Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Forrest, Thomas (fl.1580)
FORREST, THOMAS (fl. 1580), was author of 'A Perfite Looking Glasse for all Estates: most excellently and eloquently set forth by the famous and learned Oratour Isocrates, as contained in three Orations of Morall Instructions, written in the Greeke tongue, of late yeeres: Translated into Latine by … Hieronimus Wolfius. And nowe Englished … with sundrie examples of pithy sentences, both of Princes and Philosophers, gathered and collected out of divers writers, Coted in the margent, approbating the Author's intent. … Imprinted in Newgate Market, within the new Rents, at the Signe of the Lucrece, 1580.' The volume is a quarto of forty-six leaves, and is dedicated by the translator, Tho. Forrest, to Sir Thomas Bromley. There are also prefixed 'An Epistle to the Reader;' 'The Author's Enchomion upon Sir Thomas Bromley;' 'J. D. in Commendation of the Author;’ ‘In Praise of the Author, S. Norreis;' 'The Booke to the Reader.' The volume is probably 'certen orations of Isocrates' found in the Stationers' Register under date 4 Jan. 1580. Ritson puts Forrest among the English poets because of the 'Enchomion' above mentioned.
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), p. 997; Ritson's Bibl. Poet. p. 209; Arber's Stationers' Registers, ii. 165; Hunter's Chorus Vatum, iii. 296 (Addit. MS. Brit. Mus. 24489).]