des as grasse downe waid with due.
Then cheere ye upp, my lord, and cheere upp us,
For now our valours are extinguished
And all our force lyes drownd in brinish teares,
As Jewells in the bottome of the sea.
--I doe beseech your grace to heare mee speake.
[_Edricus talks to him_.

The next piece (leaves 119-135), which is without a title, is founded on
the Charlemagne romances. My friend, Mr. S.L. Lee, editor of _Huon of
Bordeaux_, in answer to my inquiries writes as follows: "Almost all the
characters in this play are the traditional heroes of the French
Charlemagne romances, and stand in the same relation to one another as
in the _Lyf of Charles the Grete_ and the _Four Sons of Aymon_, both of
which were first printed by Caxton, and secured through later editions a
wide popularity in England during the XVIth century. I believe, however,
that the story of the magic ring is drawn from another source. It is
unknown to the Charlemagne romances of France and England, but it
appears in several German legends of the Emperor, and is said to be
still a living tradition at Aix-la-Chapelle, where the episode is
usually localised (cf. Gaston, Paris, _Histoire Poetique de
Charlemagne_, p. 383). Petrarch has given a succinct account of it in a
letter written from Cologne, in which he states that he learnt it from
the priests of the city, and it is through his narrative that the legend
appears to have reached England. John Skelton in his poem 'Why come ye
not to court?' quotes the story, and refers to the Italian poet as his
authority (cf. Dyce's Skelton, II. 48 and 364, where the letter is
printed at length). Southey has also made the tradition the subject of a
ballad entitled _King Charlemain_ to which he has prefixed a French
translation of the passage of Petrarch. In 1589 George Peele in a
_Farewell_ addressed to Morris and Drake on setting out with the English
forces for Spain tells them to

Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio, & mighty Tamburlaine,
King _Charlemagne_, Tom Stukeley and the rest
Adieu.

Dyce, in a note on this passage (Dyce's Peele, II. 88) writes: 'No drama
called _Charlemagne_ has come down to us, nor am I acquainted with any
old play in which that monarch figures.' But we know from Henslowe's
diary that in at least two plays that were dramatised from Charlemagne
romances the Emperor must have taken a part." Mr. Lee conclude