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 Heav'n;
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 ev'ry list'ning planet,
With what a boundless stock my bosom's fraught.
Jaf. Oh, 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,
Fram'd for the tender offices of love,

Endure the bitter gripes of smarting poverty?
When banish'd 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 swell'd 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 Heav'ns, 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!
1, in my private bark already wreck'd,
Like a poor merchant, driven to unknown land,
That had, by chance, pack'd up his choicest treasure
In one dear casket, and sav'd only that:
Since I must wander farther on the shore,
Thus hug my little, but my precious store,
Resolv'd to scorn and trust my fate no more. [Exeunt.

[Jaffier joins with Pierre and others in a conspiracy against the senate. He communicates the secret to Belvidera, and she, anxious to save her father's life, prevails on Jaffier to disclose the whole to the senators. The betrayed conspirators are condemned to death.]

Scene A Street. Enter JAFFIER.

Jaf. Final destruction seize on all the world! Bend down, ye heav'ns, and, shutting round the earth, Crush the vile globe into its own confusion!

Jaf. 'Twas a rash oath.

Bel. Then why am I not curs'd too.

Jaf. No, Belvidera; by th' eternal truth,

I dote with too much fondness.

Bel. Still so kind?

Still, then, do you love me?

Jaf. Man ne'er was bless'd,

Since the first pair first met, as I have been.
Bel. Then sure you will not curse me?
Jaf. No, I'll bless thee.

I came on purpose, Belvidera, to bless thee.
'Tis now, I think, three years we've liv'd together.
Bel. And may no fatal minute ever part us,
Till, reverend grown, for age and love, we go
Down to one grave, as our last bed, together;
There sleep in peace till an eternal morning.
Jaf. Did not say I came to bless thee?

Bel. You did.

Jaf. Then hear me, bounteous Heaven, Pour down your blessings on this beauteous head, Where everlasting sweets are always springing, With a continual giving hand: let peace, Honour, and safety, always hover round her: Feed her with plenty; let her eyes ne'er see A sight of sorrow, nor her heart know mourning; Crown all her days with joy, her nights with rest, Harmless as her own thoughts; and prop her virtue, To bear the loss of one that too much lov'd; And comfort her with patience in our parting. Bel. How? parting, parting?

Jaf. Yes, for ever parting!

I have sworn, Belvidera, by yon Heav'n,
That best can tell how much I lose to leave thee,
We part this hour for ever.

Bel. Oh! call back

Your cruel blessing; stay with me, and curse me.
Jaf. Now hold, heart, or never.

Bel. By all the tender days we've liv'd together,
Pity my sad condition; speak, but speak.
Jaf. Murder! unhold me:

Or by th' immortal destiny that doom'd me

[Draws his dagger. Resolve to let me go, or see me fallTo this curs'd minute, I'll not live one longer:

Hark-the dismal bell

[Passing bell tolls.

Tolls out for death! I must attend its call too;
For my poor friend, my dying Pierre, expects me:
He sent a message to require I'd see him
Before he died, and take his last forgiveness.
Farewell for ever!

Bel. Leave thy dagger with me:

Bequeath me something. Not one kiss at parting? Oh, my poor heart, when wilt thou break!

Jaf. Yet stay:

We have a child, as yet a tender infant: Be a kind mother to him when I am gone:

Bel. All ill ones, sure, had charge of me this moment. Oh, give me daggers, fire or water:

How I could bleed, how burn, how drown, the waves
Huzzing and foaming round my sinking head,
Till I descended to the peaceful bottom!
Oh! there's all quiet-here, all rage and fury!
The air's too thin, and pierces my weak brain;
I long for thick substantial sleep: Hell! hell!
Burst from the centre, rage and roar aloud,
If thou art half so hot, so mad as I am.

[Exit.

Jaf. Dead!

[Stabs him. [Stabs himself.

Pier. Now thou hast indeed been faithful! This was nobly done!-We have deceived the senate. Jaf. Bravely.

