How oft in arms on horse to bend the mace,
How oft in arms on foot to break the sword,
Which never now these eyes may see again!’
There seems a reference to Chaucer in the wording of the following lines—
‘Then saw I how he smiled with slaying knife
Wrapp’d under cloke, then saw I deep deceit
Lurk in his face, and death prepared for me.’[[14]]
Sir Philip Sidney says of this tragedy: ‘Gorboduc is full of stately speeches, and well sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full of notable morality; which it doth most delightfully teach, and thereby obtain the very end of poetry.’ And Mr. Pope, whose taste in such matters was very different from Sir Philip Sidney’s, says in still stronger terms: ‘That the writers of the succeeding age might have improved as much in other respects, by copying from him a propriety in the sentiments, an unaffected perspicuity of style, and an easy flow in the numbers. In a word, that chastity, correctness, and gravity of style, which are so essential to tragedy, and which all the tragic poets who followed, not excepting Shakespear himself, either little understood, or perpetually neglected.’ It was well for us and them that they did so!
The Induction to the Mirrour for Magistrates does his Muse more credit. It sometimes reminds one of Chaucer, and at others seems like an anticipation, in some degree, both of the measure and manner of Spenser. The following stanzas may give the reader an idea of the merit of this old poem, which was published in 1563.
‘By him lay heauie Sleepe cosin of Death