"Yours to commaunde, "R. P."[5] 25. A New Discourse of a stale subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax. Written by _Misacmos_ to his friend and cosin, _Philostilpnos_. Printed 1596. This curious book was written by Sir John Harington, and for so doing he was forbidden the court by Queen Elizabeth, and a license was refused for printing the work. Watt, Lowndes, and all Bibliographers bear testimony to its great rarity. Dr. Johnson in his Lives of the Poets, devotes a page to a consideration and description of this curious work. He says, These tracts are perhaps the first specimens of the Rabelaisian satire our language has to boast. They are replete with that kind of humour which distinguishes the writings of the French Lucian, and partake of their grossness. The extreme rarity of these once popular trifles renders it doubtful whether Swift or Sterne were acquainted with them; yet there are passages in the works of both these eccentric writers so strongly resembling some of Harington's as almost to induce a suspicion that they had seen them; this resemblance however, may have arisen from the circumstance of their being, like our author, imitations of Rabelais and the other French writers of facetiæ. Of the Metamorphosis of Ajax, the avowed purport is the description of a species of watercloset which Sir John Harington had invented and erected at Kelston, his seat near Bath; but he has contrived to make it the vehicle of much diverting matter, evincing his extensive reading; he has also interspersed numerous satiric touches and allusions to contemporary persons and events, many of which are now necessarily obscure, and which were no doubt one of the causes of its great popularity at the time of publication. Elizabeth, however she might be diverted with the humour of this whimsical performance, is said to have conceived much disquiet on being told the author had aimed a shaft at Leicester. Its satiric tendency procured the writer many enemies; and it is supposed that he owed his good fortune in escaping a Star Chamber suit to the favour of the Queen, who yet affected to be much displeased, and forbade him the Court in consequence. It was reprinted at the Chiswick press in 1814, from which edition some of the previous remarks are derived. 26. Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First three Bookes, of Toothlesse Satyrs. 1.--Poeticall. 2.--Academicall. 3.--Morall. London, printed by Thomas Creede for Robert Dexter, 1597. (By Bishop Hall.) Virgidemiarum. The three last bookes, of byting Satyres. Imprinted at London by Richard Braddocke for Robert Dexter, at the signe of the Brasen Serpent in Paule's Church Yard, 1598.