‘Eke fully with the duke my mind agrees, That no cause serves, whereby the subject may Call to account the doings of his prince; Much less in blood by sword to work revenge: No more than may the hand cut off the head. In act nor speech, no nor in secret thought, The subject may rebel against his lord, Or judge of him that sits in Cæsar’s seat, With grudging mind to damn those he mislikes. Though kings forget to govern as they ought, Yet subjects must obey as they are bound.’ Yet how little he was borne out in this inference by the unbiassed dictates of his own mind, may appear from the freedom and unguarded boldness of such lines as the following, addressed by a favourite to a prince, as courtly advice. ‘Know ye that lust of kingdoms hath no law: The Gods do bear and well allow in kings The things that they abhor in rascal routs. When kings on slender quarrels run to wars, And then in cruel and unkindly wise Command thefts, rapes, murder of innocents, The spoil of towns, ruins of mighty realms; Think you such princes do suppose themselves Subject to laws of kind and fear of Gods? Murders and violent thefts in private men Are heinous crimes, and full of foul reproach; Yet none offence, but deck’d with noble name Of glorious conquests in the hands of kings.’ The principal characters make as many invocations to the names of their children, their country, and their friends, as Cicero in his Orations, and all the topics insisted upon are open, direct, urged in the face of day, with no more attention to time or place, to an enemy who overhears, or an accomplice to whom they are addressed; in a word, with no more dramatic insinuation or byeplay than the pleadings in a court of law. Almost the only passage that I can instance, as rising above this didactic tone of mediocrity into the pathos of poetry, is one where Marcella laments the untimely death of her lover, Ferrex. ‘Ah! noble prince, how oft have I beheld Thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling steed, Shining in armour bright before the tilt; And with thy mistress’ sleeve tied on thy helm, And charge thy staff to please thy lady’s eye, That bowed the head-piece of thy friendly foe! How oft in arms on horse to bend the mace, How oft in arms on foot to break the sword, Which never now these eyes may see again!’ There seems a reference to Chaucer in the wording of the following lines— ‘Then saw I how he smiled with slaying knife Wrapp’d under cloke, then saw I deep deceit Lurk in his face, and death prepared for me.’[14]