Great Britain -- History -- Poetry; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Sources
attempt to print or set furth any maner Prymers, Manuall of prayers,
booke or bookes, which the said Jhon Wayland or his assignes shal first
print during the tyme of thys our Priuilege, and licence, vpon payne of
forfature and confiscacion of the same Prymers, Manual of prayers, and
bookes, as aforsaide. And as ye tendre oure pleasure, and wyl auoyde
the contrarie. In witnes wherof we have caused these our letters to be
made patentes. Wytnes ourselfe at Westminster the foure and twentith
daye of Octobre, in the fyrst yeare of our reigne. Per bren de priuato
sigillo et de data predicta.
[18] A license for the first part was obtained through the means of Lord
Stafford in 1559, and when published that nobleman continued to make
earnest calls upon Baldwin for that he had got from other men, which
is given in the second part printed 1563. Whether the whole of the
first, and what portion of the second part, was inserted in the folio
edition is uncertain. The following passage in the prose conclusion of
the second part bears incontestible evidence that it was written in the
time of queen Mary. “The frantyke heades whiche disable our Queene,
because she is a woman, and our kynge because he is a straunger, to be
our princes and chiefe governours, hath caused me to saye thus much.”
It is therefore probable that forming the conclusion of the suppressed
edition, it was reprinted from the original text, and, as happens
frequently by inadvertence at the press, without being corrected.
[19] Herbert possessed a copy, ad conjectured it was “printed to
fill up a spare leaf, and perhaps to try the pulse of the public.”
_Typographical Antiquities_, p. 565.
[20] The inspection of a larger proportion of the suppressed edition can
alone solve many doubts as to the contents: nor does there appear any
reason for not expecting to find the whole of the matter then printed,
either in the library at Knowle, or some other unexamined collection of
early English books! Why may it not be expected to discover the copy no
doubt gotten by Sackville from Baldwin, before he wrote the Induction,
when he intended to have all the tragedies “preserved in one volume?”
Vol. II. p. 307.
[21] It appears probable that some addition was made to the work in
1559. See Vol. II. p. 53, note, and p. 111, note 1.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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