Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/360

 ‘Cornucopie,’ by William F. (Fennor?) (1612), was also assigned to him in error.

All Rowlands's works are bibliographical rarities, and several are extant only in one, two or three copies. Two at least are lost. A copy of ‘A Theatre of Delightful Recreations’ (London, for A. Johnson, 1605, 4to) belonged to Bishop Percy, but none is now known; it is described by him in his ‘Reliques’ (1812, iii. 161) as consisting of poems chiefly on the Old Testament. It is probably identical with ‘A Theatre of Divine Recreation,’ licensed to be printed by Arthur Johnson in 1605. Similarly no trace exists of ‘A Poeme entituled the Bride, written by Samuel Rowlande,’ which was licensed to be printed by Thomas Pavier on 22 May 1617 (, iii. 1609).

Rowlands's extant works, all of which are in verse, except where otherwise stated, are: 1. ‘The Betraying of Christ. Iudas in Despaire. The Seuen Words of our Sauior on the Crosse. With Other Poems on the Passion.’ London, for Adam Islip, 1598, 4to (Bodl., two in Brit. Mus. and Britwell). The work is dedicated to Sir Nicholas Walsh, knt., ‘chiefe justice of her Maiesties Court of Common Pleas in Ireland,’ and his arms and crest are on the reverse of the title-page. But one of the two copies in the British Museum has an additional dedication in manuscript ‘from the author to his lovinge freinde, M. Eleazar Barnes.’ A copy described in Griffith's ‘Bibl. Angl. Poet.’ 1815 (p. 598) has a different dedication to ‘his deare affected friend, Maister H. W. Gentleman,’ and some stanzas addressed ‘to the gentleman-readers’ and a poem in four-line verses, entitled ‘The High-way to Mount Calvarie,’ which are not in the other impressions. Selections are printed in Farr's ‘Select Poetry’ (Parker Soc. 1845). 2. ‘The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-Vaine. With a new Morissco daunced by Seuen Satyres upon the Bottome of Diogines Tubbe. Printed at London by W. White,’ 1600, 8vo (three copies in Bodl. one in Brit. Mus.); burnt by order of the Stationers' Company on 26 Oct. 1600. It was very soon reprinted—before 1603, according to Heber—as ‘Humors Ordinarie, where a Man may be verie Merrie and exceeding well used for his Sixepence’ (for William Ferebrand), n.d. (Britwell); and again in 1607 under the same title by Edward Allde for Ferebrand (Brit. Mus. and Huth Coll.). William White, the original publisher, reissued it under its first title in 1611 and 1613, and Sir Walter Scott reprinted in 1814 the 1611 edition. Possibly the tract was suggested by William Goddard's satirical dialogue, which seems to have originally appeared in 1591 as ‘The Baiting of Diogenes.’ Middleton in his ‘Ant and Nightingale,’ 1604, says Rowlands borrowed his work from Nashe's papers, after Nashe's death. 3. ‘A Mery Metinge, or 'tis Mery when Knaves mete,’ licensed for publication on 2 Sept. 1600, was burnt by the Stationers' Company, and no copy of this edition is known. It was reissued as ‘The Knaue of Clubbs’ (London, for W. Fereband), 1609 (Huth Library), and again by E. Allde, 1611 (at Britwell). The last edition was reprinted by the Percy Society. A rough imitation, entitled ‘Roome for a Messe of Knaves,’ appeared in 1610 (COLLIER, Cat.). 4. ‘Greenes Ghost haunting Conie Catchers wherein is set downe the Arte of Humoring, the Arte of carrying Stones … with the Conceits of Dr. Pinchbacke, a notable Makeshift,’ London, for R. Jackson and J. North, 1602 (Brit. Mus. and Huth Library); licensed 3 Sept. 1602. According to a common device, Rowlands pretends to edit this prose tract from Greene's papers. An edition of 1626 (Brit. Mus. and Britwell) was reprinted privately, by J. O. Halliwell, in an edition limited to twenty-six copies, in 1860. 5. ‘'Tis Merrie when Gossips meete. At London, printed by W. W. and are to be sold by George Loftus at the Golden Ball in Popes-head Alley,’ 1602, 4to (Britwell; the only copy known, formerly Heber's). This, the first edition, alone has a prefatory ‘conference between a gentleman and a prentice’ about buying a book, with incidental remarks on the popularity of Greene's romances. It was licensed on 15 Sept. 1602. The design was perhaps suggested by Sir John Davies's ‘Debate between a Wife, Widow, and Maid’ in the ‘Poetical Rhapsody,’ 1602. Other editions appeared in 1605, in 1609 (for John Deane), and in 1619 (Rowfant), when the title ran ‘Well met Gossip: Or, 'Tis Merrie when Gossips meete … newly enlarged for the Divers Merrie Songs’ (London, by J. W. for John Deane); these songs are doubtless by Rowlands. This edition was reissued in 1656. A reprint of the first was published at the Chiswick Press, 1818 (cf., Diary, Camd. Soc., p. 61). 6. ‘Aue Cæsar. God saue the King … With an Epitaph vpon the death of her Maiestie our late Queene, London, for W. F[erbrand] and G. L[oftus],’ 1603: a tract in verse, signed S. R., reprinted from the copy in the Huth Library, in Huth's ‘Fugitive Poetical Tracts,’ second series, 1875, and as an appendix to the Hunterian Club's edition of Rowlands's ‘Works,’ 1886. Other copies are at Britwell and in the Ma-