m Filbie, Luke Kirbie, Lawrance Richardson,
and Thomas Cottom; and he seems to have been publicly employed to
confute them at the foot of the gallows, and to convince the populace
that they were traitors and Papists, denying the supremacy of Queen
Elizabeth. He there had a long dispute with Kirbie upon matters of fact,
and, according to his own showing, was guilty while abroad, at least of
a little duplicity. He notices having seen Captain Stukely at Rome, who
was killed at the Battle of Alcazar in 1578. In the conclusion he
promises his "English Romaine Lyfe" "so soon as it can be printed," in
which he purposes to disclose the "Romish and Sathanical juglings," of
the Jesuits.

Munday was a very voluminous author in verse and prose, original and
translated, and is certainly to be reckoned among the predecessors of
Shakespeare in dramatic composition. His earliest work, as far as can
be now ascertained, was "The Mirror of Mutability," 1579, when he was
in his 26th year: he dedicates it to the Earl of Oxford, and perhaps
then belonged to the company of players of that nobleman, to which he
had again attached himself on his return from Italy.[150] The Council
Registers show that this nobleman had a company of players under his
protection in 1575. Munday's "Banquet of Dainty Conceits" was printed
in 1588, and we particularise it, because it was unknown to Ames,
Herbert, and Ritson. Catalogues and specimens of his other undramatic
works may be found in "Bibliographia Poetica," "Censura Literaria,"
"British Bibliographer,"[151] &c. The earliest praise of Munday is
contained in Webbe's "Discourse of English Poetrie," 1586, where his
"Sweete Sobs of Sheepheardes and Nymphes" is especially pointed out
as "very rare poetrie." Francis Meres, in 1598 ("Palladis Tamia,"
fo. 283, b.), enumerating many of the best dramatic poets of his day,
including Shakespeare, Heywood, Chapman, Porter, Lodge, &c., gives
Anthony Munday the praise of being "our best plotter," a distinction
that excited the spleen of Ben Jonson in his "Case is Altered," more
particularly, as he was omitted.

Nearly all the existing information respecting Anthony Munday's dramatic
works is derived from Henslowe's papers.[152] At what period he began to
write for the stage cannot be ascertained: the earliest date in these
MSS. connected with his name is December 1597; but as he was perhaps a
member of the Earl of Oxford's theatrical company before he went abroad,
and