[In the following essay, Gresham asserts that Baldwin is the most representative religious and moralistic writer of the years 1547 to 1553, showing how his writings help elucidate the complex nature of the English Reformation and merge didacticism with literary quality and accessibility.]

The most representative religious and moralistic writer of the reign of Edward VI is William Baldwin, a man of letters known best to us as the chief compiler of as well as a contributor to A Mirror for Magistrates. Baldwin merits this distinction over better-known writers such as Thomas Becon, Robert Crowley, John Bale, Hugh Latimer, and George Joye because his writings more adequately reflect the considerable range and variety of religious and moralistic works printed during this brief era of the English Reformation.¹ No other religious and moralistic writer contributed significantly to as many of the major publication trends of the period; no other writer seems to have been as interested in the variety of literary methods through which one could present religious and moral issues. No other writer of the period so clearly recognized the interaction of teaching moral truths and composing literature as a concern for language and form—a concern which led him to produce a work that may qualify as both the first English novel and the first original, developed prose satire in English.

Baldwin wrote or translated at least five separate works during the years 1547-1553; these include A Treatise of Morall Philosophie (1548), The Canticles or Balades of Salomon (1549), Wonderfull Newes of the Death of Paule the III (ca. 1552), Beware the Cat (ca. 1553), and The Funeralles of King Edward the Sixt (1553). Viewed as a whole these works form a paradigm of the popular-reading consciousness which fused literature, religion, and secular morality.² The tenor of these works owes something to the continuity of Erasmian humanism and yet something to Protestant moderation and even radical Lutheranism; but largely these works are those of a man who knew the vicissitudes of the printing trade and was sensitive to publication trends, who was committed to the teaching of moral truths, and who, above all, had an affinity for literary forms and modes and their application to the subject matter at hand. The man and his writings deserve more attention than modern scholarship has given them thus far.

One hindrance is that our biographical knowledge of Baldwin leaves an unclear profile.³ We do not know, for example, his place or date of birth. Although scholars have contended that Baldwin spent some time at Oxford in the early 1530s, the support for that contention is questionable.⁴ Indeed, our first substantial detail is that he was serving in one or more capacities for the important Protestant printer Edward Whitchurch in the late 1540s.⁵ One can only conjecture as to his activities before his association with Whitchurch. From 1547 to 1563, however, he bears notice as a printer, poet, dramatist, and editor; in fact, he seems to have been well-respected among his contemporaries as a man of letters⁶ and, despite his Protestant leanings, he was politically astute enough to remain active in London during Mary's reign. Through his own testimony, we know that he left literature very early in Elizabeth's reign for another vocation; it seems probable that he became a preacher.⁷ Evidence points to the probability of his death in 1563; but even that is open for debate.⁸ What can be said with certainty is that a sketch of Baldwin's writings and their relationship to the publication tendencies of the reign of Edward VI further elucidates the complex nature of the English Reformation and some of the special qualities of this much-neglected period of English literary history.

One of these special qualities emanates from the continued printing of works that James K. McConica has categorized under the rubric of “secular morality.”⁹ In the reign of Edward VI this category includes, among other works, editions of Richard Taverner's moralistic collections from Erasmus, Sir Thomas Elyot's Image of Governance, Richard Moryson's translation of Vives, translations of Erasmus' Praise of Folly by Sir Thomas Chaloner and More's Utopia by Ralph Robinson, and several editions of Baldwin's Treatise of Morall Philosophie.¹⁰ Each in its own way focuses upon the relationship between reason and moral behavior. McConica cites these works as evidence of the continuity of Erasmian humanism, and while his overall thesis has been challenged, most notably by John K. Yost and John N. King, the facts remain that secular morality is a major trend of the English Reformation and that Baldwin's Treatise is largely characteristic of it.¹¹

The 1548 edition of the Treatise, a relatively small book of fewer than three hundred octavo pages, contains brief lives of twenty-four philosophers, ranging from Hermes to Seneca, and over twelve hundred classical sayings in prose and verse rendered in a vernacular translation.¹² Januslike, the Treatise looks back to the tradition of medieval florilegia and forward to the goals of Christian humanism. Obviously the work was popular, for it was published seven times between 1548 and 1564; the work was published twice by Thomas Palfreyman, who usurped Baldwin's project and changed its format—much to the irritation of Baldwin.¹³ The popularity of the Treatise continued into the seventeenth century, and by 1651 the work had appeared in twenty-four editions. The 1548 edition, as well as each subsequent edition, relied on a handful of sources, chiefly The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, De Vita et Moribus Philosophorum by Walter Burley, and Caxton's edition of Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, which was based on Lord Rivers' translation of Guillaume de Tigonville's Dits moraulx des philosophes.¹⁴ Although somewhat difficult to pinpoint, the influence of Erasmus' Adagia and Apophthegmes on the organization of the Treatise seems likely.¹⁵

