ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
EDITORIAL PREFACE
REFERENCE WORKS AND ABBREVIATIONS
JOHN SKELTON (c. 1460-1529)
- from The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng (1521)
SIR THOMAS MORE (1478-1535)
- Utopia (Latin edition, 1516; English translation, 2nd corrected edition, 1556)
- Thomas More to Peter Giles
The First Book of the Communication of Raphael Hythloday
The Second Book of the Communication of Raphael Hythloday
- Of the Cities and Namely of Amaurot
Of the Magistrates
Of Sciences, Crafts, and Occupations
Of Their Living and Mutual Conversation Together
Of Their Journeying or Travelling Abroad
Of Bondmen, Sick Persons, Wedlock, and Divers Other Matters
Of Warfare
Of the Religions in Utopia
MARGARET MORE ROPER (1505-1544)
- from A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster (1525)
- Richard Hyrde unto […] Frances S.
The Seventh Petition
- Letter
- Margaret Roper to Erasmus, 4 November 1529
WILLIAM ROPER (1495/1498-1578)
- from The Life of Sir Thomas More (composed, c. 1535)
JUAN LUIS VIVES (1492-1540)
- from The Instruction of a Christian Woman (1529/30)
- Unto […] Queen Katherine
The Preface
Of Her First Exercise. The Third Chapter
Of the Learning of Maids. The Fourth Chapter
What Books to Be Read and What Not. The Fifth Chapter
HUGH LATIMER (c. 1485-1555)
- Sermon on the Ploughers (1548)
SIR THOMAS ELYOT (c. 1490-1546)
- from The Book Named the Governor (1531)
- The Proem of Thomas Elyot Knight unto […] King Henry the Eighth
The Signification of a Public Weal
That One Sovereign Governor Ought to Be in a Public Weal
At What Age a Tutor Should Be Provided and What Shall Appertain to His Office to Do
Wherefore in the Good Order of Dancing a Man and a Woman Danceth Together
ANNE ASKEW (c. 1521-1546)
- from The First Examination of […] Anne Askew (1546)
from The Latter Examination of […] Anne Askew (1547)
- The Censure or Judgement of John Bale thereupon
The Sum of My Examination
The Confession of Me Anne Askew
The Sum of the Condemnation of Me Anne Askew
My Letter Sent to the Lord Chancellor
My Faith Briefly Written to the King’s Grace
The Effect of My Examination and Handling
Anne Askew’s Answer unto John Lascelles’s Letter
The Confession of Her Faith […] Afore She Suffered
The Ballad Which Anne Askew Made and Sang
KATHERINE PARR, QUEEN OF ENGLAND (1512-1548)
- from Prayers or Meditations (1545)
- A Prayer for the King
A Prayer for Men to Say Entering into Battle
- from The Lamentation of a Sinner (1547)
- “Preface” by William Cecil
A Lamentation or Complaint of a Sinner
- Letter to Mary, 20 September 1544
LADY ANNE COOKE BACON (c. 1528-1610)
- from Sermons of Barnardine Ochine of Sena (1548)
- The Interpreter to the Gentle Reader
How a Christian Ought to Make His Last Will and Testament
- from Fourteen Sermons of Barnardine Ochine (1551)
- To the Christian Reader
To the […] Beloved Mother, the Lady. F.
- Selected Letters
- Letter to Lord Burghley [no date]
Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, 3 February 1592
Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, 29 May 1592
Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, 24 July 1592
Francis Allen about Lady Bacon, 17 August 1589
LADY JANE (OR JOANNA) LUMLEY (1537-1578)
- from Jane Lumley’s Commonplace Book: Dedicatory Letters and Translations from Euripides and Isocrates
- Letter 1 (A New Year’s letter to her father, Lord Arundel) [date unknown]
Letter 2 (To her father, Lord Arundel) [date unknown]
- from The Tragedy of Euripides Called Iphigenia (c. 1554)
RICHARD TOTTEL (b. in or before 1528-d. 1593)
- from Songs and Sonnets Written by the Right Honourable Lord Henry Howard Late Earl of Surrey, and Others (1557)
- The Printer to the Reader
Henry Howard, earl of Surrey (1516/17-47)
Description of Spring, Wherein Each Thing Renews, Save Only the Lover (“The soote season,
that bud and bloom forth brings”)
Complaint of a Lover Rebuked (“Love that liveth and reigneth in my thought”)
Description and Praise of His Love Geraldine (“From Tuscan came my lady’s worthy race”)
A Complaint by Night of the Lover Not Beloved (“Alas, so all things now do hold their peace”)
How Each Thing, Save the Lover, in Spring Reviveth to Pleasure (“When Windsor walls sustained my wearied arm”)
Vow to Love Faithfully Howsoever He Be Rewarded (“Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green”)
Prisoned in Windsor, He Recounteth His Pleasure There Passed (“So cruel prison how could betide,
alas”)
Complaint of the Absence of Her Lover Being upon the Sea (“O happy dames that may embrace”)
The Means to Attain Happy Life (“Martial, the things that do attain”)
Of the Same [Of the Death of Sir T.W.] (“W[yatt] resteth here that quick could never rest”)
- Sir Thomas Wyatt (c. 1503-42)
- The Lover for Shamefastness Hideth His Desire within His Faithful Heart (“The long love that in my thought I harbour”)
Description of the Contrarious Passions in a Lover (“I find no peace, and all my war is done”)
