During the middle years of the sixteenth century, William Baldwin was a recognized author, editor, and translator whose published works show both a linguistic and narrative complexity and a sophisticated acumen about the political power of writing. As editor of A Mirror for Magistrates (1559), as compiler of a popular philosophical compendium, as translator of the biblical Song of Songs and of Italian satire, and as writer of original works of poetry and prose, Baldwin demonstrates the range of his interests and the scope of his literary experimentation. Equally important, these works chart his appropriation of Erasmian humanism in the service of the Protestant Reformation. Consequently, his writings must be examined as contributions both to the artistic and to the political and social culture of the English Renaissance.

In spite of Baldwin's reputation during his own time as a learned moralist (John Bale called him an English Cato in...