Note 39 — THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.
Reading edition
We shall here insert the last meeting of the royal brothers, as described in "Windsor Castle," which the reader may contrast with the same theme in the "Threnodia:"
Here, painter, if thou can'st, thy art improve, And show the wonders of fraternal love; How mourning James by fading Charles did stand, The dying grasping the surviving hand; How round each others necks their arms they cast, Moaned, with endearing murmurings, and embraced; And of their parting pangs such marks did give, 'Twere hard to guess which yet could longest live. Both their sad tongues quite lost the power to speak, And their kind hearts seemed both prepared to break.