William Russell. It was translated into Dutch, doubtless while Whetstone was in Holland, and was printed in both Dutch and English in parallel columns at Leyden in 1586; this edition has an appendix addressed to Dutch students on the pronunciation of English. The book, Whetstone tells us, was ‘a member or small parcel’ of a more ambitious political treatise which he had written some time before but had not yet published. The unpublished treatise appeared in 1586 with the fantastic title: ‘The English Myrror. A Regard wherein al estates may behold the Conquests of Envy’ (London, by J. Windet for G. Seton, b. 1. 4to; two copies in Brit. Mus.). There was a dedication to Queen Elizabeth, and an address to the ‘nobilitie of this flourishing realm.’ New title-pages introduce second and third parts, called respectively ‘Envy conquered by vertue, publishing the blessings of peace, the scourge of traitors, the glory of Queen Elizabeths peaceable victories,’ and ‘A fortresse against Envy.’ The first division of the work treats of miscellaneous incidents in foreign history, the second division treats of the reigns of the Tudors in England and supplies much interesting detail respecting recent conspiracies against Elizabeth's rule; the third division discusses the duties of rulers and the functions performed in a well-regulated state by the nobility, the clergy, the yeomanry, and officers of justice.
Meanwhile Whetstone had from time to time composed biographical elegies in verse on distinguished men of the day, pursuing the plan that he had adopted when commemorating the death of his friend Gascoigne. He boasted that several ‘worthy personages, which in my time are deceased, have had the second life of their vertues bruted by my Muse’ (English Myrror, 1586, bk. iii. ded.). In 1579 there appeared his ‘Remembrance of the woorthie and well imployed life of Sir Nich. Bacon, Lord-Keeper’ (London, 4to; dedicated to Gilbert Gerrard, attorney-general). In 1583 Whetstone issued two works of the kind, namely: ‘A Remembraunce of Sir James Dier’ (London, 4to), dedicated to Sir Thomas Bromley, lord chancellor; and ‘A Remembraunce of the Life, Death, and Vertues of … Thomas, Erle of Sussex’ (London, 4to) dedicated to Henry Radcliffe, earl of Sussex. In 1585 there followed ‘A mirror of Treue Honnour and Christian Nobilitie: exposing the life and death and devine vertues of … Francis, Earl of Bedford’ (London, 1585, 4to). Whetstone's final contribution to elegiac literature was an interesting biography in verse of Sir Philip Sidney. This was entitled ‘Sir Philip Sidney, his honourable life, his valiant death and true ‘vertues’ (1586–7, 4to); it was dedicated to Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick. A manuscript copy is in the Public Record Office (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581–90, p. 387). Whetstone's poems on Bacon, Dyer, Sussex, and Sidney were privately reprinted by Sir Alexander Boswell at the Auchinleck Press in 1816 in a volume entitled ‘Frondes Caducæ.’ The poem on the Earl of Bedford was reprinted in Park's ‘Heliconia’ (vol. ii.).
In 1587 Whetstone published the latest volume that has been set to his credit. It was a prosaic statement of the offences and punishments of Anthony Babington and his fellow conspirators, narrated in the form of a conversation, in which three persons—‘Walker, a godlie devine,’ ‘Weston, a discreet gentleman,’ and ‘Wilcocks, a substantial clothier’—took part. The book bore the title, ‘The Censure of a loyall Subiect: Upon Certaine noted speach and behaviours of those fourteene notable Traitors, at the place of their executions, the xx and xxi of September last past. Wherein is handled matter of necessarye instruction for all dutifull Subjectes, especially the multitude of ignorant people’ (London, by Richarde Jones, 1587, 4to, black letter). It was dedicated to Lord Burghley, and was first issued before the execution of Mary Queen of Scots on 8 Feb. 1586–7. A reissue appeared after her execution, with a prefatory note by Whetstone's friend Thomas Churchyard, stating that Whetstone was in the country. Copies of both issues belong to Mr. Huth. The second only is in the British Museum, and of that two copies are there. This was reprinted by J. P. Collier in his ‘Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature’ in 1863 (vol i. No. 9).
Whetstone is not known to have returned to London after the appearance of the second edition of his ‘Censure of a Loyall Subiect’ in 1587, and it may be assumed that he died soon after it came from the press.
Whetstone's works are crude productions, and are interesting only to the historian of literature and the bibliographer. He achieved some reputation in his day. Webbe, in his ‘Discourse of English Poets,’ 1586 (p. 36), writes of him as a ‘gentleman [who was] worthy, if hee have [it] not already, to weare the Lawrell wreathe; [he is] a man singularly well skyled, in this faculty of Poetrie.’ Meres, in his ‘Palladis Tamia’ (1598), unintelligibly names him among those who are the most passionate poets ‘among us to bewail and bemoane the perplexities of love.’ A later critic, George
