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798 NICCOLS, SHAKESPEARE, AND DRAYTON—PARALLEL PASSAGES.

Grim-visag'd War hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearfull adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. [Act i. Sc. i.]

These lines evidently gave rise to part of Richard's soliloquy 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-sounds warlike harmonie,
To sweet-tun'd noise of pleasing minstralsie.-
God Mars laid by his Launce and tooke his Lute,
And turn'd his rugged frownes to smiling lookes;
In stead of crimson fields, warres fatall fruit,
He bathed his limbes in Cypre's warbling brookes,
And set his thoughts upon her wanton lookes. [Pag. 753-]
Part of the tent-scene in Shakespeare is also imitated by Niccol
Richard, starting from his horrid dream, says,

Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent, and every one did threat
To morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard1.

So Niccols,

I thought that all those murthered ghosts, whom I
By death had sent to their vntimely graue,
With balefull noise about my tent did crie,
And of the heauens with sad complaint did craue,
That they on guiltie wretch might vengeance haue:
To whom I thought the iudge of heauen gaue care,

And gainst me gaue iudgement full of feare. [Pag. 764]

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

For loe, eftsoones, a thousand hellish hags,
Leauing th' abode of their infernall cell,
Seasing on me, my hatefull body drags
From forth my bed into a place like hell,

Where fiends did naught but bellow, howle and yell,

1 Act v. Sc. ult. Drayton has also described these visionary terrors of Richard. POLTOLA S. xxii.

When to the guilty king, the black fore-running night,

Appear the dreadful ghosts of Henry and his Son,

Of his owne brother George and his two nephewes, done

Most cruelly to death, and of his Wife, and friend

Lord Hastinges, with pale hands prepared as they would rend

Him peacemeal: at which oft he roareth in his sleep.

The POLYOLBION was published in 1612. fol.

Who in sterne strife stood gainst each other bent,
Who should my hateful bodie most torment.

Tormented in such 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 durste not stay,
This dreadfull dreame my soul did so affray
When wakt I was from sleepe, I for a space
Thought I had beene in some infernall place.
About mine ears a buzzing feare still flew,
My fainting knees languish for want of might
Vpon my bodie stands 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 soules sad torture torne
The dark nights dismall houres I past away :
But at cockes crowe, the message of the morne,
My feare I did conceale, &c. [Page 764.]

sure from other If internal evidence was not a proof, we are evidence 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 16021. It Shakespeare has is easy to point out other marks of imitation.

taken nothing from Seagar's Richard III., printed in Baldwine's collection, or first edition, in the year 1559. Shakespeare, however, probably caught the idea of the royal shades, in the same scene of the tragedy before us, appearing in succession and speaking to Richard and Richmond, from the general plan of the MIRROUR of MagiSTRATES: more especially, as many of Shakspeare's ghosts there introduced, for instance, King Henry IV., Clarence, Rivers, Hastings, and Buckingham, are the personages of five of the legends belonging to this poem.

SECTION

LI.

By way of recapitulating what has been said, and in order to give a connected and uniform view of the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES in its most complete and extended state, its original contents and addi

1 Registr. Univ. Oxon. He retired to Magdalene Hall, where he was graduated in Arts, 1606. Ibid.

800 BIOGRAPHIC SUBJECTS IN NICCOLS'S EDITION OF THE MIRROUR.

tions, I will here detail the subjects of this poem as they stand in this last or Niccols's edition of 1610, with reference to two preceding editions, and some other incidental particularities.

Niccols's edition, after the Epistle Dedicatorie prefixed to Higgins's edition of 1587, an Advertisement To the Reader by Niccols, a Table of Contents, and Thomas Newton's recommendatory verses abovementioned, begins with an Induction called the AUTHOR'S INDUCTION, written by Higgins, and properly belonging to his edition. Then follow these Lives.