What is most characteristic of Baldwin, as the Treatise demonstrates, is his merging of didactic purpose with structure and mode of presentation. In the spirit of humanism, Baldwin wants the Treatise to be both pleasant and profitable, albeit his didactic aims are, of course, more specific. In dedicating the Treatise to Edward Beauchamp, the young son of the recently appointed Protector, Baldwin makes an appropriate political gesture, and, concurrently, singles out the education of youth as one of his primary objectives. The larger purpose of the Treatise, however, is to lead all men to reason as a daily guide to morality, and, believing that moral philosophy can move men in the proper direction, Baldwin carefully defends the compatibility of moral philosophy and scripture. He does not deny the primacy of scripture; but he asserts that moral philosophy can serve as “an handmayden to perswade suche thynges as Scripture doeth commaunde.” He further delineates the two:

so that Moral philosophye maye wel be called that parte of goddes lawe, whiche geveth commaundment of outwarde behavyour: which differeth from the gospel, in as muche as the gospell promyseth remission of sinnes, reconciling to god, and the gyfte of the holy goste, and of eternal lyfe, for Christes sake.¹⁶

Looming in the consciousness of the time, as Baldwin recognized, was St. Paul's warning against philosophy, which must have afforded security to those who misunderstood and feared philosophy and who failed to see morality or Christian values reflected in the sayings of classical philosophers. Knowing that men such as John Colet and Erasmus had established precedents for his views must have been intellectually comforting to Baldwin.

Baldwin's concern for generic integrity and literary quality, marked by his characteristic avoidance of too much preoccupation with content to the detriment of form, is evident in the Treatise. In his dedicatory statement to the young Beauchamp, Baldwin expresses his concern for the “right use” of his Treatise, assuming that if he carefully explains its order and intent, the work will be read, learned, and followed. The Treatise contains four books, each of which evidences this attention to content and form. Book I, “Of Lives and Answers,” provides historical background and analysis of philosophy and moral philosophy, and brief biographical sketches of selected philosophers. While the historical background and analysis are sound pedagogical approaches, the key to the form of the Treatise occurs in Chapter iv of Book I, entitled “Of the kindes of teachinge of Morall Philosophie,” which reveals that the other three chapters, “Of Preceptes and Counsayles,” “Of Proverbes and Adages,” and “Of Proverbes and Semblables,” are modes of presentation designed to enhance the “teaching” aspect of the Treatise. What becomes obvious is that Baldwin has organized the chapters into modes of increasing difficulty, from the easiest to discern, “preceptes and counsayles,” to the most difficult, “proverbes and semblables.” In addition, these modes of presentation create variety, and thus every reader can find a mode that will catch his pleasure and aid in retaining moral truths.

Baldwin knew that each mode contributed to the accessibility of moral truths, and he also knew which particular qualities gave the mode its pedagogical integrity. In this passage, for example, he contrasts two modes:

Although preceptes and counsayles be the most playne and easye, yet lacke they the grace of delyte, which in theyr Proverbes they have supplyed, and that so fynely and so wyttely, that they bothe delyte and perswade excedynglye, myxed with suche piththynes in wordes and sentence, as maye minister occasion to muse and studye, a cause to fixe them the better in memory.

(M7^r)

After citing the mimetic quality of proverbs, Baldwin then suggests that their metrical potential contributes to their function:

And suche thinges as I thought most proper, I have drawen into meter, and joyned with them divers other, by other men done alreadye, to the intent that suche as delyte in Englyshe meter, and can retayne it in memory better than prose, might find herin somwhat according to theyr desires.

(M8^r)¹⁷

Continuing his discussion of modes, Baldwin shifts from proverbs and “meters” to an appraisal of “proverbes and semblables”:

For where as the other only commaunde or shewe the thing simply, this kynde by vehemencie of matter contayned in other thynges, perswadeth the thyng effectuallye, besydes muche good learnyng of naturall Philosophie, conteyned in the examples.

(Q2^r)

To ensure that his reader recognizes the merit of “semblables” or parables, he then explicates a parable on flattery by Erasmus.

Baldwin's concern for the integrity of his modes carries over into the way in which he perceives a “treatise” as a distinct genre. This concern is expressed in his “Epistle” to the edition (ca. 1555) of the Treatise, an edition which followed Palfreyman's (1553-1554?). Questioning the generic integrity of Palfreyman's edition, Baldwin asserts that Palfreyman

hath lefte that out, whiche many most desyer, as that which onelye answereth the name and title of the volum. For any thing is unaptly called a treatise, wher in the matter treated of is not formally defined, discussed, and sundred in to the partes.¹⁸

Here Baldwin once again reveals his fundamental commitment to the fusion of form and content, a commitment which made his Treatise one of the more important contributions to the publication trend of secular morality.

