_State Poems_, Vol. III. p. 154.
The Tunbridge ballad, which our author also ascribes to Shadwell or
his assistant, I have not found among the numerous libels of the
time.
36. The "Massacre of Paris" appears to have been written by Lee,
during the time of the Popish plot, and if then brought out, the
subject might have been extravagantly popular. It would appear it
was suppressed at the request of the French ambassador. Several
speeches, and even a whole scene seem to have been transplanted to
the "Duke of Guise," which were afterwards replaced, when the
Revolution rendered the "Massacre of Paris," again a popular topic.
There were, among others, the description of the meeting of Alva
and the queen mother at Bayonne; the sentiments expressed
concerning the assassination of Caesar, and especially the whole
quarrelling scene between Guise and Grillon, which, in the
"Massacre of Paris," passes between Guise and the admiral
Chastillon. In the preface to the "Princess of Cleves," which was
acted in 1689, Lee gives the following account of the transposition
of these passages. "The Duke of Guise, who was notorious for a
bolder fault, has wrested two whole scenes from the original, (the
Massacre just before mentioned,) which, after the vacation, he will
be forced to pay.
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