[307] The Authoure.
With that she flitted in the ayre abrode,
As twere a miste or smooke dissolued quite,
And or I long on this had made abode,
A virgine smale, appearde before my sight,
For colde and wet eke scarsly moue she might.
As from the waters drownd didering came,
Thus wise hir tale in order did she frame.
ed. 1575.
[308] Many of the incidents of the preceding lives are united to form the plot of “the lamentable Tragedie of Locrine, the eldest son of King Brutus, discoursinge the warres of the Britaines,” entered in the Stationers Books 1594. The first act shows Brutus sick, making the division of the kingdom among his sons Albanact, Humber, and Locrine. The succeeding acts exhibit their wars on each other, and in the last is that created by Guendoline against Locrine, concluding with his death and those of his concubine and daughter the Lady Sabrine. See Malone’s Supplement, Vol II. p. 189. There is also “an old ballad of a duke of Cornwall’s daughter,” (Guendoline) inserted in Evans’s Ballads, 1784, Vol. I. The respective writers appear to have consulted the Mirror for Magistrates. In the persons represented in the play the author has chosen to deviate from all chronicle history by making “Madan, daughter of Locrine and Guendolen.”