Filled it with noisy brawls and windy boasts;
And with past service, nauseously repeated,
Reproached even me, thy prince?

Dor. And well I might, when you forgot reward,
The part of heaven in kings; for punishment
Is hangman's work, and drudgery for devils.
I must and will reproach thee with my service,
Tyrant! It irks me so to call my prince;
But just resentment and hard usage coined
The unwilling word, and, grating as it is,
Take it, for 'tis thy due.

Seb. How, tyrant?

Dor. Tyrant!

Seb. Traitor! that name thou canst not echo back: That robe of infamy, that circumcision,

Ill hid beneath that robe, proclaim thee traitor;
And if a name

More foul than traitor be, 'tis renegade.

Dor. If I'm a traitor, think, and blush, thou tyrant, Whose injuries betrayed me into treason, Effaced my loyalty, unhinged my faith, And hurried me from hopes of heaven to hell; All these, and all my yet unfinished crimes, When I shall rise to plead before the saints, I charge on thee, to make thy damning sure.

Seb. Thy old presumptuous arrogance again,
That bred my first dislike, and then my loathing;
Once more be warned, and know me for thy king.
Dor. Too well I know thee, but for king no more:
This is not Lisbon, nor the circle this,
Where, like a statue, thou hast stood besieged
By sycophants and fools, the growth of courts;
Where thy gulled eyes, in all the gaudy round,
Met nothing but a lie in every face;
And the gross flattery of a gaping crowd,
Envious who first should catch, and first applaud
The stuff or royal nonsense: when I spoke,

My honest homely words were carped, and censured,
For want of courtly style: related actions,
Though modestly reported, passed for boasts:
Secure of merit, if I asked reward,

Thy hungry minions thought their rights invaded,
And the bread snatched from pimps and parasites.
Henriquez answered, with a ready lie,

To save his king's, the boon was begged before.
Seb. What say'st thou of Henriquez? Now, by
Heaven,

Thou mov'st me more by barely naming him,
Than all thy foul, unmannered, scurril taunts.

Dor. And therefore 'twas to gall thee that I named

him;

That thing, that nothing, but a cringe and smile;
That woman, but more daubed; or if a man,
Corrupted to a woman; thy man-mistress.
Seb. All false as hell or thou.

Dor. Yes; full as false

As that I served thee fifteen hard campaigns,
And pitched thy standard in these foreign fields:
By me thy greatness grew; thy years grew with it,
But thy ingratitude outgrew them both.

Seb. I see to what thou tend'st; but tell me first,
If those great acts were done alone for me:
If love produced not some, and pride the rest?

Dor. Why, love does all that's noble here below:
But all the advantage of that love was thine :
For, coming fraughted back, in either hand
With palm and olive, victory and peace,
I was indeed prepared to ask my own-
For Violante's vows were mine before-
Thy malice had prevention, ere I spoke;
And asked me Violante for Henriquez.

Seb. I meant thee a reward of greater worth. Dor. Where justice wanted, could reward be hoped? Could the robbed passenger expect a bounty From those rapacious hands who stripped him first? Seb. He had my promise ere I knew thy love.

Dor. My services deserved thou shouldst revoke it.

Seb. Thy insolence had cancelled all thy service; To violate my laws, even in my court, Sacred to peace, and safe from all affronts; Even to my face, and done in my despite, Under the wing of awful majesty

To strike the man I loved!

Dor. Even in the face of heaven, a place more sacred, Would I have struck the man who, prompt by power, Would seize my right, and rob me of my love: But, for a blow provoked by thy injustice, The hasty product of a just despair, When he refused to meet me in the field,

That thou shouldst make a coward's cause thy own! Seb. He durst: nay, more, desired and begged with tears,

To meet thy challenge fairly: 'twas thy fault
To make it public; but my duty then

To interpose, on pain of my displeasure,
Betwixt your swords.

Dor. On pain of infamy

He should have disobeyed.

Seb. The indignity thou didst was meant to me: Thy gloomy eyes were cast on me with scorn, As who should say, the blow was there intended; But that thou didst not dare to lift thy hands Against anointed power: so was I forced To do a sovereign justice to myself, And spurn thee from my presence.

