Excerpt from The King and a Poor Northern Man, or Too Good to Be True: From the Edition of 1640 Although somewhat modernized in the following copy, there is little doubt that the humorous story of The King and the poor Northern Man is much older than 1640. It reads in particular places like a narrative of considerable antiquity; but when it was printed by Tho. Cotes, whose name appears at the bottom of the title-page of the black-letter edition which we have employed, it was intended that the reader should suppose the tale a new one, and that it was the author ship of Martin Parker, the celebrated and popular ballad-maker: his well-known initials are placed quite at the end, after the word but possibly he was not concerned in the imposition, which might be concocted by Francis Grove, the bookseller. N 0 older edition is extant than that we have reprinted, and as far as yet appears it is the only remaining copy of it. We find it men tioned in no bibliographical work, nor have we been able to trace it in any catalogue. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.