A somewhat different publication trend, one which treated the Bible as literature, was given impetus through Protector Somerset's desire to make the Bible accessible to the lay reader.¹⁹ The translation of the Psalms into English verse is the chief manifestation of this vogue, and the cornerstone work is Thomas Sternhold's Certayne Psalmes Chosen out of the Psalter of David (1547). Of course, the treatment of the Bible as literature was not an innovation of this period; the example had been set earlier by Jerome and Savonarola and nurtured by Erasmus, Tyndale, Luther, and Coverdale.²⁰ The reign of Edward VI, however, witnessed in addition to Sternhold's Psalmes several other noteworthy examples, including Sir Thomas Wyatt's Penytentiall Psalmes (1549), William Hunnis' Certayne Psalmes Drawen into English Metre (1550), Robert Crowley's Psalter of David Translated into Englysh Metre (1549), and Francis Seager's Certayne Psalmes Selected out of the Psalter of David, and Drawen into English Metre (1553). Beyond the impetus given to these publications through the court and the Reformation, we should look for specific reasons for the preference of verse over prose. With respect to the psalms, Hallett Smith has identified three possibilities: (1) historically, the Psalms have been rendered as verse; (2) converting the Psalms into English verse provides a good memory device; and (3) as verse, the Psalms might offset the profane love lyrics of the courtiers.²¹

A view of this publication practice would be incomplete if we thought of the Psalms as the only part of the Bible treated as literature. The books of Solomon, for example, were seen as apt poetical matter.²² Baldwin's Canticlers or Balades of Salomon, phraslyke declared in Englyshe Metres is representative of this specific variation of the general trend. In choosing to render the Song of Solomon in verse, Baldwin displayed even more presumption than others who had treated the Bible as literature, because this book of scripture was the focus of a theological conflict waged mainly between Sebastian Castellio (or Castalio) and John Calvin.²³ Castellio questioned the integrity of the book, alleging it to be wanton; Calvin defended it, and, citing Origen and Anselm as his authorities, Baldwin also defended it (Al^r). Furthermore, it is obvious from the physical attractiveness of the Canticles that Baldwin lavished much care on its composition and printing, and it is equally apparent that he attended carefully to fulfilling his purpose through a sensitivity to form and the literary potential of his material.

While never referring specifically to the Calvin/Castellio debate, Baldwin was aware that the Song of Solomon was not universally respected and thus admits,

No doubt but it is an hie and misticall matter, and more darkely hyd than other partes of the scripture, by meanes of the wanton wordes: which also cause many to deny it to be Gods wurde.

(Al^r)

Compelled by the controversy, he responds to the challenge of those who deny it is God's word: “Whose errour to redresse is the chief cause why I have medled with the matter” (Al^r). His defense of the Song of Solomon's scriptural integrity turns upon the citation of authority—first, Origen, who called the work a “spousal song of Christ and his spouse” (Al^r), and, second, Anselm, who called it “a prophecie, describyng the estate of the churche, and with what affection she desyred Christ in all tymes” (Al^r). Baldwin's second purpose, enlarging upon his defense of the Song of Solomon, entails the conventional desire that sacred poetry replace immoral secular poetry. In his dedicatory preface to Edward VI, Baldwin, referring to the ballads in his Canticles, exclaims

Would god that suche songes myght once drive out of office the baudy balades of lecherous love that commonly are indited and song of idle courtyers in princes and noblemens houses.

(A3^r)

We may question whether Baldwin seriously thought that such a purpose might be fulfilled; but we should not doubt his less idealistic belief in the merits of treating the Bible as literature.

As with his Treatise, Baldwin is concerned that his Canticles be accessible to the reader, that form enhance function. And once again his literary sensitivities move him to produce something innovative; more innovative than many other works within this group. Ostensibly, Baldwin's main concern is that the reader may become lost in the allegory, and thus he cautions him to view it as “a dialoge betwene Christ and his churche” (Al^r). He asks the reader to read closely and to “note the sentence more than the rime, with the argumentes whiche go before and after the songes. And reade them orderly, so shall the proces of the matter help thee muche” (Al^r). He attends further to the reader by providing, at the end of the book, a brief glossary of all Hebrew words, and, although he apparently never finished or at least printed it, he also promises an “exposicion” of what he terms the “metaphorical wurdes” in the work.

A consciousness of form, however, is the key to Baldwin's attempt to make the Canticles readable and understandable. Recognizing the similarities of the Song of Solomon to the common ballad, he opts for a metrical rather than a prose paraphrase. In addition, Baldwin senses the lyrical potential of his material and seeks to exploit that potential through metrical and stanzaic experimentation. Although most of his verse paraphrases are written in iambics and structured in quatrains, Baldwin strives for poetic variety, working with several different types of rhyme and experimenting with many set forms including the couplet, ballade, rondeau, strambotti, sonnet, and triplet with refrain.²⁴ In truth, many of his lines do not achieve a memorable quality; but some have genuine worth. For example, notice these fine lines spoken by the “Churche” to her “Younglinges”:

My love whome in my harte alway
I aske what wurke, he wyll I doe,
Made answer thus without delay,
And lovely spake me to:
Aryse, arise
Up, up my Love, my dove, my frende,
Make haste, whome I have made so fayer:
And cum to me, I wyll thee sende
My flocks for to repayre.
Aryse, arise.

