Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lynne, Walter

by William Arthur Jobson Archbold

LYNNE, WALTER (fl. 1550), printer and translator, lived at Somers Quay, near Billingsgate, and also seems to have kept a shop at the sign of the Eagle, near St. Paul's School. As his dedications and prefaces show, he was an ardent reformer; he printed and translated works of a religious kind and enjoyed the patronage of Cranmer. His mark consisted of a ram and a goat, with the letters W. and L. His chief published translations are: 1. ‘The Beginning and Endynge of all Popery, or Popishe Kyngedome,’ London, 1548, 4to, from the German, printed by Herford. It has many curious woodcuts. 2. A version in English of Cranmer's ‘Catechismus’ (a Latin translation from the German of Justus Jonas), London, 1548, 8vo. Two editions the same year, one printed by Hyll. 3. ‘A Declaration of the Twelve Articles of the Christen Faith,’ London, 1548, 8vo; translated from the German of Urban Regius and printed by Jugge. 4. ‘The Divisyon of the Places of the Lawe and of the Gospell …,’ by Petrus Artopocus, with ‘two Orations of Prayeng to God made by S. John Chrisostome,’ London, 1548, 8vo, printed by Lynne. Another edition has no date. 5. ‘A Frutefull and Godly Exposition and Declaracion of the Kyngdom of Christ,’ two of Luther's sermons, ‘whereunto is annexed a godly sermon of U. Regius,’ London, 1548, 8vo, printed for Lynne and dedicated to the Princess Elizabeth. 6. ‘The chiefe and pryncypall Articles of the Christen Faythe … with other thre … bokes [viz.] the Confessyon of the Faythe of Doctor M. Luther. Of the ryght Olde Catholyke Churche. … The three Symboles … of the Christen Faythe, in the Churche unfourmely used.’ Also ‘A Singular and Fruteful Maner of Prayeng used by … M. Luther,’ London, 1548, 8vo, printed for Lynne. 7. ‘A lytle Treatise after the maner of an Epistle,’ &c., London, 1548, 8vo, translated from Regius. 8. Luther's three ‘Sermons on Sickness and Burial’ (Watt), London, 1549, 8vo. 9. ‘A Treatise or Sermon’ (by Bullinger), ‘concernynge Magistrates and Obedience of Subjects,’ London, 1549, 8vo, printed for Lynne, who added an epistle and dedication to Edward VI. 10. ‘The Thre Bokes of Cronicles’ by John Carion, with Funcke's appendix, London, 1550, 8vo, printed for Lynne, who has added a preface on the use of reading history; dedicated to Edward VI. 11. ‘A brief and a compendious Table in maner of a Concordaunce, openyng the waye to the Principall Histories of the whole Bible,’ London, 1550, 1563, 12mo, from the German of Bullinger, Jude Pellicanus, and others. Lynne added a translation of the third book of Machabees, and dedicated the whole to the Duchess of Somerset.

Among his publications was ‘The true Beliefe in Christ and his Sacramentes set forth in a Dialogue,’ London, 1550, 8vo; a translation from Dutch by Roy, with a dedication to Anne, duchess of Somerset, by Lynne, who only in all probability printed the title-page and first three leaves; the rest was printed abroad. A copy at the British Museum has the duchess's initials in gold on the cover. Lynne also published the following, in which he does not appear to have played any literary part:

1. ‘Treatise of the right Worshipping of Christ,’ London, 1548, 8vo.
2. Poynet's ‘Tragœdie or Dialoge of the unjuste usurped Primacie of the Bishop of Rome …’ (a translation from Ochinus), London, 1549, 8vo. A copy at the British Museum has Lynne's autograph.
3. Poynet's sermon ‘concerninge the ryght use of the Lordes Supper,’ London, 1550, 8vo.
4. An edition of Becon's ‘Spirytual and Precious Pearle,’ London, 1550, 16mo.
5. An edition of Norton's translation of Peter Martyr's ‘Epistle unto the … Duke of Somerset,’ London, 1550, 8vo.
6. ‘A Catechisme,’ n.d.
7. Story's translations from St. Augustine, n.d.
8. ‘The Vertuous Scholehous of Ungracious Women,’ n.d.

[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Bigmore and Wyman's Bibl. of Printing, i. 449; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, ii. 752; Strype's Cranmer, i. 568, Memorials, II. i. 229, 310; Bradford's Works, i. 2, Bullinger's Works, vol. iv. p. xx, Cranmer's Works, ii. 218 (all in Parker Soc.)]

W. A. J. A.