Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/286

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Father the Popes,’ 1529, 8vo, black letter; printed by Hans Luft at Malborow (Marburg) in Hesse. This, one of the first anti-papistical books in English, was published under the pseudonym of Richarde Brightwell. The ‘Revelation of Anti-Christ’ was a translation from the German, whether of a book or manuscript, and by whom, is not known. 3. ‘A Disputacion of Purgatorye, diuided into thre bokes: the fyrst boke is an answer unto Rastel, which goeth aboute to proue Purgatorye by Naturall Phylosophye; the second boke answereth unto Sir Thomas More, which laboureth to proue Purgatorye by Scripture; the thyrde boke maketh answere unto my Lorde of Rochestre, which leaneth unto the Doctoures,’ without printer's name, date, or place, but believed to be printed at Marburg in 1531, 12mo; reprinted in London, 1533. This was a reply to Bishop Fisher (? title), More's ‘Supplycacion of Soulys in Purgatory’ (printed in 1529?), and J. Rastell's ‘Boke of Purgatory’ (1530), and was prohibited by proclamation in 1534 (Strype, Ecc. Mon., ed. 1822, i. 418), as were all Frith's works in the reign of Mary (Strype, Parker, ed. 1821, i. 418). 4. ‘A Letter unto Faithfull Folowers of Christ's Gospell,’ no printer's name or place (1532?); reprinted in the collected edition of 1573. 5. ‘A Myrrour or Glasse to Knowe Thyselfe,’ no printer's name, black letter (written in the Tower), 1532?, 8vo; reprinted in 1626 by Boler and Mylbourne, London, as ‘A Mirrour or Glasse to Know Thy Selfe: a briefe instruction to teach a person willingly to die.’ 6. ‘A Boke made by John Fryth, prysoner in the Tower of London, answerynge to M. More's Letter which he wrote agaynst the fyrst lytle Treatyse that John Ffryth made concernynge the Sacramente of the Body and Bloode of Christ,’ printed by Conrade Willems, Munster, 1533, 8vo; reprinted in 1546 by R. Jugge, London; by the same, 1548 (newly corrected); and 1548 by Scoloker & Seres, London (now newly revised), all in black letter. 7. ‘A Myrroure or Lookynge Glasse wherein you may beholde the Sacramente of Baptisme described,’ printed by John Daye, 1533, 8vo, black letter; republished in 1554 as ‘Behold the Sacrament of Baptism described,’ answered by More after Frith's death. 8. ‘Another Boke against Rastell, named the Subsadye or Bulwark to his Furst Boke made by John Frithe, Presoner in the Tower,’ without printer's name, date, or place, 12mo, 1533?, black letter. 9. ‘The Articles wherefore John Frith he Dyed, which he wrote in Newgate the 23 day of June 1533,’ London, 1548, 12mo, black letter. 10. ‘His Judgment upon Will Tracey of Todington in Glocestershire, his Testament,’ 1531 (printed 1535), title from Wood's ‘Athnenæ Oxon.’ i. 74 (ed. 1813).

A volume, ‘Vox Piscis, or the Book Fish,’ containing three treatises: ‘A Preparation to the Cross,’ ‘A Mirrour or glasse to know thyselfe,’ and ‘A Brief Instruction to teach a person willingly to die,’ was said to have been found in a codfish in Cambridge market in 1626, was subsequently printed by Boler and Mylbourne, and is stated in the preface to be by Frith. Ussher (Letters, Nos. 100, 101) ascribes it to Richard Tracie (see Fuller, Worthies, Gloucestershire, ed. 1811, i. 384). ‘An Admonition or Warning that the Faithful Christians in London &c. may auoid God's Vengeance,’ &c., Wittonburge, 1554, N. Dorcaster, 8vo, although it bears the name of John Knokes, is believed to be by Frith. ‘The Testament of Master W. Tracie, Esquire, expounded both by W. Tindall and John Frith,’ &c., 1535, printed at Antwerp without printer's name, in black letter, is also partially by Frith.

Frith's works were published by Foxe in 1573 as ‘The whole Works of W. Tyndall, John Frith, and Doct. Barnes, three worthy Martyrs and principall Teachers of this Church of England, collected and compiled in one tome together, beying before scattered, and now in print here exhibited to the Church. To the prayse of God and profite of all good Christian readers,’ London, fol., black letter. Another edition was published by Russell in 1631.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 74; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 47; Foxe's Acts and Monuments, v. 6; Fuller's Ch. Hist. (Brewer), iii. 85; Cranmer's Works (Cox), ii. 246; Middleton's Eccl. Biog. i. 123; Russell's Works of Engl. Reformers, vol. iii.; Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, vol. iii.; State Papers, Dom. Henry VIII, vii. 302, 490; Archæologia, xviii. 81; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. viii. 28.]

A. C. B.


FRITH, MARY (1584?–1659), commonly known as Moll Cutpurse, was the daughter of a shoemaker in the Barbican. The anonymous author of ‘The Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith’ (1662) states that she was born in 1589, and that she died in her ‘threescore and fourteenth year.’ If she was born in 1589, she could not have been in her seventy-fourth year when she died. Malone gives 1584 as the date of her birth. It is stated in a note in Dodsley's ‘Old Plays,’ 1780, xii. 389, on the authority of a manuscript letter in the British Museum, that she died at her house in Fleet Street 26 July 1659, and was buried in the church of St. Bridget's; this date of death is also given in ‘Smyth's Obituary’ (Camd. Soc.) p. 51. Cunningham says that