TWO PASSAGES FROM
ELIZABETHAN PLAYS
WW

I. BY GEORGE PEELE

(1558-1597?)

TRIUMPHANT Edward, how, like sturdy oaks,
Do these thy soldiers circle thee about,
To shield and shelter thee from winter's storms!
Display thy cross, old Aimes of the Vies:
Dub on your drums, tannèd with India's sun,
My lusty western lads : Matrevars, thou
Sound proudly here a perfect point of war
In honour of thy sovereign's safe return.
Thus Longshanka bids his soldiers Bien venu.

O God, my God, the brightness of my day,
How oft has thou preserv'd thy servant safe,
By sea and land, yea, in the gates of death!
O God, to thee how highly am I bound
For setting me with these on English ground!
One of my mansion-houses will I give
To be a college for my maimed men,
Where every one shall have an hundred marks
Of yearly pension to his maintenance :
A soldier that for Christ and country fights
Shall want no living whilst King Edward lives.
Lords, you that love me, now be liberal,

And give your largess to these maimèd mer.

King Edward I.

II. BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(1564-1616)

THIS royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise ;

This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world.

King Richard II, Act II, Sc. i.

A FEW miles from my cottage is a quiet coombe, so remote that the spirit of past time lingers in every nook and colours each thought and utterance. It is shaped like a cup, and gently sloping hills circle around with even brim. At the bottom lie level meadows and a hamlet of three or four homesteads, with a sprinkling of cottages and a little mill beside a winding brook. It has no name of its own upon the map. It forms an outlying part of a parish that cannot be seen from the hilltop. But it still holds one draught of the unmixed wine of happy, simple life.

Around this spot lies a pastoral country.

Here and there on the hill-side may be found a square arable patch; but at that time of the year, before the corn had begun to yellow, it was scarcely to be distinguished in colour from the surrounding fields of grass.

With so little land broken to the furrow, ploughing is soon done. Between the beginning of reaping