Anthony Munday's Mirrour of Mutabilitie: Dedication to the Earl of Oxford.

 

• Dedication to the Earl of Oxford
• Letter to the Earl of Oxford
• Dedicatory Poems to the Earl of Oxford

All such yeoman's work as taking some time to correct the EEBO transcription of the dedicatory materials in the front matter of Anthony Munday's Mirrour of Mutabilitie is well worth the time. Here I have compared the EEBO transcription to a digital facsimile of the work.

Swapping the Us and Vs as necessary throughout the text has made me pay close attention to the text. Happily, however, I left the double-U's double-Vs rather than switching-in the modern “w”. The transcription used the “w” in the dedication itself. A check of the facsimile showed that the transcriptionist had been gratifyingly attentive. A type face “w” was indeed used in the original. The Mirrour being published in 1579, a type “w” was almost unheard of. John Allde must have been trying out the new idea some 20 years before the transition to it in English texts would begin in earnest.

The reader unimpressed by styles of type-face, and other printers' matters, will likely think this of no consequence and will possibly prove to be right in any given instance. But, use of the modern “w” just might provide the tiny detail that makes an important case for one thing or another. Researcher's live in a world of butterfly effects.

Of more immediate importance, the front matter is addressed to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. The Earl is somehow Munday's patron in it — a fact that will prove out in numerous ways over many years.

For immediate purposes, however, the publication date of 1579 is one of those tiny facts that is important. In the dedicatory letter, following the dedication-proper, Munday repeatedly addresses Vere in the context of a fellow Protestant. Vere is inferred to share Munday's faith that Catholicism is a trap set for the soul by Satan.

Munday is recounting his calamitous journey to France. While there, trying to fit in until he can recover his situation, he has received the names of expatriate English Catholics (“vvhose names I remit”) available to help him in time of need. To whom he remits them is not made clear.

It will only be a year, however, before Vere will be deposed by the officials of Queen Elizabeth's Royal Court as a suspected crypto-Catholic. History suspects the Vere family of having Catholic tendencies at the time. Munday tells us just the opposite. At least in the instance of Edward. A year before his patron is about the be questioned under suspicion the client publishes what could serve as a rebuttal.

THE Mirrour of Mutabilitie, or Principall part of the Mirrour for Magistrates.

Describing the fall of divers famous Princes, and other memorable Personages.

Selected out of the sacred Scriptures by Antony Munday, and dedicated to the Right Honorable the Earle of Oxenford.

Honos alit Artes:

¶ IMPRINTED at London by Iohn Allde and are to be solde by Richard Ballard, at Saint Magnus Corner. 1579. [illustration]

VERO NIHIL VERIVS

A happy race God graunt the woorthy wight,

to whom this Creast of honnor dooth pertain:

To liue in ioy, unto his harts delight,

and after death among the Saints to reign.

¶ TO THE RIGHT HOnorable and his singuler good Lord & Patron, Edvvard De Vere, Earle of Oxenforde, Vicount Bulbeck, Lord of Escales and Badlesmere, and Lord great Chamberlayne of England, Antony Munday wisheth in this world a triumphant tranquillitie, with continuall increase of Honorable Dignitie, and after this life, a Crown of everlasting felicitie, in the eternall Hierarchie.

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Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Labeo and Shakespeare on the Ladies' Toilette. November 13, 2022. “What woman would be anything but offended to be described in such a way?”

• Edward de Vere and Marlowe’s Dido of Carthage. July 5, 2022. “It was an historical effort and an historical two years for Elizabethan theater.”
• The Character Montano, in Hamlet, and Polonius’ Famous Advice. May 25, 2022. “The reader may recall that Polonius calls upon Reynaldo to suggest to Laertes’ friends that he is privy to minor misbehaviors, at which he winks,…”
• The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour. May 8, 2022. “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.”
• How Shakespeare gave Ben Jonson the Infamous Purge. November 7, 2021. “Of course, De Vere could not openly accuse Jonson of having outed him as Shakespeare.”
• Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
• Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.