[_Exeunt omnes_.

FINIS.

_This Play, call'd the Lady Moth[er] (the Reformacons observ'd) may be
acted. October the xvth_, 1635.

WILL. BLAGRAVE, _Dept. to the [Master] of the Revell[s]_.

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRAGEDY OF SIR JOHN VAN OLDEN BARNAVELT.

I have never met anywhere with the slightest allusion to this fine
historical play, now for the first time printed from a MS.[140] in the
British Museum (Add. MS. 18,653). It is curious that it should have been
left to the present editor to call attention to a piece of such
extraordinary interest; for I have no hesitation in predicting that
Barnavelt's Tragedy, for its splendid command of fiery dramatic
rhetoric, will rank among the masterpieces of English dramatic
literature.

On a first rapid inspection I assumed, with most uncritical
recklessness, that Chapman was the author. There are not wanting points
of general resemblance between Chapman's Byron and the imperious,
unbending spirit of the great Advocate as he is here represented; but in
diction and versification, the present tragedy is wholly different from
any work of Chapman's. When I came to transcribe the piece, I soon
became convinced that it was to a great extent the production of
Fletcher. There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt about the
authorship of such lines as the following:--

"_Barnavelt_. My noble Lords, what is't appeares upon me
So ougly strange you start and fly my companie?
What plague sore have ye spide, what taynt in honour,
What ill howre in my life so cleere deserving
That rancks in this below your fellowships?
For which of all my cares, of all my watches,
My services (too many and too mightie
To find rewards) am I thus recompenced,
Not lookd on, not saluted, left forgotten
Like one that came to petition to your honours--
Over the shoulder slighted?

_Bredero_. Mounsieur _Barnavelt_,
I am sorry that a man of your great wisdom
And those rare parts that make ye lov'd and honourd,
In every Princes Court highly esteemd of,
Should loose so much in point of good and vertue
Now in the time you ought to fix your faith fast,
The credit of your age, carelessly loose it,--
dare not say ambitiously,--that your best friends
And those that ever thought on your example
Dare not with comon safetie now salute ye" (iii. 1).

Such a verse as,--

"In every Princes Court highly este