William Vallans ( fl. 1578–1590) was an English poet.

Early life

Vallans was the son of John Vallans, was born near

Ware, Hertfordshire Ware is a town in Hertfordshire, England close to the county town of Hertford. It is also a civil parishes in England, civil parish in East Hertfordshire district. Location The town lies on the north–south A10 road (Great Britain), A10 road ...

, and afterwards carried on business as a salter. He was a friend of Camden and other antiquaries, and himself took an interest in antiquarian matters.

Career

In 1590 Vallans published a poem in unrhymed hexameters entitled ''A Tale of Two Swannes'', printed by Roger Ward for John Sheldrake (London). In the poem he announced his intention of leaving England, and likened his farewell verses to the swan's dying song. The poem is devoted to a description of the situation and antiquities of several towns in Hertfordshire, and mention is made of many seats in the county belonging to the queen and nobility. Vallans probably carried out his intention of leaving England soon after. His poem is one of the earliest examples of the employment of

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and P ...

in English literature outside drama, and he was perhaps induced to attempt this form of metre by his admiration for

Abraham Fraunce Abraham Fraunce (c. 1558/1560 – c. 1592/1593) was an English poet. Life A native of Shropshire, he was born between 1558 and 1560. His name appears in a list of pupils of Shrewsbury School in January 1571, and he joined St John's College, Camb ...

, from whose translation of Thomas Watson's Latin ''Odes'' he quotes. His book is rare: it was reprinted by Thomas Hearne (1678–1735) in 1711 in the fifth volume of his edition of Leland's ''Itinerary'' from a copy in the possession of Thomas Rawlinson (1681–1725) Another poem by "William Vallans, salter", is preserved in the

Harleian manuscripts The Harleian Library, Harley Collection, Harleian Collection and other variants ( la, Bibliotheca Harleiana) is one of the main "closed" collections (namely, historic collections to which new material is no longer added) of the British Library in ...

(No. 367, f. 129). It complains of the injustice of suffering John Stowe to go unrewarded after compiling his ''Survey of London''. Vallans had some

commendatory verse The epideictic oratory, also called ceremonial oratory, or praise-and-blame rhetoric, is one of the three branches, or "species" (eidē), of rhetoric as outlined in Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', to be used to praise or blame during ceremonies. Origin ...

s prefixed to ''Whartons Dreame'', published in 1578; and Hearne assigned to him the authorship of ''The Honourable Prentice; or thys Tayler is a Man; shewed in the Life and Death of Sir John Hawkewood'', by W. V., London, 1615 and 1616.

References

1578 births 1590 deaths 16th-century births 16th-century English poets English male poets People from Ware, Hertfordshire {{England-poet-stub