Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hake, Edward
HAKE, EDWARD (fl. 1579), satirist, was educated by the Rev. John Hopkins [q. v.], and adopted the profession of the law. He resided for a time in Gray's Inn and Barnard's Inn, but does not appear to have been a member of either inn. In 1567 his ‘Newes out of Pavles Churcheyarde, A Trappe for Syr Monye,’ was entered in the ‘Stationers' Register.’ No copy of the 1567 edition is known; but the work was reprinted in 1579, ‘Newes out of Powles Churchyarde. Now newly renued and amplifyed according to the accidents of the present time, 1579, and otherwise entituled, syr Nummus. Written in English Satyrs. … Compyled by E. H., Gent.,’ &c., 8vo, b.l., 65 leaves. From the dedication to the Earl of Leicester we learn that at this date Hake was under-steward of New Windsor. On 16 Sept. 1576 he was acting as recorder at that town; in June 1578 he was one of the bailiffs; on 10 Aug. 1586, the queen being at Windsor was received in state by the corporation, ‘when she was addressed by Edward Hake, Mayor, in behalf of the said town;’ and on 7 Sept. 1586, the queen's birthday, Hake delivered an oration in her honour at the Guildhall (Tighe and Davis, Annals of Windsor). From 10 Oct. 1588 to 29 March 1589 Hake represented New Windsor in parliament. We do not hear of him after 1604, when he published ‘Gold's Kingdom.’ He was a puritan, and everywhere shows a keen hatred of Roman catholics. His style is unpolished, but vigorous and racy.
Hake wrote: 1. ‘Newes out of Powles Churchyarde,’ 1579, a very curious and rare work. There is a copy at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire, the seat of Sir Charles Isham, bart., and another belonged to Heber. A facsimile reproduction, with a valuable preface, by Mr. Charles Edmonds, forms part of the ‘Isham Reprints,’ 1872. The dedicatory verses to the Earl of Leicester are followed by an address ‘To the gentle Reader,’ in which Hake announces that he does not aspire to rank ‘amongst the better sort of english Poetes of our tyme,’ his professional duties not affording him opportunities of study. He states that he has corrected in many places the text of the first edition, and has introduced occasional additions. After the address to the reader come some Latin elegiacs in the author's praise by John Long, and some English verses headed ‘The same to the Citie of London;’ to which succeed fifteen six-line stanzas, ‘The Author to the Carping and scornefull Sicophant,’ some commendatory Latin verses by Richard Matthew, a copy of English verses headed ‘The Noueltie of this Booke,’ and an engraving of Leicester's arms with a rhymed inscription beneath. The satires, eight in number, take the form of a dialogue between Bertulph and Paul in the aisle of St. Paul's. Clerical and legal abuses are denounced; physicians, apothecaries, and surgeons fall under notice; spendthrifts, bankrupts, bawds, brokers, and usurers are severely handled; a protest is made against unlawful Sunday sports, and against the discreditable uses to which St. Paul's Cathedral was put (as a place of assignation, &c.) 2. ‘The Imitation or Following of Christ, and the Contemning of Worldly Vanities: At the first written by Thomas Kempis, a Dutchman, amended and polished by Sebastianus Castalio, an Italian, and Englished by E. H.,’ 1567, 8vo, with a dedication to the Duke of Norfolk; reissued in 1568 with the addition of ‘another pretie treatise, entituled The perpetuall reioyce of the godly, euen in this lyfe’ (British Museum). 3. John Long, in his address ‘to the Citie of London’ (prefixed to ‘Newes out of Powles Churchyarde’), mentions a lost tract of Hake entitled ‘The Slights of Wanton Maydes.’ It must have been written in or before 1568, in which year Turberville alluded to it in his ‘Plaine Path to Perfect Vertue.’ 4. ‘A Touchestone for this Time Present, expresly declaring such ruines, enormities, and abuses as trouble the Churche of God and our Christian common wealth at this daye. Wherevnto is annexed a perfect rule to be obserued of all Parents and Scholemaisters, in the trayning vp of their Schollers and Children in learning. Newly set forth by E. H.,’ 1574, b.l., 8vo, 52 leaves. Prefixed is a dedicatory epistle ‘To his knowne friende mayster Edward Godfrey, Merchaunt;’ then comes ‘A Touchestone for this Time Present,’ in prose, which is followed by ‘A Compendious fourme of Education.’ In the ‘Touchestone’ Hake inveighs against the vices of the clergy, and censures parents for their careless training of children. The ‘Compendious fourme,’ an abridged metrical rendering of a Latin tract, ‘De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis,’ consists of a series of quaint dialogues on the education of children. In a dedicatory epistle (to John Harlowe) the author states that ‘being tied vnto solytarinesse in the countrey,’ he had translated the tract for recreation, and that he had employed verse because it is more easily written than prose. The copy of this work in the Bodleian Library is supposed to be unique. 5. ‘A Commemoration of the Most Prosperous and Peaceable Raigne of our Gratious and Deere Soueraigne Lady Elizabeth’ (dated 17 Nov. 1575), b.l., 8vo, 20 leaves (Brit. Museum), mixed verse and prose, has a dedicatory epistle, dated from Barnard's Inn, ‘To the worshipfull, his verie louing Cowsen M. Edward Eliotte Esquier, the Queenes Maiesties Surueyour of all her Honours, … and possessions within her highnes County of Essex.’ Park reprinted this tract in his supplement to the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ ix. 123, &c. 6. ‘A Ioyfull Continuance of the Commemoration. … Nowe newly enlarged with an exhortation applyed to this present time’ (dated 17 Nov. 1578), 8vo, 24 leaves. There is a copy in Lambeth Palace Library; it is a reprint, with additions of the ‘Commemoration.’ 7. ‘Dauids Sling against Great Goliah. … By E. H.,’ 1580, 16mo, mentioned in Maunsell's ‘Catalogue,’ may be a lost work of Hake. 8. ‘An Oration conteyning an Expostulation … now newly imprinted this xvij. day of Nouember’ (1587), b.l., 4to, 16 leaves (Lambeth Palace), reprinted in vol. ii. of Nichols's ‘Progresses of Queen Elizabeth,’ is the oration spoken by Hake on the queen's birthday, 7 Sept. 1586, in the Guildhall, New Windsor. It was dedicated to the Countess of Warwick, by whom the author had been ‘often reuiued and singulerly comforted.’ 9. ‘The Touche-Stone of Wittes,’ 1588, is ascribed to Hake by Warton (Hist. Engl. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, iv. 203–4), who had certainly seen it, but no copy is now known. 10. ‘Of Golds Kingdome, and this Vnhelping Age. Described in sundry Poems intermixedly placed after certaine other Poems of more speciall respect: And … an Oration … intended to have been deliuered … vnto the Kings Maiesty,’ &c., 1604, b.l., 4to, 33 leaves, dedicated to Edward Vaughan, was written in London when the plague was raging. The chief topic is the power of gold, but reflections in prose and verse on many other subjects are introduced. 11. Lansdowne MS. 161 contains three articles by Hake. He is praised in Richard Robinson's ‘Rewarde of Wickednesse’ (1574).
[Mr. Charles Edmonds's Introduction to Newes out of Powles Churchyarde, Isham Reprints, 1872.]