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TO THE EDITOR OF THE TABLE BOOK.

DEAR SIR,

It is not unknown to you, that about sixteen years since I published "Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, who lived about the Time of Shakspeare." For the scarcer Plays I had recourse to the Collection bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr Garrick. But my time was but short, and my subsequent leisure has discovered in it a treasure rich and exhaustless beyond what I then imagined. In it is to be found almost every production in the shape of a Play that has appeared in print, from the time of the old Mysteries and Moralities to the days of Crown and D'Urfey. Imagine the luxury to one like me, who, above every other form of Poetry, have ever preferred the Dramatic, of sitting in the princely apartments, for such they are, of poor condemned Montagu House, which I predict will not speedily be followed by a handsomer, and culling at will the flower of some thousand Dramas. It is like having the range of a Nobleman's Library, with the Librarian to your friend. Nothing can exceed the courteousness and attentions of the gentleman who has the chief direction of the Reading Rooms here; and you have scarce to ask for a volume, before it is laid before you. If the occasional extracts, which I have been tempted to bring away, may find an appropriate place in your Table Book, some of them are weekly at your service. By those who remember the Specimens," these must be considered as mere aftergleanings, supplementary to that work, only comprising a longer period. You must be content with sometimes a scene, sometimes a song; a speech, or passage, or a poetical image, as they happen to strike me.-I read without order of time; I am a poor hand at dates; and for any biography of the Dramatists, I must refer to writers who are more skilful in such matters. My business is with their poetry only. Your well-wisher,

66

January 27, 1827.

C. LAMB.

[graphic]

Thos. Sackville, Earl of Dorset, from the engraving by Vertue.

SPECIMENS

OF

ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS

GORBODUC, A TRAGEDY :

BY THOMAS SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST, AFTERWARDS EARL OF DORSET; AND THOMAS NORTON.

Whilst king GORBODUC in the presence of his councillors laments the death of his eldest son, FERREX, whom PORREX, the younger son, has slain, MARCELLA, a court lady, enters and relates the miserable end of PORREX, stabbed by his mother in his bed.

GORBODUC, AROSTUS, EUBULUS, and others.

Gorb. What cruel destiny,

What froward fate hath sorted us this chance,
That even in those, where we should comfort find,
Where our delight now in our aged days

Should rest and be, even there our only grief
And deepest sorrows to abridge our life,

Most pining cares and deadly thoughts do grow? Arost. Your grace should now, in these grave years of

yours,

Have found ere this the price of mortal joys;
How short they be, how fading here in earth,
How full of change, how brittle our estate,
Of nothing sure, save only of the death,

To whom both man and all the world doth owe
Their end at last; neither shall nature's power
In other sort against your heart prevail,

Than as the naked hand, whose stroke assays The armed breast, where force doth light in vain. Gorb. Many can yield right grave and sage advice

Of patient sprite to others wrapped in woe,
And can in speech both rule and conquer kind,1
Who, if by proof they might feel nature's force,
Would show themselves men, as they are indeed,
Which now will needs be gods. But what doth

mean

The sorry cheer of her that here doth come?

MARCELLA enters.

Marc. Oh! where is ruth, or where is pity now?
Whither is gentle heart and mercy fled?
Are they exiled out of our stony breasts,
Never to make return? is all the world
Drowned in blood, and sunk in cruelty?
If not in women mercy may be found,
If not, alas, within the mother's breast
To her own child, to her own flesh and blood,
If ruth be banished thence, if pity there
May have no place, if there no gentle heart

Do live and dwell, where should we seek it then? Gorb. Madam, alas! what means your woful tale? Marc. O, silly woman I! why to this hour

Have kind and fortune thus deferred my breath, That I should live to see this doleful day? Will ever wight believe that such hard heart Could rest within the cruel mother's breast, With her own hand to slay her only son? But out, alas! these eyes beheld the same, They saw the dreary sight, and are become Most ruthful records of the bloody fact. Porrex, alas! is by his mother slain, And with her hand, a woful thing to tell, While slumb'ring on his careful bed he rests, His heart stab'd in with knife is reft of life. Gorb. O Eubulus, oh, draw this sword of ours, And pierce this heart with speed. O hateful light, 1 Nature; natural affection

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