(D1^v)

Of similar quality are these lines spoken by Christ to his spouse:

Catche us the false foxes that preache not the truth,
These young litle foxes whiche flatter my youth:
Catche them with scripture, declare them theyr follie,
Teache them to preache true my wurd that is hollie:
And stroy not my vineyardes.

(D2^v-D3^r)

As a final assessment, it may be said that the only work in this publication trend with more literary quality is Wyatt's Psalms. Baldwin's multiple consciousness of religion, literature, and moral truths is thus readily discernible in his Canticles, a devout book which has been tentatively labeled “the earliest printed book of lyric poetry in England.”²⁵

The books published in the reign of Edward VI mirror both continuity and change. Tudor England's hunger for works in translation, for example, remained strong in this period; the character of anti-Catholic writings, meanwhile, underwent a dramatic change, as Protector Somerset's liberal views of the press and his encouragement of Protestant propaganda spawned many publications attacking various elements of the Roman church. No such flood of these works was possible under Henry VIII, even though he obviously helped to build the foundation for the trend. Furthermore, as trends, the translations and the anti-Catholic publications of this period frequently overlap; that is, many translations are of anti-Catholic works, and thus we may conveniently juxtapose our discussion of these tendencies. The focal point once again will be Baldwin, for his Wonderfull Newes and Beware the Cat not only contribute to these respective groups, but they also illustrate their interrelationships.

The popularity of translations extends back to Caxton, who was shrewd enough to see that nearly any translated work was a good financial risk.²⁶ Nationalistic and educational motives complemented the financial one during the first three or four decades of the sixteenth century; and although several of these considerations prevailed in the reign of Edward VI, they were peripheral to the zealous motives of those who wanted to further the cause of the Reformation through translating hitherto prohibited works of Continental reformers. Consequently, and particularly during the Protectorate, writings of such men as Bullinger, Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Ochino, and Zwingli became a part of the religious literature of the English language. The most prolific translators, John Veron, Walter Lynne, Richard Argentine, and others, never achieved a fraction of the eminence of the men whose works they translated; but each seems to have believed that he was performing a service for his fellow man.

Baldwin expresses a similar belief, in his Wonderful Newes of the Death of Paule the III, a translation of Epistola de Morte Pauli Tertii (1549) by one Publius Esquillus, claiming that he has translated the work so that “al they maye see therin the Popes moste detestable, mischevous, and devillishe doctrine, lyfe and dedes.”²⁷ More importantly, Baldwin's translation belongs in this particular publication area because Publius Esquillus is the pseudonym of Matthias Flacius (1520-1575), a notable second-generation German Reformer, best known now for his clash with Melanchthon and the Adiaphorists over the Leipzig Interim of 1548. Flacius, a strict Lutheran, made full use of his pamphleteering skills in prevailing over Melanchthon and thus was prepared to generate attacks on the papacy, however, one such attack being the Epistola. His more famous writings, however, appeared later, most notably his thirteen-volume masterpiece of church history, the Magdeburg Centuries (1559-1574).²⁸

It will become evident that Baldwin appreciated the fictional mode of the Epistola, and yet in order to broaden the value of the work he maintained that Flacius' grotesque account of the late pope's activities was true. Baldwin sensed that Flacius had written the Epistola specifically for princes and, accordingly, he exhorted them to read his translation so that they “might learne here howe Popes and theyr ministers have doen and doe abuse them” (A2^v). Undoubtedly, Baldwin believed in the persuasive power of such a work, for his ultimate reason for translating it was to bring those “suche as yet for lacke of knowlege favour hym” (A3^r) to a new vision of understanding about the pope and his ways. And the serious tone of Baldwin's preface suggests that he saw as much integrity in the Epistola as in any other radical Protestant work of the period. Nevertheless, we should hesitate to conclude that Baldwin's championing of the Epistola indicates that he was adopting strict Lutheran views similar to those of Flacius. The more accurate analysis seems to be that once again Baldwin was reacting to the stimulus of a major publication trend, and that while he may have agreed with much of the radical content of the Epistola, he was equally receptive to its literary form or mode.

This interest in the form or mode of the Epistola is apparent from the opening lines of Baldwin's “W. B. to the lovyng Reader”:

It is wonderfull (good Reader) to see the sundry diversities of wittes what meanes they invente to declare [and] publishe suche thynges as they thinke necesary to be known, some under the colour of fayned histories, some under the persons of specheles beastes, and some under y^e shadow of dreames and visions, of which thou haste here a notable and wurthy example.

(Al^v)

Baldwin's admiration for this aspect of the work solidifies through the care with which he produces a close translation of the Epistola, embellishing it only slightly to enhance its narrative appeal. The result is a highly visual and, at times, grotesque satire woven through a tapestrylike narrative. The narrative itself moves steadily from Pope Paul's reception in hell to a recounting of the pope's “mischevous dedes,” including the abuse of his own daughter and the persecution of Christians, to the final casting of the pope into a lake of fire.