The Lover Compareth His State to a Ship in Perilous Storm Tossed on the Sea (“My galley charged with forgetfulness”)The Lover Showeth How He Is Forsaken of Such as He Sometime Enjoyed (“They flee from me that sometime did me seek”)
To His Love Whom He Had Kissed against Her Will (“Alas, madam, for stealing of a kiss”)
The Lover Compareth His Heart to the Overcharged Gun (“The furious gun, in his most raging ire”)
The Lover Complaineth the Unkindness of His Love (“My lute awake, perform the last”)
How by a Kiss He Found Both His Life and Death (“Nature that gave the bee so feat a grace”)
The Lover Laments the Death of His Love (“The pillar perished is whereto I lent”)
That Pleasure Is Mixed with Every Pain (“Venomous thorns that are so sharp and keen”)
Description of a Gun (“Vulcan begat me; Minerva me taught”)
Wyatt Being in Prison, to Bryan (“Sighs are my food, my drink are my tears”)
The Courtier’s Life (“In court to serve, decked with fresh array”)
Of the Courtier’s Life Written to John Poins (“Mine own John Poins, since ye delight to know”)
- Uncertain Authors
- Comparison of Life and Death (“The life is long that loathsomely doth last”)
Upon Consideration of the State of This Life, He Wisheth Death (“The longer life, the more offence”)
Of a New Married Student That Played Fast and Loose (“A student at his book so placed”)
A Praise of Petrarch and of Laura His Lady (“O Petrarch, head and prince of poets all”)
That Petrarch Cannot Be Passed, but Notwithstanding That Laura Is Far Surpassed (“With Petrarch to compare there may no wight”)
The Lady Forsaken of Her Lover Prayeth His Return or the End of Her Own Life (“To love, alas,
who would not fear”)
- N[icholas] G[rimald] (b. 1519/20-d. in or before 1562)
- Description of Virtue (“What one art thou, thus in torn weed yclad?”)
Praise of Measure-Keeping (“The ancient time commended, not for naught”)
SIR THOMAS WYATT (c. 1503-1542)
- The Long Love (“The long love that in my thought doth harbour”)
They Flee from Me (“They flee from me that sometime did me seek”)
Whoso List to Hunt (“Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind”)
Blame Not My Lute (“Blame not my lute, for he must sound”)
JOHN KNOX (c. 1514-1572)
- from The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558)
The Preface
The First Blast, to Awake Women Degenerate
ANNE (VAUGHAN) LOCKE [LOK] (c. 1530-1590/1607)
- from Sermons of John Calvin, Upon the Song that Hezekiah Made (1560)
- To the […] Lady Katharine, Duchess of Suffolk
A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner
JOHN FOXE (1516/1517-1587)
- from Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days (1563)
- The Behaviour of Dr. Ridley and Master Latimer, at the Time of Their Death
A Lamentable Example of Cruelty Showed upon John Bolton
LADY JANE GREY (1537-1554)
- Letter
- Lady Jane Grey to Her Father, 9 February 1554
- From John Foxe, Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days (1563)
- The Communication Had Between the Lady Jane and Feckenham
A Letter Written by the Lady Jane […] unto Her Sister Lady Katherine
A Certain Prayer of the Lady Jane in the Time of Her Trouble
Certain Pretty Verses Written by the Said Lady Jane with a Pin
- “Do never think it strange”
“If God do help thee”
WILLIAM BALDWIN (d. in or before 1563)
- from Beware the Cat (1570)
- T.K. to the Reader
The Epistle Dedicatory
The Argument
The First Part of Master Streamer’s Oration
The Second Part of Master Streamer’s Oration
The Third Part of Master Streamer’s Oration
An Exhortation
The Hymn
- from A Mirror for Magistrates (1563)
- A Mirror for Magistrates
To the Nobility and All Other in Office
A Brief Memorial of Sundry Unfortunate Englishmen
William Baldwin to the Reader
How King Richard II Was for His Evil Governance Deposed from His Seat, and Miserably Murdered in Prison
How Jack Cade Traitorously Rebelling against His King, Was for His Treasons and Cruel Doings Worthily Punished
The Second Part of the Mirror for Magistrates
William Baldwin to the Reader
The Induction
How Shore’s Wife, Edward the Fourth’s Concubine, Was by King Richard Despoiled of All Her Goods and Forced to Do Open Penance
MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS (1542-1587)
- Sonnets to Bothwell (composed, c. 1566-67)
- “O gods, have of me compassion” (“O Dieux ayez de moy compassion”)
“In his hands and in his full power” (“Entre ses mains & en son plein pouvoir”))
“And now she begins to see” (“Et maintenant elle commence à voir”))
“You believe her (alas) I perceive it too well” (“Vous la croyez, las! trop je l’apperçoy”)
- Sonnet to Elizabeth (composed, c. 1567-68)
SIR THOMAS HOBY (1530-1566)
- from The Book of the Courtier (1561)
- The Printer to the Reader)
To the Reader)
To […] the Lord Henry Hastings)
The Second Book of the Courtier)
The Third Book of the Courtier)
The Fourth Book of the Courtier
ROGER ASCHAM (1514/1515-1568)
- from The Schoolmaster (1570)
- To […] Sir William Cecil (by Margaret Ascham)
The First Book for the Youth
GEORGE GASCOIGNE (1534/1535?-1577)
- from A Hundred Sundry Flowers (1573)
- The Printer to the Reader
The Adventures of Master F.J.
