Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Samuel, William

602612Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 50 — Samuel, William1897William Arthur Shaw

SAMUEL, WILLIAM (fl. 1551–1569), divine and poet, perhaps connected with the Samwells of Northampton (Burke's Commoners, i. 440), describes himself in 1551 as servant of the duke of Somerset, but from 1558 onwards as minister of Christ's church. He may have been father of William Samuell of Shevyock, Cornwall (Harl. Soc. ix. 196).

He wrote: 1. ‘The Love of God—here is declared, if you will rede—that God doth love this land indede—by felynge with his rod,’ no place, no date, 12mo, 4 leaves. 2. ‘The Abridgment of Goddes statutes in myter,’ London, 1551, b.l. 38 leaves (contains metrical abridgments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). 3. ‘An Abridgment, brief abstract or short sume of those bookes following taken out of the Bible and set into Sternhold's meter’ (Genesis to Kings inclusive, 1558?). 3. ‘An Abridgment of all the Canonical books of the Olde Testament,’ 1569, written in Sternhold's metre (all the Old Testament); at end, ‘The prophets thus are finished and books canonicall—apocrypha you shall have next if death do not me call.’ 4. ‘The grace from God the father hye,’ b.l. broadside, 8 stanzas, 1574 (Roxburghe Coll.). 5. ‘Preces pro afflicta ecclesia Anglicana’ (cf. Tanner, Bibl. Brit.). Samuel is also credited by Corser (Coll. Angl. Poet. i. 74) with ‘An answere to the proclamation of the rebels in the North,’ by W. S. London, 1569, 8vo; but at the end is ‘Finis quod William Seres [q. v.]’, who was probably the author as well as printer. It is distinct from the ‘Epistle’ of the same date by Thomas Norton (1532–1584) [q. v.]

[Parker Society's Select Poetry, pp. xxviii, 312; Brydges's Restituta, iii. 493; Ames's Typogr. Antiq., ed. Herbert, iii. 1597; Hazlitt's Handbook, p. 532; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. p. 484.]

W. A. S.