Munday was a very voluminous author in verse and prose, original and translated, and is certainly to be reckoned among the predecessors of Shakespeare in dramatic composition. His earliest work, as far as can be now ascertained, was "The Mirror of Mutability," 1579, when he was in his 26th year: he dedicates it to the Earl of Oxford, and perhaps then belonged to the company of players of that nobleman, to which he had again attached himself on his return from Italy.[150] The Council Registers show that this nobleman had a company of players under his protection in 1575. Munday's "Banquet of Dainty Conceits" was printed in 1588, and we particularise it, because it was unknown to Ames, Herbert, and Ritson. Catalogues and specimens of his other undramatic works may be found in "Bibliographia Poetica," "Censura Literaria," "British Bibliographer,"[151] &c. The earliest praise of Munday is contained in Webbe's "Discourse of English Poetrie," 1586, where his "Sweete Sobs of Sheepheardes and Nymphes" is especially pointed out as "very rare poetrie." Francis Meres, in 1598 ("Palladis Tamia," fo. 283, b.), enumerating many of the best dramatic poets of his day, including Shakespeare, Heywood, Chapman, Porter, Lodge, &c., gives Anthony Munday the praise of being "our best plotter," a distinction that excited the spleen of Ben Jonson in his "Case is Altered," more particularly, as he was omitted. Nearly all the existing information respecting Anthony Munday's dramatic works is derived from Henslowe's papers.[152] At what period he began to write for the stage cannot be ascertained: the earliest date in these MSS. connected with his name is December 1597; but as he was perhaps a member of the Earl of Oxford's theatrical company before he went abroad, and as he was certainly at Rome prior to 1578, it is likely that he was very early the author of theatrical performances. In the old catalogues, and in Langbaine's "Momus Triumphans," 1688, a piece called "Fidele and Fortunatus" is mentioned, and such a play was entered at Stationers' Hall, Nov. 12, 1584. There is little doubt that this is the same production, two copies of which have been discovered, with the running title of "Two Italian Gentlemen," that being the second title to "Fidele and Fortunatus" in the Register. Both copies are without title-pages; but to one of them is prefixed a dedication signed A.M., and we may with tolerable certainty conclude that Anthony Munday was the author or translator of it, and that it was printed about the date of its entry on the Stationers' Books. It is pretty evident that the play now reprinted from the only known edition in 1601 was written considerably before 1597-8, the year when it is first noticed in the accounts of the proprietor of the Rose. The story is treated with a simplicity bordering upon rudeness, and historical facts are perverted just as suited the purpose of the writer. Whether we consider it as contemporary with, or