Gascoigne’s Lullaby
“The common speech is, spend and God will send”
1 (“In haste post haste when first my wand’ring mind”)
2 (“Before mine eye to feed my greedy will”)
3 (“And every year a world my will did deem”)
4 (“To prink me up and make me higher placed”)
5 (“All were too little for the merchant’s hand”)
6 (“For why? the gains doth seldom quit the charge”)
7 (“‘No haste but good,’ where wisdom makes the way”)
Gascoigne’s Good Morrow
Gascoigne’s Good Night
Gascoigne’s Woodmanship
- from The Posies of George Gascoigne (1575)
- The Green Knight’s Farewell to Fancy
- Appendix: The Retitled and Revised Introduction and Conclusion of The Adventures of Master F.J.
ISABELLA WHITNEY (fl. 1566-1578)
- from A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy (1573)
- To […] George Mainwaring
The Author to the Reader
T.B. in Commendation of the Author
A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy
- The 97 (“Ask nothing of thy neighbour that”)
The 98 (“If that thou minded are to give”)
The 99 (“It glorious is to give all things”)
The 100 (“Whilst that thou hast free liberty”)
The 101 (“That lawyer, which is chose to plead”)
The 102 (“A little gold in law will make”)
The 103 (“Gold savours well, though it be got”)
The 104 (“Such poor folk as to law do go”)
The 105 (“A hasty tongue, which runs at large”)
The 106 (“Two eyes, two ears, and but one tongue”)
The 107 (“Keep well thy tongue and keep thy friend”)
The 108 (“Seek not each man to please, for that”)
The 109 (“Of wicked men to be dispraised”)
The 110 (“Whenas the wicked are in midst”)
- A Sovereign Receipt
A Farewell to the Reader
Certain Familiar Epistles and Friendly Letters
- To Her Brother, G.W.
To Her Brother, B.W.
An Order Prescribed, by Is. W. to Two of Her Younger Sisters Serving in London
To Her Sister Mistress A.B.
A Careful Complaint by the Unfortunate Author
An Answer to Comfort Her
A Reply to the Same
The Author … Maketh Her Will and Testament
- The Lamentation of a Gentlewoman (1578)
ELIZABETH I, QUEEN OF ENGLAND (1533-1603)
- Letter
- To […] Queen Katherine, 31 December 1544
- Verse
- Written on a Window Frame at Woodstock (composed, c. 1554-55)
Written in Her French Psalter (composed, 1565?)
The Doubt of Future Foes (composed, c. 1568-71/87?)
On Monsieur’s Departure (composed, c. 1582)
When I Was Fair and Young (composed, c. 1580s)
- Selected Speeches
- To the Troops at Tilbury (delivered, 1588)
The Golden Speech (delivered, 30 November 1601)
JOHN DEE (1527-1609)
- from General and Rare Memorials Pertaining to the Perfect Art of Navigation (1577)
from John Dee’s Actions with Spirits (1581-83)
- Mysteriorum Liber Primus. Mortlaci [The First Book of the Mysteries of Mortlake] (1581-82)
- Ad Deum Omnipotentem [To the Almighty God]
- Liber Mysteriorum Quintus [The Fifth Book of the Mysteries] (1583)
- Maundy Thursday, after None. hor. 3 1/2
Aprilis 6. Saturday after none
- Quinti Libri Mysteriorum. Appendix
- Aprilis 20 — Saturday
Aprilis 29 — Monday, a meridie [towards midday]
BARNABE GOOGE (1540-1594)
- from Eclogues, Epitaphs, and Sonnets (1563)
- To […] Master William Lovelace
An Epitaph of the Death of Nicholas Grimald
To Doctor Bale
Of Edwards of the Chapel
To the Translation of Palingen
Of Money
Going towards Spain
Coming Homeward out of Spain
- Appendix: From George Turberville’s Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonnets (1567)
- To Master Googe’s Fancy That Begins “Give money me, take friendship whoso list”
MARGARET TYLER (fl. 1558-1578)
- from The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood (1578)
- To […] the Lord Thomas Howard
M.T. to the Reader
Chapter 38
Chapter 45
RICHARD ROGERS (1551-1618)
- from The Diary of Richard Rogers (composed, c. 1586-90)
STEPHEN GOSSON (1554-1625)
- from The School of Abuse (1579)
- To the Reader
The School of Abuse
- from Plays Confuted in Five Actions (1582)
- To the […] Gentlemen and Students of Both Universities, and the Inns of Court
The First Action
The Second Action
The Third Action
The Fourth Action
The Fifth Action
ANNE WHEATHILL (fl. 1584)
- from A Handful of Wholesome (Though Homely) Herbs (1584)
- To All Ladies, Gentlewomen, and Others
21. A Prayer of the Creation of Mankind, of the True Samaritan, and for Strength against Temptation
31. A Prayer that We May Hear the Word of God and Keep It
JOHN LYLY (1554-1606)
- from Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578; 2nd revised edition, 1579)
To […] Sir William West
To the Gentlemen Readers
To My Very Good Friends, the Gentlemen Scholars of Oxford
Euphues
BARNABE RICHE (1542-1617)
- from Barnabe Riche His Farewell to Military Profession (1581)
- To the Right Courteous Gentlewomen, Both of England and Ireland
To the Noble Soldiers Both of England and Ireland
To the Readers in General
Of Apolonius and Silla
The Conclusion
RAPHAEL HOLINSHED (c. 1525-?1580)
- from Chronicles: England, Scotland and Ireland (1587)
- To the Readers Studious in Histories
Of Brute and His Descent
The First Chapter
The Third Chapter
The Fourth Chapter
Mary the Eldest Daughter of King Henry the Eighth
The Order of Arraignment of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton […] 17 April 1554
WILLIAM HARRISON (1535-1593)
- from An Historical Description of the Island of Britain (1587)
- Book II: The Description of England
- Chapter 3: Of Universities
Chapter 5: Of Degrees of People in the Commonwealth of England
Chapter 6: Of the Food and Diet of the English
POPULAR LITERATURE IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
PAMPHLETS OF MURDER AND MAYHEM
- Arthur Golding (1535/1536-1606), The Murder of George Saunders (1573)
Anonymous, The Murder of John Brewen (1592)
Anonymous, The Examination, Confession, and Condemnation of Henry Robson (1598)
THE MONSTROUS CHILDREN BROADSIDES
- The Much Horkesley Monster (1562)
The Chichester Monster (1562)
The Isle of Wight Monster (1564?)
