Produced by David Starner, Leonard Johnson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. THE LIVES _Of the Most Famous_ _English Poets_. (1687) BY _William Winstanley_. A FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY _William Riley Parker_ GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA SCHOLARS' FACSIMILES & REPRINTS 1963 SCHOLARS' FACSIMILES & REPRINTS 1605 N.W. 14th AVE. GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA, U.S.A. HARRY R. WARFEL, GENERAL EDITOR REPRODUCED FROM A COPY OWNED BY HARRY R. WARFEL L.C. CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 63-7095 MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A. LETTERPRESS BY J.N. ANZEL, INC. PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY BY EDWARDS BROTHERS BINDING BY UNIVERSAL-DIXIE BINDERY _Introduction_ This book merits more attention and respect from literary historians than thus far have been accorded it. The case must be stated carefully. The work has obvious faults and limitations, which probably account for its never having been reprinted since its appearance in 1687. Almost forty percent of it is largely or entirely derivative. Its author, William Winstanley (1628?-1698), was undoubtedly a compiler and a hack-writer; his attitudes and methods can hardly be termed "scholarly." Nevertheless, this pioneer in biographical and bibliographical research was more nearly a scholar than the man he is usually alleged to have plagiarized; he wanted to _see_ the books that Edward Phillips was often content merely to list by title in his _Theatrum Poetarum_ (1675), and altogether, for his own enjoyment and that of his readers, he quoted from the works of more than sixty poets. Moreover, unlike Phillips, he tried to arrange his authors in chronological order, from Robert of Gloucester to Sir Roger L'Estrange. Though Winstanley's _Lives_ advertises on its title page accounts "of above Two Hundred" poets, only 147 are actually listed in the catalogue, and only 168 are noted throughout. Of these 168, only 34 had not already been mentioned by Phillips, a dozen years before. Some borrowing was inevitable, and, in fact, Winstanley leaned heavily upon both Phillips and Fuller for information and clues, just as Phillips had leaned heavily upon Bale's _Summarium_ (1548), Camden's _Remains_, Puttenham's _Art of English Poesy_, several Elizabethan miscellanies, and Kirkman's play catalogues. Both men built (as scholars must build) upon the obvious materials available. Both (in the manner of their age) were extremely casual about documentation and acknowledgment. If this leads us to talk unhistorically about "theft," we must say that Phillips "stole" from a half dozen or so people, whereas Winstanley simply appropriated a lot of these stolen goods. For doing so, he alone has been labelled a plagiarist.