Pier. Ha, ha, ha-oh! oh!

[Falls down on the scaffold, and dies. Jaf. Now, ye curs'd rulers,

Thus of the blood ye've shed, I make libation,
And sprinkle it mingling. May it rest upon you
And all your race. Oh, poor Belvidera!
Sir, I have a wife; bear this in safety to her,
A token that, with my dying breath, I bless'd her,
And the dear little infant left behind me.

Worthy their character.

Jaf. And what must I do?

Pier. Oh, Jaffier!

Jaf. Speak aloud thy burden'd soul,

And tell thy troubles to thy tortur'd friend.

Pier. Friend! Couldst thou yet be a friend, a generous friend,

I might hope comfort from thy noble sorrows.
Heaven knows I want a friend!

Jaf. And I a kind one,

That would not thus scorn my repenting virtue, Or think, when he's to die, my thoughts are idle. Pier. No! live, I charge thee, Jaffier.

Jaf. Yes, I will live :

But it shall be to see thy fall reveng'd,

At such a rate, as Venice long shall groan for.
Pier. Wilt thou?

Jaf. I will, by Heaven!

Pier. Then still thou'rt noble,

And I forgive thee. Oh!-yet-shall I trust thee! Jaf. No; I've been false already.

Pier. Dost thou love me?

Jaf. Rip up my heart, and satisfy thy doubtings. Pier. Curse on this weakness! Jaf. Tears? Amazement! Tears? I never saw thee melted thus before; And know there's something labouring in thy bosom, That must have vent; though I'm a villain, tell me. Pier. Seest thou that engine? [Pointing to the wheel. Jaf. Why?

[Dies.

[The scene closes upon them. Scene-Apartment in PRIULI'S House. Enter PRIULI, BELVIDERA distracted, and two of her

women.

Pri. Strengthen her heart with patience, pitying Heaven.

Bel. Come, come, come, come, come; nay, come to bed,

Pr'ythee, my love. The winds! hark how they whistle!
And the rain beats! Oh, how the weather shrinks me!
I say you shall not go; you shall not:
Whip your ill-nature; get you gone, then. Oh!
Are you returned? See, father, here he's come again :
Am I to blame to love him? O, thou dear one,
Why do you fly me? are you angry still, then?
Jaffier, where art thou? Father, why do you do thus ?
Stand off-don't hide him from me. He's there some-
where.

Stand off, I say! What! gone? Remember, tyrant,
I may revenge myself for this trick one day.

Enter CAPTAIN, and whispers PRIULI.

Pri. News-what news?

Capt. Most sad, sir;

Jaffier, upon the scaffold, to prevent

A shameful death, stabb'd Pierre, and next himself; Both fell together.

Bel. Ha! look there!

My husband bloody, and his friend too! Murder! Who has done this? Speak to me, thou sad vision On these poor trembling knees I beg it. Vanish'd!

[Scene between Brutus and Titus, his son.] [Titus having joined the Tarquin conspiracy, is condemned by his own father to suffer the death of a traitor. Brutus takes a last farewell of him.]

Rears his sad head, and passes sentence on thee:
This morning sun, that lights thy sorrows on
To the tribunal of this horrid vengeance,

Shall never see thee more.

Tit. Alas! my lord,

Why art thou moved thus? why am I worthy of thy

sorrow?

Why should the godlike Brutus shake to doom me?
Why all these trappings for a traitor's hearse?
The gods will have it so.

Bru. They will, my Titus;

Nor Heaven, nor earth, can have it otherwise;
Nay, Titus, mark; the deeper that I search,
My harass'd soul returns the more confirm'd.
Methinks I see the very hand of fire
Moving the dreadful wheels of this affair,
That whirl thee, like a machine, to thy fate;
To fix the reeling spirits of the people,
It seems as if the gods had pre-ordain'd it,
And settle the loose liberty of Rome.