The Ruffs Monster (1566)
The Maidstone Monster (1568)
WITCHCRAFT: LEGAL AND POPULAR DISCOURSES
- An Act against Conjurations, Enchantments, and Witchcrafts (1563)
Anonymous, The Examination and Confession of Certain Witches at Chelmsford (1566)
Reginald Scott (d. 1599), from The Discovery of Witchcraft (1584)
- Book XVI, Chapter VI
Book XVI, Chapter VII
- James VI (1566-1625), from Daemonology (1597)
- The Preface to the Reader
The Second Book. Chapter III
The Second Book. Chapter V
JESTBOOKS
- from A Hundred Merry Tales (1526)
- Tale 3
Tale 17
Tale 19
Tale 27
Tale 32
Tale 41
Tale 67
Tale 69
- from Merry Tales, Witty Questions and Quick Answers (1567)
- Of Him that Rode Out of London and Had His Servant Following on Foot
Of the Chaplain that Said Our Lady Matins Abed
Of the Jealous Man
Of King Louis of France and the Husbandman
Of Another Pickthank and the Same King
Of the Uplandish Man that Saw the King
- from Merry Tales Newly Imprinted and Made by Master Skelton, Poet Laureate (1567)
- How the Vintner’s Wife Put Water into Skelton’s Wine
- from The Mirror of Mirth (1583)
- To the Courteous and Gentle Readers
Of the Three Sisters Newly Married
Of a Certain Student in the Law
JAMES VI, KING OF SCOTLAND (1566-1625)
- To the Queen (composed, c. 1589)
from The Essays of a Prentice (1584)
- Sonnet 4 (“And grant I may so vively put in verse”)
Sonnet Deciphering the Perfect PoetA Short Treatise, Containing Some Rules and Cautels to Be Observed and Eschewed in Scottish Poetry
Chapter VII
- from The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598)
- An Advertisement to the Reader
The True Law of Free Monarchies
- from Basilikon Doron (1599, 1603)
- “God gives not kings the style of gods in vain”
To the Reader
Of a King’s Christian Duty towards God
Of a King’s Duty in His Office
Of a King’s Behaviour in Indifferent Things
ANNE CECIL DE VERE, COUNTESS OF OXFORD (1556-1588)
- Four Epitaphs (1584)
- 1 (“Had with morning the gods left their wills undone”)
2 (“In doleful ways I spend the wealth of my time”)
3 (“The heavens, death, and life have conjured my ill”)
4 (“Idall for Adon nev’r shed so many tears”)
- Others of the Four Last Lines, of Other That She Made Also
- “My son is gone, and with it death end my sorrow”
- An other
- “Amphiôn’s wife was turned to rock. Oh”
JANE ANGER (fl. 1588)
- from Jane Anger, Her Protection for Women (1589)
- To the Gentlewomen of England
To all Women in General, and Gentle Reader Whatsoever
A Protection for Women
A Sovereign Salve to Cure the Late Surfeiting Lover
Eiusdem ad Lectorem de Authore
ANNE DOWRICHE (before July 1560-after 1613)
- from The French History (1589)
- To […] Her Loving Brother, Master Pearse Edgecombe
To the Reader
To the Reader that Is Friendly to Poetry
The Bloody Marriage, or Butcherly Murder of the Admiral of France
RICHARD HAKLUYT (?1552-1616)
- from The Second Volume of the Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1599)
The Voyage Made to Tripoli in Barbary, in the Year 1583
from The Third and Last Volume of the Voyages, Navigations, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1600)
- The Second Voyage of Master Martin Frobisher, Made to the West and Northwest Regions in the Year
1577
The Voyage of Master Hore and Divers Other Gentlemen to Newfoundland and Cape Breton, in the Year
1536
A Report of the Voyage and Success Thereof, Attempted in the Year of Our Lord 1583 by Sir Humphrey
Gilbert
The First Voyage Made to the Coasts of America … Part of the Country Now Called Virginia, Anno 1584
LADY ELIZABETH COOKE HOBY RUSSELL (1528-1609)
- Selected Mortuary Verse
- Verse on the Hoby Tombs at Bisham (composed, c. 1566)
Elizabethae in Obitum Katharinae Sororis Epicaedia
A Lamentation for the Death of Mrs. K. Killigrew (composed, c. 1583)
- from A Way of Reconciliation of a Good and Learned Man (1605)
- The Author to the Reader
To […] Lady Anne Herbert
FULKE GREVILLE, FIRST BARON BROOKE OF BEAUCHAMPS COURT (1554-1628)
- from Caelica, Containing CIX Sonnets (composed, c. 1577/80-1600?)
