Yet it forbid my wrongs should ever die,
But still remembered to posterity:

And let the Crown be fatal that he wears,
And ever wet with woful mothers' tears.

Thy curse on Percy, angry Heavens prevent,
Who have not one curse left on him unspent,
To scourge the world, now borrowing of my store,
As rich of woe as I a King am poor.

Then cease, dear Queen, my sorrows to bewail,
My wound's too great for pity now to heal;
Age stealeth on whilst thou complainest thus,
My griefs be mortal and infectious:

Yet better fortunes thy fair youth may try
That follow thee, which still from me doth fly.

ANNOTATIONS OF THE CHRONICLE HISTORY.

a

"This tongue, which then renounced my regal state."

Richard the Second, at the resignation of the Crown to the Duke of Hertford in the Tower of London, delivering the same with his own hand, there confessed his disability to govern, utterly renouncing all kingly authority.

b "And left great Bourbon for thy love to me."

Before the Princess Isabel was married to the King, Lewis, Duke of Bourbon, sued to have had her in marriage; which was thought he had obtained, if this motion had not fallen out in the meantime. This Duke of Bourbon sued again to have received her at her coming into France, after the imprisonment of King Richard, but King Charles, her father, then crossed him, as before, and gave her to Charles, son to the Duke of Orleans.

с

"When Hertford had his judgment of exile."

When the combat should have been at Coventry betwixt Henry, Duke of Hertford, and Thomas, Duke of Norfolk (where Hertford was adjudged to banishment for ten years), the commons exceedingly lamented, so greatly was he ever favoured of the people.

Then being forced to abridge his banished years."

When the Duke came to take his leave of the King, being then at Eltham, the King, to please the commons rather than for any love he bare to Hertford, repealed four years of his banishment.

"But Henry boasts of our achievements done."

Henry, the eldest son of John, Duke of Lancaster, at the first, Earl of Derby, then created Duke of Hertford; after the death of the Duke John, his father was Duke of Lancaster and Hertford, Earl of Derby, Leicester, and Lincoln; and after he had obtained the Crown, was called by the name of Bolingbrooke, which is a town in Lincolnshire; as usually all the Kings of England bare the name of the place where they were born.

f "Seven goodly scions in their spring did flourish."

Edward the Third had seven sons, Edward Prince of Wales, after called the Black Prince; William of Hatfield, the second; Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third; John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth; Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, the fifth; Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the sixth; William of Windsor, the seventh.

"Edward the top-branch of that golden tree."

Truly boasting himself to be the eldest son of Edward the Black Prince.

"Yet after Edward, John the youngest of three."

As disabling Henry Bolingbrooke, being but the son of the fourth brother, William and Lionel being both before John of Gaunt.

"He that from France brought John his prisoner home."

Edward the Black Prince taking John, King of France, prisoner at the battle of Poictiers, brought him into England, where at the Savoy he died.

"Whose name achieved by his fatal hand.'

Called the Black Prince, not so much of his complexion, as of the famous battles he fought.

"And proves our Acts of Parliament unjust."

In the next Parliament, after Richard's resignation of the Crown, Henry caused to be annihilated all the laws made in the Parliament, called the wicked Parliament, held in the twentieth year of King Richard's reign.

NYMPHIDIA,

THE COURT OF FAIRY.

OLD Chaucer doth of Topas tell,
Mad Rabelais of Pantágruél,
A later third of Dowsabel,

With such poor trifles playing ;
Others the like have laboured at,
Some of this thing and some of that,
And many of they knew not what,
But what they may be saying.

Another sort there be, that will
Be talking of the Fairies still,
For never can they have their fill,

As they were wedded to them;

No tales of them their thirst can slake,

So much delight therein they take,

And some strange thing they fain would make, Knew they the way to do them.

Then since no Muse hath been so bold,

Or of the later, or the old,

Those elvish secrets to unfold,

Which lie from others' reading;

My active Muse to light shall bring
The Court of that proud Fairy King,
And tell there of the revelling.

Jove prosper my proceeding!

G

And thou, Nymphidia, gentle Fay,
Which, meeting me upon the way,
These secrets didst to me bewray,

Which now I am in telling;
My pretty, light, fantastic maid,
I here invoke thee to my aid,
That I may speak what thou hast said,
In numbers smoothly swelling.

This palace standeth in the air,
By necromancy placéd there,
That it no tempest' needs to fear,

Which way soe'er it blow it.

And somewhat southward tow'rds the noon,
Whence lies a way up to the moon,
And thence the Fairy can as soon
Pass to the earth below it.

The walls of spiders' legs are made
Well mortiséd and finely laid;
It was the master of his trade

It curiously that builded;
The windows of the eyes of cats,
And for the roof, instead of slats,
Is covered with the skins of bats,

With moonshine that are gilded.

Hence Obe on him sport to make,
Their rest when weary mortals take,
And none but only fairies wake,

Descendeth for his pleasure;
And Mab, his merry Queen, by night
Bestrides young folks that lie upright,
(In elder times the mare that hight,)

Which plagues them out of measure.

Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes,
Of little frisking elves and apes
To earth do make their wanton scapes,
As hope of pastime hastes them;
Which maids think on the hearth they see
When fires well-nigh consuméd be,
There dancing hays by two and three,
Just as their fancy casts them.

These make our girls their sluttery rue,
By pinching them both black and blue,
And put a penny in their shoe

The house for cleanly sweeping;
And in their courses make that round
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the Fairy Ground,
Of which they have the keeping.

These when a child haps to be got
Which after proves an idiot
When folk perceive it thriveth not,
The fault therein to smother,
Some silly, doting, brainless calf
That understands things by the half,
Say that the Fairy left this oaf
And took away the other.

But listen, and I shall you tell
A chance in Faëry that befell,
Which certainly may please some well
In love and arms delighting,

Of Oberon that jealous grew

Of one of his own Fairy crew,

Too well, he feared, his Queen that knew, His love but ill requiting.