It should be readily apparent that translations of the works of Continental Reformers must have given impetus to the publication of anti-Catholic invective and satire. Indeed, some of the more successful works in translation may have served as models for original anti-Catholic works. Two possibilities are Walter Lynne's The Beginning and Endynge of Popery (1548?), with its visual appeal through animal imagery, and John Ponet's translation of Bernardino Ochino's A Tragoedie or Dialoge of the Unjust Primacie of the Bp. of Rome (1549), with its spirited dialogue. However, we must look beyond possible models and influences to center on the most common target of original anti-Catholic writings and the most characteristic author in this trend. With respect to the former, even a cursory glance at the publications of the period reveals that the Protestant attack was most frequently aimed at the nature of the Mass. Often calling for specific reforms, these witty and scurrilous Mass tracts numbered over thirty in 1548 and were authored by men of prominence like William Turner and Robert Crowley as well as by obscure writers such as Richard Tracy and William Punt.²⁹ The exact nature of the tracts may have differed somewhat; but nearly everyone was couched in a moral tone, tended to be nationalistic, and employed a fictional mode.

Selecting a representative anti-Catholic writer is a less difficult task than charting the subliterary realm of the Mass tracts, because few scholars would argue against the choice of John Bale.³⁰ Although multifaceted in his writing, religious, and scholarly activities, Bale seems most at home when he is railing against the Roman Catholic Church. Of his several anti-Catholic writings, perhaps the one which best illustrates his energetic style and often extremely bitter tone is An Answer to a Papystycall Exhortacyon (ca. 1548), cast in the mode of a dialogue (a common mode for anti-Catholic publications) between a “papyste” and a “Chrystiane.”³¹ A few excerpts from this lively work are in order. Early in the dialogue the Christian renders these lines:

Ye utter soche trashe
And pylde haberdashe
As laye longe in your mynde
But loke ye styll hyde
All treason and pryde
Of your olde popyshe kynde.

(B1^v)

His railing continues a few lines later:

Ye wycked papystes
In your drowsye mystes
Abhorre the symple sort
Quid nam est hoc que doctrina hec nova
Ye do not regarde
Goddes worde to be harde
But geve it yll report.

(Bl^r)

Bales' invective cascades with the gusto of John Skelton's verse; yet the lines fail to retain the rhythmic appeal of good poetry. But ragged as the lines are by literary standards, they capture the spirit of this major publication trend, a trend which by 1553 needed a true satirist to imbue it with literary integrity.

Following the lead of Bale and others, Baldwin composed an anti-Catholic satire, Beware the Cat; but unlike his predecessors, he took full advantage of the literary possibilities of this trend which he no doubt recognized in translating Flacius' Epistola. In Beware the Cat, Baldwin produced the finest piece of anti-Catholic satire, by literary standards, written during this period. It possesses the verve of Bale's writing plus touches of the more sophisticated satire of Erasmus' Praise of Folly and Sir Thomas More's Utopia and the comic spirit of fabliaux. Yet Beware the Cat had difficulty making it into print, apparently because it was not ready for publication until Mary had taken the throne in August of 1553; at that point, the anti-Catholic sentiment of the work precluded its publication.³² While an edition may have been printed in 1561, the earliest extant editions are those of 1570 and 1584.

Beware the Cat demonstrates Baldwin's most notable sensitivity to the enmeshing of content and form and to fulfilling his purpose—the creation of an imaginative context in which various aspects of the Roman church are equated with avarice, superstition, and ignorance. Elements of the context, however, are not fictional, for the setting of the work is the Christmas of 1552-1553, a season in which Baldwin aided George Ferrers, Northumberland's appointee as Lord of Misrule, in preparing masques and interludes.³³ The work itself is developed through the mode of a debate or disputation between Baldwin and one Gregory Streamer, a pedantic scholar, on the topic of whether birds and animals have reason and can speak. But woven into the fabric of the narrative are the commonplace strands of anti-Catholic satire: allusions to the cruelty and gluttony of the pope; attacks on transubstantiation; similarities drawn between witchcraft and unwritten verities; and vignettes of superstitious priests. Although Baldwin adopted the typical themes of anti-Catholic satire, his work is superior to his contemporaries' because of his ability to employ sophisticated techniques of satire and prose fiction.

Beware the Cat has been cited by William P. Holden as one of the earliest developed prose satires in English and, more recently, it has been called the first English novel by Prof. William A. Ringler, Jr.³⁴ The achievement of this work as satire and as fiction can only be summarized here; but the above claims testify to its emerging significance in the history of English literature. As satire, Beware the Cat displays a wide range of techniques, including satiric and dramatic irony, parody, caricature, and comic ridicule.³⁵ Indeed, the satire in Beware the Cat recalls Chaucer, echoes Rabelais, and anticiates the Marprelate author as well as the works of Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, and the excellence of Elizabethan satire. As a work of original prose fiction, it bears comparison with George Gascoigne's Adventures Passed by Master F. J. (1573), which is frequently cited as the first English novel. Beware the Cat has all the elements of the better early English fiction: realistic dialogue, unity of point of view, effective transition to direct speech, and effective characterization. In addition, it is written in the complex frame-form mode used by Chaucer and Boccaccio.³⁶

One other characteristic of Beware the Cat that should be noted is its verbal inventiveness, a characteristic which becomes most apparent in the following excerpts. The first occurs as Streamer reports what happened when he applied the potion which he claims allowed him to understand the speech of animals:

But because as I perceived the cell perceptible of my brain intelligible, was yet to grosse, by meanes that the filmy panicle comming from dure mater, made to strait opilations, by ingrossing the pores and conducts imaginative, I devised to help that with this gargaristicall fume, whose subtil ascention is wunderful.