- Sonnet XXII (“I with whose colours Myra dressed her head”)
Sonnet LVI (“All my senses, like beacons’ flame”)
Sonnet LXXXVIII (“Man, dream no more of curious mysteries”)
Sonnet XC (“The Turkish government allows no law”)
Sonnet C (“In night when colours all to black are cast”)
Sonnet CVIII (“What is the cause, why states, that war and win”)
Sonnet CIX (“Sion lies waste, and thy Jerusalem”)
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586)
- from Astrophil and Stella (1591, 1598)
- Sonnet 1 (“Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show”)
Sonnet 5 (“It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve”)
Sonnet 9 (“Queen Virtue’s court, which some call Stella’s face”)
Sonnet 21 (“Your words, my friend, right healthful caustics, blame”)
Sonnet 23 (“The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness”)
Sonnet 27 (“Because I oft, in dark abstracted guise”)
Sonnet 47 (“What, have I thus betrayed my liberty?”)
Sonnet 53 (“In martial sports I had my cunning tried”)
Sonnet 63 (“O grammar rules, O now your virtues show”)
Sonnet 71 (“Who will in fairest book of nature know”)
Sonnet 81 (“O kiss, which dost those ruddy gems impart”)
Sonnet 82 (“Nymph of the garden where all beauties be”)
Sonnet 83 (“Good brother Philip, I have borne you long”)
Sonnet 85 (“I see the house; my heart, thy self contain”)
“Fourth Song”
“Eighth Song”
“Ninth Song”
Sonnet 87 (“When I was forced from Stella, ever dear”)
Sonnet 93 (“O fate, O fault, O curse, child of my bliss”)
Sonnet 98 (“Ah bed, the field where joy’s peace some do see”)
Sonnet 107 (“Stella, since thou so right a princess art”)
Sonnet 108 (“When sorrow, using mine own fire’s might”)
- from The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593)
- To […] the Countess of Pembroke
To the Reader
Book 1
Book 3
- from The Defence of Poesy (1595)
Appendix 1: Selected Correspondence between Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Molyneux (1578-82)
Appendix 2: Selected Correspondence of Lady Mary Sidney to Edmund Molyneux (1578)
MARY SIDNEY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561-1621)
- The Doleful Lay of Clorinda (1595)
Even Now that Care (1599)
To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney (composed, 1592)
Dialogue between Two Shepherds, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of Astraea (composed, c. 1599?)
from Psalms (completed by 1599)
- Psalm 45: Eructavit cor meum
Psalm 49: Audite haec omnes
Psalm 51: Miserere mei Deus
Psalm 57: Miserere mei Deus
Psalm 58: Si vere utique
Psalm 72: Deus Judicium
Psalm 73: Quam bonus Israel
Psalm 82: Deus stetit
Psalm 100: Jubilate Deo
Psalm 139: Domine probasti
RICHARD BARNFIELD (1574-1620)
- from The Affectionate Shepherd (1594)
- To […] the Lady Penelope Rich
The Tears of an Affectionate Shepherd Sick for Love
The Second Day’s Lamentation of the Affectionate Shepherd
- from Cynthia. With Certain Sonnets (1595)
- To the Courteous Gentlemen Readers
To His Mistress
Sonnet 1 (“Sporting at fancy, setting light by love”)
Sonnet 6 (“Sweet coral lips, where nature’s treasure lies”)
Sonnet 8 (“Sometimes I wish that I his pillow were”)
Sonnet 9 (“Diana [on a time] walking the wood”)
Sonnet 10 (“Thus was my love, thus was my Ganymed”)
Sonnet 11 (“Sighing and sadly sitting by my love”)
Sonnet 12 (“Some talk of Ganymede th’Idalian boy”)
Sonnet 14 (“Here; hold this glove [this milk-white cheveril glove]”)
Sonnet 16 (“Long have I longed to see my love again”)
Sonnet 17 (“Cherry-lipped Adonis in his snowy shape”)
Sonnet 20 (“But now my Muse toiled with continual care”)
EDMUND SPENSER (?1552-1599)
- from The Shepheardes Calender (1579)
- To His Booke
To […] Mayster Gabriell Harvey
Januarye
Aprill
October
November
- from Amoretti (1595)
- Sonnet 1 (“Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands”)
Sonnet 3 (“The soverayne beauty which I doo admyre”)
Sonnet 6 (“Be nought dismayd that her unmoved mind”)
Sonnet 9 (“Long-while I sought to what I might compare”)
Sonnet 15 (“Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle”)
Sonnet 16 (“One day as I unwarily did gaze”)
Sonnet 22 (“This holy season fit to fast and pray”)
Sonnet 26 (“Sweet is the Rose, but growes upon a brere”)
Sonnet 34 (“Lyke as a ship that through the Ocean wyde”)
Sonnet 37 (“What guyle is this, that those her golden tresses”)
Sonnet 54 (“Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay”)
