And then he declareth how there he found the first part of this Mirrour for Magistrates, which yet took beginning from the time of King Richard the Second; But he knowing many Examples of famous persons before William the Conquerour, which were wholly omitted, he set upon the Work, and beginning from Brute, continued it to Aurelius Bassianus Caracalla Emperour of Rome, about the year of Christ 209. shewing in his Writings a great deal of Wisdom and Learning. He flourished about the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.
ABRAHAM FRAUNCE.
This Abraham Fraunce, a Versifier, about the same time with John Higgins, was one who imitated Latine measure in English Verse, writing a Pastoral, called the Countess of Pembroke's Ivy-church, and some other things in Hexameter, some also in Hexameter and Pentameter; He also wrote the Countess of Pembroke's Emanuel, containing the Nativity, Passion, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ, together with certain Psalms of David, all in English Hexameters. Nor was he altogether singular in this way of writing, for Sir Philip Sidney in the Pastoral Interludes of his Arcadia, uses not only these, but all other sorts of Latine measure, in which no wonder he is followed by so few, since they neither become the English, nor any other modern Language.
He began also the Translation of Heliodorus his Æthiopick History, in the same kind of Verse, of which, to give the Reader the better divertisement, we shall present you with a tast.
As soon as Sun-beams could once peep out fro the Mountains,
And by the dawn of day had somewhat lightned Olympus,
Men, whose lust was law, whose life was still to be lusting,
Whose thriving thieving, convey'd themselves to an hill top,
That stretched forward to the Heracleotica entry