(p. 44)

The language is brilliantly keyed to character here, as the foolish Streamer prattles on blissfully, self-deluded about what he is doing. A second of many instances of verbal inventiveness is the comical “poeticall furie” which overcomes Streamer when the potion finally takes effect:

and would fain have I heard the rest, but could not by means of barking dogges, grunting of hoggs, wauling of cats, rumbling of ratts, gagling of geese, humming of bees, rousing of Bucks, gagling of ducks, … groning and spruing, baking and bruing, scratching & rubbing, watching and shrugging.

(p. 46)

Such a passage reminds us of Skelton's metrics and the grotesque vision of Rabelais. In short, Beware the Cat is an example of what the trend of anti-Catholic satire had the potential to produce when bitterness and invective were softened through skillfully handled literary techniques.

As an epilogue to the publication trends of the Edwardian era, one other significant, albeit peripheral, trend should be mentioned. During these years, the so-called “Commonwealth Men” produced a body of literature which seems to have had considerable impact upon Tudor society. This amorphous group included several of the great preachers of the time—Latimer, Lever, and Becon—as well as lesser-known but equally conscientious men such as William Forrest, Miles Hogarde, and John Hales, the latter being probably the most representative of the entire group. Humanists and conservatives, these men believed firmly in a societal dedication to the commonweal and, accordingly, wrote tough-minded poetry and treatises which attacked a plethora of social and economic ills, chiefly enclosures, inflation, and social displacement.³⁷ The products of this somewhat nebulous movement, works such as William Forrest's The Pleasaunt Poesye of Princelie Practise (1548) and the anonymous Discourse of a Common Weal (written ca. 1549), retain a foundation of Christian assumptions and moral vision despite their worldly focus.

While modern scholarship has never directly associated Baldwin with the Commonwealth Men, his long poem, The Funeralles of King Edward the Sixt (written 1553; first published 1560), shares the concerns of the Commonwealth literature.³⁸ Ostensibly, the poem sets out to resolve the doubts as to the cause of the young king's death, concluding that the sins of the people moved an angered God to take Edward from them. The narrative, however, becomes largely a platform for Baldwin to issue conventional complaints against lawyers, merchants, rent raisers, prelates, and others. Although the work falls short of the literary quality of Beware the Cat, it does provide additional evidence that Baldwin was carefully attuned to the publication trends of the era and that he maintained a dual concern for language and morality.

Perhaps a word of caution is needed here in conclusion. Any treatment of the publication trends of a period runs the risk of minimizing the importance of works which transcend the limitations of trends. Three such works that come to mind for the Edwardian period are the Book of Common Prayer, the Book of Homilies, and the translation of Erasmus' Paraphrases. But important as these works are for our understanding of the English Reformation, they are not broadly representative of the literature that this fascinating period produced. For a more accurate view, we must concern ourselves with publication trends and representative writers. Recent scholarly attention to the publication explosion under Edward VI and to the role played by Protector Somerset has provided the groundwork for studies such as the present one.³⁹ Future studies will lead, no doubt, to an enhanced appreciation for such representative writers as Latimer, Becon, and Bale; in addition, they will, it seems certain, validate the choice of William Baldwin as the most representative religious and moralistic writer of the period.

Notes

1. Thomas Becon is commonly cited as the most representative or characteristic religious writer of the period. See A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (1964; rpt. New York, 1971), pp. 224-225.

2. I wish to thank the staffs at the Newberry, Huntington, Folger Shakespeare, Bodleian, and Cambridge University libraries for allowing me to examine and study copies or microfilm of various editions of Baldwin's works.

3. The most useful summary of biographical details for Baldwin appears in The Mirror for Magistrates, ed. Lily B. Campbell (1938; rpt. New York, 1970), pp. 21-25. Also of use are W. F. Trench, “William Baldwin,” Modern Quarterly of Language and Literature, 2 (1898-99), 259-267; Eveline I. Feasey, “William Baldwin,” MLR, 20 (1925), 407-418. All of these biographical materials supplement preliminary accounts of Baldwin in the DNB and CHEL. My own research at the Public Record Office and numerous county record offices indicates that there were several men named William Baldwin (surname variously spelled) who lived in either London or the western counties during the middle decades of the sixteenth century; however, it is extremely difficult to link any one of them to William Baldwin, the man of letters.

