Page:The Age of Shakespeare - Swinburne (1908).djvu/226

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THOMAS HEYWOOD
209

queen's fame as follows:—'To write largely of her troubles, being a princesse, or of her rare and remarkable Reigne after she was Queen, I should but feast you with dyet twice drest: Having my selfe published a discourse of the first: from her cradle to her crowne; and in another bearing Title of the nine worthy Women: she being the last of the rest in time and place; though equall to any of the former both in religious vertue, and all masculine magnanimity.' This surely looks but too much as though the dramatist and poet thought more of the chronicler and compiler than of the truer Heywood whose name is embalmed in the affection and admiration of his readers even to this day; as though the author of 'A Challenge for Beauty,' 'The Fair Maid of the West,' and 'A Woman Killed with Kindness,' must have hoped and expected to be remembered rather as the author of 'Troja Britannica,' 'Γυναικῖον,' 'The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels,' and even this 'Life of Merlin, sirnamed Ambrosius. His Prophesies, and Predictions Interpreted; and their truth made good by our English Annalls': undoubtedly, we may believe, 'a Subject never published in this kind before, and deserves' (sic) 'to be knowne and observed by all men.' Here follows the motto: 'Quotque aderant Vates, rebar adesse Deos.' The biographer and chronographer