Dor. Thou hast dared

To tell me what I durst not tell myself:

I durst not think that I was spurned, and live;
And live to hear it boasted to my face.
All my long avarice of honour lost,
Heaped up in youth, and hoarded up for age:
Has honour's fountain then sucked back the stream?
He has; and hooting boys may dry-shod pass,
And gather pebbles from the naked ford.
Give me my love, my honour; give them back-
Give me revenge, while I have breath to ask it.

Seb. Now, by this honoured order which I wear, More gladly would I give than thou dar'st ask it. Nor shall the sacred character of king

Be urged to shield me from thy bold appeal.
If I have injured thee, that makes us equal:
The wrong, if done, debased me down to thee:
But thou hast charged me with ingratitude;
Hast thou not charged me? Speak.

Dor. Thou know'st I have:
If thou disown'st that imputation, draw,
And prove my charge a lie.

Seb. No; to disprove that lie, I must not draw:
Be conscious to thy worth, and tell thy soul
What thou hast done this day in my defence;
To fight thee, after this, what were it else
Than owning that ingratitude thou urgest?
That isthmus stands between two rushing seas,
Which, mounting, view each other from afar,
And strive in vain to meet.

Dor. I'll cut that isthmus:

Thou know'st I meant not to preserve thy life,
But to reprieve it, for my own revenge.

I saved thee out of honourable malice:
Now, draw; I should be loath to think thou dar'st not:
Beware of such another vile excuse.

Seb. Oh, patience, Heaven!

Dor. Beware of patience too;

That's a suspicious word: it had been proper,
Before thy foot had spurned me; now, 'tis base:
Yet, to disarm thee of thy last defence,

I have thy oath for my security:
The only boon I begged was this fair combat:
Fight, or be perjured now; that's all thy choice.
Seb. Now can I thank thee as thou wouldst be

thanked:

[Drawing

Never was vow of honour better paid,
If my true sword but hold, than this shall be.
The sprightly bridegroom, on his wedding night,

He

the poet went with his regiment to Flanders. was soon cashiered, in consequence of his irregularities, and returning to England, he resumed writing for the stage. In 1680, he produced Caius Marcius and the Orphan, tragedies; in 1681, the Soldier's Fortune, and in 1682, Venice Preserved. The short eventful life of Otway, checkered by want and extravagance, was prematurely closed April 14, 1685. One of his biographers relates that the immediate cause of his death was his hastily swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. According to another account, he died of fever, occasioned by fatigue, or by drinking water when violently heated. Whatever was the immediate cause of his death, he was at the time in circumstances of great poverty.

The fame of Otway now rests on his two tragedies, the Orphan and Venice Preserved; but on these it rests as on the pillars of Hercules. His talents in scenes of passionate affection 'rival, at least,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'and sometimes excel, those of Shakspeare: more tears have been shed, probably, for the sorrows of Belvidera and Monimia than for those of Juliet and Desdemona.' This is excessive praise. The plot of the Orphan, from its inherent indelicacy and painful associations, has driven that play from the theatres; but Venice Preserved is still one of the most popular and effective tragedies. The stern plotting character of Pierre is well contrasted with the irresolute, sensitive, and affectionate nature of Jaffier; and the harsh unnatural cruelty of Priuli serves as a dark shade, to set off the bright purity and tenderness of his daughter. The pathetic and harrowing plot is well managed, and deepens towards the close; and the genius of Otway shines in his delineation of the passions of the heart, the ardour of love, and the excess of misery and despair. The versification of these dramas is sometimes rugged and irregular, and there are occasional redundancies and inflated expressions, which a more correct taste would have expunged; yet, even in propriety of style and character, how much does this young and careless poet excel the great master Dryden!

Scene from Venice Preserved.

Scene St Mark's. Enter PRIULI and JAFFIER.

Priuli. No more! I'll hear no more! begone, and leave me!

Jaffer. Not hear me! by my sufferings but you shall!

My lord-my lord! I'm not that abject wretch
You think me. Patience! where's the distance throws
Me back so far, but I may boldly speak

In right, though proud oppression will not hear me?
Pri. Have you not wronged me?

Jaf. Could my nature e'er

Have brooked injustice, or the doing wrong,

I need not now thus low have bent myself

To gain a hearing from a cruel father.
Wronged you?

