barefaced procedure. He seems
to have moved powder and other materials of war from Windsor to the
Tower, charged for them on delivery at the latter place as if they had
been freshly bought, and pocketed the proceeds. On the other hand, it is
fair to Painter to say that we only have the word of his accusers for
the statement, though both he and his son own to certain undefined
irregularities. It is, at any rate, something in his favour that he
remained in office till his death, unless he was kept there on the
principle of setting a peculator to catch a peculator. I fancy, too,
that the Earl of Warwick was implicated in his misdeeds, and saved him
from their consequences.

His works are but few. A translation from the Latin account, by Nicholas
Moffan, of the death of the Sultan Solyman,[12] was made by him in 1557.
In 1560 an address in prose, prefixed to Dr. W. Fulke's
_Antiprognosticon_, was signed "Your familiar friend, William
Paynter,"[13] and dated "From Sevenoke xxii. of Octobre;" and the same
volume contains Latin verses entitled "Gulielmi Painteri, ludimagistri
Seuenochensis Tetrastichon." It is perhaps worth while remarking that
this _Antiprognosticon_ was directed against Anthony Ascham, Roger's
brother, which may perhaps account for some of the bitterness in the
above passage from the _Scholemaster_. These slight productions,
however, sink into insignificance in comparison with his chief work,
"The Palace of Pleasure."

[Footnote 12: Reprinted in the Second Tome of the "Palace,"
_infra_, vol. iii. p. 395.]

[Footnote 13: In his own book, and in the document signed by him,
the name is always "Painter."]

He seems to have started work on this before he left Seven Oaks in 1561.
For as early as 1562 he got a licence for a work to be entitled "The
Citye of Cyuelite," as we know from the following entry in the
_Stationers' Registers:_--

W. Jonnes--Receyued of Wylliam Jonnes for his lycense for pryntinge
of a boke intituled _The Cytie of Cyuelitie_ translated
into englisshe by WILLIAM PAYNTER.

From his own history of the work given in the dedication of the first
Tome to his patron, the Earl of Warwick, it is probable that this was
originally intended to include only tales from Livy and the Latin
historians. He seems later to have determined on adding certain of
Boccaccio's novels, and the opportune appearance of a French translation
of Bandello in 1559 caused him to ad