KING RICHARD'S SPEECH.

My fellow soldiers, though your swords

Are sharp, and need not whetting by my words;
Yet call to mind those many glorious days,
In which we treasur'd up immortal praise.
If when I serv'd, I ever fled from foe,
Fly ye from mine, let me be punish'd so:
But if my father, when at first he try'd
How all his sons could shining blades abide,
Found me an eagle, whose undazzled eyes
Affront the beams which from the steel arise,
And if I now in action teach the same,

Know then, ye have but chang'd your general's name.
Be still yourselves, ye fight against the dross
Of those, that oft have run from you with loss.
How many Somersets, dissention's brands,
Have felt the force of our revengeful hands!
From whom this youth, as from a princely flood,
Derives his best, yet not untainted blood.
Have our assaults made Lancaster to droop?
And shall this Welshman with his ragged troop
Subdue the Norman and the Saxon line,
That only Merlin may be thought divine ?
See what a guide these fugitives have chose,
Who, bred among the French, our ancient foes,
Forgets the English language, and the ground,
And knows not what our drums and trumpets sound!

SIR J. BEAUMONT.

1

EARL OF RICHMOND'S SPEECH.

It is in vain, brave friends, to show the right
Which we are forc'd to seek by civil fight.
Your swords are brandish'd in a noble cause,
To free your country from a tyrant's jaws.
What angry planet, what disastrous sign
Directs Plantagenet's afflicted line?
Ah, was it not enough, that mutual rage
In deadly battles should this race engage,
Till by their blows themselves they fewer make,
And pillars fall, which France could never shake?
But must this crooked monster now be found,
To lay rough hands on that unclosed wound?
His secret plots have much increas'd the flood,
He with his brother's, and his nephews' blood,
Hath stain'd the brightness of his father's flowers,
And made his own white rose as red as ours.
This is the day, whose splendour puts to flight
Obscuring clouds, and brings an age of light.
We see no hind'rance of those wished times,
But this usurper, whose depressing crimes
Will drive him from the mountain where he stands,
So that he needs must fall without our hands.
In this we happy are, that by our arms
Both York and Lancaster revenge their harms.
Here Henry's servants join with Edward's friends,
And leave their private griefs for public ends.

SIR J. BEAUMONT. SPEECH OF VOADA*,

QUEEN OF THE BRITONS, BEFORE THE BATTLE WITH THE ROMANS.

My state and sex, not hand or heart, most valiant friends

withheld

Me (wretched cause of your repair, by wicked Romans ill'd) From that revenge which I do wish, and ye have cause to

work:

In which suppose not Voada in female fears to lurk.
For, lo, myself, unlike myself, and these same ladies fair
In armour, not to shrink an inch where hottest doings are.
Even we do dare to bid the base, and you yourselves shall see
Yourselves to come behind in arms: the Romans too that be
Such conquerors, and valiantly can womankind oppress,
Shall know that British women can the Romish wrongs re-

dress.

Then arm ye with like courages as ladies shall present, Whom ye, nor wounds, nor death, the praise of onset shall

prevent.

Nor envy that our martial rage exceeds your manly ire,
For by how much more we endure, so much more we desire
Revenge, on those in whose default we are unhallowed thus,
Whilst they forget themselves for men, or to be borne of us:

* Her name is written indifferently Voadicea, Boadicea, Bunduica, and Bondicea, Selden's Notes on Drayton.

Ye yield them tribute, and from us their legions have their

pay;

Thus were too much, but more than thus, the haughty tyrant's sway;

That I am queen, from being wrong'd doth nothing me pro

tect:

Their rapes against my daughters both I also might object: They maids deflower, they wives enforce, and use their wills

in all,

And yet we live deferring fight, inferring so our fall.
But, valiant Britons, vent'rous Scots, and warlike Picts, I

err,

Exhorting whom I should dehort, your fierceness to defer : Less courage more considerate would make your foes to quake:

My heart hath joy'd to see your hands the Roman standards take.

But when as force and fortune fail'd, that you with teeth

should fight,

And in the faces of their foes your women, in despite *, Should fling their suckling babes, I held such valiantness but

vain:

Enforced flight is no disgrace, such flyers fight again.

Here are ye, Scots, that with the king, my valiant brother,

dead,

The Latins wond'ring at your prowess, through Rome in triumph led :

Ye Mars-star'd Picts of Scythian breed* are here colleagues,

and more,

Ye Dardane Brutes, last named, but in valour meant before:
In your conduct, most knightly friends, I supersede the rest:
Ye come to fight, and we in fight to hope and help our best.

Albion's England, by W. Warner,
B. III. Ch. xviii.

MUTIUS SCÆVOLA TO PORSENNA.

BEHOLD, grim tyrant, here before thee stands
A man had been thy death, had not these hands
Prov'd traitors to my mind: had made that grave
Been thine, which now's prepared for thy slave.
If Scævola must undergo death's doom,
There's none but will write guiltless on his tomb:
I set upon with fearless courage those
Who were our capitol's, our country's foes.
Why are the heavens then thus against me bent;
And not propitious to my brave intent ?

*

Picts of Scythian breed.] Those who may be inclined to examine into the history of this nation are referred to a very masterly inquiry, entituled, "A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths," by the able and ingenious Mr. Pinkerton, lately published. To this gentleman (if there is not an impertinence in the manner of my doing it), I would recommend as a motto for many of his works the following verse:

Πρὸς σοφίην μὲν ἔχειν τόλμαν, μάλα συμφορόν ἐσλι.

Poet. Min, Græci. p. 515, Cantab. 1635.