tion of Baldwin and Ferrers' book went to press early
in 1555, but of this edition only one or two fragments exist. It was
"hindered by the Lord Chancellor that then was," Stephen Gardiner, and
was entirely suppressed. The leaf in the British Museum is closely
printed in double columns, and suggests that Baldwin and Ferrers meant
to make a huge volume of it. The death of Mary removed the embargo,
and before Elizabeth had been Queen for many months, the second (or
genuine first) edition of the _Myrroure for Magistrates_ made its
appearance, a thin quarto, charmingly printed in two kinds of type.
This contained twenty lives--Haslewood, the only critic who has
described this edition, says _nineteen_, but he overlooked Ferrers'
tale of "Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester"--and was the work, so Baldwin
tells us, of seven persons besides himself.

The first story in the book, a story which finally appears at p. 276
of the edition before us, recounts the "Fall of Robert Tresilian,
Chief Justice of England, and other of his fellows, for misconstruing
the laws and expounding them to serve the Prince's affections, Anno
1388." The manner in which this story is presented is a good example
of the mode adopted throughout the miscellany. The corrupt judge and
his fellow-lawyers appear, as in a mirror, or like personages behind
the illuminated sheet at the "Chat Noir," and lamentably recount their
woes in chorus. The story of Tresilian was written by Ferrers, but the
persons who speak it address his companion:

_Baldwin, we beseech thee with our names to begin_

--which support Baldwin's claim to be looked upon as the editor of the
whole book. It is very dreary doggerel, it must be confessed, but no
worse than most of the poetry indited in England at that uninspired
moment in the national history. A short example--a flower culled from
any of these promiscuous thickets--will suffice to give a general
notion of the garden. Here is part of the lament of "The Lord
Clifford":

_Because my father Lord John Clifford died,
Slain at St. Alban's, in his prince's aid,
Against the Duke my heart for malice fired,
So that I could from wreck no way be stayed,
But, to avenge my father's death, assayed
All means I might the Duke of York to annoy,
And all his kin and friends for to destroy.

This made me with my bloody dagger wound
His guiltless son, that never 'gainst me stored;
His father's body lying dead on ground