ersonal
acquaintance or to a publisher who stood toward his patron in the
relation of a personal dependent--to describe 'young Lord Herbert,' of
Elizabeth's reign, as 'Mr. William Herbert.' A lawyer, who in the way of
business might have to mention the young lord's name in a legal document,
would have entered it as 'William Herbert, commonly called Lord Herbert.'
The appellation 'Mr.' was not used loosely then as now, but indicated a
precise social grade. Thorpe's employment of the prefix 'Mr.' without
qualification is in itself fatal to the pretension that any lord, whether
by right or courtesy, was intended. {408}

Thorpe's mode of addressing the Earl of Pembroke.

Proof is at hand to establish that Thorpe was under no misapprehension as
to the proper appellation of the Earl of Pembroke, and was incapable of
venturing on the meaningless misnomer of 'Mr. W. H.' Insignificant
publisher though he was, and sceptical as he was of the merits of noble
patrons, he was not proof against the temptation, when an opportunity was
directly offered him, of adorning the prefatory pages of a publication
with the name of a nobleman, who enjoyed the high official station, the
literary culture, and the social influence of the third Earl of Pembroke.
In 1610--a year after he published the 'Sonnets'--there came into his
hands the manuscripts of John Healey, that humble literary aspirant who
had a few months before emigrated to Virginia, and had, it would seem,
died there. Healey, before leaving England, had secured through the good
offices of John Florio (a man of influence in both fashionable and
literary circles) the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke for a translation
of Bishop Hall's fanciful satire, 'Mundus alter et idem.' Calling his
book 'The Discoverie of a New World,' Healey had prefixed to it, in 1609,
an epistle inscribed in garish terms of flattery to the 'Truest mirrour
of truest honor, William Earl of Pembroke.' {409} When Thorpe
subsequently made up his mind to publish, on his own account, other
translations by the same hand, he found it desirable to seek the same
patron. Accordingly, in 1610, he prefixed in his own name, to an edition
of Healey's translation of St. Augustine's 'Citie of God,' a dedicatory
address 'to the honorablest patron of the Muses and good mindes, Lord
William, Earle of Pembroke, Knight of the Honourable Order (of the
Garter), &c.' In involved sentences Thorpe tells the 'right gracious and