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Moses Mendez
"Epistle to Mr. John Ellis . . . Now First Published. To the Well Conceited Maister John Ellis." "Where Ham, vain-glorious of her dusky wood." (21. 128-130). Prefaced by a short letter by "M[endez]" which refers to "two cantos of our well-beloved Poet and lately deceased friend Maister Edmund Spenser" which Mendez had "already addressed" to Ellis and which is identified in an editorial footnote as "'The Blatant Beast.' These have never been published, and are now in our possession." John Ellis (1648-1790), friend of Isaac Reed and of Moses Mendez, was a scrivener with literary interests. Mendez's Epistle follows the concluding section of Reed's account of Ellis. "The Blatant Beast; A Poem in Spenser's Style . . . (Now First Published.)." Befits that he who should reform mankind." (22.331-6, 417-422). The poem is a long one, with forty-two Spenserian stanzas in the first Canto; forty-six, in the second.
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