I would attend awhile this mighty motion,
Wait till the tempest were quite overblown,
That I might take thee in the calm of nature
With all thy gentler virtues brooding on thee.
So hush'd a stillness, as if all the gods

Look'd down and listen'd to what we were saying:
Speak, then, and tell me, O my best beloved,
My son, my Titus, is all well again?

Titus. So well, that saying how, must make it nothing;

So well, that I could wish to die this moment,
For so my heart with powerful throbs persuades me :
That were indeed to make you reparation-
That were, my lord, to thank you home, to die;
And that for Titus too, would be most happy.
Bru. How's that, my son would death for thee be
happy?

Tit. Most certain, sir; for in my grave I 'scape
All those affronts which I in life must look for,
All those reproaches which the eyes, and fingers,
And tongues of Rome will daily cast upon me;
From whom, to a soul so sensible as mine,
Each single scorn would be far worse than dying:
Besides, I 'scape the stings of my own conscience,
Which will for ever rack me with remembrance,
Haunt me by day, and torture me by night,
Casting my blotted honour in the way
Where'er my melancholy thoughts shall guide me.
Bru. But is not death a very dreadful thing?
Tit. Not to a mind resolv'd. No, sir; to me
It seems as natural as to be born:

Groans, and convulsions, and discolour'd faces,
Friends weeping round us, blacks, and obsequies,
Make it a dreadful thing; the pomp of death
Is far more terrible than death itself.

Yes, sir; I call the powers of heaven to witness,
Titus dares die, if so you have decreed;
Nay, he shall die with joy, to honour Brutus,
To make your justice famous through the world,
And fix the liberty of Rome for ever.
Not but I must confess my weakness too:
Yet it is great thus to resolve against it,
To have the frailty of a mortal man,
But the security of the immortal gods.

Bru. O Titus, O thou absolute young man!
Thou flattering mirror of thy father's image,
Where I behold myself at such advantage!
Thou perfect glory of the Junian race!
Let me endear thee once more to my bosom;
Groan an eternal farewell to thy soul;
Instead of tears, weep blood, if possible:
Blood, the heart-blood of Brutus, on his child;
For thou must die, my Titus; die, my son:
I swear the gods have doom'd thee to the grave.

So fix'd thy death, that 'tis not in the power
Of gods or men to save thee from the axe.

Tit. The axe? O heaven! Then must I fall so basely? What! Shall I perish by the common hangman?

Bru. If thou deny me this, thou giv'st me nothing. Yes, Titus, since the gods have so decreed That I must lose thee, I will take th' advantage Of thy important fate-cement Rome's flaws, And heal their wounded freedom with thy blood; I will ascend myself the sad tribunal, And sit upon my sons; on thee, my Titus: Behold thee suffer all the shame of death, The lictor's lashes bleed before the people; Then with thy hopes and all thy youth upon thee, See thy head taken by the common axe, Without a groan, without one pitying tear, If that the gods can hold me to my purpose, To make my justice quite transcend example.

Tit. Scourg'd like a bondman? Ha! a beaten slave!
But I deserve it all: yet here I fail;
The image of this suffering quite unmans me.
O sir, O Brutus, must I call you father,
Yet have no token of your tenderness?
No sign of mercy? What! not bate me that?
Can you resolve on all th' extremity
Of cruel rigour? to behold me too?

To sit unmov'd and see me whipt to death?
Where are your bowels now? Is this a father?
Ah! sir, why should you make my heart suspect
That all your late compassion was dissembled ?
How can I think that you did ever love me?

