The Second Part of the Mirror for Magistrates: From the Conquest of Caesar vnto the comyng of the Duke William the Conqueror

Thomas Blenerhasset, The Second Part of the Mirror for Magistrates: From the Conquest of Caesar vnto the comyng of the Duke William the Conqueror. London: Richard Webster, 1578

Thomas Blenerhasset expanded the original Mirror for Magistrates (1559), which had focused on English monarchs from Richard II onwards, by supplying twelve new tragedies from the earlier periods of the Roman Empire to the Norman Invasions.

Thomas Blenerhasset expanded the original Mirror for Magistrates (1559), which had focused on English monarchs from Richard II onwards, by supplying twelve new tragedies from the earlier periods of the Roman Empire to the Norman Invasions: From the Conquest of Caesar vnto the comyng of the Duke William the Conqueror.

The Second Part of the Mirror for Magistrates was Shakespeare's source for Cymbeline, where the speeches in the council scene that opens Act 3 echo specific phrases and ideas from Blenerhasset. (See Kenneth Muir, Shakespeare's Sources [London, 1977], pp. 261-2.)

First edition. Quarto. A-P4 (lacking *4, **2, Q4, R2), 66 leaves. pp. [6] 1-60. Black letter with woodcut initials. Title framed within an architectural border (McKerrow & Ferguson 161a). 19th-century full leather binding tooled in blind.

References: STC 3131; Pforzheimer 736