Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/299

 Munday , and sarcastic reference was made to his being ‘in print for the best plotter,’ a title which Meres had applied to him in the ‘Palladis Tamia,’ 1598. Before the end of 1599 Munday was back in England, and in that year he wrote, in conjunction with Drayton, Hathway, and Wilson, the ‘True and Honourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham,’ in two parts, the first of which alone is extant. It was published in 1600, with the name of William Shakespeare upon the title-page; but this was promptly withdrawn. Henslowe paid 10l. for the play, which was so successful on the first performance that an additional two shillings and sixpence was given to each of the playwrights. Falstaff and Poins are mentioned by name, and the play seems to have been written with some view to rebutting the slur cast upon the lollard hero in Shakespeare's ‘Henry IV.’ It was produced in the autumn of 1599.

Munday was no less energetic as a ballad-writer. Jonson sneered at him as ‘Balladino.’ An ironical admonition to the ballad-singers of London, prefixed to Chettle's ‘Kind-Harte's Dream,’ 1592, obviously implies that Munday had complained of unprofessional ballad-mongers. Thomas Nash, in a letter to Sir Robert Cotton, written about 1597, imputes to him a popular ‘ballad of Untruss,’ and Kemp seems to indicate him in the ‘Request to the Impudent Generation of Ballad Makers’ as ‘Elderton's immediate heyre’ [see ]. ‘Mundaie's Dreame,’ a ballad, was licensed to John Allde 2 Aug. 1578 (see, Broadside Ballads, 1868, p. viii). A ballad (assigned to Munday) of the ‘Encouragement of an English Soldier to his Mates’ was licensed to J. Charlwood 8 March 1580, and another, ‘Against Plays,’ 10 Nov. 1580; but neither of these is now known. In his ‘Banquet of Dainty Conceits’ Munday similarly tried his hand at song-writing, fitting words to well-known music by various composers (including the Mundys, his connections); but what was probably his best essay as a lyrist, the ‘Sweete Sobbes and Amorous Complaintes of Sheppardes and Nymphs in a Fancye,’ is not extant. It must have been this work which elicited from Webbe, in his ‘Discourse of English Poetrie,’ 1586, the description of Munday as ‘an earnest traveller in this art,’ whose poetry was to be rarely esteemed, ‘especially upon nymphs and shepherds.’ If Munday's lyrics really merited Webbe's praise—he credits them with an ‘exquisite value’—it is hardly ridiculous, as has been maintained, to assign to him ‘Beauty sat Bathing in a Springe,’ one of two admirable lyrics subscribed by ‘Shepherd Tonie’ in ‘England's Helicon.’ The only other conjecture as to the identity of Shepherd Tonie is that he was Anthony Copley, which has far less to recommend it (see, however, England's Helicon, ed. Mr. A.H.Bullen, p. xvii).

Munday's lack of originality and ‘plain’ style, satirised by Jonson (The Case is Altered, Gifford, vi. 325), characterised all his dramatic work, and he wisely diversified it by excursions into a humbler branch of art— the production of the annual city pageants. The pageant for 1591, ‘Descensus Astrææ,’ was written by Peele. Those from 1592 to 1604 are missing, but it has been conjectured with probability that most, if not all, are by Munday (, History of Lord Mayor's Pageants, Percy Soc., p. 32). He certainly furnished those for 1605, 1609, 1611, 1614, 1615, 1616, 1618, and 1623, and he seems to have long been the authorised keeper of the properties of the show— dragons, giants, and the like—as his rival, Middleton, who introduced into the pageant of 1613 a virulent attack upon Munday, was compelled to apply to him to furnish ‘apparel and porters' (The Triumphs of Truth, ad fin.) In some of these pageants Munday signs himself citizen and draper. He may have inherited the freedom of the Drapers' Company from his father. During the latter part of his life he is said to have followed the trade himself, and to have resided in Cripplegate (see also his epitaph).

But the labours which mainly commended Munday to his own generation were doubtless his voluminous translations of popular romances, the first of which, 'Palladino of England,' appeared in 1588. The two first books of ‘Amadis de Gaule’ were Englished by him between 1589 and 1595, and other chivalric romances of less value were transferred by him from the Spanish text. These translations lack style and fidelity, but they satisfied the half-educated public to whom they appealed (, Shakespeare and his Time, i. 547).

Among Munday's literary friends was Stow, who refers to him in the ‘Annales’ as his authority for several facts in connection with Campion and other matters, and Munday appears to have been in a sense Stow's literary executor. Thirteen years after Stow's death, in 1605, Munday accordingly produced the ‘Survay of London. . . continued, corrected, and much enlarged with many rare and worthie Notes, both of venerable Antiquity and later Memorie; such as were never published before the present year 1618,’ London, 4to; dedicated to the Right Hon. George Bolles, lord mayor, and to all the