Viol. None, of my Maidenhead, Father; I am gone: 
    The Amazon hath wonne one.

    Lis. Yield to that.

    Viol. The cast I doe.

    Lis. Yourselfe?

    Viol. Nay scrape out that. (II. v.)[297]

The unprinted dramas founded on the Arcadia need not detain us long.  One is preserved in a volume of manuscript plays in the British Museum, and is entitled Love’s Changelings’ Change.[298] It is written in a hand of the first half of the seventeenth century, small and neat, but, partly on account of the porous nature of the paper, exceedingly hard to read.  The dramatis personae include a full cast from the Arcadia; and somewhat more stress appears to be laid on the pastoral elements than is the case in either of the printed plays.  From what I have thought it necessary to decipher, however, I see no reason to differ from Mr. Bullen, who dismisses it as ’a dull play.’[299] The prologue may serve as a specimen of the style of the piece.

    This Scaene’s prepar’d for those that longe to see
    The crosse Meanders in Loves destinie;
    To see the changes in a shatterd wit
    Proove a man Changlinge in attemptinge it;
    To change a noble minde t’a gloz’d intent
    Beefore such change will let um see th’ event. 
    This change our Famous Princes had, beefore
    Their borrowed shape could speake um any more,
    And nought but this our Poet feares will seize
    Your liking fancies with that new disease. 
    Wee hope the best:  all wee can say tis strange
    To heare with patient eares Loves changelinges Change

—­which, if this is a fair sample, is very likely true.  Below the prologue the writer has added the couplet: 

    Th’ old wits are gone:  looke for noe new thing by us,
    For nullum est jam Dictum quod non sit dictum prius.

The other play is preserved in a Bodleian manuscript,[300] and is entitled ‘The Arcadian Lovers, or the Metamorphosis of Princes.’  ’The name of the author,’ writes Mr. Hazlitt following Halliwell, ’was probably Moore, for in the volume, written by the same hand as the play, is a dedication to Madam Honoria Lee from the “meanest of her kinsmen,” Thomas Moore.  A person of this name wrote A Brief Discourse about Baptism, 1649.’  Mr. Falconer Madan, however, in his catalogue ascribes the manuscript to the early eighteenth century, a date certainly more in accordance with the character of the handwriting.  If, therefore, the conjecture concerning the author’s name is correct, he may be plausibly identified with the Sir Thomas Moore whose tragedy Mangora was acted in 1717.  The manuscript, which contains various poetical essays, includes not only the complete play, which is in prose, but also a verse paraphrase of a large portion of the same.  Neither prose nor verse possesses the least merit.[301]