That most of Winstanley’s omissions were deliberate, and were prompted by some awareness of literary reputation, is suggested not only by his request for help on a revised edition (which never materialized) but also by the fact that he was able to add to the Theatrum Poetarum thirty-four poets, almost all of whom could have been noted by Phillips.  Among these were such recent poets as Thomas Tusser, Giles Fletcher the elder, Sir John Beaumont, Jasper Heywood, Philemon Holland, Sir Thomas Overbury, John Taylor the Water Poet, and the Earl of Rochester.  The reader of this volume may want to have the additional names before him; they are:  Sir John Birkenhead, Henry Bradshaw, William Chamberlayne, Hugh Crompton, John Dauncey, John Davies (d. 1618), Robert Fabyan, John Gower (fl. 1640), Lewys Griffin, “Havillan,” Richard Head, Matthew Heywood, John Higgins, Thomas Jordan, Sir William Killigrew, Sir Roger L’Estrange, Matthew of Paris, John Oldham, Edward Phillips himself, John Quarles, Richard the Hermit, John Studley, John Tatham, Christopher Tye, Sir George Wharton, and William of Ramsey.  Mentioned incidentally are John Owen, Laurence Whitaker, and Gawin Douglas.

Among the accounts that are utterly independent of Phillips are those of Churchyard, Chapman, Daniel, Ford, Cower, Lydgate, Lyly, Massinger, Nashe, Quarles, Suckling, Surrey, and Sylvester.  Among those that add more than they borrow are the notices of Beaumont and Fletcher, Chaucer, Cleveland, Corbet, Donne, Drayton, Phineas Fletcher, Greene, Greville, Jonson, Lodge, Lovelace, Middleton, More, Randolph, Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Warner, and Withers.

To a modern critic Winstanley may seem devoid of taste, but his acquaintance with English poetry is impressive.  Indeed, Winstanley, unlike Phillips, strikes us as a man who really read and enjoyed poetry.  Phillips is more the slipshod bibliographer and cataloguer, collecting names and titles; Winstanley is the amateur literary historian, seeking out the verse itself, arranging it in chronological order, and trying, by his dim lights, to pass judgment upon it.

WILLIAM RILEY PARKER Indiana University 12 March 1962

[Illustration:  London Printed for Samuel Manship at the Black Bull in Cornhill near the Royall Exchange.]

THE
LIVES
Of the most Famous
English Poets,

OR THE
Honour of PARNASSUS;

In a Brief
ESSAY
OF THE
WORKS and WRITINGS
of above Two Hundred of them, from the
Time of K. WILLIAM the Conqueror,

To the Reign of His Present Majesty
King JAMES II.

Marmora Maeonij vincunt Monumenta Libelli; Vivitur ingenio, extera Mortis erunt.

Written by WILLIAM WINSTANLEY, Author of
the English Worthies.

Licensed, June 16, 1685.  Rob.  Midgley.

LONDON,

Printed by H.  Clark, for Samuel Manship at the
Sign of the Black Bull in Cornhil, 1687.