Albanact, youngest son of Brutus. [Pag. 1.] Humber, king of the Huns. King Locrine, eldest son of Brutus. Queen Elstride, concubine of Locrine. Sabrina, daughter of Locrine. King Madan. King Malin. King Mempric. King Bladud. Queen Cordelia. Morgan, king of Albany. King Jago. Ferrex. Porrex. King Pinnar, slain by Molucius Donwallo. King Stater. King Rudacke of Wales King Kimarus. King Morindus. King Emerianus. King Cherrinnus King Varianus. Irelanglas, cousin to Cassibelane. Julius Cesar. Claudius Tiberius Nero. Caligula. King Guiderius. Lelius Hama Tiberius Drusus. Domitius Nero. Galba. Vitellius. Londrict the Pict. Severus. Fulgentius, a Pict. Geta. Caracalla. [Ending with pag. 185.] All these from Albanact, and in the same order, form the first part of Higgin's edition of the year 15871. But none of them are in Baldwyne's, or the first, collection, of the year 1559. And, as I presume, these lives are all written by Higgins. Then follow in Niccols's edition, Carausius, Queen Helena, Vortigern, Uther Pendragon, Cadwallader, Sigebert, Ebba, Egelred, Edric, and Harold, all written by Thomas Blener Hasset, and never before printed. We have next a new title, [after p. 250.] 'The variable Fortvne and vi 'happie Falles of svch princes as hath happened since the Conquest. 'Wherein may be seene, &c. At London, by Felix Kyngston, 1609 Then, after an Epistle to the Reader, subscribed R. N. that is Richard Niccols, follow, Sackville's INDUCTION. Cavyll's Roger Mortimer. Ferrers's Tresilian. Ferrers's Thomas of Woodstock. Churchyard's Mowbray. Ferrers's King Richard II. Phaer's Owen Glendour. Henry Percy. Baldwyne's Richard earl of Cambridge. Baldwyne's Mortague earl of Salisbury. Ferrers's Eleanor Cobham. Ferrer's Humfrey duke of Gloucester. Baldwyne's William De La Poole, earl ci Suffolk. Baldwyne's Jack Cade. Ferrers's Edmund, duke of Somer set. Richard Plantagenet duke of York. Lord Clifford. Tiptoft, earl of Worcester. Richard, lord Warwick. King Henry VI. George Plantagenet, duke of Clarence. Skelton's Edward IV. Woodvile, lord Rivers. Dolman's Lord Hastings. Sackville's Duke of Bucking ham. Collingburne. Cavyll's Blacksmith. Higgins's Sir Nichols

1 Where they end at fol. 108. a

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801

Burdet. Churchyard's Jane Shore. Churchyard's Wolsey. Drayton's Lord Cromwell. All these1, Humfrey, Cobham, Burdet, Cromwell, and Wolsey, excepted, form the whole, but in a less chronological disposition, of Baldwyne's collection, or edition, of the year 1559, as we have seen above: from whence they were reprinted, with the addition of Humfrey, Cobham, Burdet, and Wolsey, by Higgins, in his edition aforesaid of 1587, and where Wolsey closes the work. Another title then appears in Niccols's edition, [after p. 547.] 'A WINTER NIGHT'S 'VISION. Being an Addition of svch Princes especially famovs, who were exempted in the former HISTORIE. By Richard Niccols, Oxon. 'Magd. Hall. At London, by Felix Kyngston, 1610.' An Epistle to the Reader, and an elegant Sonnet to Lord Charles Howard lord High Admiral, both by Niccols, are prefixed. Then follows Niccols's INDUCTION to these new lives. [From pag. 555.] They are, King Prince Alfred. Godwin earl of Kent. Arthur. Edmund Ironside. Robert Curthose. King Richard I. King John. Edward II. The two Young Princes murthered in the Tower, and Richard III.3 Our author, but with little propriety, has annexed 'ENGLAND'S ELIZA, or 'the victoriovs and trivmphant reigne of that virgin empresse of sacred At London, by Felix 'memorie Elizabeth Queene of England, &c. 'Kyngston, 1610.' This is a title page. Then follows a Sonnet to the virtuous Ladie the Lady Elizabeth Clere, wife to sir Francis Clere, and an Epistle to the Reader. A very poetical INDUCTION is prefixed to the ELIZA, which contains the history of queen Elisabeth, then just dead, in the octave stanza. Niccols, however, has not entirely preserved the whole of the old collection, although he made large additions. He has omitted James I. of Scotland, which appears in Baldwyne's edition of 15594, and in Higgins's of 15875. He has also omitted, and probably for the same obvious reason, James IV. of Scotland, which we find in Higgins". Nor has Niccols retained the Battle of Flodden-field, which is in Higgins's edition. [Fol. 256. a.] Niccols has also omitted Seagars's King Richard III., which first occurs in Baldwyne's edition of 1559, [Fol. cxlvii. b.] and afterwards in Higgins's of 1587. [Fol. 230. b.] But Niccols has written a new Legend on this subject, cited above, and one of the best of his additional lives.