4. Anthony à Wood appears to have originated the speculation that Baldwin attended Oxford. See Vol. I of Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (London, 1691-92), sig. 1, cols. 113-14. Wood, however, is unsure whether Baldwin took a degree. Joseph Foster, on the other hand, indicates that he did. See Vol. I of Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714, ed. Foster (Oxford, 1891), p. 61. Recently, the work of Alfred B. Emden has cast serious doubt on Baldwin's supposed Oxford attendance. Emden notes that the name Wood associates with Baldwin is actually spelled “Baulden” in the text and margin of the university register and regards this as an improbable variant spelling for “Baldwin” or “Baldwyn.” See Alfred B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford A.D. 1501 to 1540 (Oxford, 1974), p. 32.

5. In 1547, Whitchurch printed Christopher Langton's A Very Brief Treatise, Ordrely Declaring the Principal Parts of Physic, to which was added a commendatory sonnet by Baldwin. This is the first indication of Baldwin's association with Whitchurch. The sonnet may well be the first printed in English. See William P. Holden's edition of Baldwin's Beware the Cat and The Funerals of King Edward the Sixth, Connecticut College Monograph No. 8 (New London, Conn. 1963), p. 7. In addition, on the colophon of his Conticles or Balades of Salomon (1549), Baldwin refers to himself as “servant with Edwarde Whitchurche.”

6. For suggestive comments on Baldwin's work as a printer, see H. J. Byrom, “John Wayland—Printer, Scrivener, and Litigant,” The Library, 4th Ser., 11, No. 3 (1930), 312-349. Frederick Brie offers both fact and conjecture on Baldwin as a dramatist in “William Baldwin als Dramatiker,” Anglia, 38 (1914), 157-172. Speculation upon Baldwin as an editor is included in Byrom's article, cited above, and, more concretely, in Fitzroy Pyle, “Thomas Sackville and A Mirror for Magistrates,” RES, 14 (1938), 315-321. Contemporary praise of Baldwin as a man of letters appears in John Bale's Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Brytannie … Catalogus (Basle, 1557-59), Pt. 2, p. 108. Bale saw Baldwin as an English Cato. Jasper Heywood, in his 1560 translation of The Seconde Tragedie of Seneca Entituled Thyestes, also praises Baldwin as a man of letters.

7. Baldwin, in the 1563 dedication to A Mirror for Magistrates, speaks of being “called to an other trade of lyfe.” See Campbell's edition of the Mirror for a useful summary of the evidence that Baldwin became a preacher.

8. See Feasey, p. 418. Arthur Freeman, in “William Baldwin: The Last Years,” N&Q, N.S. 8, No. 8 (Aug., 1961), 300-301, has argued rather unconvincingly that Baldwin lived well into the 1580s. He bases his contention upon contemporary references to Baldwin which leave the impression that he is still alive. Recently, Paul Gaudet has supported 1563 as the probable year of Baldwin's death. See his “William Baldwin and the ‘Silence’ of His Last Years,” N&Q, 25 (1978), 417-420.

9. James Kelsey McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VII and Edward VI (Oxford, 1968), p. 258.

10. McConica, pp. 258-259.

11. See John K. Yost, “Taverner's Use of Erasmus and the Protestantization of English Humanism,” RQ, 23 (1970), 266-276; John N. King, “Protector Somerset, Patron of the English Renaissance,” PBSA, 70 (1976), 307-331.

12. There is no standard modern edition of Baldwin's Treatise, but, a very useful treatment of its various editions is Paul M. Gaudet, “William Baldwin's A Treatise of Moral Philosophy (1564): A Variorum Edition with Introduction,” diss. Princeton 1972.

13. Baldwin's response to Palfreyman's edition occurs in the “Epistle” to the (ca. 1555) edition of the Treatise.

14. Two useful discussions of the sources of the Treatise are Curt F. Bühler, “A Survival from the Middle Ages: William Baldwin's Use of The Dictes and Sayings,” Speculum, 23 (1948), 76-80, and D. T. Starnes, “Sir Thomas Elyot and the Sayings of the Philosophers,” Univ. of Texas Studies in English, No. 13 (1933), 5-35. See also Truman W. Camp, “William Baldwin and His Treatise of Moral Philosophy,” diss. Yale 1935.

15. Gaudet, pp. 63-65.

16. William Baldwin, A Treatise of Morall Philosophie (London, 1548), sig. A6^r. My citation is to STC 1253, the Huntington copy. This copy will be cited in all subsequent references to the 1548 edition of the Treatise.

17. This literary consciousness helps explain why Baldwin included, unacknowledged, a version of Surrey's translation of Martial's “The thinges that cause a quiet lyfe” at the end of Book III in a subsection entitled “Pythie meters of dyvers matters.” As Baldwin was fully aware, Surrey's verse boosted the poetic value of the Treatise considerably. In his two-volume edition of Tottel's Miscellany (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), Hyder Edward Rollins suggests that Surrey may have given a MS copy of the poem to Baldwin (II, 150, n. 27).

18. William Baldwin, A Treatise of Morall Philosophie (London, ca. 1555), sig. A2^v. My citation is to a microfilm of the British Library copy.

