.

And bade him chufe what death he would defire : For death was due to him that had prouokt God's ire.

But when as none of them he fawe him take,
He to him raught a dagger sharpe and keene,
And gaue it him in hand: his hand did quake
And tremble like a leafe of afpin greene,

And troubled bloud through his pale face was feene
To come and goe, with tydinges from the hart,
As it a running meffenger had beene.

At last, refolv'd to worke his finall fmart

He lifted up his hand that backe againe did start *.

The three first books of the FAERIE QUEENE were publifhed in 1590. Higgins's Legend of Cordelia in 1587..

At length the whole was digefted anew with additions, in 1610, by Richard Niccols, an ingenious poet, of whom more will be faid hereafter, under the following title. "A MIR

66

66

ROUR FOR MAGISTRATES', being a true Chronicle-history of "the untimely falles of fuch unfortunate princes and men of note as "baue happened fince the firft entrance of Brute into this Iland "untill this our age. NEWLY ENLARGED with a last part called "a WINTER NIGHT'S VISION being an addition of fuch Tragedies efpecially famous as are exempted in the former Hiftorie, "with a poem annexed called ENGLANDS ELIZA. At London, "imprinted by Felix Kyngfton, 1610 ." Niccols arranged his edition thus. Higgins's INDUCTION is at the head of the Lives from Brutus to the Conqueft. Those from the conqueft to LORD CROMWELL'S legend written by Drayton and now

x FAER. QU. i. x. 50.

Of the early use in the middle ages of the word SPECULUM as the title of a book, fee Joh. Finnaeus's DISSERTATIOHISTORICA-LITTERARIA, prefixed to the

VOL. III.

first added, are introduced by Sackville's INDUCTION. After this are placed fuch lives as had been before omitted, ten in number, written by Niccols himself, with an INDUCTION'. As it illuftrates the hiftory of this work, especially of Sackville's share in it, I will here infert a part of Niccols's preface prefixed to those TRAGEDIES which happened after the conqueft, beginning with that of Robert Trefilian. "Hauing hitherto "continued the ftorie from the firft entrance of BRVTE into "this iland, with the FALLES of fvch PRINCES as were neuer "before this time in one volume comprised, I now proceed "with the reft, which take their beginning from the Conqueft: "whose penmen being many and diuerfe, all diuerflie affected "in the method of this their MIRROUR, I purpose onlie to "follow the intended fcope of that most honorable perfonage, "who by how mvch he did furpaffe the reft in the eminence of "his noble condition, by fo mvch he hath exceeded them all in "the excellencie of his heroicall ftile, which with golden pen "he hath limmed out to pofteritie in that worthie object of his "minde the TRAGEDIE OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, "and in his Preface then intituled MASTER SACKUILS "INDUCTION. This worthy prefident of learning intended to "perfect all this ftorie of himfelfe from the Conqueft. Being "called to a more ferious expence of his time in the great state "affaires of his most royall ladie and foueraigne, he left the difpofe therof to M. Baldwine, M. Ferrers, and others, the "compofers of thefe Tragedies: who continving their methode, " which was by way of dialogue or interlocvtion betwixt euerie Tragedie, gaue it onlie place before the dvke of Buckingham's "COMPLAINT. Which order I fince hauing altered, haue placed the INDUCTION in the beginninge, with euerie Tragedie following according to fvcceffion and ivft compvtation "of time, which before was not obferued'.”

66

• Drayton wrote three other legends on this plan, Robert duke of Normandy, Matilda, and Pierce Gavefton, of which I fhall fpeak more particularly under that writer.

b Fol. 555.

Fol. 253. Compare Baldwyne's Prologue at fol. cxiv. b. edit. 1559. ut fupr.

In the Legend of king Richard the Third, Niccols appears

to have copied fome paffages from Shakespeare's Tragedy on

that history. In the opening of the play Richard fays,

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings;
Our dreadfull marches to delightfull measures.

Grim-vifag'd War hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the fouls of fearfull adverfaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lafcivious pleafing of a lute.

These lines evidently gave rife to part of Richard's foliloquy in Niccols's Legend.

The battels fought in field before

Were turn'd to meetings of sweet amitie :
The war-god's thundring cannons dreadfull rore,
And rattling drum-founds warlike harmonie,
To sweet-tun'd noife of pleafing minftralfie.

God Mars laid by his Launce and tooke his Lute,
And turn'd his rugged frownes to fmiling lookes;
In ftead of crimson fields, warres fatall fruit,
He bathed his limbes in Cypre's warbling brookes,
And fet his thoughts upon her wanton lookes *.

Part of the tent-scene in Shakespeare is also imitated by Niccols. Richard, starting from his horrid dream, says,

At i. Sc. i.

L12

d

Pag. 753.

Methought

Methought the fouls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent, and every one did threat

To morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

So Niccols,

I thought that all thofe murthered ghosts, whom I
By death had fent to their vntimely graue,
With balefull noise about my tent did crie,
And of the heauens with fad complaint did craue,
That they on guiltie wretch might vengeance haue:
To whom I thought the iudge of heauen gaue eare,
And gainst me gaue a iudgement full of feare'.

But some of the stanzas immediately following, which are formed on Shakespeare's ideas, yet with some original imagination, will give the reader the moft favourable idea of Niccols as a contributor to this work,

For loe, eftfoones, a thousand hellish hags,
Leauing th' abode of their infernall cell,
Seafing on me, my hatefull body drags

From forth my bed into a place like hell,

Where fiends did naught but bellow, howle and yell,
Who in sterne strife stood gainst each other bent,
Who should my hatefull bodie moft torment.

Tormented in fuch trance long did I lie,
Till extreme feare did rouze me where I lay,
And caus'd me from my naked bed to flie:
Alone within my tente I durft not stay,
This dreadfull dreame my foule did fo affray :
When wakt I was from fleepe, I for a space
Thought I had beene in some infernall place.

About mine eares a buzzing feare ftill flew,
My fainting knees languish for want of might;
Vpon my bodie ftands an icie dew;

My heart is dead within, and with affright
The haire vpon my head doth stand vpright:
Each limbe abovt me quaking, doth resemble
A riuers rush, that with the wind doth tremble.

Thus with my guiltie foules fad torture torne
The darke nights difmall houres I past away:
But at cockes crowe, the meffage of the morne,
My feare I did conceale, &c.

If internal evidence was not a proof, we are fure from other evidences that Shakespeare's tragedy preceded Niccols's legend. The tragedy was written about 1597. Niccols, at eighteen years of age, was admitted into Magdalene college in Oxford, in the year 1602". It is easy to point out other marks of imitation. Shakespeare has taken nothing from Seagars's Richard the third, printed in Baldwine's collection, or first edition, in the year 1559. Shakespeare, however, probably catched the idea of the royal fhades, in the fame scene of the tragedy before us, appearing in fucceffion and speaking to Richard and

Pag. 764.

Regiftr. Univ. Oxon. He retired to

Magdalene Hall, where he was graduated in Arts, 1606. Ibid,

Richmond,