136

As erst your grace by message did command,
Is here at hand, in purpose to present
Your highness with his signs of victory.
And trothless Baliol, their accursed king,
With fire and sword doth threat Northumberland.
Longsh. How one affliction calls another over!
First death torments me, then I feel disgrace.
Again Lluellen he rebels in Wales,

And false Baliol means to brave me too;

But I will find provision for them all.

My constancy shall conquer death and shame 137.

GLOCESTER solus.

[Exit Edward.

Now, Joan of Acon let me mourn thy fall.
Sole, here alone, now sit thee down and sigh,
Sigh, hapless Glocester, for thy sudden loss.
Pale death, alas, hath banish'd all thy pride,

deplorably mangled; and there is some reason to suppose that the printed copy was made up from two different MSS., and both very imperfect. The printing of the old quarto too, bad in the commencement, has grown worse as it proceeded, and in some places, as the reader has seen, was quite unintelligible. In this stage direction perhaps the reading ought to be,

"Enter Messenger, express from Mortimer."

In the next line Sussex is misprinted for success, as Sir Roger Mortimer had nothing to do with that county.

136 Some lines must have been lost here to connect Baliol with Mortimer besides "their accursed king" is the king of Scots, and the Scots have not been mentioned.

137 Here the old copies add the following lines, which are quite out of their place, and some of them have been inserted earlier in the play: (v. p. 74)

"And, Mortimer, 'tis thou must haste to Wales,
And rouse that rebel from his starting holes,

And rid thy king of his contentious foe;

Whilst I with Elinor, Glocester, and the rest

With speedy journey gather up our force

And beat these braving Scots from out our bounds.

Courage, brave soldiers! fates have done their worst.

Now virtue let me triumph in thine aid."

A part of what remains in the text is hardly reconcileable with what has gone before.

In wedlock vows how oft have I beheld 198

Thy eyes, thy looks, thy lips, and every part, 199
How nature strove in them to shew her art,
In shine, in shape, in colour, and compare :
But now hath death, the enemy of love,
Stain'd and deform'd the shine, the shape, the red,
With pale and dimness, and my love is dead.
Ah! dead my love, vile wretch why am I living?
So willeth fate, and I must be contented.
All pomp in time must fade, and grow to nothing.
Wept I like Niobe, yet it profits nothing:

Then cease my sighs, since I may not regain her, And woe to wretched death, that thus hath slain her. [Exit Glocester. 140

138 The quartos give this line as follows:

"Thy wedlock vows how ought I have beheld." and two lines afterwards they read store for strove.

139Enter Mortimer with the head," i. e. the head of Lluellen precedes this line, but as there is not the slightest reference to it, we may conclude that it was inserted from some gross error. Perhaps at one time the play terminated differently, with a triumphant display of victory instead of the lamentations of Glocester, and the printer, in altering it by one MS. copy, omitted to take out parts that only belonged to the other.

140 This is followed in the old editions by a subscription, proving the authorship of Peele; but though the play is made to bear his signature, nothing can be more clear than that he had nothing to do with the mode in which it was sent forth into the world. Either our old dramatists had no controul in this respect, or they very rarely exercised it. The words at the end are printed in the following unusual manner :

"Yours. By George Peele, Maister of
Artes in Oxenford."

VOL. XI.

H

98

EDITION.

The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First, sirnamed Edward Longshankes, with his return from the holy land. Also, the life of Lluellen, rebell in Wales. Lastly, the sinking of Queene Elinor, who sunck at Charingcrosse, and rose againe at Potters-hith, now named Queenehith. London. Printed by Abell Jeffes, and are to be solde by William Barley, at his shop in Gracious streete, 1593.*

*The title-page of the edition of 1599 only differs from the above in the imprint, which is this: " Imprinted at London by W. White, dwelling in Cow-lane, 1599.

THE

MAYOR OF QUINBOROUGH.