rash and unnecessary suicide." The clown calls the piece a "pageant"; it
cannot be called "a chronicle history."

Peele's "Arraignment of Paris, a Pastorall" is a court drama in the
style of Lilly, intended to flatter the Queen, "poor in action but all
the richer in gallant phrases, provided with songs, one in Italian, and
with all kinds of love scenes between shepherds and shepherdesses,
nymphs and terrestrial gods"; the diction is interesting, because it
shows revolt from the prevailing "euphuism," and therefore Peele must
be given the praise of first opposing Lilly's affected style.

The subject and action are as far removed from history as earth from
heaven; Paris is accused by Juno and Pallas before the assembled gods,
for having pronounced an unjust sentence; he is released without
punishment, but as the fair plaintiffs persist in their appeal, the
decision is left to Diana, who then awards the fatal apple, not to any
of the three goddesses, but to the wise nymph Eliza, who is as chaste as
she is beautiful and powerful. Juno, Pallas, and Venus of course agree
to this decision and lay all their gifts at the feet of the Queen. At
the end, even the three Fates appear, in order, in a Latin chant, to
deliver up the emblems of their power, and therewith the power itself,
to the exalted nymph.

"The Old Wife's Tale, a pleasant conceited Comedie," published in 1595,
is a dramatized old wife's story told to three erring fancies, Frolic,
Antic and Fantastic, quite in the style of a fairy tale, "always
wavering in the peculiar twilight, between profound sense and nonsense,
between childish play and matured humor." Two brothers who have lost
their sisters appear, and then an insolent giant, swaggering with a
double-edged sword and attended by an enamored fool, and finally a
knight-errant devoting his fortune to pay the stingy sexton for the
burial of a victim of poverty; they are now hunting for the princess,
the sisters, and the beloved lady, and to free them from the sorcerer;
none of them succeed in the effort, except the knight, "and he only by
the help of the ghost of the poor Jack whose body he buried."

"The Battel of Alcazar fought in Barbarie" is attributed to Peele and
was published in 1586, soon after Marlowe's "Tamburlaine," after which
it is modelled and to which it expressly refers. The commentator says:
"It is a mere battle piece, full of perpetual fighting and noise, of
which the action almost exclusively