Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/291

 :: Gent.,' London, 1602; dedicated to 'Mistris Mary Gate,' daughter of Sir Henry Gate of Seamer, Yorkshire. A copy is in the Bodleian.
 * 1) 'The Honovr of Valovr. By Nicholas Breton, Gent.,' London, 1605. A unique copy is in the Huth Library; it is dedicated to Charles Blount, earl of Devon.
 * 2)  'An Invective against Treason,' printed by Dr. Grosart from the Royal MS. (17 C, xxxiv.) in the British Museum, with a dedication, signed 'Nich. Breton,' to the Duke of Lennox. An edition entitled 'The State of Treason with a Touch of the late Treason,' was published in 1616, but no copy is now known. The poem refers to the Gunpowder Plot.
 * 3)  'I would and I would not,' London, 1614. The address to the reader is signed 'B. N.,' but the style of the poem and the initials (probably reversed) give the poem a title to be connected with Breton's name.

Breton was a regular contributor to the poetical collections of his age, and his poetical fame induced an enterprising publisher, Richard Jones, to put forth two miscellanies under his name. In the Stationers' Register, under date 3 May 1591, 'Bryton's Bowre of Delights' was entered to Jones, and published in the same year as 'contayning many most delectable and fine deuices of rare epitaphes, pleasant poems, pastorals, and sonets, by N. B., Gent.' Of this publication Mr. Christie-Miller owns a unique copy. Breton says in an epistle (12 April 1592) prefixed to his 'Pilgrimage to Paradise:' 'There hath beene of late printed in London by one Richarde Joanes, a printer, a booke of English verse, entituled "Breton's Bower of Delights." I protest it was done altogether without my consent or knowledge, and many things of other men mingled with a few of mine, for except "Amoris Lachrimæ," an epitaph vpon Sir Phillip Sydney, and one or two other toies, which I know not how he vnhappily came by, I have no part of any of them.' George Ellis printed in his 'Specimens of the Early English Poets,' 3rd edition, 1803 (ii. 286-8), 'a sweet contention between love, his mistress, and beauty' from a copy of 'The Bowre of Delights,' dated 1597. A similar story may be told of 'The Arbor of Amorous Deuices: Wherein young Gentlemen may reade many pleasant fancies and fine Deuices: And thereon meditate diuers sweete Conceites to court the loue of faire Ladies and Gentlewomen. By N. B., Gent.,' London, 1597 (cf. Sale Catalogue, 1781;  Handbook). Only one copy of this book is still extant, and that has lost its title-page and is otherwise defective; it is in the Capell collection at Trinity College, Cambridge. There is an entry on the Stationers' Register of 'The Arbour of Amorus Delightes, by N. B., Gent.,' under date 7 Jan. 1593-4. This book is only in part Breton's; it contains poems by other hands, collected together by the printer, Richard Jones. Two pieces are from Tottel's 'Miscellany,' a third is from Sidney's 'Arcadia.' The most beautiful poem in the collection is the well-known 'A Sweete Lullabie,' beginning, 'Come little babe, come silly soule,' and it has been assumed by many to be by Breton, but 'Britton's Divinitie' is Breton's sole undoubted contribution to the volume. In the 'Phoenix Nest,' published in 1593, five poems are described as 'by N. B., Gent.' In 'England's Helicon,' published in 1600, eight poems are signed ' N. Breton,' among them being the far-famed 'Phillida and Corydon' (originally printed anonymously in 1591 in 'The &hellip; Entertainment gieven to the Queen &hellip; by the Earle of Hertford'), and several of Breton's most delicate pastorals. Some songs set to music in Morley's 'New Book of Tablature,' 1596, and Dowland's 'Third Book of Songs,' 1603 (see Lyrical Poems, published by Percy Society), have on internal grounds been ascribed to Breton. Sir Egerton Brydges printed in his 'Censura Literaria' as a poem of Breton's a few verses beginning 'Among the groves, the woods, the thickets,' described in John Hynd's 'Eliosto Libidinoso,' 1606, as 'a fancie which that learned author, N. B., hath dignified with respect.' Part of the poem was printed anonymously from Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 6910, in 'Excerpta Tudoriana.' To 'The Scvller,' 1612, by John Taylor, the Water Poet, 'thy loving friend Nicholas Breton' contributed a poem 'in laudem authoris.' A seventeenth-century manuscript collection of verse by various authors of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries (in the possession of Mr. F. W. Cosens) contains transcripts of many of Breton's poems, some of which were printed in 'England's Helicon,' others in 'The Arbor of Amorous Devices,' 1597; and one, 'Amoris Lachrimæ for the Death of Sir Philip Sidney,' in 'Britton's Bowre of Delights,' 1591; there are also some thirty short pieces, fairly attributable to Breton, which do not appear to have been printed in the poet's lifetime; they were published for the first time by Dr. Grosart. Among the Tanner MSS. at the Bodleian are five short poems by Breton of no particular literary interest.

II. Breton's works are:—
 * 1) * 'Auspicante Jehoua, Marie's Exercise,' London (by T. Este), 1597. There is a dedication, signed 'Nich. Breton,' addressed to Mary, countess of Pembroke, and another 'to the Ladies and Gentlewomen Readers,' One copy is in the Cambridge University