyning vnto S. Mildred's Church in the Poultrie." Here also Munday writes himself, in a dedication, "servaunt to the right Honorable the Earle of Oxenford,' Edward Vere, himself among the poets.* Before the "Mirror of Mutabilitie," Munday, who was one of the earl's company of actors, had written an acrostic on the family motto of the Veres, Vero nihil verius. "The View of Sundry Examples" mixes a blazing star and other signs and warnings against sin, besides the earthquake, with the short detail of murders that set forth men's evil way of life.

How Anthony Munday and other writers of these ephemeral pamphlets could hunt the letter when they aimed at eloquence may be illustrated by the example of George Browne, who murthered maister George Saunders, *"E. W." viii. 217, 222.

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