A copy having a title page with the above date is as rare as the preceding article. The particular description, with which it is mentioned in a note by Warton, seemed to make its existence certain, although there was not wanting reason for disbelief on the occasion. Even that writer considered it “improperly entitled The Last Parte,” the existence of our preceding article not being then known.
The Contents are the same as edition 1571.
The first parte of the Mirour for Magistrates.—Imprinted at London by Thomas Marshe. Anno 1575. Cum Priuilegio. 80 leaves.
This is an accurate reprint of the first edition, with an enlargement of “the Author,” at the end of Nennius, by the addition of Eleven Stanzas, and another legend concluding the volume, viz:
| 17 | Irenglass. |
The last parte of the Mirour for Magistrates.—Imprinted at London by Thomas Marshe. Anno 1575. Cum Priuilegio.
This is the edition of 1574, a circumstance that accounts for it being so little known in the original state. The part by Higgins, when it first appeared, no doubt found a rapid demand from those who possessed a copy of that by Baldwin; and therefore in the present instance an altered title, wherein a new date was substituted,[30] served to keep time with the second edition of the part by Higgins.
The first part of the Mirour for Magistrates.—Imprinted for Thomas
Marshe. 1578.
Mentioned by Ritson in the Bibliographia Poetica, p. 243, and also in a manuscript list made by him of all the editions. It is stated to have contained, as before, seventeen legends. I have never seen it.
The Last part of the Mirour for Magistrates.—Imprinted at London in Fleetstreete, neere vnto Sainct Dunstanes Church, by Thomas Marsh. 1578. Cum Priuilegio. 190 leaves.