s, a man excellent
in his art; and the whole work and body of the Triumph, with all the
proper beauties of the workmanship, most artfully and faithfully
performed by John Grinkin; and those _furnished with apparel_ and
porters by Anthony Munday, Gentleman." The style of "gentleman" was
probably given to him with reference to the productions of his pen.

At what date he acquired the title of "poet to the city" does not
appear: he wrote the Lord Mayor's Pageant in 1605; but he had certainly
earlier been similarly employed, as Ben Jonson introduces him in that
capacity in "The Case is Altered," which was written in the end of 1598
or beginning of 1599.[149] He there throws some ridicule upon Don
Antonio Balladino (as he calls Munday), and Mr Gifford was of opinion
that Middleton meant to censure him in his "Triumphs of Truth," as the
impudent "common writer" of city pageants; but this is hardly consistent
with the mention Middleton introduces of Munday at the close of that
performance. Besides, Dekker wrote the pageant for the year 1612,
immediately preceding that for which Middleton was engaged; and that
Munday was not in disrepute is obvious from the fact that in 1614, 1615,
and 1616, his pen was again in request for the same purpose.

Whatever might have been Munday's previous life, in the year 1582 he was
placed in no very enviable situation. He had been mainly instrumental in
detecting the Popish Conspiracy in that year, which drew down upon him
the bitter animosity of the Jesuits. They charged him in their
publications (from which extracts may be seen in Mr A. Chalmers'
"Biographical Dictionary," and elsewhere) with having been "first a
stage-player and afterwards an apprentice," and after being "hissed from
the stage" and residing at Rome, with having returned to his original
occupation. Munday himself admits, in the account he published of Edmund
Campion and his confederates, that he was "some time the Pope's scholar
in the Seminary of Rome," but always stoutly denied that he was a Roman
Catholic. Perhaps the most curious tract upon this subject is that
entitled, "A breefe and true reporte of the Execution of certaine
Traytours at Tiborne the xxviii, and xxx dayes of May 1582. Gathered
by A.M. who was there present." He signs the Dedication at length
"A. Munday," and mentions that he had been a witness against some of
the offenders. The persons he saw executed were, Thomas Foord, John
Shert, Robert Johnson, Willia