from the style and nature of the description, that such a display was then quite a novelty in this country, but afterwards it became common enough. We are told— “Also there was sett up and areared two high and great posts with croches, these posts fast sett and driven into the ground: over the croches was a great cable stretched stedfastly and drawn with a wheele, and stayd upon both the sides with divers cordes, so great that the sight of it was like unto the rigging of an house: upon the frame and cable ascended and went up a Spanyard, the whiche shewed there many wonders and deliverous points of tumbling and dauncing, and other sleights.” After the Spaniard had thus exhibited, to the great satisfaction of the royal party and their attendants, another “disguising" took place, into the details of which, after what we have already given, it would perhaps be tedious to enter. We may mention, however, that by way of variety live rabbits and doves were introduced, the first let out by male, and the last let fly by female dancers. The same manuscript from which the above are extracted contains also "certein notes" of "an entertainment of Katherine Dowager," on her subsequent and unfortunate marriage with Henry VIII. These have no peculiar claim to notice, farther than that Jaques Hault, who is not unfrequently mentioned in connexion with the court amusements of that date, was principally concerned in making the preparations. ALFRED T. GOODWIN. ART XIII.-Imitation of Shakespeare by Shelley, in his Tragedy of The Cenci." 66 I cannot think it foreign to the purpose of the Shakespeare Society, especially on the publication of its "Papers,” to point out authors, even in modern times, who have borrowed from Shakespeare without acknowledgment. I shall do so very briefly, in reference to two or three passages in "The Cenci," by Percy B. Shelley, originally printed at Leghorn in 1819, and recently reprinted in the collection of his Works, the editorship of which was undertaken in 1839 by Mrs. Shelley. I was induced to read "The Cenci" again, from the wish of a modern manager of a theatre to produce it, if possible, on the Stage; but I had marked the plagiarisms in my copy of the Leghorn edition more than twenty years ago. Shelley himself was anxious that it should be performed, and that the parts of Cenci and of his daughter Beatrice should be acted by Kean and Miss O'Neill; but the repulsive nature of the story, a difficulty which the author vainly fancied he had overcome, rendered it then out of the question; and in truth the objection never can be overcome. It is rather strange that the palpable imitations I am about to mention, from three of Shakespeare's most popular plays, never have been pointed out; but I have looked back to the reviews and notices of "The Cenci," printed soon after its first appearance, and I find no remark upon them. One line I have seen quoted more than once, as a noble proof of Shelley's original powers :— "I see, as from a tower, the end of all." The Cenci, act ii., sc. 2. What is this but a line from Shakespeare's "Richard III.,” with the alteration of a word or two? is the exclamation of Queen Elizabeth, in act ii., sc. 4; and yet Shelley not only makes no confession of his obligation, but actually claims a merit in his preface for having borrowed nothing but in one place from Calderon's El Purgatorio di San Patricio. It may be that he unconsciously fell into the mistake of supposing the line his own. In act iii., sc. 2, of "The Cenci," we meet with a copy of a well-remembered passage in "Othello." Shelley makes Giacomo thus contemplate the murder of his father, likening the flame of life to the flame of a lamp burning near him :— "And yet, once quench'd, I cannot thus relume So Othello (act v., sc. 2), meditating the murder of Desdemona, and contemplating her by the light of a lamp, says :— “If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume." Shelley was fond of the figure; for just before, looking at the lamp, Giacomo exclaims: "But that no power can fill with vital oil That broken lamp of flesh." Just afterwards, in the same scene, we have a passage which could not have been written, or at all events not so worded, but for some lines in "Hamlet," so well known that they need not be quoted; 66 nor all the taunts Which from the prosperous weak misfortune takes." In the first scene of the same act we meet with a thought and an expression decidedly borrowed from Shakespeare's Sonnets. Orsino is supposing that Beatrice, by permitting crime, may in the end become criminal:— "subdued even to the hue Of that which thou permittest." Here we have an imitation, or, more strictly, a copy of a couplet in Shakespeare's 91st Sonnet, where he is reflecting upon his own mode of life as a player, then looked down upon as most degraded, and to the colour it may give to his whole existence. I transcribe the opening of the Sonnet, in order to make the point more intelligible, but only the two last lines are closely applicable, for Shelley omits the familiar image by which Shakespeare so admirably illustrates his meaning. 66 "O! for my sake do you with fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide, Than public means, which public manners breeds: And almost thence my nature is subdued J. B. B. ART. XIV.-Albion, Knight; a Moral Play. The following is a fragment of an early dramatic performance, which, as far as is at present known, has no parallel in our language. It is part of a political play, and the only part that has been preserved: not merely no perfect copy has come down to us, but no portion of a copy but that which we have been permitted to use, and which is in the library of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. It consists of twelve closely printed pages in black letter, and seems to have been considerably less than half of the entire production. I noticed it in "The History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage," ii., 369; but I could only there insert some brief specimens of it, and it seems to me to deserve reprinting exactly in the form in which it has reached us, in order that those who are curious respecting the productions of our early stage may have an opportunity of judging for themselves of the singular nature and character of the performance. Whether it was ever acted, and where, are questions it is impossible to answer. In Cotton MS. Vitellius, F. v. (now printing by the Camden Society, under the superintendence of Mr. J. G. Nichols) we find the following memorandum applicable to Christmas, 1559: "The same day at nyght, at the Quene's court, there was a play afore her Grace, the which the plaers plade, shuche matter that they wher commandyd to leyff off, and continently the maske cam in dansing." The MS. consists of notes of singular events, many of them witnessed by the writer, in the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, and in the beginning of that of Elizabeth ; but he does not say that he was present at the time the players were commanded to leave off on account of the objectionable nature of the drama they were representing; neither have we the smallest hint as to the title of the play, but we may perhaps infer that it was political, and, going one step farther, (a considerable step, I admit) we may |