Pri. Yes, wronged me! in the nicest point,
The honour of my house, you've done me wrong.
You may remember-for I now will speak,
And urge its baseness--when you first came home
From travel, with such hopes as made you looked on
By all men's eyes, a youth of expectation;
Pleased with your growing virtue, I received you;
Courted, and sought to raise you to your merits;
My house, my table, nay, my fortune too,

My very self, was yours; you might have used me

322

To your best service; like an open friend
I treated, trusted you, and thought you mine;
When, in requital of my best endeavours,
You treacherously practised to undo me;
Seduced the weakness of my age's darling,
My only child, and stole her from my bosom.
Oh, Belvidera!

Jaf. 'Tis to me you owe her:
Childless had you been else, and in the grave
Your name extinct; no more Priuli heard of.
You may remember, scarce five years are past,
Since in your brigantine you sailed to see
The Adriatic wedded by our duke;
And I was with you: your unskilful pilot
Dashed us upon a rock; when to your boat
You made for safety: entered first yourself;
The affrighted Belvidera, following next,
As she stood trembling on the vessel's side,
Was by a wave washed off into the deep;
When instantly I plunged into the sea,
And buffeting the billows to her rescue,
Redeemed her life with half the loss of mine.
Like a rich conquest, in one hand I bore her,
And with the other dashed the saucy waves,
That thronged and pressed to rob me of my prize.
I brought her, gave her to your despairing arms:
Indeed, you thanked me; but a nobler gratitude
Rose in her soul: for from that hour she loved me,
Till for her life she paid me with herself.

Pri. You stole her from me; like a thief you stole her,

At dead of night! that cursed hour you chose
To rifle me of all my heart held dear.
May all your joys in her prove false, like mine!
A sterile fortune and a barren bed
Attend you both: continual discord make
Your days and nights bitter, and grievous still:
May the hard hand of a vexatious need
Oppress and grind you; till at last you find
The curse of disobedience all your portion !

Jaf. Half of your curse you have bestowed in vain.
Heaven has already crowned our faithful loves
With a young boy, sweet as his mother's beauty:
May he live to prove more gentle than his grandsire,
And happier than his father!

Pri. Rather live

To bate thee for his bread, and din your ears
With hungry cries; whilst his unhappy mother
Sits down and weeps in bitterness of want.
Jaf. You talk as if 'twould please you.
Pri. 'Twould, by Heaven!

Faf. Would I were in my grave!

Pri. And she, too, with thee;

For, living here, you're but my cursed remembrancers I once was happy!

Jaf. You use me thus, because you know my soul Is fond of Belvidera. You perceive

My life feeds on her, therefore thus treat you me.
Were I that thief, the doer of such wrongs
As you upbraid me with, what hinders me
But I might send her back to you with contumely,
And court my fortune where she would be kinder?
Pri. You dare not do 't.

Faf. Indeed, my lord, I dare not.

My heart, that awes me, is too much my master: Three years are past since first our vows were plighted, During which time the world must bear me witness I've treated Belvidera like your daughter,

The daughter of a senator of Venice:

Distinction, place, attendance, and observance,
Due to her birth, she always has commanded:

Out of my little fortune I've done this;

Because though hopeless e'er to win your natureThe world might see I loved her for herself;

Not as the heiress of the great Priuli.

Pri. No more.

Jaf. Yes, all, and then adieu for ever.

There's not a wretch that lives on common charity
But's happier than me; for I have known
The luscious sweets of plenty; every night
Have slept with soft content about my head,
And never waked but to a joyful morning:
Yet now must fall, like a full ear of corn,

Whose blossom 'scaped, yet 's withered in the ripening.
Pri. Home, and be humble; study to retrench;
Discharge the lazy vermin in thy hall,

Those pageants of thy folly:

Reduce the glittering trappings of thy wife

To humble weeds, fit for thy little state:

Were in their spring! Has, then, my fortune changed thee?

Art thou not, Belvidera, still the same,

Kind, good, and tender, as my arms first found thee?
If thou art altered, where shall I have harbour?
Where ease my loaded heart? Oh! where complain?
Bel. Does this appear like change, or love decaying,
When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,
With all the resolution of strong truth?
I joy more in thee

Than did thy mother, when she hugged thee first,
And blessed the gods for all her travail past.

