[Greek:  “Hippon m’okypodon amphi ktypos ouata ballei,”]

he drove the steel into his throat.  To the centurion, who pretended that he had come to his aid and who vainly tried to stanch the wound, he replied “Sero, et Haec est fides!” and expired.

Such is the tragic tale of horror told by Suetonius.  Nero’s last words in the play “O Rome, farewell,” &c., seem very poor to “Sero et Haec est fides”; but, if the playwright was young and inexperienced, we can hardly wonder that his strength failed him at this supreme moment.  Surely the wonder should rather be that we find so many noble passages throughout this anonymous play.  Who the writer may have been I dare not conjecture.  In his fine rhetorical power he resembles Chapman; but he had a far truer dramatic gift than that great but chaotic writer.  He is never tiresome as Chapman is, who, when he has said a fine thing, seems often to set himself to undo the effect.  His gorgeous imagination and his daring remind us of Marlowe; the leave-taking of Petronius is certainly worthy of Marlowe.  He is like Marlowe, too, in another way,—­he has no comic power and (wiser, in this respect, than Ford) is aware of his deficiency.  We find in Nero none of those touches of swift subtle pathos that dazzle us in the Duchess of Malfy; but we find strokes of sarcasm no less keen and trenchant.  Sometimes in the ring of the verse and in turns of expression, we seem to catch Shakespearian echoes; as here—­

“Staid men suspect their wisedome or their faith, To whom our counsels we have not reveald; And while (our party seeking to disgrace) They traitors call us, each man treason praiseth And hateth faith, when Piso is a traitor.” (iv. i);

or here—­

“’Cause you were lovely therefore did I love:  O, if to Love you anger you so much, You should not have such cheekes nor lips to touch:  You should not have your snow nor curral spy’d;—­ If you but look on us, in vain you chide:  We must not see your Face, nor heare your speech:  Now, while you Love forbid, you Love doe teach.”

I am inclined to think that the tragedy of Nero was the first and last attempt of some young student, steeped in classical learning and attracted by the strange fascination of the Annals,—­of one who, failing to gain a hearing at first, never courted the breath of popularity again; just as the author of Joseph and his Brethren, when his noble poem fell still-born from the press, turned contemptuously away and preserved thenceforward an unbroken silence.  It should be noticed that the 4to. of 1633 is not really a new edition; it is merely the 4to. of 1624, with a new title-page.  In a copy bearing the later date I found a few unimportant differences of reading; but no student of the Elizabethan drama needs to be reminded that variae lectiones not uncommonly occur in copies of the same edition.  The words “newly written” on the title-page are meant to distinguish the Tragedy of Nero from the wretched Tragedy of Claudius Tiberius Nero published in 1607.