Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/273

 brought out his ‘Prayse of all Women called Mulierum Pean,’ London, n.d., a poem in the same metre as the ‘Scole House,’ in which Gosynhyll claimed the authorship of that diatribe, and sought to make amends for his lack of chivalry. In 1557 John Kynge obtained a license from the Stationers' Company for a reprint of the ‘Scole House,’ and this appeared in 1560. An undated reprint of ‘The Prayse of all Women’ was also issued by Kynge about the same time. A third edition of the ‘Scole House’ was published by Edward Allde in 1572, and this edition E. V. Utterson reprinted in his ‘Early Popular Poetry,’ 1817, ii. 51–93. John Kynge was likewise the publisher about 1560 of ‘A Dialogue [in verse] bytwene the Commune Secrætary and Jealousye, touchynge the unstableness of Harlottes.’ J. P. Collier, when reprinting twenty-five copies about 1842, showed good grounds for attributing this poem to Gosynhyll.



GOTER or GOTHER, JOHN (d. 1704), Roman catholic divine, born of presbyterian parents at Southampton, was educated in hostility to the Roman catholic faith. ‘In drawing out the character of the papist misrepresented,’ he says in his ‘Papist Misrepresented and Represented,’ ‘I have quoted no authors, but have described him exactly according to the apprehension I had of a papist framed by me when I was a protestant.’ Soon converted to catholicism, he was sent by a relative to the English college at Lisbon; he arrived on 10 Jan. 1667–8. After being ordained priest, he filled for a short time the office of prefect or supervisor of the studies of the college. At the close of 1682 he was sent to England, where he began the exercise of his mission by catechising children and instructing the poor.

In the violent controversy which was carried on during the reign of James II, Goter was the principal champion on the catholic side. In 1685 he brought out the first instalment of his famous work, entitled ‘A Papist Misrepresented and Represented, or a Two-fold Character of Popery.’ In the course of a few months it elicited replies from Dr. Stillingfleet (afterwards bishop of Worcester), Dr. William Sherlock, Dr. William Clagett, Abednego Seller, John Williams, M.A., John Patrick, M.A., James Taylor, and Dr. Nicholas Stratford (afterwards bishop of Chester); and other controversial treatises from Goter's active pen drew forth answers from William Wake (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury), Benjamin Woodroffe, Dr. Thomas Bainbridge, and others. Goter was master of an easy and unaffected style, and it was a common saying of his contemporary, Dryden, that Goter was the only individual ‘besides himself’ who knew how to write the English language.

Soon after the revolution he withdrew from the metropolis, and became chaplain to George Holman, esq., of Warkworth Castle, Northamptonshire, and his wife, the Lady Anastasia, daughter of the unfortunate Lord Stafford who was executed in 1680. There he instructed and received into the catholic church [q. v.], afterwards vicar-apostolic of the London district. At Warkworth he composed his moral treatises, which were afterwards published in a collected form. Some affairs of the English College requiring his presence at Lisbon, he embarked on board the San Caetano, a Genoese ship, the war then raging between this country and France rendering it unsafe to sail under British colours. He died at sea on 13 Oct. (N.S.) 1704, after having received the last rites of the church from another priest, his companion. His body was embalmed and interred in the chapel of the English College at Lisbon.

The following are his principal works, several of which have passed through numerous editions:
 * 1) ‘A Papist Misrepresented and Represented; or, a Two-fold Character of Popery; the one containing a sum of the superstitions of that Popery which … deserves the hatred of all good Christians; the other laying open that Popery which the Papists own and profess; with the chief articles of their faith, and the principal grounds and reasons which attach them to it. By J. L.,’ London, 1665 (misprint for 1685), 4to. Second and third parts appeared in 1687, the former called ‘The Catholic Representer,’ the latter with replies to two opponents. Goter's pseudonym was Lovell, under which most of his works made their first appearance. Bishop Challoner's abridgment of this book has passed through between thirty and forty editions.
 * 2) ‘Reflections upon the Answer [by Stillingfleet] to the Papist Misrepresented and Represented,’ London, 1686, 4to.
 * 3) ‘Papists protesting against Protestant-Popery,’ London, 1686 and 1687, 4to.
 * 4) ‘An Amicable Accommodation of the difference between the Representer and the Answerer. In return to the last Reply against the Papist Protesting against Protestant-Popery,’ London, 1686, 4to.
 * 5) ‘A Reply to the Answer of the Amicable Ac-