from a family of his name living in Lincolnshire, but
whether born there, is not ascertained. He made his first appearance
at the university of Oxford about the year 1573, and was afterwards a
scholar under the learned Mr. Edward Hobye of Trinity College; where,
says Wood, making very early advances, his ingenuity began first to be
observed, in several of his poetical compositions. After he had taken
one degree in arts, and dedicated some time to reading the bards of
antiquity, he gained some reputation in poetry, particularly of the
satiric species; but being convinced how barren a foil poetry is, and
how unlikely to yield a competent provision for its professors, he
studied physic, for the improvement of which he went beyond sea,
took the degree of Dr. of that faculty at Avignon, returned and was
incorporated in the university in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's
reign: Afterwards settling in London, he practised physic with great
success, and was particularly encouraged by the Roman Catholics, of
which persuasion it is said he was.

Our author hath written

Alarm against Usurers, containing tried experiences against worldly
abuses, London 1584.

History of Forbonius and Prisaeria, with Truth's Complaint over
England.

Euphue's Golden Legacy.

The Wounds of a Civil War livelily set forth, in the true Tragedies of
Marius and Sylla, London 1594.

Looking Glass for London and England, a Tragi-Comedy printed in 4to.
London 1598, in an old black letter. In this play our author was
assisted by Mr. Robert Green. The drama is founded upon holy writ,
being the History of Jonah and the Ninevites, formed into a play. Mr.
Langbain supposes they chose this subject, in imitation of others
who had writ dramas on sacred themes long before them; as Ezekiel, a
Jewish dramatic poet, writ the Deliverance of the Israelites out of
Egypt: Gregory Nazianzen, or as some say, Apollinarius of Laodicea,
writ the Tragedy of Christ's Passion; to these may be added

Hugo Grotius, Theodore Beza, Petavius, all of whom have built upon the
foundation of sacred history.

Treatise on the Plague, containing the nature, signs, and accidents of
the same, London 1603.

Treatise in Defence of Plays. This (says Wood) I have not yet seen,
nor his pastoral songs and madrigals, of which he writ a considerable
number.

He also translated into English, Josephus's History of the Antiquity
of the Jews, London 1602. The works both moral and natural of