Sonnet 56 (“Fayre ye be sure, but cruell and unkind”)
Sonnet 64 (“Comming to kisse her lyps, [such grace I found]”)
Sonnet 68 (“Most glorious Lord of lyfe that on this day”)
Sonnet 69 (“The famous warriors of the anticke world”)
Sonnet 70 (“Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king”)
Sonnet 74 (“Most happy letters fram’d by skilfull trade”)
Sonnet 75 (“One day I wrote her name upon the strand”)
Sonnet 80 (“After so long a race as I have run”)
Sonnet 82 (“Joy of my life, full oft for loving you”)
Sonnet 89 (“Lyke as the Culver on the bared bough”)
- Epithalamion (1595)
from The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596)
- To […] Sir Walter Raleigh
The First Booke of the Faerie Queene
- Canto I
Canto II
Canto III
Canto IIII
Canto V
Canto VI
Canto VII
Canto VIII
Canto IX
Canto X
Canto XI
Canto XII
THOMAS NASHE (1567-?1601)
- from The Unfortunate Traveller (1594)
LADY MARGARET HOBY (1571-1633)
- from The Diary of Lady Hoby (1599-1603)
SAMUEL DANIEL (1562/1563-1619)
- from Delia (1592)
- To […] the Lady Mary, Countess of Pembroke
Sonnet VI (“Fair is my love, and cruel as sh’is fair”)
Sonnet IX (“If this be love, to draw a weary breath”)
Sonnet XV (“If that a loyal heart and faith unfeigned”)
Sonnet XVIII (“Restore thy tresses to the golden ore”)
Sonnet XXX (“I once may see when years shall wreck my wrong”)
Sonnet XXXV (“Thou canst not die whilst any zeal abound”)
Sonnet XLIX (“Unhappy pen and ill-accepted papers”)
- from The Complaint of Rosamond (1592)
To the Lady Lucy, Countess of Bedford (1603)
To the Lady Anne Clifford (1603)
A Panegyric Congratulatory to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty (1603)
from A Defence of Rhyme (1603)
- To William Herbert Earl of Pembroke
THOMAS LODGE (1558-1625)
- from Rosalind (1590)
- To […] the Lord of Hunsdon
To the Gentlemen Readers
The Schedule Annexed to Euphues’ Testament
Rosalind
- from A Fig for Momus (1595)
- To the Gentlemen Readers Whatsoever
To His Mistress A.L.: Epistle 3
- Appendix: Physiology in Lodge’s “To His Mistress A.L.: Epistle 3,” lines 39-46
ROBERT GREENE (1558-1592)
- from A Quip for an Upstart Courtier (1592)
- To […] Thomas Barnaby Esquire
To the Gentlemen Readers: Health
A Quip for an Upstart Courtier
- from A Disputation between a He Cony-Catcher and a She Cony-Catcher (1592)
- To All Gentlemen, Merchants, Apprentices, and Country Farmers
A Disputation between Laurence, a Foist and Fair Nan, a Traffic
The Conversion of an English Courtesan
- from Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit (1592)
- The Printer to the Gentle Readers
To the Gentlemen Readers
Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit
To Those Gentlemen His Quondam Acquaintance
A Letter Written to His Wife
WILLIAM KEMP (fl. 1585-1602)
- Kemp’s Nine Days’ Wonder (1600)
- To […] Mistress Anne Fitton
Kemp’s Nine Days’ Wonder
- The First Day’s Journey
The Second Day’s Journey
The Third Day’s Journey
The Fourth Day’s Journey
The Fifth Day’s Journey
The Sixth Day’s Journey
The Seventh Day’s Journey
The Eighth Day’s Journey
The Ninth Day’s Journey
Kemp’s Humble Request to […] Ballad-Makers and Their Coherents
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)
- Venus and Adonis (1593)
- from Sonnets (1609)
- Sonnet 2 (“When forty winters shall besiege thy brow”)
Sonnet 3 (“Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest”)
Sonnet 4 (“Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend”)
Sonnet 12 (“When I do count the clock that tells the time”)
Sonnet 17 (“Who will believe my verse in time to come”)
Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”)
Sonnet 20 (“A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted”)
Sonnet 23 (“As an unperfect actor on the stage”)
Sonnet 29 (“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”)
Sonnet 30 (“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought”)
Sonnet 32 (“If thou survive my well-contented day”)
Sonnet 40 (“Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all”)
Sonnet 42 (“That thou hast her, it is not all my grief ”)
Sonnet 44 (“If the dull substance of my flesh were thought”)
Sonnet 45 (“The other two, slight air and purging fire”)
Sonnet 55 (“Not marble nor the gilded monuments”)
Sonnet 71 (“No longer mourn for me when I am dead”)
Sonnet 73 (“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”)
Sonnet 76 (“Why is my verse so barren of new pride?”)
