Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/202

190 suffered for his fidelity, being deprived under the Commonwealth of his living of Alresford, and other preferments. After the Restoration he was made sub-Dean of Westminster, but the failure of his health prevented further advancement. He was a voluminous writer, and a keen and acrimonious controversialist against the Puritans. Among his works are a History of the Reformation, and a Life of Laud (Cyprianus Anglicanus) (1668).

 Author:John Heywood (1497?-1580?).—Dramatist and epigrammatist, is believed to have been b. at North Mimms, Herts. He was a friend of, and through him gained the favour of Henry VIII., and was at the Court of Edward VI. and Mary, for whom, as a young Princess, he had a great regard. Being a supporter of the old religion, he enjoyed her favour, but on the accession of Elizabeth, he left the country, and went to Mechlin, where he d. He was famous as a writer of interludes, a species of composition intermediate between the old "moralities" and the regular drama, and displayed considerable constructive skill, and a racy, if somewhat broad and even coarse, humour. Among his interludes are The Play of the Wether (1532), The Play of Love (1533), and The Pardoner and the Frere. An allegorical poem is The Spider and the Flie (1556), in which the Spider stands for the Protestants, and the Flie for the Roman Catholics. H. was likewise the author of some 600 epigrams, whence his title of "the old English epigrammatist."

 Author:Thomas Heywood (d. 1650).—Dramatist. Few facts about him have come down, and these are almost entirely derived from his own writings. He appears to have been b. in Lincolnshire, and was a Fellow of Peterhouse, Camb., and an ardent Protestant. His literary activity extends from about 1600 to 1641, and his production was unceasing; he claims to have written or "had a main finger in" 220 plays, of which only a small proportion (24) are known to be in existence, a fact partly accounted for by many of them having been written upon the backs of tavern bills, and by the circumstance that though a number of them were popular, few were pub. Among them may be mentioned The Four Prentices of London (1600) (ridiculed in Knight of the Burning Pestle), Edward IV. (2 parts) in 1600 and 1605, The Royal King and the Loyal Subject (1637), A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603), Rape of Lucrece (1608), Fair Maid of the Exchange (1607), Love's Mistress (1636), and Wise Woman of Hogsdon (1638). H. also wrote an Apology for Actors (1612), a poem, Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels (1635), and made various translations. He was thoroughly English in his subjects and treatment, and had invention, liveliness, and truth to nature, but lacked the higher poetic sense, and of course wrote far too much to write uniformly well.

 Author:Ranulf Higden (d. 1364).—Chronicler, is believed to have been b. in the West of England, took the monastic vow (Benedictine), at Chester in 1299, and seems to have travelled over the North of England. His fame rests on his Polychronicon, a universal history reaching down to contemporary events. The work is divided into 7 books and, though of no great value as an authority, has an interest as showing the state of historical and geo-