vision of his own defeat, and ends by seeing his daughter the wife of Alphonsus. Mother and daughter are in wrath; and Fausta, to resist her husband, will go raise her Amazones, whose name is pronounced throughout the play in classical form as a word of four syllables. Amurack, waking in a fury, banishes his rebellious wife. Medea meets her, and tells her that death will be the alternative of an acceptance of Alphonsus, the great conqueror : "In vain it is to strive against the stream; Fates must be followed."

Then follows, at the beginning of the fourth act, the scene of "Mahomet's pow," which was numbered among effective rantings on the stage when Shakespeare was first studying the London drama: "Let there be a brazen Head set in the middle of the place behind the stage, out of the which cast flames of fire, drums rumble within: Enter two Priests."Mahound, in speech out of the brazen head, bullies his priests, will prophesy no more to Amurack. At their entreaty he will let the princes come, will prophesy, but in a way that shall mislead them to their fall. He does so.

Then "strike up alarum awhile." Old Carinus has had a vision of his son's wars. The vanquished Duke of Milan-old enemy of his father-comes to Carinus in pilgrim's weeds, is led to tell of his old day of rejoicing at the usurpation in Aragon. Carinus stabs him, and goes forth to find Alphonsus, his own conquering son. Amurack, Crocon King of Arabia, Faustus King of Babylon, Fabius, with the Turk's Janissaries." Amurack talks big and encourages his

men

remember with yourselves

What foes we have; not mighty Tamburlaine,
Nor soldiers trainéd up among the wars,

But fearful bodies picked from their rural flock,

Which, till this time, were wholly ignorant

What weapon meant, or bloody Mars doth crave."

"Enter

"Enter Alphonsus with a Canopy carried over him by three Lords, hanging over each corner a King's head Crowned; with him Albinius, Lælius, Miles, with Crowns on their heads, and their Soldiers." Amurack talks big, but Alphonsus bigger. As for the action, it is: "Amurack draw thy sword: Alphonsus and all the other kings draw theirs. Strike up alarum: fly Amurack and his company. Follow Alphonsus and his company." Then, at the beginning of Act V., “Strike up alarum: fly Amurack, follow Alphonsus, and take him prisoner: carry him in. Strike up alarum: fly Crocon and Faustus." Then enter Fausta and Iphigina, with their Amazons,

D-VOL. X.

and when they hear that Amurack is prisoner they fight to rescue “Strike_up_alarum: fly Alphonsus, follow Iphigina, and

him: say "

"How now, Alphonsus! you which never yet

Could meet your equal in the feats of arms,

How haps it now that in such sudden sort

You fly the presence of a silly maid ?”

Am I too strong for you? or do you disdain to fight with me?-I do not fly away from any, he replies—

"Nor do I scorn, thou goddess, for to stain
My prowess with thee, although it be a shame
For knights to combat with the female sect;
But love, sweet mouse, hath so benumbed my wit,
That, though I would, I must refrain from it."

She will not love him; she will hate him, fight him. "Alphonsus and Iphigina fight. Iphigina fly; follow Alphonsus. Strike up alarum. Enter Alphonsus with his rapier, Albinius, Lælius, Miles, with their soldiers. Amurack, Fausta, Iphigina, Crocon, and Fausta, all bound with their hands behind them. Amurack look eagerly on Fausta, enter Medea." She cannot move Amurack to submission, but the women take Medea's counsel. Big words pass then between Alphonsus and Amurack. Amurack is sent to prison

"There to remain until I do return

Into my tent; for by high Jove I vow
Unless he wax more calmer out of hand

His head among his fellow kings should stand."

It had been suggested to him before by Alphonsus that there was a place for his head on the middle spike of that canopy which had a king's head crowned on each of its four corners.

Then Fausta and Iphigina are ordered to prison. They submit themselves in vain; for to Fausta says Alphonsus now, like Tamburlaine upon the day of his black tents,

"Woman, away! my word is gone and past;
Now, if I would, I cannot call it back.
You might have yielded at my first demand,
And then you needed not to fear this hap."

To the submission of Iphigina Alphonsus gives answer as stern.

But his old father Carinus, who had set out to find him, enters now at the nick of time in pilgrim's clothes, is recognised, and uses his authority to bring Alphonsus and Iphigina together. Fausta consents to this union, and Amurack is brought from prison to die if he do not say yes to the marriage. He reasons himself into saying yes, and thus he gives the comical or happy ending to the play. In the last words of Venus there is even a dim suggestion that Alphonsus, like Tamburlaine, might figure again in a second part.

"The

Alcazar."

