Great Britain -- History -- Poetry; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Sources
“To acquaint you in briefe with what is done in this impression:
know that the verse is in proportion by measure, and in symphonie
or rithmos, in diuers places amended; the storie in some places
false and corrupted, made historically true; the tragedies
wrongly inserted, disposed in their proper places, according to
iust computation of time; those neuer before collected in one
volume, published in this impression: for the forme and frame of
the whole historie I did intend to haue reduced it into the same
order, which I haue obserued in my Additions; but preuented by
other occasions, I haue thus digested it. The tragedies from the
time of Brute to the Conquest I haue left, with dependencie vpon
that Induction written by M. Higins: Those from the Conquest to
this our last age, that is, to the fall of the Lord Cromwell,
excellently well penned by M. Drayton, hath reference to that
golden Preface called M. Sackuil’s Induction. After these I haue
placed my Additions, the falles of such Princes as were before
omitted, and my Poem or Hymne of the late dead Queene of famous
memorie. In all which I require no other gratification for my
pains, but a gentle censure of my imperfections.”
Niccols in the first division gives the forty legends by JOHN HIGGINS,
and ten of those by THOMAS BLENERHASSET, the two of Guiderius and
Alurede being rejected. Then a new title:
_The variable Fortvne and vnhappie falles of svch Princes as
hath happened since the Conquest. Wherein may be seene the
instabilitie and change of state in great Personages. At London,
Imprinted by Felix Kyngston. 1609._
Prefixed to this part is a short prose address from the Editor on his
following the supposed plan of Sackville, by placing the Induction at
the beginning as a prefatory poem. He has retained twenty-nine of the
legends of BALDWIN, and others, already noticed, omitting for reasons
not assigned the following four; _Richard Duke of Gloucester_, _James
Ist and IVth_, and the _Battle of Flodden Field_: and adding that of
_Lord Cromwell_ by MICHAEL DRAYTON.
These reprints occupy 548 pages; the remainder of the volume is
original, and in two divisions.
_A Winter nights vision: being an addition of svch princes
especially famous, who were exempted in the former Historie. By
Richard Niccols, Oxon. Mag. Hall. At London Imprinted by Felex
Kyngston, 1610._
Dedicatory sonnet to the Earl of Nottingham, prose address to the
reader, The Induction, and ten legends, viz:
1. Arthur. 6. K. Richard I.
2. Edmund Ironside. 7. K. John.
3. Alfred. 8. K. Edward II.
4. Godwin. 9. K. Edward V. and brother.
5. Robert Curthose. 10. K. Richard III.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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