19. Protector Somerset's role in this publication trend is discussed in John N. King's “Freedom of the Press, Protestant Propaganda, and Protector Somerset,” HLQ, 39 (1976), 1-9, and in King's PSBA article cited above.

20. This literary tradition is discussed in the early chapters of Lily B. Campbell's Divine Poetry and Drama in Sixteenth-Century England (Cambridge, Eng., 1959).

21. Hallett Smith, “English Metrical Psalms in the Sixteenth Century and Their Literary Significance,” HLQ, 9 (1946), 251-256.

22. See Israel Baroway, “The Bible as Poetry in the English Renaissance: An Introduction,” JEGP, 32 (1933), 447-480.

23. Campbell, Divine Poetry and Drama, 56-58. There is no standard modern edition of Baldwin's Canticles; but a useful edition is Frances Camilla Cavanaugh, “A Critical Edition of The Canticles or Balades of Salomon Phraselyke Declared in English Metres by William Baldwin,” diss. St. Louis University 1964; Cavanaugh is preparing what will doubtless be the standard edition of the work. All references here to the text of the Canticles are to the Folger Shakespeare Library copy.

24. Cavanaugh's introduction, especially pp. 49-72, contains a useful discussion of Baldwin's metrical and stanzaic experiments.

25. Cavanaugh, p. 1.

26. A valuable discussion of translations and translators is included in Henry S. Bennett, English Books and Readers 1475 to 1557, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Eng., 1969), pp. 152-177.

27. Publius Esquillus, Wonderfull Newes of the Death of Paule the III, Englished by W. B. (London, ca. 1552), sig. A2^v. The first attribution of this work to Baldwin that I am aware of was by William A. Ringler, Jr., in “The Beginnings of English Fiction,” a Huntington Library research report delivered at San Marino, Calif., on June 18, 1977. It has subsequently been published as an article, “Beware The Cat and The Beginnings of English Fiction,” in Novel, 12 (1979) 113-26. My citations from Wonderfull Newes are to a microfilm of the Bodleian Library copy.

28. Standard biographical studies of Flacius are W. Preger, Matthias Flacius Illyricus und seine Zeit, 2 vols. (Erlangne, 1859-61), and G. W. Frank, De Matthiae Flacii Illyrici in libros sacros meritis (Leipzig, 1859). A good account of the adiaphoristic controversy appears in Clyde L. Manschreck, Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer (New York, 1958), pp. 287-291.

29. A complete list of these tracts is presented on p. 3 of John N. King's HLQ article, cited above. Valuable discussion of the tone and content of several of these tracts is in Walter K. Jordan, Edward VI: The Young King (Cambridge, Mass. 1968), pp. 135-144.

30. Useful studies of Bale as a man of letters include Jesse W. Harris, John Bale: A Study in the Minor Literature of the Reformation (1940; rpt. Freeport, 1970); Leslie P. Fairfield, John Bale: Mythmaker for the English Reformation (West Lafayette, 1976); and two studies by Ranier Pineas: “John Bale's Non-Dramatic Works of Religious Controversy,” Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962), 218-233, and “Some Aspects of John Bale's Controversial Technique,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 24 (1962), 583-588.

31. John Bale, An Answere to a Papystycall Exhortacyon Pretendynge to Avoyde False Doctrine (ca. 1548). My citations are to a microfilm of the British Library copy.

32. The only modern edition of Beware the Cat is that of William P. Holden cited above. All citations here from Beware the Cat are to that edition. Holden's introduction provides some useful information about the work, including an account of its printing history. Professor William A. Ringler, Jr., is preparing an edition of Beware the Cat which will probably supersede Holden's. I wish to thank Professor Ringler for sharing many of his valuable insights about Baldwin and Beware the Cat with me.

33. The essential documents relating to this interesting chapter of Tudor drama are printed in Documents Relating to the Revels at Court in the Time of King Edward VI and Queen Mary (The Loseley Manuscripts), ed. Albert Feuillerat (Louvain, 1914). Equally useful is the suggestive discussion of these dramatic activities and their context in Sydney Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969), pp. 310-317.

34. Beware the Cat, ed. Holden, p. 6. Ringler's challenging statement about Beware the Cat occurred in his Huntington lecture cited above.

35. I discuss these techniques in “Tudor Prose Satire: The Dynamics of a Visual Mode,” diss. Missouri 1975, pp. 61-67.

36. Useful discussions of Baldwin's narrative mode are included in Holden's edition, pp. 13-19, and in F. Brie, “William Baldwin's Beware the Cat,” Anglia, 37 (1913), 303-350.

37. Commonwealth literature is treated by Arthur B. Ferguson, “Renaissance Realism in the ‘Commonwealth’ Literature of Early Tudor England,” JHI, 16 (1955), 287-305, and by Walter K. Jordan, Edward VI: The Young King, pp. 416-426.

38. William P. Holden's edition of The Funeralles (included with his edition of Beware the Cat, cited above) contains the most useful discussion of this work, pp. 9 and 21-22.

39. The two articles by John N. King cited above have made especially valuable contributions to our knowledge of Edwardian publishing activities.