Bru. Think that I love thee by my present passion,
By these unmanly tears, these earthquakes here,
These sighs that twitch the very strings of life:
Think that no other cause on earth could move mo
To tremble thus, to sob, or shed a tear,
Nor shake my solid virtue from her point,
But Titus' death: O, do not call it shameful,
That thus shall fix the glory of the world.
I own thy sufferings ought t' unman me thus,
To make me throw my body on the ground,
To bellow like a beast, to gnaw the earth,
To tear my hair, to curse the cruel fates
That force a father thus to drag his bowels.
Tit. O rise, thou violated majesty,
Rise from the earth; or I shall beg those fates
Which you would curse, to bolt me to the centre.
I now submit to all your threaten'd vengeance:
Come forth, you executioners of justice,
Nay, all you lictors, slaves, and common hangmen;
Come, strip me bare, unrobe me in his sight,
And lash me till I bleed; whip me like furies;
And when you'll have scourg'd me till I foam and
fall,

JOHN CROWNE was patronised 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 unconciously partakes. The return of Thyestes from his retirement, with the fears and misgivings which follow, are vividly described:

[Extract from Thyestes.]

THYESTES. PHILISTHENES. PENEUS.
Thy. O wondrous pleasure to a banish'd man,
I feel my lov'd long look'd-for native soil!
And oh my weary eyes, that all the day

Had from some mountain travell'd 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,
Whither for sacred pleasures they retire:
Sacred, because you are the work of gods;
Your lofty looks boast your divine descent;
And the proud city which lies at your feet,
And would give place to nothing but to you,
Owns her original is short of yours.

And now a thousand objects more ride fast
On morning beams, and meet my eyes in throngs:
And see, all Argos meets me with loud shouts !
Phil. O joyful sound!

Thy. But with them Atreus too

How miserable a thing is a great man!
Take noisy vexing greatness they that please;
Give me obscure and safe and silent ease.
Acquaintance and commérce let me have none
With any powerful thing but Time alone:
My rest let Time be fearful to offend,
And creep by me as by a slumbering friend;
Till, with ease glutted, to my bed I steal,
As men to sleep after a plenteous meal.
Oh, wretched he who, call'd abroad by power,
To know himself can never find an hour!
Strange to himself, but to all others known,
Lends every one his life, but uses none;
So, e'er he tasted life, to death he goes,
And himself loses ere himself he knows.

[Passions.]

We oft by lightning read in darkest nights; And by your passions I read all your natures, Though you at other times can keep them dark.

[Love in Women.]

These are great maxims, sir, it is confess'd;
Too stately for a woman's narrow breast.
Poor love is lost in men's capacious minds;
In ours, it fills up all the room it finds.

[Inconstancy of the Multitude.]

I'll not such favour to rebellion show,
To wear a crown the people do bestow;
Who, when their giddy violence is past,
Shall from the king, the Ador'd, revolt at last;
And then the throne they gave they shall invade,
And scorn the idol which themselves have made.

[Warriors.]

I hate these potent madmen, who keep all Mankind awake, while they, by their great deeds, Are drumming hard upon this hollow world, Only to make a sound to last for ages.

THOMAS SHADWELL-SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE-WILLIAM WYCHERLEY-MRS APHRA BEHN.

A more popular rival and enemy of Dryden was

And now retires?

Thy. Return with me, my son,

And old friend Peneus, to the honest beasts,
And faithful desert, and well-seated caves;
Trees shelter man, by whom they often die,
And never seek revenge; no villany
Lies in the prospect of a humble cave.

Pen. Talk you of villany, of foes, and fraud?
Thy. I talk of Atreus.

Pen. What are these to him?

Thy. Nearer than I am, for they are himself.
Pen. Gods drive these impious thoughts out of your

mind.

Thy. The gods for all our safety put them there. Return, return with me.

seventeen plays, chiefly comedies, in which he affected to follow Ben Jonson. Shadwell, though only known now as the Mac-Flecknoe of Dryden's satire, possessed no inconsiderable comic power. His pictures of society are too coarse for quotation, but they are often true and well-drawn. When the Revolution threw Dryden and other excessive loyalists into the shade, Shadwell was promoted to the office of poetlaureate. SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE (1636-1694) gave a more sprightly air to the comic drama by his Man of Mode or Sir Fopling Flutter, a play which contains the first runnings of that vein of lively humour and witty dialogue which were afterwards displayed by Congreve and Farquhar. Sir George was a gay libertine, and whilst taking leave of a festive party