Life-feeding death, ever life devouringe, Now bidd me into flame, from smoke to runn." It may well be supposed that Alabaster's Latin verse was better than his English, but his intention is pretty obvious, and some corruption may be suspected. As the sonnet never found its way into print, and as no other MS. of it is known to exist, we are not in a condition either to correct the halting measure, or to elucidate the obscure meaning. Besides Racster, of whom nothing is known beyond what he has himself told us, Dr. Roger Fenton, in 1599, published another reply to Alabaster's "Seven Motives;" and his perversion to Popery, considering his eminence and known attainments as a scholar, excited a sensation among clergy and laity. He had followed the Earl of Essex to Cadiz in the capacity of chaplain, and it was after his return that he went over to Rome. Racster's answer is entirely prose, with the exception of the following: 66 "AD LECTOREM EPIGRAMMA AUTHORIS. Mens tasts of wit be diverse, as of feasts." Racster deals very fairly with Alabaster, for he first quotes the Motive," and then replies to it in detail; but the argument is dull and dry, the most lively passage in the book being the following, which doubtless refers to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, then Sir Thomas Egerton, Keeper of the Great Seal : "It is a rule in philosophy that nihil agit extra sphæram activitatis suæ, nothing by nature can worke without the circuit of his own shop or workehouse. The fishes cannot flie as birdes in the ayre; neither can the birds swim as the fishes within the water. And therefore it was pretily said of a learned lawyer of this land unto a noble warrier, when he was as loude and lusty in the Starchamber as he used to be in the field, 'Sir, remember your selfe: we are not now in your element.'' The date of Alabaster's birth has not been ascertained, but Racster, in 1598, calls him "a young master of artes," and we know that he was incorporated at Oxford in 1592. While he was at Cambridge, under Dr. Still, he wrote a Latin tragedy called "Roxana," which was acted in the hall of Trinity College, but not printed until 1632. After remaining some years in the church of Rome, Alabaster reverted to C his old faith, and died a Protestant, probably not long after he had printed his Lexicon Pentaglotton in 1637. As Racster says that Alabaster and he were of the same College at Cambridge, we ought to meet with a notice of him in Cooper's Athena Cantabrigienses: Racster is there, II. 271, and Alabaster may have been postponed until the next volume. ALMANACKS.-Foure great Lyers, striuing who shall win the siluer Whetstone. Also a Resolution to the countri-man, prouing it vtterly vnlawfull to buye, or vse our yeerly Prognostications. Written by W. P., &c.-At London, Printed by Robert Walde-graue, n. d. B. L. 8vo. 54 leaves. Under a humorous title this is a serious attack upon the makers of Almanacks, then most frequently called Prognostications, whom Dekker and others subsequently turned into ridicule. (See post Dekker's Raven's Almanac). The "four great liars" are indicated by W. P., under the initials B. F. T. and D; and he first shows their discordances by the juxtaposition of their predictions, and afterwards, under the title of "a Resolution to the countreyman," argues against the folly and impiety of such a pretended insight into the mysterious ways of Providence. Perhaps the most remarkable production of this kind is a tract published by William Paynter, (editor of the collection of novels called The Palace of Pleasure) under the title of Antiprognosticon. It is partly a translation from the Latin, and partly an original invective against the professors of the art of foretelling the events and prospects of the coming year. It was printed by Henry Sutton in 1560, 8vo., and is preceded by some verses by Paynter, and by "Henry Bennet Calesian." Paynter's lines are curious from the mention they make of Archbishop Grindall, as a fellow-labourer in this undertaking, although he fell under Queen Elizabeth's displeasure in 1576 for favouring such supposed prophecies. It is not at all improbable that the initials W. P., in the title-page at the head of the present article, are those of William Paynter, and that it was a renewed attack upon astrologers; but we observe that in Messrs. Cooper's Ath. Cantab. II. 529, it is stated that William Parys was the author of it. They, however, spell the title differently, and only say that they "suppose" him to have written it; whereas we know that in 1560 Paynter had published another tract in entire accordance with that the title of which forms the heading of the present article. We are therefore strongly inclined to give the " Foure great Lyers" also to Paynter. AMYOT, JAMES.-The Lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that graue learned Philosopher and Historiographer Plutarke of Chæronea. Translated out of Greeke into French by Iames Amyot, Abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings priuy counsel, and great Amner of Fraunce, and out of French into Englishe by Thomas North.-Imprinted at London by Thomas Vautroullier, dwelling in the Blacke Friers by Ludgate. 