And for the proofe of this his tale, he doth desyer

The judge to send forthwith to Mantua for the fryer,
To learne his cause of stay, and eke to read his letter;

And, more beside, to thend that they might judge his cause the

better,

He prayeth them depose the nurce of Juliet,

And Romeus man, whom at unawares besyde the tombe he met. Then Peter, not so much, as erst he was, dismayd:

My lordes, quoth he, too true is all that fryer Laurence sayd.
And when my maister went into my mystres grave,
This letter that I offer you, unto me he gave,
Which he him selfe dvd write, as I do understand,
And charged me to offer them unto his fathers hand.
The opened packet doth conteyne in it the same

That erst the skilfull fryer said; and eke the wretches name
That had at his request the dedly poyson sold,

The price of it, and why he bought, his letters plaine have tolde.
The case unfolded so and open now it lyes,

That they could wish no better proofe, save seeing it with theyr

eves:

So orderly all thinges were tolde, and tryed out,

That in the prease there was not one that stoode at all in doute.

The wyser sort, to counsell called by Escalus,

Here geven advice, and Escalus sagely decreeth thus:
The nurse of Juliet is banisht in her age,
Because that from the parentes she dyd hyde the mariage,
Which might have wrought much good had it in time been

knowne,

Where now by her concealing it a mischeefe great is growne;
And Peter, for he dyd obey his masters hest,

In woonted freedome had good leave to lead his lyfe in rest:
Thapothecary high is hanged by the throte,

And, for the paynes he tooke with him, the hangman had his cote.
But now what shall betyde of this gray-bearded syre,

Of fryer Lawrence thus araynde, that good barefooted fryre?
Because that many time he woorthily did serve

The common welth, and in his lyfe was never found to swerve,
He was discharged quyte, and no mark of defame

Did seem to blot or touch at all the honour of his name.

But of himselfe he went into an hermitage,

Two miles from Veron towne, where he in prayers past forth his

age;

Till that from earth to heaven his heavenly sprite dyd flye:
Fyve years he lived an hermite, and an hermite dyd he dye.
The straungnes of the chaunce, when tryed was the truth,
The Montagewes and Capelets hath moved so to ruth,
That with their emptyed tears theyr choler and theyr rage
Has emptied quite; and they, whose wrath no wisdom could as-

swage,

Nor threatning of the prince, ne mynde of murthers donne, At length, (so mighty Jove it would) by pitye they are wonne,

And lest that length of time might from our myndes remove The memory of so perfect, sound, and so approved love, The bodies dead, removed from vaulte where they did dye, In stately tombe, on pillars great of marble, rayse they hye. On every side above were set, and eke beneath, Great store of cunning epitaphes, in honor of theyr death. And even at this day the tombe is to be seene;* So that among the monuments that in Verona been, There is no monument more worthy of the sight, Then is the tombe of Juliet and Romeus her knight.

Imprinted at London in Fleete Strete within Temble bar, at the signe of the hand and starre, by Richard Tottill the xix day of November, An. do 1562.

* Breval says in his Travels, 1726, that when he was at Verona, his guide shewed him an old building, then converted into a house for orphans, in which the tomb of these unhappy lovers had been; but it was then destroyed. Malone.

END OF VOL. XII.

T. S. Manning, Printer, No. 143, North Third Street: