absence abroad at Louvain . He entered the Society of Jesus in 1565 , but after some academic experiences on the continent in Mainz , Trier , and Perugia , he suffered a change of heart and returned to England , where he conformed to the Elizabethan Settlement . After his return he published his Poematum liber ( 1573 ), dedicated to William Cecil , Lord Burghley . This publication marks the entrance of pattern poetry into English publishing . It also included Willes ’ s own scholia on his poems , reproduced and translated below where appropriate . Later in life Willes turned to geography , and his The History of Travayle ( 1577 ) is an important collection of travel narratives , including much previously unpublished material on Asia . The five poems presented here are taken directly from his Poematum liber , and are in the original publication , respectively , no . 4 ( p . 4 ); no . 5 ( p . 5 ); no . 8 ( p . 7 ); no . 9 ( p . 8 ); and no . 13 ( p . 11 ). See Wood , i , 415-16 ; Kirby , Scholars , p . 135 ; Leach , Winchester , p . 290 ; Fowler , ‘ Introduction ’; ODNB .
1 . Altar ( Richard Willes ), p . 16 Willes subtitled this poem ‘ θεοκριτικῶς ’, i . e . after Theocritus . Following the poem , at the foot of the page he also inscribed the place and date of writing : London , 1573 . This suggests the poem was written as Willes ’ s collection was taking final shape . In it , Willes , having returned to England , reviews his own biography and travels , affirming an uninterruptedly Christian trajectory , and thereby euphemising the fact that his continental period marked a time of religious exile and finally apostasy from Roman Catholicism . His reference to ‘ Gallicanas neces ’ is probably therefore an opportunistic allusion to the recent St Bartholomew ’ s Day Massacre of August 1572 , in which many French Protestants had perished . Willes ’ s own scholium is :
θεοκρίτου βωμός ut narrationem Troili continet qui ad Aram Apollinis , quo pudicitiae conservandae ergo confugerat , ab Achille crudeliter occisus fuerat ; ita hoc poemate profiteor me nullo unquam tempore de religione Christiana discessurum . Quod etiam nomen , quia primis nostrae fidei cultoribus Antiochiae inditum fuerat [ Act . 11 ], ut honestissimum atque gloriosissimum praeter caeteras nominationes usquequaque retineo . Versus a toto genere Iambici sunt , sed alii Anacreontici , Alcmanii alii , siue Alcaici , qua de re Scaliger copiosus . Illud addo luculentius hanc figuram a Crispino quam ab aliis proditam .
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