ic composition; his protestation, after the trial, a
pathetic prayer! Neale has preserved both in his "History of
the Puritans." With what simplicity of eloquence he
remonstrates on the temporising government of Elizabeth. He
thus addresses the Queen, under the title of Madam!--"Your
standing is, and has been, by the Gospel: it is little
beholden to you for anything that appears. The practice of
your government shows that if you could have ruled without the
Gospel, it would have been doubtful whether the Gospel
should be established or not; for now that you are established
in your throne by the Gospel, you suffer it to reach no
farther than the end of your sceptre limiteth unto it." Of a
milder, and more melancholy cast, is the touching language,
when the hope of life, but not the firmness of his cause had
deserted him. "I look not to live this week to an end. I
never took myself for a rebuker, much less for a reformer of
states and kingdoms. I never did anything in this cause for
contention, vainglory, or to draw disciples after me.
Great things, in this life, I never sought for: sufficiency I
had, with great outward trouble; but most content I was with
my lot, and content with my untimely death, though I leave
behind me a friendless widow and four infants."--Such is often
the pathetic cry of the simple-hearted, who fall the
victims to the political views of more designing heads.

We could hardly have imagined that this eloquent and serious
young man was that Martin Mar-Prelate who so long played the
political ape before the populace, with all the mummery of
their low buffoonery, and even mimicking their own idioms. The
populace, however, seems to have been divided in their
opinions respecting the sanity of his politics, as appears by
some ludicrous lines, made on Penry's death, by a northern
rhymer.

"The Welshman is hanged,
Who at our kirke flanged,
And at the state banged,
And brened are his buks.
And though he be hanged,
Yet he is not wranged;
The deil has him fanged
In his kruked kluks."
WEEVER'S _Funerall Monuments_, p. 56. Edit. 1631.

[423] Observe what different c