Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Anton, Robert
ANTON, ROBERT (fl. 1616), poetical writer, supposed to have been a son of George Anton, recorder of Lincoln, graduated B.A. of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1609-10. He is the author of a quarto volume of satires, published in 1616, under the title of the ‘Philosophers Satyrs.’ A second edition appeared in the following year, bearing the title ‘Vices Anatomic Scourged and Corrected in New Satires.’ There are seven pieces, each being named after one of the seven planets (an idea borrowed from Ariosto). The chief interest of the book, which is written in curiously strained language, lies in the references to Beaumont, Spenser, Jonson, Chapman, and Daniel. One Shakespearian allusion occurs—‘What Comedies of errors swell the stage,’ &c. There is preserved in Sir Charles Isham's library at Lamport Hall a unique prose tract of Anton's, in black letter, entitled ‘Moriomachia, imprinted at London by Simon Stafford, 1613,’ 4to.
[Corser's Collectanea; Hazlitt's Second Series of Bibliographical Collections; Cooper's New Biographical Dictionary.]