Jaf. Can there in woman be such glorious faith? Sure, all ill stories of thy sex are false !

Oh, woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you!
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There's in you all that we believe of Heaven;
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love!

Bel. If love be treasure, we 'll be wondrous rich.
Oh! lead me to some desert, wide and wild,
Barren as our misfortunes, where my soul
May have its vent, where I may tell aloud
To the high heavens, and every list'ning planet,
With what a boundless stock my bosom 's fraught.
Jaf. O Belvidera! doubly I'm a beggar:
Undone by fortune, and in debt to thee.
Want, worldly want, that hungry meagre fiend,
Is at my heels, and chases me in view.

Canst thou bear cold and hunger? Can these limbs,
Framed for the tender offices of love,

Endure the bitter gripes of smarting poverty?
When banished by our miseries abroad-
As suddenly we shall be-to seek out

In some far climate, where our names are strangers,
For charitable succour, wilt thou then,
When in a bed of straw we shrink together,

And the bleak winds shall whistle round our heads;
Wilt thou then talk thus to me? Wilt thou then
Hush my cares thus, and shelter me with love?

Bel. Oh! I will love, even in madness love thee! Though my distracted senses should forsake me,

I'd find some intervals when my poor heart
Should 'suage itself, and be let loose to thine
Though the bare earth be all our resting place,
Its roots our food, some cliff our habitation,
I'll make this arm a pillow for thine head;
And, as thou sighing liest, and swelled with sorrow,
Creep to thy bosom, pour the balm of love
Into thy soul, and kiss thee to thy rest;

Then praise our God, and watch thee till the morning. Jaf. Hear this, you Heavens, and wonder how you made her!

Reign, reign, ye monarchs, that divide the world;
Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know
Tranquillity and happiness like mine;

Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall,
And rise again, to lift you in your pride;

They wait but for a storm, and then devour you!
I, in my private bark already wrecked,

Like a poor merchant, driven to unknown land,
That had, by chance, packed up his choicest treasure
In one dear casket, and saved only that:
Since I must wander farther on the shore,
Thus hug my little, but my precious store,

Resolved to scorn and trust my fate no more. [Exeunt.

Parting.

Where am I? Sure I wander 'midst enchantment,
And never more shall find the way to rest.
But, O Monimia! art thou indeed resolved
To punish me with everlasting absence?

Why turn'st thou from me? I'm alone already!
Methinks I stand upon a naked beach
Sighing to winds, and to the seas complaining;
Whilst afar off the vessel sails away,
Where all the treasure of my soul's embarked!
Wilt thou not turn? O could those eyes but speak!
I should know all, for love is pregnant in them!
They swell, they press their beams upon me still!
Wilt thou not speak? If we must part for ever,
Give me but one kind word to think upon,
And please myself with, while my heart is breaking.
The Orphan.

Picture of a Witch.

Through a close lane as I pursued my journey,
And meditating on the last night's vision,

I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself;
Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled and red,
And palsy shook her head; her hands seemed withered;
And on her crooked shoulder had she wrapped
The tattered remnant of an old striped hanging,
Which served to keep her carcass from the cold.
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patched
With different coloured rags-black, red, white, yellow,
And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness.
I asked her of the way, which she informed me;
Then craved my charity, and bade me hasten
To save a sister.

Description of Morning.

Wished Morning's come; and now upon the plains
And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks,
The happy shepherds leave their homely huts,
And with their pipes proclaim the new-born day.
The lusty swain comes with his well-filled scrip
Of healthful viands, which, when hunger calls,
With much content and appetite he eats,
To follow in the field his daily toil,
And dress the grateful glebe that yields him fruits.
The beasts that under the warm hedges slept,
And weathered out the cold bleak night, are up;
And, looking towards the neighbouring pastures, raise
Their voice, and bid their fellow-brutes good-morrow.

The cheerful birds, too, on the tops of trees, Assemble all in choirs; and with their notes Salute and welcome up the rising sun.

Killing a Boar.

Forth from the thicket rushed another boar,
So large, he seemed the tyrant of the woods,
With all his dreadful bristles raised on high;
They seemed a grove of spears upon his back;
Foaming, he came at me, where I was posted,
Whetting his huge long tusks, and gaping wide,
As he already had me for his prey;

Till, brandishing my well-poised javelin high,
With this bold executing arm I struck
The ugly brindled monster to the heart.

