George Peele (baptized 25 July 1556 – buried 9 November 1596), English dramatist, was born in London. Peele was christened on 25 July 1556. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on bookkeeping. Peele was educated at Christ's Hospital, and entered Broadgates Hall (Pembroke College), Oxford, in 1571. In 1574 he removed to Christ Church, taking his B.A. degree in 1577, and proceeding M.A. in 1579. In that year, the governors of Christ's Hospital requested their clerk to "discharge his house of his son, George Peele." It is not necessary to read into this anything more than that the governors insisted on his beginning to earn a livelihood. He went up to London about 1580, but in 1583 when Albertus Alasco (Albert Laski), a Polish nobleman, was entertained at Christ Church, Peele was entrusted with the arrangement of two Latin plays by William Gager (fl. 1580-1619) presented on the occasion. He was also complimented by Dr. Gager for an English verse translation of one of the Iphigenias of Euripides. In 1585 he was employed to write the Device of the Pageant borne before Woolston Dixie, and in 1591 he devised the pageant in honour of another Lord Mayor, Sir William Webbe. This was the Descensus Astraeae (printed in the Harleian Miscellany, 1808), in which Queen Elizabeth is honoured as Astraea. Peele had married as early as 1583 a lady who brought him some property, which he speedily dissipated. Robert Greene, at the end of his Groats-worth of Wit, exhorts Peele to repentance, saying that he has, like himself, "been driven to extreme shifts for a living." Anecdotes of his reckless life were emphasized by the use of his name in connection with the apocryphal Merrie conceited Jests of George Peele (printed in 1607). Many of the stories had circulated before in other jestbooks, unattached to Peele's name, but there are personal touches that may be biographical. The book provided source material for the play The Puritan, one of the works of the Shakespeare Apocrypha. Peele died "of the pox," according to Francis Meres, and was buried on 9 November 1596.
gorgon, or the wonderful year
St Fame dispos'd to cunnycatch the world,
Vproar'd a wonderment of Eighty Eight:...[read poem]
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Vproar'd a wonderment of Eighty Eight:...
the writers postscript: or a frendly caueat to the second shakerley of powles
SLumbring I lay in melancholy bed,
Before the dawning of the sanguin light:
When Eccho Shr...[read poem]
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Before the dawning of the sanguin light:
When Eccho Shr...
a farewell entitled to the famous and fortunate generals of our english forces
Have done with care, my hearts, abord amain,
With stretching sail to plow the swelling waves....[read poem]
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With stretching sail to plow the swelling waves....
bethsabe's song
Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair;...[read poem]
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Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair;...
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