To bar my entrance at that fatal door :-
I prithee step, and take him quickly thence,

Present Master Barnes, Master James, and others, with John Beane, wounded in a chair :— enter_to them the Mayor of Rochester, with Brown a prisoner.

Barnes. As I take it, Master Mayor of Rochest r.
Mayor. The same, good Master Barnes.

Barnes. What happy fortune sent you here to Woolwich:
That yet your company may give us comfort,
In this sad time?

Mayor. Believe me, sad indeed, and very sad :—

Sir, the council's warrant lately came to me,
About the search for one Captain George Brown,
As it should seem suspected of this murder,
Whom in my search I hapt to apprehend,
And hearing that the bodies of the murdered
Remained here, I thought it requisite,

To make this in my way unto the court,
Now going thither with the prisoner.

Barnes. Believe me Sir, ye have done right good service,
And shewn yourself a painful gentleman,

And shall no doubt deserve well of the state.

James. No doubt you shall, and I durst assure you so,

The council will accept well of the same.

Barnes. Good master Mayor, this wretched man of mine Is not yet dead; look you where now he sits, But past all sense, and labouring to his end.

Mayor. Alas, poor wretch!

Barnes. Is this that Brown that is suspected to have done the murder?- -a goodly man, believe me :

Too fair a creature for so foul an act.

Brown. My name is Brown, Sir.

James. I know you well, your fortunes have been fair,
As any gentleman's of your repute.

But Brown, should you be guilty of this fact,-
As this your flight has given shrewd suspicion,-
Oh Brown your hands have done the bloodiest deed
That ever was committed.

Brown. He doth not live dare charge me with it.

James. Pray God there be not.

Mayor. Serjeants bring him nearer, see if this poor soul know him.

Barnes. It cannot be, these two days space he knew no

creature.

Brown. Swounds! lives the villain yet?

(aside.)

O how his very sight affrights my soul !
His very eyes will speak had he no tongue,
And will accuse me.

Barnes. See how his wounds break out afresh in

bleeding!

James. He stirs himself.

Mayor. He opens his eyes.

Barnes. See how he looks

upon him!

Brown. I gave him fifteen wounds

(aside.)

Which now be fifteen mouths that do accuse me :
In every wound there is a bloody tongue,

Which will all speak, although he hold his peace;
By a whole jury I shall be accused.

Barnes, John, dost thou hear? Know'st thou this man?

John. Yea, this is he that murdered me

and Master Sanders.

James. O hold him up!

Mayor, John comfort thyself!

James. Bow him ;-give him air.

Barnes. No, he is dead.

(He sinks down.)

Brown. Methinks he is so fearful in my sight, That were he now but where I saw him last, For all this world I would not look upon him. Barnes. The wondrous work of God!-that the poor creature not speaking for two days, yet now should speak to accuse this man, and presently yield up his soul.

James. 'Tis very strange.

Mayor. Serjeants away!-prepare you for the court,
And I will follow you immediately.

Barnes. Sure the revealing of this murder's strange.
James. It is so Sir; but in the case of blood,

God's justice hath been still miraculous:

Mayor. I have heard it told, that digging up a grave,
Wherein a man had twenty years been buried,
By finding of a nail knock'd in the scalp,
And due enquiry who was buried there,

The murther yet at length did come to light.
Barnes. I have heard it told, that once a traveller

Being in the hands of him that murdered him,
Told him, the fern that then grew in the place,
If nothing else, yet that would sure reveal him:
And seven years after, being safe in London,
There came a sprig of fern borne by the wind,
Into the room wheras the murderer was,

At sight whereof he suddenly start up,
And then reveal'd the murder.

James. I'll tell you Sir, one more to quit your

tale :

A woman that had made away her husband,
And sitting to behold a tragedy,

At Lynn a town in Norfolk,

Acted by players travelling that way,

Wherein a woman that had murthered her's

Was ever haunted with her husband's ghost :—
The passion written by a feeling pen,

And acted by a good tragedian,

She was so moved with the sight thereof,

That she cried out,-the play was made for her,-
And openly confest her husband's murder.

Barnes. However their's, Gods name be praised for this!
You Master Mayor I see must to the court,
I pray you do my duty to the Lords.

Mayor. That will I Sir.

James. Come, I'll go along with you.

TRAGEDY enters to conclude.

(Exeunt.)

Tragedy. Here are the launces that have sluic'd forth sin,
And ript the venom'd ulcer of foul lust,
Which being by due vengeance qualified,
Here Tragedy of force must need conclude.
Perhaps it may seem strange unto you all,
That one hath not reveng'd another's death,
According to the observation of such course:
The reason is, that now of truth I sing,
And should I add, or else diminish ought,
Many of these spectators then could say,

I have committed error in my play.
Bear with this true and home-born tragedy,
Yielding so slender argument and scope,
To build a matter of importance on;
And in such form as haply you expected,
What now hath failed, to-morrow you shall see,
Performed by History or Comedy.

It remains now to say a few words respecting the following pages.

They were undertaken, by the present writer, in conjunction with an old and much valued Friend, whose state of health and more important avocations, prevented him from bearing the part in it which he at first proposed, and the work has suffered materially in consequence. Thus much to explain the use of the plural pronoun, which without this explanation, might seem to be an affectation.

No small number of books have been consulted in the compilation of these pages, a far greater number indeed than by the scanty fruits may appear. The compiler claims the merit of having taken nothing upon trust; he has read carefully all the works which he could procure of the several writers upon whose merits he has ventured to pass an opinion, and that opinion has in every instance been his own, whatever may be said of its justice or correctness.

The orthography has been modernized throughout to fit the work for general readers; and the lines have been arranged according to the rhyme. No other