_were published four years earlier than Overbury's, but Overbury's were
posthumous, and in actual time of writing there can have been no very
material difference. Hall's age was thirty-four when he first published
his Characters. He was born on the 1st July 1574, at Ashby de la Zouch,
in Leicestershire. His father was governor of this town under the Earl
of Huntingdon, when he was President of the North. His mother, Winifred,
was a devout Puritan, and he was from infancy intended for the Church.
In 1589, at the age of fifteen, Joseph Hall was sent to Emmanuel
College, Cambridge, where he was maintained at the cost of an uncle. He
passed all his degrees with applause, obtained a Fellowship of his
college in 1595, and proceeded to M.A. in 1596, and having already
obtained credit at Cambridge as an English poet, he published in 1597
"Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes, First Three Books of Toothlesse Satyrs,
Poetical, Academical, Moral, followed in the next year by Three last
Bookes of Byting Satyres." Of these Satires he said in their Prologue--_
"I first adventure, with foolhardy might,
To tread the steps of perilous despite.
I first adventure, follow me who list,
And be the second English satirist."
_He could only have meant by this to claim that he was the first in
England to write Satires in the manner of the Latins. He would not
bend, he said, to Lady or to Patron--_
"Rather had I, albe in careless rhymes,
Check the misordered world and lawless times."
_Some of these Satires were, of course, of the nature of Characters, and
I quote two or three in passing._