My true-loved husband! Do I hold you fast,
Never to part again? Can I believe it?
Nothing but you could work so great a change:
There's more than life itself in dying here;
If I must fall, death's welcome in these arms.
Bir. Live ever in these arms!

Isa. But pardon me-

Excuse the wild disorder of my

soul:

The joy, the strange surprising joy of seeing you, Of seeing you again, distracted me

Bir. Thou everlasting goodness!

Isa. Answer me:

What hand of Providence has brought you back
To your own home again? O, satisfy

The impatience of my heart! I long to know
The story of your sufferings. You would think
Your pleasures sufferings, so long removed
From Isabella's love. But tell me all,

For every thought confounds me.

Bir. My best life! at leisure, all.

Isa. We thought you dead; killed at the siege of Candy

Bir. There I fell among the dead;

But hopes of life reviving from my wounds,
I was preserved but to be made a slave:

I often writ to my hard father, but never had
An answer; I writ to thee too-

Isa. What a world of woe

Had been prevented, but in hearing from you!
Bir. Alas! thou couldst not help me!

Isa. You do not know how much I could have

done;

At least, I'm sure I could have suffered all :
I would have sold myself to slavery,
Without redemption; given up my child,

The dearest part of me, to basest wants-
Bir. My little boy!

Isa. My life, but to have heard

You were alive-which now, too late, I find.

Bir. No more, my love.

We lose the present joy.

[Aside.

Complaining of the past, 'Tis over price

Of all my pains, that thus we meet again—

I have a thousand things to say to thee1sa. Would I were past the hearing!

[Aside.

Bir. How does my child, my boy, my father too?

I hear he's living still.

Isa. Well both, both well;

And may he prove a father to your hopes,

Though we have found him none !

Bir. Come, no more tears.

Isa. Seven long years of sorrow for

Have mourned with me

Bir. And all my days behind

your loss,

Shall be employed in a kind recompense

For thy afflictions.-Can't I see my boy?

Isa. He's gone to bed: I'll have him brought to

you.

Bir. To-morrow I shall see him: I want rest

Myself, after this weary pilgrimage.

Isa. Alas! what shall I get for you?

Bir. Nothing but rest, my love! To-night I would

not

Be known, if possible, to your family:

I see my nurse is with you; her welcome
Would be tedious at this time;

To-morrow will do better.

As

Isa. I'll dispose of her, and order every thing

you would have it.

[Exit.

Bir. Grant me but life, good Heaven, and give

the means

To make this wondrous goodness some amends,
And let me then forget her, if I can!

O! she deserves of me much more than I

Can lose for her, though I again could venture
A father, and his fortune, for her love!
You wretched fathers, blind as fortune all!
Not to perceive that such a woman's worth
Weighs down the portions you provide your sons:
What is your trash, what all your heaps of gold,
Compared to this, my heart-felt happiness?

[Bursts into tears.
What has she, in my absence, undergone?
I must not think of that; it drives me back
Upon myself, the fatal cause of all.

ISABELLA returns.

Isa. I have obeyed your pleasure;

Every thing is ready for you.

Bir. I can want nothing here; possessing thee,

All my desires are carried to their aim
Of happiness; there's no room for a wish,
But to continue still this blessing to me:

I know the way, my love; I shall sleep sound.
Isa. Shall I attend you?

Bir. By no means;

I've been so long a slave to others' pride,
To learn, at least, to wait upon myself;

You'll make haste after

[Goes in. Isa. I'll but say my prayers, and follow youMy prayers! no, I must never pray again. Prayers have their blessings to reward our hopes, But I have nothing left to hope for more.

What Heaven could give, I have enjoyed; but now
The baneful planet rises on my fate,

And what's to come is a long line of woe.
Yet I may shorten it-

I promised him to follow-him!

Is he without a name? Biron, my husband,
To follow him to bed- -my husband! ha!
What then is Villeroy? But yesterday

That very bed received him for its lord,
Yet a warm witness of my broken vows.
Oh, Biron, hadst thou come but one day sooner,
I would have followed thee through beggary,
Through all the chances of this weary life;
Wandered the many ways of wretchedness
With thee, to find a hospitable grave;
For that's the only bed that's left me now!

[Weeping.

-What's to be done?-for something must be

done.

Two husbands! yet not one! By both enjoyed,
And yet a wife to neither! Hold, my brain-
This is to live in common! Very beasts,

That welcome all they meet, make just such wives.
My reputation! Oh, 'twas all was left me!
The virtuous pride of an uncensured life;
Which the dividing tongues of Biron's wrongs,
And Villeroy's resentments, tear asunder,
To gorge the throats of the blaspheming rabble.
This is the best of what can come to-morrow,
Besides old Baldwin's triumph in my ruin :
I cannot bear it-

Therefore no morrow: Ha! a lucky thought
Works the right way to rid me of them all;
All the reproaches, infamies, and scorns,
That every tongue and finger will find for me.
Let the just horror of my apprehensions
But keep me warm-no matter what can come.
'Tis but a blow-yet I will see him first-
Have a last look to heighten my despair,
And then to rest for ever.-

BIRON meets her.

Bir. Despair and rest for ever! Isabella! These words are far from thy condition, And be they ever so! I heard thy voice, And could not bear thy absence: come, my

love !

VOL. IV.