ingenuous and plain declaration thereof. The other thing that he chargeth me withal, is in praising of John Harding, one of his authors (who surely is worthy of great praise, and I wish he had followed in his book no worse author). He saith, that a Chronicle of Harding's which he hath, doth much differ from the Chronicle, which under the said Harding's name was printed by me, as though I had falsified Harding's Chronicle. For answer to the first, I have not made Hall's Chronicle my Chronicle, although the greatest part of the same was my own Chronicle, and written with mine own hand; and full little knoweth Stow of Hall's Chronicle but this I say, I have not made Hall's Chronicle my Chronicle, neither have I used his Chronicle any otherwise than I have all Chronicles; as where Hall spake plainly, there I suffer him to tell his own tale, and in the end, alledge him as my author, as I do all others, though not in every place, which were needless, yet in the chiefest places and matters of weight. And when I found him affected with many obscure words, there I alledged him in as plain terms as I could. And thus much I have had to do with Hall, and none otherwise. And here I note to all men, that I do reverence Hall in his work, he being now dead, as much as I did when he was alive, with whom I was of no small acquaintance; and I am as ready to

fault with me.

of a few kings,

advance his praise and commendation, and readier (if I may say it without offence) than he that found And Hall (as ye know) wrote but and began where Froissard left; and so neither his Chronicle is mine, nor mine his. Now, as touching John Harding's Chronicle that Stow hath, which he saith doth much differ from that which was imprinted under his name by me, I grant it may well be so; for I have, at this time, a Chronicle that beareth the name of John Harding, written in the Latin tongue in prose, that I am

sure John Stow never saw, and though

he did, yet And it may

I doubt whether he understand it. well be, that one man may write at two times two books of one matter, and yet the one of them not to agree with the other, as Stow himself hath done, who in his later summary of Chronicles, differeth clean from his first, neither agreeing in matter nor years, and yet (as he saith) they are both Stow's Chronicles. And it may also be, that there were more John Hardings than one, and so all may stand well together, and no fault committed by me. Thus much for answer of the faults. And here to make any further declaration of the order of my book, it shall not need; for in the second page thereof are expressed the particulars of the same. And I have joined hereunto an exact table, for the ready finding of any matter herein contained,

GRAFTON.

RICHARD GRAFTON appears to have been descended of a good family, and to have been born in London, about the close of the reign of Henry VII. He had probably a liberal education, since it appears by his writings, that he understood the languages. He practised the art of printing in the successive reigns of Henry VIII. Edward VI. queen Mary, and of Elizabeth. By company, he was a grocer, as he subscribes himself in a letter to the lord Cromwell, dated 1537. The same year, too, he first appears as a printer in London; a profession he first engaged in, from his being applied to, to procure an edition of Tyndal's Testament, and afterwards of his Bible revised by Coverdale. He might possibly have been induced also, like several other persons of education in that age, by a desire to promote

the progress of ancient learning, as well as of the reformation. He was the printer of Matthews' Bible.

Grafton dwelt in a part of the dissolved. house of the Grey Friars, which was afterwards granted by Edward VI. as an hospital for the maintenance and education of orphans, called Christ's Hospital. On the death of Edward VI. he was employed, from his office of king's printer, to print the proclamation, by which the lady Jane Grey was declared successor to the crown. For thus discharging simply the duty of his office, he was deprived of his patent, and forfeited a debt of 3001. due to him from the crown. He was also prosecuted and imprisoned for the same ostensible cause; though more probably from his attachment to the principles of the reformers.

There was a Richard Grafton, grocer, member of parliament for London 1553 and 1554; and again, 1556 and 1557; but that this person was the same with the printer appears somewhat inconsistent with his imprisonment just mentioned. Grafton the member was after

wards returned for Coventry.

During his imprisonment, or at least, while he was driven from his profession of a printer,

he compiled "An Abridgement of the Chronicles of England;" of which there have been several impressions. Ames says, that he had seen five, printed by R. Tottyl-those of 1562, 1563, 1564, 1570, and 1572.

There appears to have been some pique between Grafton and John Stow, the historian of London, &c. originating probably in a spirit of rivalry: for Grafton, in the dedication of his editions of 1570 and 1572, affects to speak with contempt of the labours of his brother historian, whose Chronicle, he said, was composed of "The memories of superstitious foundations, fables, and lies, foolishly STOWED together," &c. Stow, in the next edition of his Chronicle, retorted this censure upon Grafton; charging him with making Edward Hall's Chronicle, his own; and with falsifying Harding's Chronicle, in several instances, when he printed it in 1543. As we are naturally interested in the veracity of our early Chroniclers, it is proper that we should hear what Grafton has to say of himself in vindication. This vindication is contained in the epistle to the reader, in the edition of