latter's great grandson, and a lullaby addressed to the Christ Child in the persona of the Blessed Virgin. Louise Imogen Guiney, however, has commented that Verstegan's works of Christian poetry have, "a most rustic simplicity. At his best, he touches Southwell, as at about a half a dozen points in the lovely lullaby." A.O. Meyer later wrote of the same poems, "They are pervaded by the peace of a soul that has freed itself from all earthly things." Journalism and satire According to Louise Imogen Guiney, "A few of Verstegan's saying which have survived will show him to have had a caustic eighteenth-century sort of wit, with an endearing slyness almost like Steele's. He says, for example, that Holland is as fertile in sects as Italy is in mushrooms: new doctrines sprout overnight from the dreams of men. The Dutch ministers are less greedy of glory than merchants are, for these latter will rush to India to steal the profits of the Portuguese, whereas the former do not fly there to dispute with the Jesuits for the crown of martyrdom. Of the Irish, it is said that the inhabitants of this country, having observed that to obtain great wealth they must do hard work, have found it desirable to deprive themselves of the one, that they may do without the other. A striking passage deals in no hackneyed fashion with Queen Elizabeth. 'She had that instinctive malice that makes one pick out for hatred the very persons who have done one a good turn... She was not merely ungrateful, but her only response to a benefit received was to revenge it.' Such comments cannot have been without effect on Verstegan's generation." Works Theatrum crudelitatum Hæreticorum nostri temporis (= Theatre of the Cruelties of the heretics of our time) (1587) A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities concerning the most noble and renowned English Nation (1605; reprinted 1628, 1634, 1652, 1655, 1673). This includes the first English version of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Nederlantsche Antiquiteyten (1613; further editions 1631, 1646, 1662, 1700, 1701, 1705, 1714, 1725, 1733, 1756, 1809); an adaptation of the Restitution of Decayed Intelligence Neder-duytsche epigrammen op verscheyden saecken (Mechelen, Henry Jaye, 1617) – a volume of epigrams, available on Google Books Sundry Successive Regal Governments in England (1620) Spiegel der Nederlandsche Elenden (1621) Scherp-sinnighe characteren. Oft subtijle beschrijvinghe (Antwerp, Willem Lesteens, 1622). Available