Bellina.  A fortunate day; A great power prompts me on and I obey.

(Flourish)

Omnes.  Long live Hubert and Bellina, King and Queene Of Goths and Vandals.

Hub.  Two royall Iewels you give me, this and this: 
Father, your hand is lucky, I am covetous
Of one Gift more:  After your sacred way
Make you this Queene a wife:  our Coronation
Is turn’d into a bridall.

Omnes.  All ioy and happinesse.

Hub.  To guard your lives will I lay out mine owne, And like Vines plant you round about my throne.

The end of the fift and last Act.

To the Reader of this Play now come in Print.

That this play’s old ’tis true; but now if any
Should for that cause despise it we have many
Reasons, both iust and pregnant, to maintaine
Antiquity, and those, too, not all vaine. 
We know (and not long since) there was a time
Strong lines were not lookt after, but, if Rime,
O then ’twas excellent.  Who but beleeves
That Doublets with stuft bellies and big sleeves
And those Trunk-hose[177] which now our life doth scorne
Were all in fashion and with custome worne? 
And what’s now out of date who is’t can tell
But it may come in fashion and sute well? 
With rigour therefore iudge not but with reason,
Since what you read was fitted to that season.

The Epilogue.

As in a Feast, so in a Comedy,
Two Sences must be pleas’d; in both the Eye;
In Feasts the Eye and Taste must be invited,
In Comedies the Eye and Eare delighted: 
And he that only seekes to please but either,
While both he doth not please, he pleaseth neither. 
What ever Feast could every guest content,
When as t’each man each Taste is different? 
But lesse a Scene, when nought but as ’tis newer
Can please, where Guests are more and Dishes fewer. 
Yet in this thought, this thought the Author eas’d;
Who once made all, all rules all never pleas’d.[178]
Faine would we please the best, if not the many;
And sooner will the best be pleas’d then any. 
Our rest we set[179] in pleasing of the best;
So we wish you, what you may give us, Rest.

FINIS.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NOBLE SOULDIER.

In December, 1633, Nicholas Vavasour entered the Noble Spanish Souldier on the Stationers’ Registers as a work of Dekker’s; and in the following year the same publisher brought out the Noble Soldier with the initials S.R. on the title-page.  The running-title of the piece is The Noble Spanish Souldier.  There is nothing to hinder us from supposing that Dekker, unwilling to take the credit due to his dead friend, informed the publisher of the mistake.  Possibly the play had undergone some revision at Dekker’s hands.