sible to feel a certain sort of respect, is conveyed in a manner carefully finished yet without exaggeration. This latter merit may be better appreciated if this portrait of Philip be compared with some other attempts; with Sir Aubrey De Vere's, for instance, who makes the 'prudent monarch' storm at his queen in most approved Billingsgate, or exclaim' S'death, 'I could stab the knave!' on hearing of some insult against the throne. We call attention to one or two passages, because this point in the poem has scarcely had justice done to it. The slow revolving in his august mind of the idea that he-he, Philip of Spain, may in a certain sense be implicated in the ridicule which is beginning to attach to the Queen's delusion about her situation is very well given : 'But, Renard, I am sicker staying here Than any sea would make me passing hence, Tho' I be ever deadly sick at sea. So sick am I with biding for this child. To go twelve months in bearing of a child? Renard. I never saw your Highness moved till now.' Renard, who has seen the Queen enter and noted the expression of her face, a few lines further on, begs leave to say a word of advice in a loyal spirit, as touching the excuse which his master's conduct gives for the current supposition that he has 'wearied of his barren bride: ' 'Sire, I would have you What should I say, I cannot pick my words— Philip. Am I to change my manners, Simon Renard, Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers? Renard. Brief-sighted though they be, I have seen them, When you, perchance, were trifling royally With some fair dame of court, suddenly fill With such fierce fire-had it been fire indeed, It would have burnt both speakers. Philip. Ay, and then? Renard. Sire, might it not be policy in some matter A point to her demand? Philip. Well, I am going. Renard. For should her love, when you are gone, my liege Witness these papers, there will not be wanting Hath in it an alchemic force to fuse Almost into one metal love and hate, And she impress her wrongs upon her Council, And these again upon her Parliament We are not loved here, and would be then, perhaps, As else we might be-here she comes. Madam, I must. Nay, must you go indeed? Philip. Mary. The parting of a husband and a wife Is like the cleaving of a heart; one half Will flutter here, one there. Philip. You say true, Madam.' This is very good; not least so the quick eager suggestions, stated in a half-whisper as we may fancy, of the politic Renard, and the cold calculating anti-climax he drops into. At the close of the scene, the Queen is forced to learn that she has no power to detain her husband, and solicits the privilege of accompanying him as far as her failing strength will permit : 'Mary. Philip. And doubtless I shall profit by your prayers. Philip. Madam, a day may sink or save a realm. Philip. Then one day more to please her majesty. As I do! Philip. By St. James I do protest, I am vastly grieved to leave your majesty. The last transition may be thought too commonplace an indication of heartlessness, but it is entirely in keeping with the character of a prince who is said to have numbered among his serene pleasures a keen appreciation of fat bacon. Of the fourth act, of which Cranmer is the hero, little can be said, except that the historic account of that memorable speech of recantation in St. Mary's Church is closely followed, and little or no attempt made to interfere with its effect by any poetic dressing up of the words there spoken by a man in all the agony of a mind strung up to an heroic pitch, foreign to its native character, by force of circumstances and the stress of a final victory of conscience and honour over natural weakness and irresolution. Even in the very few noticeable deviations from the contemporary account of Cranmer's words, it is a question whether the original expression is not weakened. Cranmer's simple sentence, although my sins be great, yet is 'thy mercy greater,' is hardly improved by the incalculable, unpardonable,' of the poet, besides that the last word contradicts in terms the conclusion of the sentence. One expression, however, which is, we believe, the poet's own, in reference to 'this bubble world, Whose colours in a moment break and fly,' is very beautiful—a typical line, not unlikely to be remembered, even as Pole is made to recall it, with a why, who said that?' in the scene where his high-blown schemes have burst under him. There is also a passage of real pathos in the soliloquy of Cranmer in his cell, after Villa Garcia has departed, deceitfully bidding him have good hopes of mercy : ' 6 'Good hopes, not theirs, have I that I am fixt, Without a friend, a book, my faith would seem The significance and pathos of this can only be rightly esti mated by those who can see such a history not from the point of view of our day, but from that of the day in which it occurred; who know that such obstinate questionings between individual conviction and traditional beliefs are a continual heritage of earnest and devout souls in all times of change; that the intensity of the mental struggle which accompanies them is not to be lightly estimated by us who have long passed that turning-point. That we should realise sharply the actual state of things at that time the poet has obviously intended; he has taken double care of that, by his introduction of the two old country wives, disputing about the merits of their cattle, and introducing the burning as an equally everyday matter-a-burnin' and a-burnin', and a-makin' o' volk 'madder and madder '--followed by the description of the scene by the spectator who had seen Cranmer stand 'like a 'statue,' 'Unmoving in the greatness of the flame.' All this is not drama, certainly; but it is noble poetry, warm with the perennial interest that attaches to scenes of heroism and self-sacrifice in a great cause. In the last act the hapless Mary, hapless yet hated, and to say truth hateful, descends the downward slope to death." One bitterness treads on the heels of another, and each leads more or less inevitably to the end which is now seen to be impending. Philip has put off even his dull pretence of regard, and, before his departure for the last time, begins to speculate (as it is pretty well believed he did speculate) on the possibility of betrothing Elizabeth, at no very distant period, to himself instead of to Philibert of Savoy. He is minded in the meantime at least to get away from a wife and a country alike irksome to him; but he will stay a little, on the chance, which events seem to point to, of a war between England and France. Also, 'Sire,' says Renard, 'Might I not say-to please your wife, the Queen? Philip. Ay, Renard, if you care to put it so.' 6 With the next scene come the fantastic lamentations of Pole over his disgrace with the Pope; and close upon that follows the loss of Calais. The song low, lute, low,' which the Queen is made to sing, has the old sweetness of Mr. Tennyson's lyrics, recalling the exquisite little interludes in The 'Princess,' though we confess we can hardly fancy Mary singing it. But there is a touch of natural and wild pathos in the Queen's cry of anguish that follows it, as she sinks on to the floor: 'A low voice Lost in a wilderness where none can hear! A voice of shipwreck on a shoreless sea! A low voice from the dust and from the grave.' Her trance is broken by the announcement of Count Feria, and she almost leaps into her chair of state to welcome him as Philip's envoy should be welcomed; vainly, for he has no greeting from her lord to her, and she is stung into retort— 'Tell him at last I know his love is dead, And that I am in state to bring forth death' in reference to her former fondly-cherished delusion. There are passages in the fifth and last scene of sharp pathos. The Queen is pacing up and down the gallery, ever and anon coming to the table and writing, watched by her tearful attendants: 'Lady Clarence. Mine eyes are dim: what hath she written? read. The moonlight casement patterned on the wall, Lady Clarence points to the picture of Philip, his hand upon his helmet, in the manner so familiar to us in the portraits of Titian and Morone. Doth he not look noble?' says the Queen : 'I heard of him in battle over seas, And I would have my warrior all in arms. He said it was not courtly to stand helmeted Before the Queen. He had his gracious moment, The climax of her anguish comes when she asks Lady Clarence what is that strange thing called happiness, and the lady, as a diversion, begins to tell, in a very sweetly written passage, of the moment when she knew herself beloved; the recital of a bliss to which she had aspired and which had never been hers stings the poor Queen to madness; the sudden revulsion is almost startling : 'Lady Clarence. It was May time, |