, they were transparently honest. On the
side of the defence, authorship is a little better ascertained. Of Cooper's
work there is no doubt, and some purely secular men of letters were oddly
mixed up in the affair. It is all but certain that John Lyly wrote the
so-called _Pap with a Hatchet_,[45] which in deliberate oddity of phrase,
scurrility of language, and desultoriness of method outvies the wildest
Martinist outbursts. The later tract, _An Almond for a Parrot_,[46] which
deserves a very similar description, may not improbably be the same
author's; and Dr. Grosart has reasonably attributed four anti-Martinist
tracts (_A Countercuff to Martin Junior_ [_Martin Junior_ was one of the
Marprelate treatises], _Pasquil's Return_, _Martin's Month's Mind_, and
_Pasquil's Apology_), to Nash. But the discussion of such questions comes
but ill within the limits of such a book as the present.

[45] Pap with a Hatchet, alias A fig for my godson! or Crack me this nut,
or A country cuff that is a sound box of the ear for the idiot Martin for
to hold his peace, seeing the patch will take no warning. Written by one
that dares call a dog a dog, and made to prevent Martin's dog-days.
Imprinted by John-a-noke and John-a-stile for the baylive [_sic_] of
Withernam, _cum privilegio perennitatis_; and are to be sold at the sign of
the crab-tree-cudgel in Thwackcoat Lane. A sentence. Martin hangs fit for
my mowing.

[46] An Almond for a Parrot, or Cuthbert Curryknaves alms. Fit for the
knave Martin, and the rest of those impudent beggars that cannot be content
to stay their stomachs with a benefice, but they will needs break their
fasts with our bishops. _Rimarum sum plenus._ Therefore beware, gentle
reader, you catch not the hicket with laughing. Imprinted at a place, not
far from a place, by the assigns of Signior Somebody, and are to be sold at
his shop in Troubleknave Street at the sign of the Standish.

The discussion of the characteristics of the actual tracts, as they
present themselves and whosoever wrote them, is, on the other hand,
entirely within our competence. On the whole the literary merit of the
treatises has, I think, been overrated. The admirers of Martin have even
gone so far as to traverse Penry's perfectly true statement that in using
light, not to say ribald, treatment of a serious subject, he was only
following [Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde and] other Protestant writers, and
have attributed to him an almost entire orig