Sonnet 81 (“Or I shall live your epitaph to make”)
Sonnet 87 (“Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing”)
Sonnet 89 (“Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault”)
Sonnet 90 (“Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now”)
Sonnet 91 (“Some glory in their birth, some in their skill”)
Sonnet 94 (“They that have pow’r to hurt, and will do none”)
Sonnet 99 (“The forward violet thus did I chide”)
Sonnet 102 (“My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming”)
Sonnet 106 (“When in the chronicle of wasted time”)
Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)
Sonnet 128 (“How oft when thou, my music, music play’st”)
Sonnet 129 (“Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame”)
Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”)
Sonnet 135 (“Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will”)
Sonnet 138 (“When my love swears that she is made of truth”)
Sonnet 143 (“Lo as a careful housewife runs to catch”)
Sonnet 144 (“Two loves I have of comfort and despair”)
Sonnet 145 (“Those lips that Love’s own hand did make”)
Sonnet 146 (“Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth”)
Sonnet 147 (“My love is as a fever, longing still”)
Sonnet 151 (“Love is too young to know what conscience is”)
Sonnet 154 (“The little love-god, lying once asleep”)
MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631)
- from The Shepherds’ Garland (1593)
- from Idea’s Mirror (1594)
- “My heart imprisoned in a hopeless isle”
“Some wits there be which like my method well”
“Why do I speak of joy or write of love”
“My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat”
“When first I ended, then I first began”
- from England’s Heroical Epistles (1597)
- The Lady Jane Gray, to the Lord Gilford Dudley
The Lord Gilford Dudley to the Lady Jane Gray
ROBERT SOUTHWELL (1561-1595)
- The Author to His Loving Cousin (1595)
from Saint Peter’s Complaint (1595)
From Fortune’s Reach (1595)
Christ’s Bloody Sweat (1595)
The Prodigal Child’s Soul Wrack (1595)
from The Sequence on the Virgin Mary and Christ (1595)
- vi. The Nativity of Christ
- The Burning Babe (1602)
Decease Release: Dum morior orior [date unknown]
SIR WALTER RALEGH (OR RALEIGH) (1554-1618)
- A Vision upon this Conceit of “The Faerie Queene” (“Methought I saw the grave, where Laura lay”) (1590)
The Lie (“Go, soul, the body’s guest”) (composed, c. 1590/92?)
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd (“If all the world and love were young”) (1600)
Sir Walter Ralegh to His Son (“Three things there be that prosper up apace”) (circulated, c. 1625-60)
from The Ocean to Cynthia (composed, 1582-83)
Nature that Washed Her Hands in Milk (composed, c. 1603-18?; circulated, c. 1625-60)
from The Discovery of Guiana (1596)
- To […] Charles Howard […] And […] Sir Robert Cecil
To the Reader
The Discovery of Guiana
SIR JOHN DAVIES (1569-1626)
- from Epigrams and Elegies (1595?)
- Ad Musam (Epigram 1)
In Rufum (Epigram 3)
In Titum (Epigram 6)
In Severum (Epigram 13)
In Gerontem (Epigram 20)
In Ciprium (Epigram 22)
In Haywodum (Epigram 29)
In Dacum (Epigram 30)
Of Tobacco (Epigram 36)
In Philonem (Epigram 38)
Meditations of a Gull (Epigram 47)
Ad Musam (Epigram 48)
Ignoto
- “I love thee not for sacred chastity”
“Faith (wench) I cannot court thy sprightly eyes”
“Sweet wench, I love thee, yet I will not sue”
- from Gulling Sonnets (composed, c. 1594-1604)
- To His Good Friend, Sir Anthony Cooke
Sonnet 2 (“As when the bright cerulean firmament”)
Sonnet 3 (“What eagle can behold her sunbright eye”)
Sonnet 6 (“The sacred Muse that first made love divine”)
Sonnet 8 (“My case is this: I love Zepheria bright”)
- from Nosce Teipsum (1599)
- To My Most Gracious Dread Sovereign
Of Human Knowledge
- from Hymns of Astraea (1599)
- Hymn I. Of Astraea
Hymn II. To Astraea
Hymn XV. Of Her Wit
Hymn XVI. Of Her Will
Hymn XX. Of the Passions of Her Heart
Hymn XXIII. Of Her Justice
Hymn XXIV. Of Her Magnanimity
Hymn XXVI. To Envy
FRANCIS BACON, VISCOUNT ST ALBAN (1561-1626)
- Letter to Lord Burghley (1592?)
