That we might first that venture undertake In strange attempt t’ approve our loyal hearts! Be it soldiers, seamen, poets, or what else, In service once enjoin’d, to ready minds Our want of use should our devoir increase. Now since instead of art we bring but zeal, Instead of praise we humbly pardon crave. The matter which we purpose to present, Since straights of time our liberty controls, In tragic notes the plagues of vice recounts. How suits a tragedy for such a time? Thus--for that since your sacred Majesty In gracious hands the regal sceptre held, All tragedies are fled from State to stage. NICHOLAS TROTTE. * * * * * The misfortunes of Arthur (Uther Pendragon’s son) reduced into tragical notes by Thomas Hughes, one of the society of Gray’s Inn, and here set down as it passed from under his hands, and as it was presented, excepting certain words and lines, where some of the actors either helped their memories by brief omission, or fitted their acting by some alteration; with a note in the end of such speeches as were penned by others, in lieu of some of these hereafter following. _The Argument of the Tragedy._ At a banquet made by Uther Pendragon for the solemnising of his conquest against the Saxons, he fell enamoured of Igerna, wife to Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall who, perceiving the king’s passion, departed with his wife and prepared wars at Cornwall, where also, in a stronghold beyond him, he placed her. Then the king levied an army to suppress him, but waxing impatient of his desire to Igerna, transformed himself, by Merlin his cunning, into the likeness of Gorlois, and after his acceptance with Igerna he returned to his siege, where he slew Gorlois. Igerna was delivered of Arthur and Anne, twins of the same birth. Uther Pendragon, fifteen years after, pursuing the Saxons, was by them poisoned. Arthur delighted in his sister Anne, who made him father of Mordred. Seventeen years after, Lucius Tiberius of Rome demanded a tribute, due by conquest of Cæsar. Arthur gathered his powers of thirteen kings besides his own, and leaving his queen Guenevera in the tuition of Mordred, to whom likewise he committed the kingdom in his absence, arrived at France where, after nine years’ wars, he sent the slain body of Tiberius unto Rome for the tribute. During this absence, Mordred grew ambitious, for th’ effecting whereof he made love to Guenevera, who gave ear unto him. Then by th’ assistance of Gilla, a British lord, he usurped, and for maintenance entertained with large promises the Saxons, Irish, Picts, and Normans. Guenevera hearing that Arthur was already embarked for return, through despair purposing diversely, sometimes to kill her husband, sometimes to kill herself, at last resolved to enter into religion. Arthur at his landing was resisted on the strands of Dover,