Printed by Walter Scott, Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Footnotes:
[1] Condensed from the first part of the edition of 1876 for the “New Shakspere Society.”—W.
[2] This does not apply to a small portion of Book I. used by Dr. F., and also somewhat in this reprint.—W.
[3] Who’ll write a like one for Victorian England? (Mr. Fyffe has since done this.) Oh that we had one for Chaucer’s England!—F.
[4] The Elizabethan sweep in this, as in so many other plans of the day.—F.
[5] See Holinshed’s Dedication to Lord Burghley in vol. iii. of his Chronicle.—F. (See Appendix.—W.)
[6] William Harrison’s Chronologie is mentioned on the last leaf of the Preface to vol. iii. of Holinshed, p. 1, at foot—“For the computation of the yeares of the world, I had by Maister Wolfes aduise followed Functius; but after his [Wolfe’s] deceasse, M. W[illiam] H[arrison] made me partaker of a Chronologie, which he had gathered and compiled with most exquisit diligence, following Gerardus Mercator, and other late chronologers, and his owne obseruations, according to the which I haue reformed the same.”—Holinshed, in the Preface to his Chronicles, vol. iii. sign A 4, ed. 1587,—and in his Description, “I haue reserued them vnto the publication of my great Chronologie, if (while I liue) it happen to come abroad.” It was never publisht. My search for the MS. of it results in my having just received (Aug. 28) its large folio vols. 2, 3, 4, from the Diocesan Library of Derry, in Ireland. The Rev. H. Cotton, Thurles, Ireland (Dec. 21, 1850), said where it was, in I. Notes and Queries, iii. 105, col. 2; and after two fruitless searches it was found, and lent me by the Bishop, through his Librarian, the Rev. B. Moffett of Foyle College, Londonderry, as well as a curious and terribly corrected MS. of an English work on Weights and Measures, Hebrew, Greek, English, etc., dated 1587, which must be Harrison’s too.
The 3 folio volumes of the Chronologie are 8 inches deep as they lie, each being 10¾ inches broad, by 17½ high, with 73, and sometimes more, lines to a page. An enormous amount of work is in them, and all of them are in Harrison’s own hand, at different times of his life. Vol. 2, “The second part of the English Chronologye written by Wm. Harrison,” runs from the Creation to Christ’s birth. Vol. 3, “The third part of the Chronology conteining a just & perfite true &c. as followeth in the next Leafe, to thend of the title, & to be brought hether,” stretches from the birth of Christ to William the Norman’s Conquest of England. Vol. 4, “The iijth and Last part of the great English Chronology written By Wm. H.,” [title in another hand?] goes from the beginning of William the Conqueror’s reign, Oct. 14, 1066, to the February of 1592-3, only two months before Harrison’s own death (or burial) on April 24, 1593. And each volume tells, in Chronicle fashion, what went on all over the world in each successive year, so far as Harrison knew. The contemporary part of vol. 4 is of course the most interesting: “A William Harrison wrote some Latin lines on the deaths of the Brandons, Dukes of Suffolk, printed with the collection published on that occasion, 4to, London, 1552.”—F.