Another blank-verse play that leads us to the stately tents of war and emulates the rant of Tamburlaine includes also, like "Alphonsus," reference to Tamburlaine. It sets forth "The Tragical Battle of Battle of Alcazar in Barbary, with the Death of three Kings and Captain Stukeley, an Englishman." Tom Stukeley seems to have been the subject of two other plays. He was a bombastic adventurer, born on old London Bridge, but younger son of a good family near Ilfracombe. His first aim was to colonise in Florida and be a potentate there. Wanting money for that, he went to Ireland, and thence to Rome, where he proposed to conquer Ireland for the Pope. The Pope gave him Irish titles, and he sailed for the conquest of Ireland with eight hundred soldiers furnished by the King of Spain. On the way he touched at Lisbon, when Sebastian, King of Portugal, was preparing for an expedition of war into Africa. Stukeley went as adventurer into that war with his eight hundred men, and was killed in Africa with the defeated King Sebastian, and with the kings also of Barbary and Morocco, at the battle of Alcazar, fought on the fourth of August, 1578.

Malone ascribed to George Peele the play on the Battle of Alcazar, and it contains so many turns of speech found also in Peele's other plays that Malone's opinion has been commonly accepted. There is half-playful adoption of a style that would enable a robustious periwig-pated fellow to

tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings. In

"The Battle of Alcazar,"

"The Presenter," who opens each act, first shows the barbarous Moor, the negro Muly Hamet, who now usurps upon the brave barbarian lord, Muly Molocco,—

"Black is his look, and bloody is his deed,

And in his shirt stained with a cloud of gore "—

coming to put two little princes to bed. He then brings two murderers to smother them in their sleep, in sight of their uncle Abdelmunen, who has also been brought in, and who is strangled in his chair. But Abdelmunen's widow, Rubin Archis, stirs the usurper's uncle Abdelmelec to avenging war. "Of death," she says,

"Of death, of blood, of wreak, of deep revenge,

Shall Rubin Archis frame her tragic songs:

In blood, in death, in murder, and misdeed,
This heaven's malice did begin and end."

Aid comes to Abdelmelec from " great Amurath, great Emperor of the East. Muly Hamet, the wicked Moor, with his wife Calipolis and his son, are hard pressed: their treasure is seized, the Bassa sent by Amurath marches in force, and, says the wicked Moor,

"Then, Bassa, lock the winds in wards of brass,

Thunder from heaven, damn wretched men to death,

Bear all the offices of Satan's sons,

Be Pluto, then, in hell, and bar the fiends,

Take Neptune's force with thee and calm the seas,
And execute Jove's justice on the world,

Convey Tamburlaine into our Afric here

To chastise and to menace lawiul kings:

Tamburlaine, triumph not, for thou must die*

As Philip did, Cæsar, and Cæsar's peers."

So Tamburlaine's conveyed to Africa. When the Moor's son tells of the gathering dangers, Muly Hamet says

"Why, boy,

Are we successors to the great Abdelmunen,

* A glance at Tamburlaine's last words in the second part of Marowe's play: "For Tamburlaine, the scourge of God, must die.”

Descended from th' Arabian Muly Xarif,
And shall we be afraid of Bassas, and of bugs,
Raw-head and Bloody-bone?

Boy, seest here this scimitar by my side?

Sith they begin to bathe in blood,

Blood be the theme whereon our time shall tread;
Such slaughter with my weapon shall I make

As through the stream and bloody channels deep
Our Moors shall sail in ships and pinnaces

From Tangier shore unto the gates of Fez."

But an alarum within is followed by the cry, "Fly, King of Fez, King of Morocco, fly!" and the Moor, at the end of the act, rolls off in his chariot to the rumble of some more big words.

The Presenter opens the next act with the thunder of Nemesis. Three ghosts within, of the two children and their uncle, cry "Vindicta!" Abdelmelec is victorious. He and his followers are grateful to the Bassa of Amurath; Rubin Archis gives her son to Amurath. The Bassa leaves with Abdelmelec a band of Janissaries, and addressing him,

says

"King of Morocco, conqueror of thy foes,

True King of Fez, Emperor of Barbary,"

O Muly Molocco, live and keep thy seat,

In spite of Fortune's spite or enemies' threats.
Ride, Bassa, now, bold Bassa, homeward ride,

As glorious as great Pompey in his pride."

It will be further evident that horses were brought on the stage in the acting of this play.

We are next shown Stukeley received by the governor of Lisbon. His ambition is that of Shakespeare's Richard III. in a small way—

"There shall no action pass my hand or sword
That cannot make a step to gain a crown;
No word shall pass the office of my tongue
That sounds not of affection to a crown
No thought have being in my lordly breast

That works not every way to win a crown:

Deeds, words, and thoughts shall all be as a king's;

My chiefest company shall be with kings;

And my deserts shall counterpoise a king's:
Why should not I, then, look to be a king?
I am the Marquis now of Ireland made,