The bright boy tossed his falcon; then, with spur
Pressed to his jennet’s flank, and head thrown back,
And all the spirit of life within his eye
And voice, he drew not rein, till the spent quarry
Lay cowering ’neath the hawk’s expanded wings.”
To us, this dash into description, at the very beginning of the play, shows how thoroughly our author feels himself at home. Had he not been a conscious master of his art, he would scarcely have made such a venture, for fear of exciting the suspicion that his talent lay in the direction of descriptive rather than of dramatic poetry. As it is, Wyatt’s burst of eloquence lends much to the easy strength of this first scene.
We are little prepared, however, for the daring feat of two heroines: each heroine enough to have the play to herself, yet neither overshadowing the other. So lovely is the character of Lady Jane Grey,
and so keenly are our sympathies enlisted on her side, that we are astonished to find any room left in our hearts for Mary Tudor; whereas, in fact, so royal the latter’s bearing, so truly is she “every inch a” queen, so indisputable are her rights, so outrageous her wrongs, that we end by seeing only her noble qualities, and even forgive her Jane Grey’s death.
The poet introduces Lady Jane at that post where woman is always “a ministering angel”—by the death-bed of her cousin, King Edward. She has been reading him to sleep, and he has just awaked.
“Jane. How fares your Highness now?