NATHANIEL LEE.

Another tragic poet of this period was NATHANIEL LEE, who possessed no small portion of the fire of genius, though unfortunately 'near allied' to madness. Lee was the son of a Hertfordshire clergyman, and received a classical education, first at Westminster School, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge. He tried the stage both as an actor and author, was four years in Bedlam from wild insanity; but recovering his reason, resumed his labours as a dramatist, and though subject to fits of partial derangement, continued to write till the end of his life. He was the author of eleven tragedies, besides assisting Dryden in the composition of two pieces, Edipus and the Duke of Guise. The unfortunate poet was in his latter days supported by charity: he died in London, and was buried in St Clement's Church, April 6, 1692, aged thirty-seven. The best of Lee's tragedies are the Rival Queens, or Alexander the Great, Mithridates, Theodosius, and Lucius Junius Brutus. In praising Alexander, Dryden alludes to the power of his friend in moving the passions, and counsels him to despise those critics who condemn

The too much vigour of his youthful muse. We have here indicated the source both of Lee's strength and of his weakness. In tenderness and genuine passion, he excels Dryden; but his style often degenerates into bombast and extravagant frenzy a defect which was heightened in his late productions by his mental malady. The author was aware of his weakness. 'It has often been observed against me,' he says in his dedication of Theodosius, 'that I abound in ungoverned fancy; but I hope the world will pardon the sallies of youth age, despondency, and dulness come too fast of themselves. I discommend no man for keeping the beaten road; but I am sure the noble hunters that follow the game must leap hedges and ditches sometimes, and run at all, or never come into the fall of a quarry.' He wanted discretion to temper his tropical genius, and reduce his poetical conceptions to consistency and order; yet among his wild ardour and martial enthusiasm are very soft and graceful lines. Dryden himself has no finer image than the following:

Speech is morning to the mind;

It spreads the beauteous images abroad, Which else lie furled and clouded in the soul. Or this declaration of love:

I disdain

All pomp when thou art by: far be the noise

Of kings and courts from us, whose gentle souls
Our kinder stars have steered another way.
Free as the forest-birds we 'll pair together,
Fly to the arbours, grots, and flowery meads,
And, in soft murmurs, interchange our souls:
Together drink the crystal of the stream,
Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields;
And when the golden evening calls us home,
Wing to our downy nest, and sleep till morn.

The heroic style of Lee-verging upon rodomontade-may be seen in such lines as the following, descriptive of Junius Brutus throwing off his disguise of idiocy after the rape of Lucrece by Tarquin :

As from night's womb the glorious day breaks forth,
And seems to kindle from the setting stars;

So, from the blackness of young Tarquin's crime
And furnace of his lust, the virtuous soul
Of Junius Brutus catches bright occasion.
I see the pillars of his kingdom totter :
The rape of Lucrece is the midnight lantern
That lights my genius down to the foundation.
Leave me to work, my Titus, O my son !
For from this spark a lightning shall arise,
That must ere night purge all the Roman air,
And then the thunder of his ruin follows.

JOHN CROWNE was a native of Nova Scotia, son of an Independent minister. Coming to England, he was some time gentleman-usher to an old died in obscurity about 1703. Crowne was patronlady, afterwards an author by profession. He ised by Rochester, in opposition to Dryden, as a dramatic poet. Between 1661 and 1698, he wrote seventeen pieces, two of which-namely, the tragedy of Thyestes, and the comedy of Sir Courtly Nice-evince considerable talent. The former is, indeed, founded on a repulsive classical story. Atreus invites his banished brother, Thyestes, to the court of Argos, and there at a banquet sets before him the mangled limbs and blood of his own son, of which the father unconsciously partakes. The return of Thyestes from his retirement, with the fears and misgivings which follow, are vividly described:

Extract from Thyestes.

THYESTES. PHILISTHENES. PENEUS. Thyestes. O wondrous pleasure to a banished man, I feel my loved, long looked-for native soil! And oh my weary eyes, that all the day Had from some mountain travelled toward this place, Now rest themselves upon the royal towers Of that great palace where I had my birth. O sacred towers, sacred in your height, Mingling with clouds, the villas of the gods,