With a knowlege of the statement made by Baldwin, there is not any thing obscure or easily to be mistook in this Advertisement. Niccols has only repeated the intention of Sackville, and that being prevented by more weighty engagements from executing it, he left the Induction at the disposal of Baldwin, Ferrers, &c. who chose to continue their own plan. Of this plan Niccols altered the order, and placed the Induction at the beginning. However the sense of the prefatory article has been much mistaken; probably from a want of some knowlege of the antecedent authority.
Mrs. Cooper, in the Muses Library, 1738, says of Sackville: “It appears to me, by a preface of Mr. Niccols, that the Original Plan of the Mirror for Magistrates, was principally owing to him.”—Collins, in the English Peerage, having transcribed the passage given above in brackets, is referred to by Lord Orford, in the Royal and Noble Authors, as his authority for asserting, that “the original thought was his Lordship’s.” And might not this concatenation of error extend further by the construction of Lord Orford and have misled Warton? That luminous historian of our native poetry, says: “More writers than one were concerned in the execution of this piece: but its PRIMARY INVENTOR, and most distinguished contributor, was Thomas Sackville the first lord Buckhurst, and first earl of Dorset. About the year 1557, he formed the plan of a poem, in which all the illustrious but unfortunate characters of the English history, from the conquest to the end of the fourteenth century, were to pass in review before the poet, who descends like Dante into the infernal region, and is conducted by Sorrow. Although a descent into hell had been suggested by other poets, the application of such a fiction to the present design, is a conspicuous proof of genius and even of invention. Every personage was to recite his own misfortunes in a separate soliloquy. But Sackville had leisure only to finish a poetical preface called an Induction, and one Legend, which is the life of Henry Stafford duke of Buckingham. Relinquishing therefore the design abruptly, and hastily adapting the close of his Induction to the appearance of Buckingham, the only story he had yet written, and which was to have been the last in his series, he recommended the completion of the whole to Richard Baldwyne and George Ferrers.”—
“Baldwyne and Ferrers,” it is afterwards observed, “perhaps deterred by the greatness of the attempt, did not attend to the series prescribed by Sackville, but inviting some others to their assistance, among which are Churchyard and Phayer, chose such lives from the newly published chronicles of Fabyan and Hall, as seemed to display the most affecting catastrophes, and which very probably were pointed out by Sackville.”—
The observations of Warton were either written at various times, or he depended too implicitly upon loose extracts from authorities no longer possessed, as he refers to one edition when quoting another.[14]
The hypothesis of Sackville being 'primary inventor,’ &c. shows that he relied upon, and at the same time mistook, the meaning of Niccols, (whose corrupt text of the Induction he reprinted,) and never discovered that his position was negatived by the interlocutory matter given above from the edition of 1563, when Sackville made his first and only known communication.
While this circumstantial detail disrobes Sackville of his revived honors, there must not be more than a qualified portion of the character of 'primary inventor’ of the Mirrour for Magistrates transferred to Baldwin. He was the common editor and inventor of the intermediate conversations, but the acknowledged design of himself and associates went no further than to raise another story upon the fabric built by Lydgate in the preceding century.[15]
III. The bibliographical division is classed chronologically by the dates of the editions, and not as to the legends. The first or suppressed edition was entituled
A Memorial of suche Princes, as since the tyme of King Richarde the seconde, haue been vnfortunate in the Realme of England. Londini Inædibus Johannis Waylandi. Cum priuilegio per Septennium. Folio.
The above title in the same compartment as was used by Wayland on reprinting Lydgate.[16] At the back of the leaf is a copy of his letters patent, as preserved in the note below,[17] to secure a right in the work as having first printed it.
Baldwin in his Epistle dedicatory, in 1559, says: “The wurke was begun, & part of it printed iiii years agoe, but hyndred by the Lord Chancellor that then was.” This hinderance must have arisen from the rigour of Stephen Gardiner, who died, Chancellor, in Nov. 1555. How far the printing had proceeded is unknown.[18] Three or perhaps four copies of the title leaf may be traced; and two of those are in the possession of Mr. Heber.[19] There is also a fragment of two duplicate leaves in the British Museum, with running title “vnfortunate English Princes,” containing part of the legend of Owen Glendower, and from which the appropriation is now first made of the signature “T. Ch.” to its more certain owner Sir Thomas Chaloner. It maybe added, that I have reason to believe, a still larger fragment exists in a private library.[20]