Career
He seems to have had no contemporary literary reputation. But his work throws considerable light on the development of popular literature and social life in London of his day. He spent his life in London, and it is thought that he kept close contact with the middle and lower classes of London society.
lieutenant is also believed that from 1600–1615 he worked for William White, and then George Loftus, booksellers who published Rowlands" pamphlets during this time.
Among his works, which include some poems on sacred subjects, are:
The Betraying of Christ (1598)
The Letting of Humour"s Blood in the Head-vaine (epigrams and satires) and A Mery Meetinge, or tis Mery when Knaves mete (1600) – the two latter being publicly burnt by order, but republished later under other names (Humors Ordinarie and The Knave of Clubbes)
Greene"s Ghost haunting Conie-Catchers (1602), which he pretended to have edited from Greene"s papers, but which is largely borrowed from his printed works
Tis Merrie when Gossips meete (1602), a dialogue between a Widow, a Wile, a Maid and a Vintner
Looke to lieutenant Foreign Ile stabbe ye (1604), in which Death describes the tyrants, careless divines and other evil-doers whom he will destroy
Hell"s broke loose (1605), an account of John of Leyden.
In the same year a Theatre of Divine Recreation (not extant), poems founded on the Old Testament, and a collection of epigrams entitled Humor"s Antique Faces
A Terrible Battle between. Time and Death (1606)
Democritus, or Doctor Merry-man his Medicines against Melancholy humors, reprinted, with alterations, as Doctor Merrie-man, and Diogenes Lent home (1607), in which Athens is London
The Famous History of Guy, Earl of Warwick (1607), a long romance in Rowlands"s favorite six-lined stanza, and one of his hastiest, least successful efforts
Humors Looking Glasse (1608)
(dubiously) Martin Mark-all, Beadle of Bridewell (1608 or 1610), a history of roguery containing much information about notable highwaymen (qv kings of gypsies) and the completest vocabulary of thieves" slang up to that time, usually attributed to Samuel Rid.
