shaking his shins about a maypole againe while he liued' (Protestation of Martin Marprelate, c. Aug. 1589). Certainly Munday's official duties did not interfere with his literary productiveness, as translator of romances, maker of ballads, lyrist, and miscellaneous writer generally. He is traceable, chiefly in Henslowe's diary, as a busy dramatist for the Admiral's men during various periods between 1594 and 1602, and there is no reason to suppose that his activities were limited to these years. Meres in 1598 includes him amongst 'the best for comedy', with the additional compliment of 'our best plotter'. But he was evidently a favourite mark for the satire of more literary writers, who depreciated his style and jested at his functions as a messenger. Small, 172, has disposed of attempts to identify him with the Deliro or the Puntarvolo of E. M. O., the Amorphus of Cynthia's Revels, the In-and-In Medley of the Tale of a Tub, and the Timothy Tweedle of the anonymous Jack Drum's Entertainment. But he may reasonably be taken for the Poet Nuntius of E. M. I. and the Antonio Balladino of The Case is Altered (q.v.); and long before Jonson took up the game, an earlier writer had introduced him as the Posthaste of the anonymous Histriomastix (c. 1589). Posthaste suggests the formation of Sir Oliver Owlet's men, and acts as their poet (i. 124). He writes a Prodigal Child at 1s. a sheet (ii. 94). He will teach the actors to play 'true Politicians' (i. 128) and 'should be employd in matters of state' (ii. 130). He is always ready to drink (i. 162; ii. 103, 115, 319; vi. 222), and claims to be a gentleman, because 'he hath a clean shirt on, with some learning' (ii. 214). He has written ballads (v. 91; vi. 235). The players jeer at 'your extempore' (i. 127), and he offers to do a prologue extempore (ii. 121), and does extemporize on a theme (ii. 293). He writes with
no new luxury or blandishment
But plenty of Old Englands mothers words (ii. 128).
The players call him, when he is late for rehearsal, a 'peaking pageanter', and say 'It is as dangerous to read his name at a play door, as a printed bill on a plague door' (iv. 165). The whole portrait seems to be by the earlier author; Marston only adds a characteristic epithet in 'goosequillian Posthast' (iii. 187). But it agrees closely with the later portraits by Jonson, and with the facts of Munday's career. I do not think that 'pageanter' means anything more than play-*maker. But from 1605 onwards Munday was often employed by city companies to devise Lord Mayor's pageants, and it has been supposed that he had been similarly engaged since 1592 on the strength of a claim in the 1618 edition of John Stowe's Survey of London, which he edited, that he had been 'six and twenty years in sundry employments for the City's service'. But there were other civic employments, and it is doubtful (cf. ch. iv) how far there were pageants during the last decade of Elizabeth's reign for Munday to devise. On the title-*pages of his pageants he describes himself as a 'Cittizen and Draper of London'. The Corporation's welcome at the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales in 1610 (cf. ch. iv) also fell to him to devise. How
