course of Abraham's strange voiage, thire mistresse sorrow and perplexity, accompanied with frightfull dreams; and tell the manner of his rising by night, taking his servants and his son with him. Next may come forth Sarah herself. After the Chorus, or Ismael, or Agar. Next some shepheard or companie of merchants, passing through the mount in the time that Abram was in the mid-work, relate to Sarah what they saw. Hence lamentations, fears, wonders. The matter in the mean while divulg'd, Aner, or Eschol, or Mamre, Abram's confederats, come to the house of Abram to be more certaine, or to bring news; in the mean while discoursing, as the world would, of such an action, divers ways; bewayling the fate of so noble a man faln from his reputation, either through divin justice or superstition, or coveting to doe some notable act through zeal. At length a servant, sent from Abram, relates the truth; and last he himselfe comes in with a great traine of Melchizedec's, whose shepheards, beeing secretlye witnesses of all passages, had related to their master, and he conducted his friend Abraham home with joy.

Jiii. Baptistes. The Scene, the Court.

Beginning, From the morning of Hero'ds birth day.

In the mar

the queen

Herod, by some counselgin of the MS. er persuaded on his birthmay plot, under day to release John Bappræ.enseofbegging for his - tist, purposes it, causes berty, to seek him to be sent for to court

to draw him in

to a snare by from prison. The queen
his freedom of hears of it, takes occa-
speech.
sion to passe wher he is, on purpose,
that, under prætense of reconsiling to
him, or seeking to draw a kind retrac-
tation from him of the censure on the
marriage; to which end she sends a
courtier before, to sound whether he
might be persuaded to mitigate his sen-
tence; which not finding, she herself
craftily assays; and on his constancie,
founds an accusation to Herod of a con-
tumacious affront, on such a day, be-
fore many peers; præpares the king to
soine passion, and at last by her daugh-
ter's dancing, effects it. There may
prologize the spirit of Philip, Herod's
brother. It may also be thought that
Herod had well bedew'd himself with
wine, which made him grant the easier
to his wive's daughter.

Some of his disciples also, as to congratulate his liberty, may be brought in; with whom, after certain command of his death, many compassionating words of his disciples, bewayling his youth cut off in his glorious cours; he telling them his work is don, and wishing them to follow Christ his maister.

lis. Sodom. The title, Cupid's funeral pile:

Sodom burning. The Scene before Lot's gate.

The Chorus, consisting of Lot's shepherds come to the citty about some affairs, await in the evening thire maister's return from his evening walk toward the citty gates. He brings with him two young men, or youths, of noble form. After likely discourses, præpares for thire entertainment. By then supper is ended, the gallantry of the towne passe by in procession, with music and song, to the temple of Venus Urania or Peor; and, understanding of tow noble strangers arriv'd, they send 2 of thire choy sest youth, with the priest, to invite them to thire citty solemnities; it beeing an honour that thire citty had decreed to all fair personages, as beeing sacred to their goddess. The angels being ask't by the priest whence they are, say they are of Salem; the priest inveighs against the strict reign of Melchisedec.

Lot, that knows thire drift, answers thwartly at last. Of which notice given to the whole assembly, they hasten thither, taxe him of præsumption, singularity, breach of city-customs; fine, offer violence. The Chorus of shepheards præpare resistance in thire maister's defence; calling the rest of the serviture: but, being forc't to give back, the angels open the dore, rescue Lot, discover themselves, ware him to gether his friends and sons in law out of the city.

He goes, and returns; as having met with some incredulous. Some other freind or son in law (out of the way when Lot came to his house) overtakes him to know his buisnes. Heer is disputed of incredulity of divine judgements, and such like inatters.

At last is described the parting from the citty. The Chorus depart with their maister. The angels doe the deed with all dreadful execution. The king and nobles of the citty may come forth, and serve to set out the terror. A Chorus of angels concluding, and the angels relating the event of Lot's journey, and of his wife.

The first Chorus, beginning, may relate the course of the citty; each evening every one, with mistresse or Gany med, gitterning along the streets, or solacing on the banks of Jordan, or down the stream.

At the priests' inviting the angels to the solemnity, the angels, pittying ther beauty, may dispute of love, and how it differs from lust; seeking to win them.

In the last scene, to the king and nobles, when the fierce thunder begins aloft, the angel appeares all girt with flames, which, he saith, are the flames of true love, and tells the king, who falls down with terrour, his just suffering, as also Athane's, that is, Gener, Lot's s

marlyr'd by Hinguar the Dane. See Speed, L. viii, C. ii.

lxxii.

Sigbert, tyrant of the West-Saxons, slaine by a swinheard.

Ixxiii.

Edmund, brother of Athelstan, slaine by a theefe at his owne table. Malmesb. Irxiv. Edwin, son to Edward the younger, for lust depriv'd of his kingdom, or rather by faction of monks, whome he hated; together [with] the impostor Dunstan. lxxv. Edward, son of Edgar, murder'd by his step-mother. To which may be inserted the tragedies stirr'd up betwixt the monks and priests about mariage. lxxvi. Etheldred, son of Edgar, a slothful king; the ruin of his land by the Danes. lxxvii. Ceaulin, king of the West-Saxons, for tyrannie depos'd and banish't; and dying.

lxxviii. The slaughter of the monks of Bangor

by Edelfride, stirr'd up, as is said, by Ethelbert, and he by Austine the monke; because the Britains would not receave the rites of the Roman church. See Bede, Geffrey Monmouth, and Holinsbed, p. 104. Which must begin with the convocation of British Clergie by Austin to determine superfluous points, which by them were refused.

