d

Yea, and that half, which in abounding store
Of things that ferue to make a welthie realme,
In statelie cities, and in frutefull foyle,

In temperate breathing of the milder heauen,
In thinges of nedeful vse, whiche friendlie fea
Transportes by traffike from the forreine partes,
In flowing wealth, in honour and in force, &c'.

The clofe of Marcella's narration of the murther of Porrex by the queen, which many poets of a more enlightened age would have exhibited to the fpectators, is perhaps the moft moving and pathetic speech in the play. The reader will observe, that our author, yet to a good purpose, has transferred the ceremonies of the tournament to the court of an old British king.

queene of adamante! O marble breaste!

If not the fauour of his comelie face,

If not his princelie chere and countenaunce,
His valiant active armes, his manlie breafte,
If not his faier and femelie perfonage,

h

i

His noble lymmes in fuche proporcion cafte,
As would have wrapped a fillie womans thought,
If this mought not haue moued thy bloodie harte,
And that most cruell hande, the wretched weapon
Euen to let fall, and kiffe him in the face,
With teares for ruthe to reaue fuche one by death:
Should nature yet consent to slaye her sonne ?

O mother thou, to murder thus thie childe!
Euen Joue, with Justice, muft with lightening flames
From heauen fend downe some strange reuenge on thee.
Ah! noble prince, how oft have I beheld

• Within, edit. 1565.

• Portes, edit. 1565.

f A&t ii. Sc. i.

In the edition of 1565, this word is preparacion. I mention this, as a specimen of the great incorrectnefs of that edition.

Wrapped, rapt, i. e. ravifhed. I once conjectured warped. We have "wrapped: " in wo." A&t iv. Sc. ii.

i The, edit. 1565.

* Kifte, edit. 1565..

Thee

Thee mounted on thy fierce and traumpling ftede,
Shyning in armour bright before thy tylte,
And with thy miftreffe' fleaue tied on thy helme,
And charge thy staffe, to please thy ladies eie,
That bowed the head peece of thy frendly foe?
Howe oft in armes on horfe to bende the mace 1?
How oft in arms on foote to breake the sworde?
Which neuer now thefe eyes may fee againe "!

Marcella, the only lady in the play except the queen, is one of the maids of honour; and a modern writer of tragedy would have made her in love with the young prince who is murthered.

The queen laments the lofs of her eldest and favorite fon, whose defeat and death had just been announced, in the following foliloquy. The ideas are too general, although happily expreffed but there is fome imagination in her wishing the old maffy palace had long ago fallen, and crushed her to death.

Why should I lyue, and lynger forth my time
In longer liefe, to double my distresse ?
O me most wofull wight, whome no mishap
Long ere this daie could haue bereued hence!
Mought not these handes, by fortune or by fate,
Haue perft this breft, and life with iron reft?
Or in this pallaice here, where I fo longe
Haue spent my daies, could not that happie houre
Ones, ones, haue hapt, in which thefe hugie frames
With death by fall might haue oppreffed me!
Or fhould not this most hard and cruell foile,
So oft where I haue preft my wretched steps,
Somtyme had ruthe of myne accurfed liefe,
To rend in twaine, and fwallowe me therin!
So had my bones poffeffed nowe in peace
Their happie graue within the closed grounde,

1 The shaft of the lauce.

Act iv. Sc. ii.

And

And greadie wormes had gnawen this pyned hart
Without my feelynge paine! So should not nowe
This lyvynge breft remayne the ruthefull tombe
Wherein my hart, yelden to dethe, is graued, &c ".

There is fome animation in thefe imprecations of prince Ferrex upon his own head, when he protests that he never conceived any malicious defign, or intended any injury, against his brother Porrex °.

9

The wrekefull gods poure on my curfed head
Eternall plagues, and neuer dyinge woes!
The hellish prince adiudge my dampned ghoste
To Tantales thirfte, or proude Ixions wheele,
Or cruel gripe', to gnaw my growing harte';
To durynge tormentes and vnquenched flames;
If euer I conceiued fo foule a thought,

To wishe his ende of life, or yet of reigne..

It must be remembered, that the antient Britons were fupposed to be immediately descended from the Trojan Brutus, and that confequently they were acquainted with the pagan history and mythology. Gordobuc has a long allufion to the miseries of the fiege of Troy'.

In this strain of correct versification and language, Porrex explains to his father Gordobuc, the treachery of his brother Ferrex.

When thus I fawe the knot of loue unknitte;
All honeft league, and faithfull promise broke,
The lawe of kind' and trothe thus rent in twaine,
His hart on mischiefe fet, and in his brest

Blacke treafon hid: then, then did I difpaier
That euer tyme coulde wynne him frende to me;
Then fawe I howe he fmyled with flaying knife
Wrapped vnder cloke, then fawe I depe deceite
Lurke in his face, and death prepared for mee, &c".

As the notions of subordination, of the royal authority, and the divine inftitution of kings, predominated in the reign of queen Elifabeth, it is extraordinary, that eight lines, inculcating in plain terms the doctrine of paffive and unrefifting obedience to the prince, which appeared in the fifth act of the first edition of this tragedy, should have been expunged in the edition of 1571, published under the immediate inspection of the authors *. It is well known, that the Calvinists carried their ideas of reformation and refinement into government as well as religion and it seems probable, that these eight verfes were fuppreffed by Thomas Norton, Sackville's supposed affistant in the play, who was not only an active and I believe a fenfible puritan, but a licencer of the publication of books under the commiffion of the bishop of London *.

As to Norton's affiftance in this play, it is faid on better authority than that of Antony Wood, who fuppofes GORDOBUG to have been in old English rhime, that the three first acts were written by Thomas Norton, and the two last by Sackville. But the force of internal evidence often prevails over the authority of affertion, a teftimony which is diminished by time, and may be rendered fufpicious from a variety of other circumstances. Throughout the whole piece, there is an invariable uniformity of diction and verfification. Sackville has two poems of confi

derable length in the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES, which fortunately furnish us with the means of comparison: and every scene of GORDO BUC is vifibly marked with his characteristical manner, which confifts in a perfpicuity of style, and a command of numbers, fuperior to the tone of his times'. Thomas Norton's poetry is of a very different and a fubordinate caft : and if we may judge from his share in our metrical pfalmody, he seems to have been much more properly qualified to shine in the miserable mediocrity of Sternhold's ftanza, and to write fpiritual rhymes for the folace of his illuminated brethren, than to reach the bold and impaffioned elevations of tragedy.

y The fame may be faid of Sackville's SONNET prefixed to Thomas Hoby's English verfion of Caftiglio's IL CORTEGIANO, first printed in 1556. The third part, on

the behaviour of Court-ladies, appears to have been tranflated in 1551, at the requeft of the marchionefs of Northampton.

3A 2

SECT.