Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/20

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

the address to the reader come some Latin elegiacs in the author's praise by John Long, and some English verses headed ‘The same to the Citie of London;’ to which succeed fifteen six-line stanzas, ‘The Author to the Carping and scornefull Sicophant,’ some commendatory Latin verses by Richard Matthew, a copy of English verses headed ‘The Noueltie of this Booke,’ and an engraving of Leicester's arms with a rhymed inscription beneath. The satires, eight in number, take the form of a dialogue between Bertulph and Paul in the aisle of St. Paul's. Clerical and legal abuses are denounced; physicians, apothecaries, and surgeons fall under notice; spendthrifts, bankrupts, bawds, brokers, and usurers are severely handled; a protest is made against unlawful Sunday sports, and against the discreditable uses to which St. Paul's Cathedral was put (as a place of assignation, &c.) 2. ‘The Imitation or Following of Christ, and the Contemning of Worldly Vanities: At the first written by Thomas Kempis, a Dutchman, amended and polished by Sebastianus Castalio, an Italian, and Englished by E. H.,’ 1567, 8vo, with a dedication to the Duke of Norfolk; reissued in 1568 with the addition of ‘another pretie treatise, entituled The perpetuall reioyce of the godly, euen in this lyfe’ (British Museum). 3. John Long, in his address ‘to the Citie of London’ (prefixed to ‘Newes out of Powles Churchyarde’), mentions a lost tract of Hake entitled ‘The Slights of Wanton Maydes.’ It must have been written in or before 1568, in which year Turberville alluded to it in his ‘Plaine Path to Perfect Vertue.’ 4. ‘A Touchestone for this Time Present, expresly declaring such ruines, enormities, and abuses as trouble the Churche of God and our Christian common wealth at this daye. Wherevnto is annexed a perfect rule to be obserued of all Parents and Scholemaisters, in the trayning vp of their Schollers and Children in learning. Newly set forth by E. H.,’ 1574, b.l., 8vo, 52 leaves. Prefixed is a dedicatory epistle ‘To his knowne friende mayster Edward Godfrey, Merchaunt;’ then comes ‘A Touchestone for this Time Present,’ in prose, which is followed by ‘A Compendious fourme of Education.’ In the ‘Touchestone’ Hake inveighs against the vices of the clergy, and censures parents for their careless training of children. The ‘Compendious fourme,’ an abridged metrical rendering of a Latin tract, ‘De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis,’ consists of a series of quaint dialogues on the education of children. In a dedicatory epistle (to John Harlowe) the author states that ‘being tied vnto solytarinesse in the countrey,’ he had translated the tract for recreation, and that he had employed verse because it is more easily written than prose. The copy of this work in the Bodleian Library is supposed to be unique. 5. ‘A Commemoration of the Most Prosperous and Peaceable Raigne of our Gratious and Deere Soueraigne Lady Elizabeth’ (dated 17 Nov. 1575), b.l., 8vo, 20 leaves (Brit. Museum), mixed verse and prose, has a dedicatory epistle, dated from Barnard's Inn, ‘To the worshipfull, his verie louing Cowsen M. Edward Eliotte Esquier, the Queenes Maiesties Surueyour of all her Honours, … and possessions within her highnes County of Essex.’ Park reprinted this tract in his supplement to the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ ix. 123, &c. 6. ‘A Ioyfull Continuance of the Commemoration. … Nowe newly enlarged with an exhortation applyed to this present time’ (dated 17 Nov. 1578), 8vo, 24 leaves. There is a copy in Lambeth Palace Library; it is a reprint, with additions of the ‘Commemoration.’ 7. ‘Dauids Sling against Great Goliah. … By E. H.,’ 1580, 16mo, mentioned in Maunsell's ‘Catalogue,’ may be a lost work of Hake. 8. ‘An Oration conteyning an Expostulation … now newly imprinted this xvij. day of Nouember’ (1587), b.l., 4to, 16 leaves (Lambeth Palace), reprinted in vol. ii. of Nichols's ‘Progresses of Queen Elizabeth,’ is the oration spoken by Hake on the queen's birthday, 7 Sept. 1586, in the Guildhall, New Windsor. It was dedicated to the Countess of Warwick, by whom the author had been ‘often reuiued and singulerly comforted.’ 9. ‘The Touche-Stone of Wittes,’ 1588, is ascribed to Hake by Warton (Hist. Engl. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, iv. 203–4), who had certainly seen it, but no copy is now known. 10. ‘Of Golds Kingdome, and this Vnhelping Age. Described in sundry Poems intermixedly placed after certaine other Poems of more speciall respect: And … an Oration … intended to have been deliuered … vnto the Kings Maiesty,’ &c., 1604, b.l., 4to, 33 leaves, dedicated to Edward Vaughan, was written in London when the plague was raging. The chief topic is the power of gold, but reflections in prose and verse on many other subjects are introduced. 11. Lansdowne MS. 161 contains three articles by Hake. He is praised in Richard Robinson's ‘Rewarde of Wickednesse’ (1574).

[Mr. Charles Edmonds's Introduction to Newes out of Powles Churchyarde, Isham Reprints, 1872.]

A. H. B.

HAKEWILL, GEORGE (1578–1649), divine, was third son of John Hakewill, merchant, of Exeter, who married Thomazin, daughter of John Peryam; he was therefore a younger brother of William Hakewill [q. v.]