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THE sixteenth-century Dutch poet Jan Van der Noot is known to have produced two texts while living in London. The first is a series of Petrarchan ‘visions’ in verse and prose, collected under the title Het Theatre oft Toon-Neel (1568); the second is a miscellany of occasional pieces known as Het Bosken (c.1570–1).1 Aside from French and English translations of Het Theatre, these texts are usually considered the full extent of Van der Noot's output during his exile.2 However, a third work is also attributed to him in Pollard and Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue: The Governance and Preservation of Them That Fear the Plague, printed by William How in 1569 (STC 18600). The STC assigns this to ‘Van der Noot, Jan, ca.1538–ca.1596’, along with three versions of Het Theatre. Yet while The Governance is undeniably the work of one ‘John Vandernote’, this does not appear to be the man responsible for Het Theatre and Het Bosken. Internal evidence suggests that The Governance was in fact produced by an earlier writer. The title-page and preface of the text assert that its author was admitted into England ‘by the Kynge his highenesse’. While it is not clear whether this refers to Henry VIII or Edward VI, it does at least imply that the writer was in England before Edward's death in July 1553. This does not correspond with the known facts of Van der Noot's life: he did not arrive in England until 1567, when a botched coup forced him to flee Antwerp.3 The author of the plague-tract settled in London at least fourteen years before the author of Het Theatre: the two cannot conceivably be the same figure.
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