Beza, Buchanan, and other Latin and Italian authors sufficiently manifest.  Nay, further, says he, “in several of his plays, he has borrowed many ornaments from the ancients, as more particularly in his play called the Ages, he has interspersed several things borrowed from Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, Plautus, which extremely set them off.”  What opinion the wits of his age had of him, may appear from the following verses, extracted from of one of the poets of those times.[2]

  The squibbing Middleton, and Heywood sage,
  Th’ apologetick Atlas of the stage;
  Well of the golden age he could entreat,
  But little of the metal he could get;
  Threescore sweet babes he fashion’d at a lump,
  For he was christen’d in Parnassus pump;
  The Muses gossip to Aurora’s bed,
  And ever since that time, his face was red.

We have no account how much our author was distinguished as an actor, and it may be reasonably conjectured that he did not shine in that light; if he had, his biographers would scarce have omitted so singular a circumstance, besides he seems to have addicted himself too much to poetry, to study the art of playing, which they who are votaries of the muses, or are favoured by them, seldom think worth their while, and is indeed beneath their genius.

The following is a particular account of our author’s plays now extant: 

1.  Robert Earl of Huntingdon’s downfall, an historical Play, 1601, acted by the Earl of Nottingham’s servants.

2.  Robert Earl of Huntingdon’s Death; or Robin Hood of Merry Sherwood, with the tragedy of chaste Matilda, 1601.  The plots of these two plays, are taken from Stow, Speed, and Baker’s chronicles in the reign of King Richard I.

3.  The Golden Age, or the Lives of Jupiter and Saturn, an historical play, acted at the Red Bull, by the Queen’s servants, 1611.  This play the author stiles the eldest Brother of three Ages.  For the story see Galtruchius’s poetical history, Ross’s Mystagogus Poeticus; Hollyoak, Littleton, and other dictionaries.

4.  The Silver Age, 1613; including the Love of Jupiter to Alcmena.  The Birth of Hercules, and the Rape of Proserpine; concluding with the Arraignment of the Moon.  See Plautus.  Ovid.  Metamorph.  Lib. 3.

5.  The Brazen Age; an historical play, 1613.  This play contains the Death of Centaure Nessus, the tragedy of Meleager, and of Jason and Medea, the Death of Hercules, Vulcan’s Net, &c.  For the story see Ovid’s Metamorph.  Lib. 4—­7—­8—­9.

6.  The Iron Age; the first part a history containing the Rape of Helen, the Siege of Troy, the Combat between Hector and Ajax.  Hector and Troilus slain by Achilles, the Death of Ajax, &c. 1632.

7.  Iron Age, the second part; a History containing the Death of Penthesilea, Paris, Priam, and Hecuba:  the burning of Troy, the Deaths of Agamemnon, Menelaus, Clytemnestra, Helena, Orestes, Egistus, Pylades, King Diomede, Pyrrhus, Cethus, Synon, Thersetus, 1632, which part is addressed to the author’s much respected friend Thomas Manwaring, Esq; for the plot of both parts, see Homer, Virgil, Dares Phrygius; for the Episodes, Ovid’s Epistles, Metamorph, Lucian’s Dialogues, &c.