be known concerning Breton, and the circumstances of his life be still
involved in such great obscurity. In looking over his various
publications, it is remarkable how little is to be gleaned in the
preliminary prefixes which relate to his own personal history, and how
very rarely he touches on any thing referring to himself. There is a
plaintive and melancholy strain running through many of his works, and I
am inclined to the opinion entertained by Sir Egerton Bridges and
others, that cares, and misfortunes, and continued disappointments had
brought on melancholy and despair, and that the plaintive and touching
nature of his writings were occasioned by real sorrows and sufferings.
This seems at variance with his being the purchaser of the manor and
lordship of Norton, and in the possession and enjoyment of this world's
goods. Thus in his _Auspicante Jehova Maries Exercise_, 8vo. 1597, one
of the rarest of his works, in the dedication to Mary, Countess of
Pembroke, speaking of his temporal condition, he remarks, "I have soncke
my fortune in the worlde, hauing only the light of vertue to leade my
hope unto Heauen:" and signs himself "Your La. sometime unworthy Poet,
and now, and ever poore Beadman, Nich. Breton." And the "Address" after
it is signed, "Your poore friend or servant N.B." I am aware that these
phrases are sometimes used in a figurative sense, but am disposed to
think that here they are intended for something real. And I am at a loss
how to reconcile these expressions of poverty with his being the
purchaser and enjoyer of such an estate. I shall wait, therefore, with
considerable anxiety till it may suit the pleasure or convenience {410}
of Mr. Collier to communicate to the world the proofs he has obtained of
the poet's identification with the Norton monument. I would, however,
further add, that so late as 1606, the Dedication to _the Praise of
Vertuous Ladies_ is dated "From my Chamber in the Blacke-Fryers," and
that not one of his later productions is dated from Norton, which
probably would have been the case had he been resident there.