man

And welcome ! witness, too, the silent cry, The prayer of many a race and creed,

and climeThunderless lightnings striking under sea

From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm, And that true North, whereof we lately

heard A strain to shame us keep you to your

selves; So loyal is too costly ! friends—your love Is but a burthen : loose the bond, and go.' Is this the tone of empire ? here the faith That made us rulers ? this, indeed, her

voice And meaning, whom the roar of Hougou

mont Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven? What shock has fool'd her since, that she

should speak So feebly? wealthier-wealthier-hour

by hour! The voice of Britain, or a sinking land, Some third-rate isle half-lost among her

seas ? There rang her voice, when the full city

peal'd Thee and thy Prince! The loyal to their

crown Are loyal to their own far sons, who love Our ocean-empire with her boundless

homes For ever-broadening England, and her

throne In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle, That knows not her own greatness : if she

knows And dreads it we are fall'n. But thou,

my Queen, Not for itself, but thro' thy living love For one to whom I made it o'er his grave Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale, New-old, and shadowing Sense at war

with Soul Rather than that gray king, whose name,

a ghost, Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from

mountain peak,

And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ;

or him Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's,

one Touch'd by the adulterous finger of a time That hover'd between war and wanton

ness, And crownings and dethronements : take

withal Thy poet's blessing, and his trust that

Heaven Will blow the tempest in the distance back From thine and ours : for some are scared,

who mark, Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, Waverings of every vane with every wind, And wordy trucklings to the transient

hour, And fierce or careless looseners of the

faith, And Softness breeding scorn of simple

life, Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold, Or Labour, with a groan and not a voice, Or Art with poisonous honey stol'n from

France, And that which knows, but careful for itself And that which knows not, ruling that

which knows To its own harm : the goal of this great

world Lies beyond sight : yet-if our slowly

grown And crown'd Republic's crowning

common-sense, That saved her many times, not fail —

their fears Are morning shadows huger than the

shapes That cast them, not those gloomier which

forego The darkness of that battle in the West, Where all of high and holy dies away.

Third Citizen. That was after, man ; that was after.

First Citizen. Then which is the bastard ?

Second Citizen. Troth, they be both bastards by Act of Parliament and Council.

Third Citizen. Ay, the Parliament can make every true-born man of us a bastard. Old Nokes, can't it make thee a bastard ? thou shouldst know, for thou art as white as three Christmasses.

Old Nokes (dreamily). Who's a-passing? King Edward or King Richard ?

Third Citizen. No, old Nokes.
Old Nokes. It's Harry!
Third Citizen. It's Queen Mary.

Old Nokes. The blessed Mary's apassing!

[Falls on his knees. Nokes. Let father alone, my masters ! he's past your questioning.

Third Citisen. Answer thou for him, then ! thou’rt no such cockerel thyself, for thou was born i’ the tail end of old Harry the Seventh.

Nokes. Eh ! that was afore bastardmaking began. I was born true man at five in the forenoon i' the tail of old Harry, and so they can't make me a bastard.

Third Citizen. But if Parliament can make the Queen a bastard, why, it follows all the more that they can make thee one, who art fray'd i' the knees, and out at elbow, and bald o' the back, and bursten at the toes, and down at heels.

Nokes. I was born of a true man and a ring’d wife, and I can't argue upon it; but I and my old woman 'ud burn upon it, that would we.

Marshalman. What are you cackling of bastardy under the Queen's own nose ? I'll have you flogg’d and burnt too, by the Rood I will.

First Citizen. Heswears by the Rood. Whew! Second Citizen. Hark! the trumpets. [The Procession passes, Mary and Eliza

beth riding side by side, and disap

pears under the gate. Citizens. Long live Queen Mary ! down with all traitors! God save her Grace ; and death to Northumberland !

[Exeunt. Manent Two GENTLEMEN. First Gentleman. By God's light a noble creature, right royal !

Second Gentleman. She looks comelier than ordinary to-day ; but to my mind the Lady Elizabeth is the more noble and royal.

First Gentleman. I mean the Lady Elizabeth. Did you hear (I have a daughter in her service who reported it) that she met the Queen at Wanstead with five hundred horse, and the Queen (tho’some say they be much divided) took her hand, call'd her sweet sister, and kiss'd not her alone, but all the ladies of her following..

Second Gentleman. Ay, that was in her hour of joy; there will be plenty to sunder and unsister them again : this Gardiner for one, who is to be made Lord Chancellor, and will pounce like a wild beast out of his cage to worry Cranmer.

First Gentleman. And furthermore, my daughter said that when there rose a talk of the late rebellion, she spoke even of Northumberland pitifully, and of the good Lady Jane as a poor innocent child who had but obeyed her father; and furthermore, she said that no one in her time should be burnt for heresy.

Second Gentleman. Well, sir, I look for happy times.

Geneva, Basle-our Bishops from their

sees Or fled, they say, or flying--Poinet,

Barlow, Bale, Scory, Coverdale; besides the

Deans Of Christchurch, Durham, Exeter, and

WellsAilmer and Bullingham, and hundreds

more ; So they report : I shall be left alone. No: Hooper, Ridley, Latimer will not

fily.

First Gentleman. There is but one thing against them. I know not if you know.

Second Gentleman. I suppose you touch upon the rumour that Charles, the master of the world, has offer'd her his son Philip, the Pope and the Devil. I trust it is but a rumour.

First Gentleman. She is going now to the Tower to loose the prisoners there, and among them Courtenay, to be made Earl of Devon, of royal blood, of splendid feature, whom the council and all her people wish her to marry. May it be so, for we are many of us Catholics, but few Papists, and the Hot Gospellers will go mad upon it.

Second Gentleman. Was she not betroth'd in her babyhood to the Great Emperor himself ?

First Gentleman. Ay, but he's too old.

Second Gentleman. And again to her cousin Reginald Pole, now Cardinal ; but I hear that he too is full of aches and broken before his day.

First Gentleman. O, the Pope could dispense with his Cardinalate, and his achage, and his breakage, if that were all : but will you not follow the procession ?

Second Gentleman. No; I have seen enough for this day.

First Gentleman. Well, I shall follow ; if I can get near enough I shall judge with my own eyes whether her Grace incline to this splendid scion of Plantagenet.

[Exeunt.

Enter PETER MARTYR.
Peter Martyr. Fly, Cranmer! were

there nothing else, your name Stands first of those who sign'd the

Letters Patent That gave her royal crown to Lady Jane. Cranmer. Stand first it may, but it

was written last : Those that are now her Privy Council,

sign'd Before me : nay, the Judges had pro

nounced That our young Edward might bequeath

the crown Of England, putting by his father's will. Yet I stood out, till Edward sent for me. The wan boy-king, with his fast-fading eyes Fixt hard on mine, his frail transparent

hand, Damp with the sweat of death, and

griping mine, Whisper'd me, if I loved him, not to

yield His Church of England to the Papal wolf And Mary; then I could no more-I

sign'd. Nay, for bare shame of inconsistency, She cannot pass her traitor council by, To make me headless.

SCENE II. A ROOM IN LAMBETH PALACE. Cranmer. To Strasburg, Antwerp,

Frankfort, Zurich, Worms,