William Baldwin (16th century)

William Baldwin (?1518-1563?) was an English poet and prose author, believed to be the author of Beware the Cat, considered the earliest English novel.

William Baldwin (?1518-1563?), Beware the Cat (1561). Huntington Library, 1995. Courtesy Amazon.com.

Life

Youth and education

Baldwin, a west-countryman, spent several years at Oxford in the study of logic and philosophy. He is supposed to be the William Baldwin who supplicated the congregation of regents for a master's degree in 1532 (Wood, Athenae, i. 341).

Career

Wood states that Baldwin took to clerical work immediately after leaving the university; but this must be a mistake. On leaving Oxford Baldwin became a corrector of the press to printer Edward Whitchurch, who in 1547 printed for him A Treatise of Morall Phylosophie, contayning the Sayinges of the Wyse, a small black-letter octavo of 142 leaves. This book was afterwards enlarged by Thomas Paulfreyman, and remained popular for a century.

During the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary, it appears that Baldwin was employed in preparing theatrical exhibitions for the court (Collier, Hist. of Eng. Dram. Poetry, i. 149, &c.)

In 1559 Baldwin superintended the publication of the Mirror for Magistrates. In the preface, he speaks of having been "called to other trades of lyfe." He is probably referring to the fact that he had become a minister and a schoolmaster.

Of Baldwin's closing years we have no record; he is supposed to have died early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Writing

Prose

A rare, early. and most curious, ludicrous, and satirical piece, Beware the Cat (1561), has been shown by John Payne Collier to be the work of Baldwin. The dedication is signed 'G.B.,' the initials of Gulielmus Baldwin; and Collier quotes from an early broadside (in the library of the Society of Antiquaries) the following passage:

Where as there is a book called Beware the Cat:
The veri truth is so that Streamer made not that;
Nor no such false fabells fell ever from his pen,
Nor from his hart or mouth, as knoe mani honest men.
But wil ye gladli knoe who made that boke in dede?
One Wylliam Baldewine. God graunt him well to speede.

But the authorship is placed beyond all possible doubt by an entry in the Stationers' Registers, 1568-9, when a 2nd edition was in preparation:— "Rd. of Mr. Irelonde for his lycense for pryntinge of a boke intituled Beware the Catt, by Wyllm Baldwin, iiijd."

The scene is laid in the office of John Day, the printer, at Aldersgate, where Baldwin, Ferrers, and others had met to spend Christmas. Personal allusions abound, and there are many attacks on Roman catholics. The purpose is to show that cats are gifted with speech and reason; and in the course of the narrative, which consists of prose and verse, a number of merry tales are introduced.

Wood ascribes to Baldwin The Use of Adagies; Similies and Proverbs; Comedies, of which nothing is known.

Verse

In 1549 appeared Baldwin's Canticles or Balades of Salomon, phraselyke declared in Englyshe Metres, which the author printed with his own hand from the types of Whitchurch. The versification has more ease and elegance than we usually find in metrical translations from the Scriptures; and the volume is remarkable for the care bestowed on the punctuation, a matter to which the old printers seldom paid the slightest attention.

To the Mirror for Magistrates (1559) he contributed 4 poems of his own: (1) 'The Story of Richerd, Earl of Cambridge, being put to death at Southampton;' (2) 'How Thomas Montague, Earl of Salisbury, in the midst of his glory was by chance slain by a Piece of Ordnance; (3) 'Story of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, being punished for abusing his King and causing the Destruction of good Duke Humphrey;' (4) 'The Story of Jack Cade naming himself Mortimer, and his Rebelling against the King.'

In 1560 he published a poetical tract (of the greatest rarity) in 12 leaves, The Funeralles of King Edward the Sixt; wherein are declared the Causers and Causes of his Death. On the title-page is a woodcut portrait of Edward. The elegy is followed by "An Exhortation to the Repentaunce of Sinnes and Amendment of Life," consisting of 12 8-line stanzas; and the tract concludes with an "Epitaph: The Death Playnt or Life Prayse of the most Noble and Vertuous Prince, King Edward the Sixt."

Baldwin prefixed a copy of verses to Langton's Treatise ordrely declaring the Principall Partes of Physick (1547). He is probably the author of A new Booke called The Shippe of Safegards, wrytten by G.B. (1569), and a sheet of 11 8-line stanzas:—

To warn the papistes to beware of three trees.
           God save our Queene Elizabeth.
Finis qd. G. B.,

printed on 12 Dec. 1571, by John Awdelay.

Publications

Poetry

• The Funeralles of the Most Noble and Godly Prince Kyng Edward the sixt. London: Thomas Marsh, 1560.

Novel

• A Maruelous Hystory, intitulede Beware the Cat. London: 1561; London: Wylliam Gryffith, 1570; London: Edward Allde, 1584
  • Beware the Cat, 1570. London: Chiswick Press, 1864
  • Beware the Cat: The first English novel (edited by William A. Ringler Jr. & Michæl Flachmann). San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1988.

Non-fiction

• A Treatice of Morall Philosophy. London: Richard Tottyll, 1571; London: Thomas Este, 1584; London: Thomas Snodham, 1610; Gainesville, FL: Scholars Facsimiles & Reprints, 1967.

Collected editions

• Beware the Cat, and The funerals of King Edward the Sixth (edited by William P. Holden). New London, CT: Connecticut College, 1963.

Translated

• The Canticles or Balades of Salomon. London: William Baldwin with Edwarde Whitechurche, 1549.

Edited

• A Myrrour for Magistrates. London: Thomas Marsh, 1563.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Bullen, Arthur Henry (1885) "Baldwin, William (fl.1547)" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 3 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 38-39  . Wikisource, Web, June 7, 2021.

Notes

External links

Books

• presscom.co.uk, original extant texts for 'Beware the Cat'
• William Baldwin at Amazon.com

About

• Beware the Cat: The First English Novel at Goodreads
• Author of first English novel kept it hidden for ten years – here's why at The Conversation

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Baldwin, William (fl.1547)