And for the proofe of this his tale, he doth desyer The judge to send forthwith to Mantua for the fryer, And, more beside, to thend that they might judge his cause the better, He prayeth them depose the nurce of Juliet, And Romeus man, whom at unawares besyde the tombe he met. My lordes, quoth he, too true is all that fryer Laurence sayd. The opened packet doth conteyne in it the same That erst the skilfull fryer said; and eke the wretches name The price of it, and why he bought, his letters plaine have tolde. That they could wish no better proofe, save seeing it with theyr eyes: So orderly all thinges were tolde, and tryed out, That in the prease there was not one that stoode at all in doute. The wyser sort, to counsell called by Escalus, Here geven advice, and Escalus sagely decreeth thus: The nurse of Juliet is banisht in her age, Because that from the parentes she dyd hyde the mariage, Which might have wrought much good had it in time been knowne, Where now by her concealing it a mischeefe great is growne; In woonted freedome had good leave to lead his lyfe in rest: And, for the paynes he tooke with him, the hangman had his cote. Of fryer Lawrence thus araynde, that good barefooted fryre? Because that many time he woorthily did serve The common welth, and in his lyfe was never found to swerve, He was discharged quyte, and no mark of defame Did seem to blot or touch at all the honour of his name. But of himselfe he went into an hermitage, Two miles from Veron towne, where he in prayers past forth his age; Till that from earth to heaven his heavenly sprite dyd flye: swage, Nor threatning of the prince, ne mynde of murthers donne, At length, (so mighty Jove it would) by pitye they are wonne, And lest that length of time might from our myndes remove Great store of cunning epitaphes, in honor of theyr death. Imprinted at London in Fleete Strete within Temble bar, * Breval says in his Travels, 1726, that when he was at Verona, his guide shewed him an old building, then converted into a house for orphans, in which the tomb of these unhappy lovers had been; but it was then destroyed. Malone. END OF VOL. XII. T. S. Manning, Printer, No. 143, North Third Street: |