t in his
"Writing Schoolmaster," he was able to keep pace with a moderate
speaker. He seems to have been engaged in public life, by acting as
secretary where caligraphy was required; and he was at length accused of
being concerned in the plot of Lord Essex; but he was afterwards
vindicated, and punished his accuser. The greatest performance, that in
which his exalted fame may most securely rest, was the writing of the
Lord's Prayer, Creed, Decalogue, with two Latin prayers, in the compass
of a penny. Brachygraphy had arrived at considerable perfection soon
after 1600, and in Webster's "Devil's Law Case," there is a trial scene,
in which the following is part of the dialogue--

SANITONELLA. Do you hear, officers?
You must take special care that you let in
No _brachygraphy_ men to take notes.

1st OFFICER. No. sir.

SANITONELLA. By no means:
We cannot have a cause of any fame,
But you must have some scurvy pamphlets and lewd ballads
Engendered of it presently.

In Heywood's "Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas," 1637, he complains that
some persons by stenography had drawn the plot of his play, and put it
into print; but he adds (which certainly does not tell much in favour of
the perfection of the art as then practised) that it was "scarce one
word true."

[59] In the margin opposite "Sol should have been beholding to the
barber, and not to the beard-master," the words "_Imberbis Apollo_,
a beardless poet," are inserted in the margin.

[60] From what is said here, and in other parts of the play, we may
conclude that it was performed either by the children of St Paul's, of
the Queen's Chapel, or of the Revels. Afterwards Will Summer, addressing
the performers, says to them: "Learn of him, you _diminutive urchins_,
how to behave yourselves in your vocations," &c. The epilogue is spoken
by a little boy, who sits on Will Summer's knee, and who, after it is
delivered, is carried out.

[61] [See Keightley's "Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy," p. 411,
edit. 1854.]

[62] [In allusion to the proverb.]

[63] _Arre_ is meant to indicate the snarling of a dog.

[64] So Machiavelli, in his complete poem, "Dell' Asino d'Oro," makes
the Hog, who is maintaining the superiority of the brute creation to
man, say of beasts in general--

"Questa san meglior usar color che sanno
Senz' altra disciplina per se stesso
Seguir lor bene et evitar lor danno."--Cap. viii.

[65] [Old copy,