of Jane and her mother, and closes as the victim of another’s ambition heroically ascends the scaffold. In the last scene Mary reaches Jane’s prison to find her gone, and rushes to the window in the hope of signalling the executioner, but only in time to see him hold up the severed head.
* * * * *
We shall now introduce our readers to some of the best passages from this play. Our only difficulty will be to restrict their number within necessary limits, for there is not a page but invites quotation. Here is a fine bit of description to begin with. It is from the opening scene. Sir Thomas Wyatt is amazed to learn that the king is “sick to death.”
“Wyatt. How can it be? But one short month it seems
Since I beheld him on his jennet’s back,
With hawk on wrist, his bounding hounds beside,
Charge up the hillside through the golden gorse,
Swallowing the west wind, till his cheeks glowed out
Like ripened pears. The whirring pheasant sprang
From the hedged bank; and, with a shout, in air