Ixx. Osbert, of Northumberland, slain for ravishing the wife of Bernbocard, and the Danes brought in. See Stow, Holinsh, L. vi. C. xii. And especially Speed, L. viii. C. ii.

Ixxi, Edmund, last king of the East-Angles,

lxxix. Edwin, by vision, promis'd the kingdom of Northumberland on promise of his conversion; and therein establish't by Rodoald, king of [the] East-Angles.

lxxx. Oswin, king of Deira, slaine by Oswie his friend, king of Bernitia, through instigation of flatterers. See Holinsh. p. 115.

lxxxi. Sigibert, of the East-Angles, keeping companie with a person excommunicated, slaine by the same man in his house, according as the bishop Cedda had foretold.

"

lxxxii, Egfride, king of the Northumbers, slaine in battle against the Picts; having before wasted Ireland, and made warre for no reason on men that ever lov'd the English; forewarn'd alo by Cuthbert not to fight with the Ficts. Ixxxiii. Kinewulf, king of the West-Saxons, slaine by Kineard in the house of one of his concubins.

lxxxiv. Gunthildis, the Danish ladie, with her husband Palingus, and her son, slaine by the appointment of the traitor Edrick, in king Ethelred's days. Holinsh. L. vii. C. v. together with the massacre of the Danes at Oxford. Speed. lxxxv. Brightrick, [king] of [the] West-Saxons, poyson'd by his wife Ethelburge, Offa's daughter; who dyes miserably also, in beggery, after adultery, in a nunnery. Speed in Bithrick.

lxxxvi. Alfred, in disguise of a minstrel, discovers

the Danes' negligence; sets on [them] with a mightie slaughter. About the same tyme the Devonshire men rout Hubba, and slay him. Ixxxvii. Athelstan exposing his brother Edwin to the sea, and repenting.

lxxxviii. Edgar slaying Ethelwold for false play in wooing. Wherein may be set out his pride, and lust, which he thought to close by favouring monks and building monasteries. Also the disposition of woman in Elfrida towards her husband. [Peck proposes, and justly, I think, to read cloke instead of close.] Ixxxix. Swane beseidging London, and Ethelred repuls't by the Londoners.

xc. Harold slaine in battel, by William the
Norman. The first scene may begin
with the ghost of Alfred, the second son
of Ethelred, slaine in cruel manner by
Godwin, Harold's father; his mother
and brother dissuading him.
xci. Edmund Ironside defeating the Danes
at Brentford; with his combat with Ca-

nute.

2

xcii. Edmund Ironside murder'd by Edrick the traitor, and reveng'd by Canute. xciii. Gunilda, daughter to king Canute and Emma, wife to Henry III. emperour, accus'd of inchastitie; defended by her English page in combat against a giantlike adversary; who by him at two blows is slaine, &c. Speed in the life of Ca

nute.

xciv. Hardiknute dying in his cups: an example to riot.

xcv. Edward the Confessor's divorsing and im

prisoning his noble wife Editha, Godwin's daughter. Wherin is showed his over-affection to strangers, the cause of Godwin's insurrection. Wherein Godwin's forbearance of battel, prais'd; and the English moderation on both sides, magnifi'd. His [Edward's] slacknesse to redresse the corrupt clergie, and superstitious prætence of chastitie.

SCOTCH STORIES, OR RATHER BRITISH OF THE NORTH PARTS.

xcvi. Athirco slain by Natholochus, whose daughters he had ravish't; and this Natholocus, usurping thereon the kingdom, seeks to slay the kindred of Athirco, who scape him and conspire against him. He sends a witch to know the event. The witch tells the messenger, that he is the man, that shall slay Natholocus. He detests it; but, in his journie home, changes his mind, and performs it. Scotch Chron. English. p. 68, 69. xcvii. Luffe and Donwald. A strange story of witchcraft and murder discover'd and reveng'd. Scotch story, 149 &c. xcviii. Haie, the plowman, who, with his two sons that were at plow, running to the battell that was between the Scots and Danes in the next field, staid the flight of his countrymen, renew'd the battell, and

LYCIDAS.

In this MONODY, the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637. And by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height. [Edward King, the subject of this Monody, was the son of sir John King, knight, secretary for Ireland, under queen Elizabeth, James the first, and Charles the first. He was sailing from Chester to Ireland, on a visit to his friends and relations in that country: these were, his brother sir Robert King, knight; and his sisters, Anne wife of sir George Caulfield lord Claremont, and Margaret, abovementioned, wife of sir George Loder, chief justice of Ireland; Edward King bishop of Elphin, by whom he was baptized; and William Chappel, then dean of Cashel, and provost of Dublin college, who had been his tutor at Christ's college Cambridge, and was afterwards bishop of Cork and Ross, and in this pastoral is probably the same person that is styled old Damoetas, v. 36. When, in calm weather, not far from the English coast, the ship, a very crazy vessel, a fatal and perfidious bark, struck on a rock, and suddenly sunk to the bottom with all that were on board, not one escaping, Aug. 10, 1637. King was now only twentyfive years old. He was perhaps a native of Ire

land.

And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they
draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread :
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed:"
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite eace, and smite no more."

130

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks;
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the hopied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 142
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat herse where Lycid lies.
For, so to interpose a little ease,

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise;
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide,
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.

160

Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, [more, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor; So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of him that walk'd the

169

150

waves;

Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That sing, and, singing in their glory, move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;180
Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and
rills,
While the still Morn went out with sandals gray;
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,