1579: folio, 595 leaves. The first edition of the earliest English Plutarch is rare, and this copy of it is especially valuable, because it has upon the fly-leaf the only known autograph of John Offley, the friend of Izaac Walton, to whom the old fisherman dedicated his "Complete Angler" in 1653. It is supposed that Walton lived in Chancery Lane in 1632: he certainly was there in 1638, as appears by a record, not hitherto consulted, preserved in Lambeth Library: it is entitled, "The Valuation of the Rents and Tythes of the Parish of Saint Dunstants in the West, London, 70 May, 1638." We there find a return made by the clergyman of the parish with this heading, followed by the names of the occupiers of each dwelling: Chauncery Lane within the Liberties of London. The present Tithes. The Annual Rent. With the exception of one George Tomlins, Walton lived in a house which paid the highest rent in that part of Chancery Lane. The clergyman states that in his valuation he had deducted a fourth part of the present rent, so that Izaac Walton's house really cost him £31. 58. per annum. It seems that his immediate neighbours, as might be expected, were persons of no note, and the particular trades carried on are not specified. [See "Life of Spenser,” 1862, I. cxxxvi.] North's Plutarch," as it is commonly called (a handsome folio, published, as appears in M.S. figures of the time, at 26s.), was several 66 times reprinted in the same form, with some additions, and with the same woodcuts of the heads of emperors, heroes, &c. It was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, and North (afterwards knighted) does not profess to have gone farther than his French original: the date of the dedication is the 16th January, and of an address to the Reader the 24th January, 1579 (i. e. 1580), and in it North is again careful not to claim the merit of having made any part of his version from the Greek. His excellences as a translator are great, and his English is pure and vigorous. The value of the volume, in relation to Shakespeare, cannot be overstated. It is a fine specimen of the press of Vautroullier, and he was no doubt assisted in it by Richard Field (son to a tanner at Stratfordupon-Avon, and afterwards the printer of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," 1593, and "Lucrece," 1594), who, having been bound his apprentice in 1579, married his daughter in 1588, succeeded to his business in 1590, and used his device of the Anchor suspended by a hand from the clouds. [See Shakesp. Soc. Papers, iv. p. 36.] Ritson omits the name of Sir Thomas North in his "Bibliographia Poetica," though well entitled to a place there for the many pieces of not ill translated poetry in his Plutarch. He had produced a version of "The Morall Philosophie of Doni" in 1570: the last edition we have seen bears date in 1601, but it probably went through the press several times in the interval. (See post under North.) His earliest performance was "The Dial of Princes," from Antony Guevara, first printed in 1568, and again in 1582. Messrs. Cooper (Ath. Cantab. II. 350) by oversight state that the date of North's dedication of his "Plutarch" is 17 Jan. 1591, instead of 16 Jan. 1579. ANAGRAMS.-Anagrammata Regia. In Honorem Maximi et Mansuetissimi Regis Caroli conscripta. Quibus Heroica quædam subnectuntur. Opusculum Regiis Nuptiis destinatum. Nunc verò Auctoris opera auctum et emandatum. 1626. 4to. 60 leaves. This work is in Latin and English, and by an anagram upon the name of the author at the end, "I pen hony," we are led to suppose that it was John Peny, or perhaps Penny. By a chronogram at the foot of the title, it appears that it was printed in 1626, and by another on Sign. E. 3, that it was published by William Stansble: Extant ista in ædibus Gulielmi Stansble. [Forsan Stansbie.] The words auctum et emendatum seem to show that it had appeared earlier, but no other copy, even of this edition, has occurred. It is a very elaborate and tedious trifle, and could have had no sale, having been printed, probably, more for the gratification of the writer than of the reader. The first eighteen leaves are filled by complimentary anagrams to the king and to the principal nobility, followed by this address "Typographus Lectori: Si placebunt quæ precedunt Anagrammata jucundissima, Auctoris Epigrammata tibi non invidebo." The epigrams are, however, far from meriting the praise bestowed upon the anagrams, and they are divided into Religiosa, Officiosa, and Jocosa: here the author makes the ordinary excuse for publication, viz., that he sent them to the press propiorum amicorum jussu. The religious epigrams are all of a pious character: those in the next division of the work are addressed to persons in office. One or two specimens of the epigrammata jocosa, most of which are in Latin only, others in Latin and English, and some in English, may be given :"To a certaine Writer. "Halfe of your Booke is to an Index growne: You gine your Booke Contents, your readers none." "Robertus when he saw Thieves hanged, then And so he did, for at the next Assize He mounts the same Tree for three robberies." The following has often been repeated since, and probably was not new in 1626. "Of a Schoolemaster and his Scholler. "A Pedant ask'd a Puny, rife and bold, In a hard frost, the Latin word for cold. Пle tell you out of hand, (quoth he) for loe! I have it at my fingers' ends, you know." The two following are interesting on account of the poets to whom they relate. Hall was made Bishop of Exeter in 1627. "To Dr. Hall Dean of Worcester. "You in high straines have sung Gods Heavenly graces, Sweet Hall, what Hallelujahs shall you sing "Diceris egregius duplici tu nomine Vates; Quam sanctus Samuel, quam sapiens Daniel. Non tibi lasciva est Pagina, Vita proba est." This must have been written before the death of Daniel, which happened at Beckington in October, 1619. |