1 That is, from p. 250.

From the Sonnet it appears, that our author Niccols was on board Howard's ship the 5 Fol. 137. b. ARKE, when Cadiz was taken. This was in 1596. See also pag. 861, stanz. iv.

4 At fol. xlii. b.

3 Ending with pag. 769. 6 Fol. 253. a. In Ulpian Fullwell's FLOWER OF FAME, an old qto. book both in prose and verse, in praise of the reign of Henry VIII. and printed by W. Hoskyns in 1575, is a tragic monologue, in the octave stanza, of James IV. of Scotland, and of his son, fol. 22. b. The whole title is, 'THE FLOWER OF FAME, containing the bright renowne and most fortunate Wherein is mention of matters by the rest of our chronographers reigne of Henry viii. overpassed. Compyled by Vlpian Fullwell. Annexed is a panegyric of three of the same Fullwell will occur hereafter in Henry's noble ar vertuous queens. And 'The service done at Haddington in Scotland the seconde year of the reigne of king Edward the sixt.' Bl. lett. his proper place.

51

802

HALL'S SATIRES.-ALBION'S ENGLAND.

[Pag. 750.] This edition by Niccols, printed by Felix Kyngston in 1610, I believe was never reprinted. It contains 875 pages.

The MIRROUR of MAGISTRATES is obliquely ridiculed in bishop Hall's SATIRES, published in 1597.

Another, whose more heavie-hearted saint

Delights in nought but notes of ruefull plaint,
Urgeth his melting muse with solemn teares,
Rhyme of some drearie fates of LUCKLESS PEERS.
Then brings he up some BRANDED WHINING GHOST
To tell how old Misfortunes have him tost1.

That it should have been the object even of an ingenious satirist, is so far from proving that it wanted either merit or popularity, that the contrary conclusion may be justly inferred. It was, however, at length superseded by the growing reputation of a new poetical chronicle, etitled ALBION'S ENGLAND, published before the beginning of the reign of James I. That it was in high esteem throughout the reign of queen Elizabeth, appears, not only from its numerous editions, but from the testimony of sir Philip Sidney, and other cotemporary writers. It is ranked among the most fashionable pieces of the times, in the me trical preface prefixed to Jasper Heywood's THYESTES of Seneca, translated into English verse, and published in 15603. It must be remembered that only Baldwyne's part had yet appeared, and that the translator is supposed to be speaking to Seneca.

In Lyncolnes Inne, and Temples twayne,
Grayes Inne, and many mo,

Thou shalt them fynde whose paynefull pen
Thy verse shall florishe so :

That Melpomen, thou wouldst well weene,
Had taught them for to wright,

1B. i. Sat. v. duodecim. But in CERTAINE SATYRES by John Marston, subjoined to be PYGMALIONS IMAGE, an accademical critic is abused for affecting to censure this poeta, Lond 1598. SAT. iv. This is undoubtedly our author Hall just quoted. Marston's ScovEGE OF VILLANIE, printed 1599. Lib. iii. SÁT. x.]

Fond censurer! why should those Mirrors seeme
So vile to thee? which better judgements deeme
Exquisite then, and in our polished times
May run for sencefull tollerable lines

What not mediocra firma from thy spight?

But must thy enuious hungry fangs needs light

On MAGISTRATES MIRROUR? Must thou needs detract

And striue to worke his ancient honors wrack?

What shall not Rosamond, or Gaueston,

Ope their sweet lips without detraction?

But must our moderne Critticks enuious eye, &c.

The two last pieces indeed do not property belong to this collection, and are only on the art plan. Rosamond is Daniel's COMPLAINT OF ROSAMOND, and Gauesten is Drayton's mor gue on that subject. 2 Sidney says, I esteem the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES to be furnished of bear Fl 'partes.' He then mentions Surrey's Lyric pieces. DEFENCE OF POESIE, fol. 561. adet ARCAD. Lond. 1629. fol. Sidney died in 1586. So that this was written before Higgins's, consequently Niccols's, additions.

3 Coloph. Imprinted at London in Fleetestrete in the house late Thomas Berthelas Cum priv. &c. Anno M.D.Lx.' duodecim. bl. lett. It is dedicated in verse to sir John

Mason

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