Marmion, whose verse keeps always keen and fine
The perfume of their Apollonian wine

Who shared with that stout sire of all and thee
The exuberant chalice of his echoing shrine:

Is not your praise writ broad in gold which he
Inscribed, that all who praise his name should see?

XVI

ANONYMOUS PLAYS: ́ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM'

MOTHER whose womb brought forth our man of men,
Mother of Shakespeare, whom all time acclaims
Queen therefore, sovereign queen of English dames,
Throned higher than sat thy sonless empress then,
Was it thy son's young passion-guided pen

Which drew, reflected from encircling flames,
A figure marked by the earlier of thy names
Wife, and from all her wedded kinswomen
Marked by the sign of murderess? Pale and great,
Great in her grief and sin, but in her death
And anguish of her penitential breath

Greater than all her sin or sin-born fate,

She stands, the holocaust of dark desire,
Clothed round with song for ever as with fire.

XVII

ANONYMOUS PLAYS

YE too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour,
Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims
For ever, but forgetfulness defames

And darkness and the shadow of death devour,
Lift
up ye too your light, put forth your power,
Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames

And smile, albeit night name not even their names,
Ghost by ghost passing, flower blown down on flower:
That sweet-tongued shadow, like a star's that passed
Singing, and light was from its darkness cast

To paint the face of Painting fair with praise : 1 And that wherein forefigured smiles the pure Fraternal face of Wordsworth's Elidure

Between two child-faced masks of merrier days. 2

1 Doctor Dodypol.

2 Nobody and Somebody.

XVIII

ANONYMOUS PLAYS

MORE yet and more, and yet we mark not all:
The Warning fain to bid fair women heed

Its hard brief note of deadly doom and deed ;1
The verse that strewed too thick with flowers the hall
Whence Nero watched his fiery festival; 2

The iron page wherein men's eyes who read

See, bruised and marred between two babes that bleed,

A mad red-handed husband's martyr fall; 3

The scene which crossed and streaked with mirth the strife
Of Henry with his sons and witchlike wife ; 4

And that sweet pageant of the kindly fiend,

Who, seeing three friends in spirit and heart made one,
Crowned with good hap the true-love wiles he screened
In the pleached lanes of pleasant Edmonton.5

XIX

THE MANY

I

GREENE, garlanded with February's few flowers,

Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage:
Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age
Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours:
Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers:
And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage

Fed by some gay great lady's pettish page

Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers:
Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves:
And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse
Weeps Marian yet on Robin's wildwood hearse :
Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves,
Sighed from a maiden's amorous mouth averse:
Live likewise ye: Time takes not you for slaves.

XX

THE MANY

II

HAUGHTON, whose mirth gave woman all her will:

Field, bright and loud with laughing flower and bird
And keen alternate notes of laud and gird :

Barnes, darkening once with Borgia's deeds the quill

A Warning for Fair Women. 2 The Tragedy of Nero. 3A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Merry Devil of Edmonton.

Look about you.

Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil :

Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of word;
Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred:
Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still :
Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand:

Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, rank and raw by turns,
But fragrant with a forethought once of Burns:
Soft Davenport, sad-robed, but blithe and bland:
Brome, gipsy-led across the woodland ferns:
Praise be with all, and place among our band.

XXI

EPILOGUE

OUR mother, which wast twice, as history saith,

Found first among the nations; once, when she
Who bore thine ensign saw the God in thee

Smite Spain, and bring forth Shakespeare: once, when death
Shrank, and Rome's bloodhounds cowered, at Milton's breath:
More than thy place, then first among the free,
More than that sovereign lordship of the sea

Bequeathed to Cromwell from Elizabeth,

More than thy fiery guiding-star, which Drake

Hailed, and the deep saw lit again for Blake,

More than all deeds wrought of thy strong right hand, This praise keeps most thy fame's memorial strong, That thou wast head of all these streams of song,

And time bows down to thee as Shakespeare's land.

Brooke, 223.

"Alchemist, The," by Jonson, 265.

Lamb's notes on, 271, 604, 612.
Ale or Beer, Lamb's note on, 416.
Aleman, Mateo, author of Guzman de
Alfarache, 607.

Alfarache, Guzman de, 126, 245, 607.
Alleyne, Edward, as the Jew of Malta,
530, 620.

"All Fools," by Chapman, 407.
"All's Lost by Lust," by Rowley, 115.
Alsatia, 618.

"Ambitious Statesman, The," by Crowne,
535, 574.

62.

B

Barksteed, William, the actor, 606.
"Bastard, The," ? by Manuche, 504, 583.
"Battle of Alcazar, The," by Peele, 437.
Lamb's note on, 437, 618.
Beaumont, Francis, his "Triumph of
Love," 279.

-

-

-

Lamb's note on, 437, 618.

and Fletcher, "Cupid's Revenge," 297.
"Maid's Tragedy," 282.
"Philaster," 288.

-

Lamb's comments on, 285.

copy of, 603.

Swinburne's sonnet on, 624.

Behn, Aphra, "The Dutch Lover," 563,

"Birth of Merlin," by Rowley, 570.

Blind Beggar of Alexandria," by Chap-

man, 570.

'Bloody Brother, The; or Rollo," by
Fletcher, 322, 612.

"Blurt, Master Constable," by Middleton,
557.

"Bonduca," by Fletcher, 319.

"Amends for Ladies," by Field, 561, 586."
"Andronicus," by Philonax Lovekin, 527.
"Antipodes, The," by Brome, 464, 618.
"Antonio and Mellida, The History of,"
by Marston, Part I., 60.
Lamb's note on, 62, 605.
"Antonio's Revenge," by Marston,
Lamb's notes on, 62, 65, 66.
'Appius and Virginia," by Webster, 166.
Arabian Nights, cited by Lamb, 103, 607.
"Arden of Feversham," 409, 569, 589, 618.
Swinburne's sonnet on, 629.
Aristophanes, "The Birds," mentioned
by Lamb, 401.

66

-

Aristotle, cited by Lamb, 439.
"Arraignment of Paris, The," by Peele,
440, 568, 618.

"Atheist's Tragedy, The," by Tourneur,
148.
Ayrton, William, 614.