Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Peend, Thomas
PEEND or DE LA PEEND, THOMAS (fl. 1565), translator and poet, educated, apparently, at Oxford University, was a London barrister. According to Wood he ‘much delighted in poetry and classical learning.’ His chief work was ‘The Pleasant Fable of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, by T. Peend, Gent. With a Morall in English Verse. Anno Domini 1565; Mense Decembris. Imprinted by Thomas Colwell,’ 8vo. This is dedicated by T. Peend, esq., ‘from my chamber over agaynst Sergeants Inne in Chancery Lane, 1564,’ to Nicholas St. Leger. Peend says he had translated and in part printed much more of the original, but he kept it back lest ‘I shall seeme to abuse the writer or reader of those four bookes of Metamorphosis whych be so learnedly translated all redye.’ Golding's translation had just appeared. Peend's extract is from Book IV. of the ‘Metamorphoses,’ and is in fourteen-syllable verse. It is followed by an original ‘morall to the fable,’ and ‘a pleasaunt question’ in irregular verse, written with force and ease. This is signed ‘T. D. Peend.’ A short account in prose of the persons alluded to in the poems concludes the volume. Peend also issued a translation from the Spanish, entitled ‘The moste notable Historie of John Lord Mandozze,’ 1565, 12mo. The dedication is addressed from the Middle Temple to a kinsman, Sir Thomas Kemp, knight. It is followed by a poetical address to the reader and an argument. The poem is in alternate fourteen and sixteen syllable lines. In the margin attention is called to copious passages ‘added by the Translatour.’ There are some verses by Peend prefixed to John Studley's ‘Agamemnon’ (1566).
[Hunter's Chorus Vatum (Add. MS. 24491), p. 388; British Bibliographer, ii. 344, 373, 523, 587; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 430; Warton's History of English Poetry (1871), iv. 297; Arber's Stationers' Register, i. 301; Tanner's Bibliotheca, p. 587.]