Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/297

 of Bidesden, who was father of John Mundy, mayor of Newbury in 1664 (Genealogist, 1882, vi. 65)—but to neither of these is there any evidence that the poet was related. He was, however, probably connected with [q. v.] and [q. v.], who were attached to the royal household. In October 1576 Munday was bound apprentice to John Allde the stationer for eight years. He was then twenty years old, and there is reason to think he had previously seen a good deal of the world, and, among other things, had been an actor. According to an unknown writer (perhaps Thomas Pound) in his ‘True Reporte of the Death and Martyrdome of M. Campion, 1581,’ Munday deceived his master Allde; but this charge was rebutted by Munday in his ‘Breefe Aunswer’ of 1582, where he inserted a certificate from John Allde to the effect that he ‘dyd his duetie in all respects &hellip; without fraude, covin, or deceyte’ during the term of his service. Nevertheless in little more than a year after the signature of his articles, probably in the spring of 1578, Munday left his master and betook himself to Rome. Although his motives are described by himself (in ‘The English Romayne Lyfe,’ the most entertaining of his works) as desire to see strange countries, and to learn their languages, it is more probable that, with the concurrence of Allde and one or two publisher allies, such as John Charlewood and White, he left England with the intention of making literary capital out of what he could learn to the detriment of the English catholics abroad. His enemies asserted that his object was to spy into the conduct of the English seminary at Rome, and then to betray it.

Travelling with one Thomas Nowell, Munday set sail for Boulogne, and reached Amiens on foot in a destitute condition, in consequence of having fallen into the hands of a band of marauding soldiers. At Amiens he and his companion met with an old English priest named Woodward, one of the pope's factors, who relieved their necessities, and recommended them to Dr. Allen at Rheims. They preferred to make straight for Paris, where the English ambassador gave them money to return to England. But they were persuaded by recruiting agents of the English seminaries to proceed to Rome, which they ultimately reached by way of Lyons, Milan, Bologna, Florence, and Sienna. At Rome Munday was entitled to eight days' entertainment at the English College, and he was received with more than ordinary civility by the rector, Dr. Morris, who had been a friend of his father. Munday subsequently described in 'The English Romayne Lyfe' the arrangements at the English College, the dissensions between the English and Welsh residents, the carnival at Rome, the martyrdom of Richard Atkins, and other matters calculated to excite the animosity of protestant readers. The early summer of 1578 can be with tolerable certainty assigned as the time of Munday's stay in Rome, since Captain Stukeley, whom he asseverates he saw there, perished at the battle of Alcazar on 4 Aug. 1578.

Shortly after his return home Munday ‘presumed for a third time upon the clemency’ of his readers with his first extant work, ‘The Mirrour of Mutabilitie,’ an imitation of the ‘Mirrour for Magistrates,’ licensed 10 Oct. 1579. The dedication to the Earl of Oxford contains some brief references to his travels. The ‘Mirrour’ is a work tending to edification, in which the seven deadly sins and many others are reproved by well-known personages who had suffered by committing them. A noticeable peculiarity is the employment along with rhyme of much blank-verse, printed in stanzas. The fact that the work came from Allde's press shows that a good understanding existed between the former apprentice and his master.

Munday seems about the same time to have returned to the stage as an extemporary player, and, according to the author of the ‘True Reporte,’ he was hissed off. Stung by this rebuff, he is stated to have written a ballad or a pamphlet against stage plays, but within the year, or at least not later than 1580, there is a strong presumption that he was again on the stage. In his ‘View of Sundry Examples,’ printed in that year, he subscribes an address to his readers ‘servant to the right honourable the Earl of Oxenford,’ the patron of a well-known theatrical company.

The popular mind was greatly occupied in 1581 by the fate of Campion and his associates, who had been captured through the treachery of George Ellyot, a co-religionist, in July. Munday thereupon turned from the stage to the more congenial work of exposing in five tracts the ‘horrible and unnatural treasons’ of the catholics; he narrated the circumstances of Campion's capture, and did all he could to discredit the jesuits. The second tract, purporting to be an authentic narrative of the capture of Campion, was resented by Ellyot, who retorted in ‘A very true Reporte of the Apprehension &hellip; of Campion &hellip; Conteining also a Controulment of a most untrue former Booke set out by A. M.,’ &c., 1581. Munday returned to the attack by bearing witness against the catholics,