“Pop.  I prayse your witt, my Lord, that choose such safe
  Honors, safe spoyles, worm without dust or blood.

  Nero.  What, mocke ye me, Poppaea.

Pop.  Nay, in good faith, my Lord, I speake in earnest:  I hate that headie and adventurous crew That goe to loose their owne to purchase but The breath of others and the common voyce; Them that will loose their hearing for a sound, That by death onely seeke to get a living, Make skarres their beautie and count losse of Limmes The commendation of a proper man, And so goe halting to immortality,—­ Such fooles I love worse then they doe their lives.”

It is indeed strange to find such lines as those in the work of an unknown author.  The verses gain strength as they advance, and the diction is terse and keen.  This one short extract would suffice to show that the writer was a literary craftsman of a very high order.

In the fourth scene, where the conspirators are met, the writer’s power is no less strikingly shown.  Here, if anywhere, his evil genius might have led him astray; for no temptation is stronger than the desire to indulge in rhetorical displays.  Even the author of Bothwell, despite his wonderful command of language, wearies us at times by his vehement iteration.  Our unknown playwright has guarded himself against this fault; and, steeped as he was to the lips in classical learning, his abstinence must have cost him some trouble.  My notes will shew that he had not confined himself to Tacitus, but had studied Suetonius and Dion Cassius, Juvenal and Persius.  He makes no parade of his learning, but we see that he has lived among his characters, leaving no source of information unexplored.  The meeting of the conspirators is brought before our eyes with wonderful vividness.  Scevinus’ opening speech glows and rings with indignation.  Seneca, in more temperate language, bewails the fall of the high hopes that he had conceived of his former pupil, finely moralizing that “High fortunes, like strong wines, do trie their vessels.”  Some spirited lines are put into Lucan’s mouth:—­

    “But to throw downe the walls and Gates of Rome
    To make an entrance for an Hobby-horse;
    To vaunt to th’people his ridiculous spoyles;
    To come with Lawrell and with Olyves crown’d
    For having been the worst of all the singers,
    Is beyond Patience!”

In another passage the grandiloquence and the vanity of the poet of the Pharsalia are well depicted.

The second act opens with Antonius’ suit to Poppaea, which is full of passion and poetry, but is not allowed to usurp too much room in the progress of the play.  Then, in fine contrast to the grovelling servility of the Emperor’s creatures, we see the erect figure of the grand stoic philosopher, Persius’ tutor, Cornutus, whose free-spokenness procures him banishment.  Afterwards follows a second conference of the conspirators, in which scene the author has followed closely in the steps of Tacitus.