Meditation_ of 1606 is a book of
excessive rarity, only one complete printed copy having been met with in
our time. A fragment of the only other printed copy known is now in the
British Museum. The work was reprinted in 1895, chiefly from an early
copy in manuscript, by Mr. Charles Edmonds, the accomplished
bibliographer, who in a letter to the _Athenaeum_, on November 1, 1873,
suggested for the first time the identity of 'W. H.,' the dedicator of
Southwell's poem, with Thorpe's 'Mr. W. H.'

{401} A manuscript volume at Oscott College contains a contemporary copy
of those poems by Southwell which 'unfained affectionate W.H.' first gave
to the printing press. The owner of the Oscott volume, Peter Mowle or
Moulde (as he indifferently spells his name), entered on the first page
of the manuscript in his own handwriting an 'epistel dedicatorie' which
he confined to the conventional greeting of happiness here and hereafter.
The words ran: 'To the right worshipfull Mr. Thomas Knevett Esquire,
Peter Mowle wisheth the perpetuytie of true felysitie, the health of
bodie and soule with continwance of worshipp in this worlde. And after
Death the participation of Heavenlie happiness dewringe all worldes for
ever.'

{403a} A bookseller (not a printer), William Holmes, who was in business
for himself between 1590 and 1615, was the only other member of the
Stationers' Company bearing at the required dates the initials of 'W. H.'
But he was ordinarily known by his full name, and there is no indication
that he had either professional or private relations with Thorpe.

{403b} Most of his dedications are penned in a loose diction of
pretentious bombast which it is difficult to interpret exactly. When
dedicating in 1610--the year after the issue of the _Sonnets_--Healey's
_Epictetus his Manuall_ 'to a true fauorer of forward spirits, Maister
John Florio,' Thorpe writes of Epictetus's work: 'In all languages, ages,
by all persons high prized, imbraced, yea inbosomed. It filles not the
hand with leaues, but fills ye head with lessons: nor would bee held in
hand but had by harte to boote. He is more senceless than a stocke that
hath no good sence of this stoick.' In the same year, when dedicating
Healey's translation of St. Augustine's _Citie of God_ to the Earl of
Pembroke, Thorpe clumsily refers to Pembroke's patronage of Healey's
earlier efforts in translation thus: 'He that against detraction beyond
expectation, then found you