That More read and referred to Aulus Gellius has apparently escaped the attention of such More scholars as R. W. Chambers and J. H. Lupton, though there are at least two allusions to or citations of the Noctes Atticae in More's Correspondence; and at least once in his History of Richard HI (though in the Latin only) and more than once in his Debellation of Salem and Bizance More gives evidence of his familiarity with the Noctes Atticae.

Although Aulus Gellius was apparently not translated during More's lifetime, and indeed not until quite late in the story of English translations from the classics, there are numerous Latin editions after the editio princeps of 1469—and none can question the accessibility of such a Latin work to the humanists of More's day.

In late summer, 1591, Sir Richard Grenville's ship The Revenge grappled, for hours, with from eight ships (Van Linschoten's estimate) to fifteen (Ralegh's) and struck her colors only after beginning to sink. Within days Sir Richard died of his wounds. Later, Sir Walter Ralegh (who although absent took depositions from survivors) expressed his contempt for those Spaniards who ‘fill the world with their vaine glorious vaunts, making great appearance of victories; when on the contrary, themselves are most commonly and shamefully beaten and dishonoured … In support of his accusation Ralegh recalled the recent defeat of 240 Spanish by 30 English warships (in which conflict the Revenge had been Drake's ship): ‘ … they were not ashamed in the year 1588, when they purposed the invasion of this land, to publish in sundrie languages in print, great victories in words….

The lively Neo-Latin epigram appended to Thomas Watson's Amyntas merits more than passing mention as ‘an interesting set of verses'. It offers an illuminating case of Elizabethan literary criticism in action and one that involves a highly provocative problem in identification.

The poem is an imitation of an epigram of Martial. The Roman poet had satirized, in his usual uninhibited fashion, a certain meddlesome moralist who was too busy decrying the vices of other men to put his own house in order. Adapting Martial's format adroitly to his purposes, Watson makes it the vehicle for a sharp attack on a contemporary literary critic who has exasperated him by carping continually at his writings: