Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, John (1529?-1566?)
HALL or HALLE, JOHN (1529?–1566?), poet and medical writer, was born in 1529 or 1530, became a member of the Worshipful Company of Chirurgeons, and practised as a surgeon at Maidstone, Kent. He appears to have been a man of strong character and of great zeal in his profession.
His works are: 1. ‘Certayne Chapters taken out of the Proverbes of Solomon, with other Chapters of the Holy Scripture, and certayne Psalmes of David, translated into English Metre,’ London (Thomas Raynalde), 1549, 8vo. 2. ‘A Poesie in Forme of a Vision, briefly inveying against the most hatefull and prodigious artes of Necromancie, Witchcraft, Sorcerie, Incantations, and divers other detestable and deuilishe practises, dayly used under colour of Judiciall Astrologie,’ London, 1563, 8vo. 3. ‘The Court of Vertue, contayning many Holy or Spretuall Songes, Sonnettes, Psalmes, Balletts, and Shorte Sentences, as well of Holy Scripture, as others,’ with musical notes, London, 1565, 16mo. This book seems by the prologue to have been written in contrast to one named ‘The Court of Venus,’ which was a collection of love songs. 4. ‘A most excellent and learned woorke of chirurgerie, called Chirurgia parva Lanfranci, Lanfranke of Mylayne his briefe: reduced from dyvers translations to our vulgar-frase, and now first published in the Englyshe prynte,’ black letter, 4 pts., London, 1565, 4to. It contains a woodcut portrait of the translator, ‘æt. 35, 1564.’ 5. ‘A very frutefull and necessary briefe worke of Anatomie,’ 1565, appended to his translation of Lanfranc's ‘Chirurgia Parva.’ 6. ‘An Historiall Expostulation: Against the beastlye Abusers, both of Chyrurgerie, and Physyke, in oure tyme: with a goodlye Doctrine and Instruction, necessarye to be marked and folowed, of all true Chirurgiens,’ 1565, appended to his translation of Lanfranc's ‘Chirurgia Parva.’ This curious treatise was reprinted in the eleventh volume of the publications of the Percy Society, London, 1844, 8vo, under the editorship of T. J. Pettigrew, F.R.S. Hall boldly denounces the quacks of the day, and is loud in his protestations against the combination of magic, divination, and physic. 7. A metrical version of ‘The Prouerbes of Salamon, thre chapters of Ecclesiastes, the sixthe chapter of Sapientia, the ix chapter of Ecclesiasticus, and certayne psalmes of Dauid,’ London (Edward Whitchurch), n.d. 8vo, dedicated to John Bricket, esq., of Eltham. Hall grievously complains that ‘certayne chapters of the Prouerbes, translated by him into English metre, 1550, had before been untruely entituled to be the doyngs of mayster Thomas Sternhold.’ 8. English translation of Benedict Victorius's and Nicholas Massa's treatises on the ‘Cure of the French Disease;’ manuscript in Bodleian Library, No. 178, which also contains some letters from Hall to William Cunningham, M.D., of London. 9. Commendatory English verses prefixed to Thomas Gale's ‘Enchiridion of Chirurgerie,’ 1563, and to the same author's ‘Institution of a Chirurgian,’ 1563.
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. pp. 550, 584, 805, 806, 854; Bibliographer, iv. 90; Brydges's Brit. Bibl. ii. 349–52; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th edit. i. 308; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Lowndes), p. 978; Percy Society's Publications, vol. xi.; Ritson's Bibl. Poetica, p. 232; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 372.]