TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM CAVENDISH, EARL OF NEWCASTLE, VISCOUNT MANSFIELD, LORD MY LORD, Our of the darkness of a former age (enlightened by a late both learned and an honourable pen), I have endeavoured to personate a great attempt, and, in it, a greater danger. In other labours you may read actions of antiquity discoursed; in this abridgment find the actors themselves discoursing; in some kind practised as well what to speak as speaking why to do. Your lordship is a most competent judge in expressions of such credit, commissioned by your known ability in examining, and enabled by your knowledge in determining, the monuments of Time. Eminent titles may, indeed, inform who their owners are, not often what. To yours, the addition of that information in both cannot in any application be observed flattery, the authority being established by truth. I can only acknowledge the errors in writing mine own; the worthiness of the subject written being a perfection in the story and of it. The custom of your lordship's entertainments (even to strangers) is rather an example than a fashion; in which consideration I dare not profess a curiosity: but am only studious that your. lordship will please, among such as best honour your goodness, to admit into your noble construction, 1 "William Cavendish (nephew to the first Earl of Devonshire), I ord Ogle," Collins says, "jure materno, was born in the year 1592, and was early in favour with James I., by whom he was made a knight of the Bath in 1610, and created a peer, by the title of Viscount Mansfiel 1, in 1623. He continued in favour with Charles I., who created him Earl of.Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1628, and Marquis six years afterward. In 1638, the king assigned him the office of governor to the Prince of Wales." For more than half a century the house of this distinguished nobleınan was open to every man of genius and learning. He was more particularly the friend and munificent patron of Ben Jonson, whos e connexion with the family appears to have been of long and close continuance, and whose assistance was called for by them on all occasions of mirth or melancholy, whether in the supply of monumental inscriptions, or in furnishing interludes for those splendid entertainments which his patron was accustomed to give, and which appear to have been the astonishment of the times. "God be thanked," says the Earl of Clarendon, emphatically, when mentioning that which the earl gave to Charles I. on his journey into Scotland; "God be thanked, that though this stupendous entertainment might too much whet the appetite of others to excess, no man ever after in those days imitated it." For an account of the public services of the Earl of Newcastle, for proofs of his, devotion and unshaken fidelity to his royal and unfortunate master, the reader is referred to the pages of the same excellent historian. A long; and elaborate character of the earl will be found in the second volume, from which we extract such passages as serve to show his attachment to literature and the fine arts. "He was a very fine gentleman, active, and full of courage, and most 2 Learned and honourable pen. That of the great Lord's Bacon. He alludes to his "History of King Henry VII."-GIFFORD. DRAMATIS PERSONE. HENRY VII. Lord DAWBENEY. Sir WILLIAM STANLEY, lord chamberlain. Earl of OXFORD. Earl of SURREY. Fox, bishop of Durham. URSWICK, chaplain to the king. Sir ROBERT CLIFFORD. LAMBERT SIMNEL. HIALAS, a Spanish agent. JAMES IV. King of Scotland. Earl of HUNTLEY. MARCHMONT, a herald. PERKIN WARBECK. STEPHEN FRION, his secretary. HERON, a mercer. ASTLEY, a scrivener. Lady KATHERINE GORDON. Countess of CRAWFORD. JANE DOUGLAS, Lady KATHERINE's attendant. Sheriff, Constables, Officers, Guards, Serving-men, Maskers and Soldiers. SCENE, partly in England, partly in Scotland. PERKIN WARBECK. ACT I. SCENE I. Westminster. The Royal Presence-chamber. Enter King HENRY, supported to the throne by the Bishop of DURHAM and Sir WILLIAM STANLEY, Earl of OXFORD, Earl of SURREY, and Lord DAWBENEY. -A Guard. K. Hen. STILL to be haunted, still to be pursued, Still to be frighted with false apparitions Of pageant majesty, and new-coin'd greatness, As if we were a mockery king in state, Only ordain'd to lavish sweat and blood, In scorn and laughter, to the ghosts of York, Is all below our merits; yet, my lords, My friends and counsellors, yet we sit fast In our own royal birthright: the rent face And bleeding wounds of England's slaughter'd people, Have been by us, as by the best physician, At last both thoroughly cured, and set in safety; orious work of And yet, for all this glorious Ourself is scarce secure. Dur. The rage of malice peace, Conjures fresh spirits with the spells of York. Of discord and ambition: this hot vengeance Daw. Edward the Fourth, after a doubtful fortune, For this poor panting island, if some shreds, Oxf. Margaret of Burgundy Without or heat to scorch or light to cherish. Daw. York's headless trunk, her father; Edward's fate, Her brother, king; the smothering of her nephews Of devilish policies, doth vent the ore 1-pull'd from his boar's sty.] This contemptuous allusion to the armorial bearings of Richard III. is very common in our old writers. Shakspeare has it frequently in his tragedy of this usurper.GIFFORD. |