Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/90

 In the early part of his residence here Hall composed and published the first book of his meditations, ‘Meditatiunculæ Subitaneæ,’ containing a hundred religious aphorisms and reflections, many of them very striking. His active labours at Halsted were much opposed by a Mr. Lilly, whom he calls ‘a witty and bold atheist,’ and whose identity has not been ascertained. He was also treated in the matter of his stipend with great meanness by Sir Robert Drury, who had obtained the grant of the tithes of the parish on condition of providing a vicar. In 1603 Hall married, and in the same year published his final volume of verse, a congratulatory volume on James I's accession, entitled ‘The King's Prophecie or Weeping Joy.’ The only perfect copy of this tract now known belonged to J. E. T. Loveday, Esq., of Williamscote, Oxfordshire, and it was reprinted by the Roxburghe Club under the editorship of the Rev. W. E. Buckley in 1882. An imperfect copy, the only other known, is in the British Museum. In 1605 he accompanied Sir Edmund Bacon to Spa. Of this journey he has left us some curious details. He travelled dressed as a layman, and seems to have courted disputations with the priests and jesuits whom he encountered, who were much surprised by his theological knowledge and superior Latin. During his residence at Spa, Hall wrote a second century of his ‘Meditations.’ Returning to Halsted, and finding no probability of an increase in his stipend from Sir Robert Drury, Hall began to look out for a more lucrative post. His ‘Meditations’ had attracted considerable attention, and been read by Henry, prince of Wales, who expressed a wish to hear the author preach. The sermon, he tells us, was ‘not so well given as taken,’ and the prince appointed him one of his chaplains (1608). The Earl of Norwich now offered him the donative of Waltham, Essex, which he gladly accepted. About this time he interfered with good effect to induce Thomas Sutton to persevere in spite of obstacles in his scheme for the foundation of the Charterhouse. Before commencing his residence at Waltham, Hall had appeared again in the character of a satirist, but now in prose. In 1605 was published at Frankfort in four books a Latin tract called ‘Mundus alter et idem,’ dedicated to the Earl of Huntingdon (republished at Hanau in 1607). The manuscript had been entrusted some years before to a friend named Knight, who was responsible for the publication. An English translation by John Healey, entitled ‘The Discovery of a New World,’ appeared in London about 1608. This strange composition, sometimes erroneously described as a ‘political romance,’ to which it bears no resemblance whatever, is a moral satire in prose, with a strong undercurrent of bitter gibes at the Romish church and its eccentricities, which sufficiently betray the author's main purpose in writing it. It shows considerable imagination, wit, and skill in latinity, but it has not enough of verisimilitude to make it an effective satire, and does not always avoid scurrility. Other popular books written by Hall about this time were ‘Holy Obseruations. Lib. I. Also some fewe of David's Psalmes Metaphrased for a Taste of the Rest,’ Lond. 1607 (Brit. Mus.) and 1609; two volumes of ‘Epistles’ each containing ‘two decades,’ (1608); ‘Characters of Vices and Vertues,’ 1608 (French transl. 1st ed. 1610; versified by Nahum Tate 1691); ‘Solomon's Divine Arts,’ a digest of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, with paraphrase of the Song of Songs (1609); and ‘Quo Vadis? a Iust Censure of Travell as it is commonly undertaken by the Gentlemen of our nation’ (1617), dedicated to Edward, Lord Denny, of Waltham.

Hall's earliest controversial work was with the Brownists. In 1608 he had written a letter of remonstrance to John Robinson and John Smith, who had joined this sect. Robinson, who had been a beneficed clergyman near Yarmouth, had replied in ‘An Answer to a Censorious Epistle,’ and upon this Hall published (1610) ‘A Common Apology against the Brownists.’ This is a treatise of considerable length, answering Robinson's ‘Censorious Epistle’ paragraph by paragraph. It has the terse and racy style and the exuberance of illustrations and quotations which distinguish all Hall's theological writings. Hall's constant custom while at Waltham was to preach thrice in the week, and he carefully wrote every sermon beforehand. On the death of his patron, Prince Henry, Hall preached the funeral sermon to his household, and soon after this he was involved in a troublesome, but ultimately successful, lawsuit. He had been induced by his kinsman, Archdeacon Barton, to apply for a prebend in the collegiate church of Wolverhampton, which was in the patronage of the dean of Windsor. Having obtained the appointment of the prebend of Willenhall, he immediately joined with another of the prebendaries in endeavouring to put the revenues of the church on a more satisfactory footing. A certain Sir Walter Leveson held the whole of the estates of the church in what was called a ‘perpetual fee-farm,’ and doled out what he pleased to the prebendaries. Hall brought an action against him, in the course of which it was discovered that the claim of the fee-farm rested on a manifest forgery. The law courts adjudged the title of the property to the dean