from Essays (1597)
- The Epistle Dedicatory to Master Anthony Bacon
Of Studies
Of Discourse
Of Ceremonies and Respects
Of Followers and Friends
Of Suits
Of Negotiating
GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559/1560-1634)
- from Ovid’s Banquet of Sense (1595)
- To […] Master Matthew Royden
I.D. of the Middle Temple (“Only that eye which for true love doth weep”)
Another (“Since Ovid [love’s first gentle master] died”)
Ovid’s Banquet of Sense
The Argument
Narratio
- De Guiana, Carmen Epicum (1596)
from Achilles’ Shield (1598)
- To the Understander
Book 18 of Homer’s Iliad
- Appendix: Corinna’s Garden—Ovid’s Banquet of Sense, Stanzas 9-10
JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)
- Song (“Go and catch a falling star”)
The Bait
Woman’s Constancy
The Flea
The Relic
Satire I
Satire III
Elegy 1: Jealousy
Elegy 8: The Comparison
Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going to Bed
The Storm
The Calm
To Sir Henry Wotton (“Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls”)
Sappho to Philaenis
JOHN MARSTON (1576-1634)
- from The Scourge of Villainy (1599)
- Satyre X: Humours
To Him that Hath Perused Me
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)
JOHN STOW (1524/1525-1605)
- from A Survey of London (1598)
- To […] the Lord Mayor of the City of London
The Antiquity of London
Houses of Students of the Common Law
Of Orders and Customs
Honour of Citizens and Worthiness of Men in the Same
The Singularities of the City of London
THOMAS DELONEY (d. in or before 1600)
- The Queen’s Visiting of the Camp at Tilsbury (1588)
from Thomas of Reading (?1598-?1600)
- Chapter 1
Chapter 4
Chapters 6-8
Chapter 11
Chapters 13-15
THOMAS CAMPION (1567-1620)
- from A Book of Ayres (1601)
- Song III (“I care not for these ladies”)
Song V (“My love hath vowed he will forsake me”)
Song VI (“When to her lute Corinna sings”)
Song VIII (“It fell on a summer’s day”)
- from Observations in the Art of English Poesy (1602)
- To […] the Lord Buckhurst
The First Chapter, Entreating of Numbers in General
The Second Chapter, Declaring the Unaptness of Rhyme in Poesy
ELIZABETH GRYMESTON (b. in or before 1563-d. 1601/1604)
- from Miscellanea. Meditations. Memoratives (1604)
- The Epistle: To Her Loving Son, Bernye Grymeston
Chapter I: A Short Line How to Level Your Life
Chapter III: A Pathetical Speech of the Person of Dives in the Torments of Hell
Chapter V: A Sinner’s Glass
Chapter XIII: Evening Meditation
Additional Online Texts
SIMON FISH (d. 1531)
- A Supplication for the Beggars (1529)
JOHN BALE (1495-1563)
- The Laborious Journey and Search of John Leland, for England’s Antiquities (1549)
- The Epistle Dedicatory
John Bale to the Reader
Certain Sermons or Homilies (1547)
- An Exhortation Concerning Good Order and Obedience to Rulers and Magistrates
WILLIAM BALDWIN (d. in or before 1563)
- from A Mirror for Magistrates (1563)
- The Second Part of the Mirror for Magistrates
How Collingbourne Was Cruelly Executed
ARTHUR GOLDING (1535/1536-1606)
- from Ovid’s Metamorphosis (1567)
- To […] Robert Earl of Leicester
To the Reader
Book 10 of Ovid’s Metamorphosis
JOHN DEE (1527-1609)
- from “The Mathematical Preface to Euclid’s Elements of Geometry” (1570)
POPULAR LITERATURE IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
Pamphlets of Murder and Mayhem
- Anonymous, Sundry Strange and Inhuman Murders, Lately Committed (1591)
- A Declaration of the Monstrous Cruelty of a Father That Hired One to Murder Three of His Own Children
A True Discourse of a Cruel and Inhuman Murder, Committed upon Master Padge of Plymouth
Other Strange Things Seen at That Time
Broadsides and Ballads
- A New Ballad of the Strange and Most Cruel Whips (1588)
A Ditty Delightful of Mother Watkins Ale (c. 1590)
Luke Hutton’s Lamentation (1598)
GEORGE GASCOIGNE (1534/1535?-1577)
- from The Posies of George Gascoigne (1575)
- Certain Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Rhyme in English
WILLIAM HARRISON (1535-1593)
- from An Historical Description of the Island of Britain (1587)
- Chapter 12: Of the Manner of Building and Furniture of Our Houses
Chapter 20: Of Gardens and Orchards
EDMUND SPENSER (?1552-1599)
- from The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596)
- from A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596; published 1809)
THOMAS LODGE (1558-1625)
- from Scylla’s Metamorphosis (1589)
from Robin the Devil [The Famous, True, and Historical Life of Robert, Second Duke of Normandy] (1591)
from The Life and Death of William Longbeard (1593)
SIR WALTER RALEGH (OR RALEIGH) (1554-1618)
- from A Report of the Truth of the Fight … Betwixt the Revenge … and an Armada of the King of Spain (“The Last Fight of the Revenge”) (1591)
SIR JOHN DAVIES (1569-1626)
- from Orchestra or, a Poem of Dancing (1596)
GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559/1560-1634)
- from Ovid’s Banquet of Sense (1595)
- A Coronet for His Mistress Philosophy
THOMAS DELONEY (d. in or before 1600)
- from Jack of Newbury (1596-97; 1st extant print edition, 1619)
JOHN FLORIO (1553-1625) AND MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE (1533-1592)
- from The Essays or Moral, Politic and Military Discourses of Lord Michel de Montaigne (1603)
- To the Courteous Reader
The Author to the Reader
Of the Cannibals
- Appendix: Florio’s Contribution to English Vocabulary
Suggested Reading
ONLINE RESOURCES: ADDITIONAL TEXTS AND SUGGESTED READING
INDEX OF AUTHORS, TITLES, AND FIRST LINES