_Published in 1615 "Characters upon Essays, Moral and Divine" and in
1616 a set of Characters called "The Good and the Bad." He was of a good
Essex family, second son of William Breton of Redcross Street, in the
parish of St. Giles without Cripplegate. His father was well-to-do, and
died in January 1559 (new style) when Nicholas was a boy. His mother
took for second husband George Gascoigne the poet. Only a chance note in
a diary informs us that Nicholas Breton was once of Oriel College,
Oxford. In 1577, when his stepfather Gascoigne died, Breton was living
in London, and he then published the first of his many books. He married
Ann Sutton in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, on the 14th of
January 1593 (new style), had a son Henry, born in 1603, a son Edward in
1606, and a daughter Matilda in 1607, who died in her nineteenth year.
He was from 1577 onward an active writer both of prose and verse, and a
poet of real mark in the days of Elizabeth and James the First, though
it was left to Dr. A. B. Grosart to be, in 1875-79, the first editor of
his collected works in an edition limited to a hundred copies. The date
of Breton's last publication, "Fantastics," is 1626, but of the time of
his death there is no record, Nicholas Breton's "Characters upon
Essaies" published in 1615, were entitled in full "Characters upon
Essaies Morall and Divine, written for those good spirits that will take
them 'in good part, and make use of them to good purpose." In
recognition of the kinship between Bacon's Essays and Character
writings, they were dedicated_
To the Honourable, and my much worthy honoured,
truly learned, and Judicious Knight, SIR FRANCIS BACON,
his Maties. Attorney General,
_Increase of honour, health, and eternal happiness_.
Worthy knight, I have read of many essays and a kind of charactering of
them, by such, as when I looked unto the form or nature of their writing
I have been of the conceit that they were but imitators of your breaking
the ice to their inventions, which, how short they fall of your worth, I
had rather think than speak, though truth need not blush at her blame.
Now, for myself, unworthy to touch near the rock of those diamonds, or
to speak in their praise, who so far exceed the power of my capacity,
vouchsafe me leave yet, I beseech you, among those apes that would
counterfeit the actions of men, to play the like part with learning, and
as a monkey that would make a face like a man and cannot, so to write
like a scholar and am not; and thus not daring to adventure the print
under your patronage, without your favourable allowance in the devoted
service of my bounden duty, I leave these poor travails of my spirit to
the perusing of your pleasing leisure, with the further fruits of my
humble affection, to the happy employment of your honourable
pleasure.--At your service in all humbleness,