to

suo.

Almahide is unexceptionable, but Boabdelin's jealousy is inevitably aroused, and this in its turn mortally offends the queen, which again offends Almanzor. More inexplicable embroilment follows, and Lyndaraxa tries her charms vainly on the champion. The war once more centres round the Albayzin, Lyndaraxa's sometime fortress, and it is not flippant say that every one fights with every one else; after which the hero sees the ghost of his mother, and addresses it more Yet another love-scene follows, and then Zulema, who has not forgotten his passion for Almahide, brings a false accusation against her, the assumed partner of her guilt being however not Almanzor but Abdelmelech. This leaves the hero free to undertake the wager of battle for his mistress, though he is distracted with jealous fear that Zulema's tale is true. The result of the ordeal is a foregone conclusion; but Almahide, though her innocence is proved, is too angry with her husband for doubting her to forgive him, and solemnly forswears his society. She and Almanzor meet once more, and by this time even the conventionalities of the heroic play allow him to kiss her hand. The king is on the watch and breaks in with fresh accusations; but the Spaniards at the gates cut short the discussion and (at last) the embroilment and suffering of true love. The catastrophe is arrived at in the most approved manner. Boabdelin dies fighting; Lyndaraxa, who has given traitorous help with her Zegrys, is proclaimed queen by Ferdinand but almost immediately stabbed by Abdelmelech. Almanzor turns out to be the longlost son of the Duke of Arcos; and Almahide, encouraged by Queen Isabella, owns that when her year of widowhood is up she may possibly be induced to crown his flames.

"Such is the barest outline of this famous play, and I fear that as it is it is too long, though much has been omitted, including the whole of a pleasing underplot of love between two very creditable lovers, Osmyn and Benzayda. Its preposterous 'revolutions and discoveries,' the wild bombast of Almanzor and others, the apparently purposeless embroilment of the action in ever-new turns and twists, are absurd enough. But there is a kind of generous and noble spirit animating it which could not fail to catch an audience blinded by fashion to its absurdities. There is a skilful sequence even in the most preposterous events, which must have kept up the interest unfalteringly; and all over the dialogue are squandered and lavished flowers of splendid verse. Many of its separate lines are, as has been said, constantly quoted without the least idea on the quoter's part of their origin, and many more are

quotable. Everybody, for instance, knows the vigorous couplet :

Forgiveness to the injured does belong,

But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong;

but everybody does not know the preceding couplet, which is perhaps better still :

A blush remains in a forgiven face,

It wears the silent tokens of disgrace.

"Almanzor's tribute to Lyndaraxa's beauty, at the same time that he rejects her advances, is in little, perhaps, as good an instance as could be given of the merits of the poetry and of the stamp of its spirit, and with this I must be content :

Fair though you are

As summer mornings, and your eyes more bright
Than stars that twinkle on a winter's night;
Though you have eloquence to warm and move
Cold age and fasting hermits into love;
Though Almahide with scorn rewards my care
Yet than to change 'tis nobler to despair.

My love 's my soul and that from fate is free,
"Tis that unchanged and deathless part of me.

The audience that cheered this was not wholly vile."

It only remains to add that the frequently mentioned Albayzin is a suburb of Granada, and that "Vermilion Towers," or, less poetically, "red house," is the literal meaning of "Alhambra" itself. Scott, following Malone, is probably wrong in supposing that the First Part may have been acted in 1669. See note to Prologue.-ED.]

ΤΟ

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE

DUKE.*

SIR,

HEROIC poesy has always been sacred to princes, and to heroes. Thus Virgil inscribed his Æneids to Augustus Cæsar; and of latter ages, Tasso and Ariosto dedicated their poems to the house of Este. It is indeed but justice, that the most excellent and most profitable kind of writing should be addressed by poets to such persons, whose characters have, for the most part, been the guides and patterns of their imitation; and poets, while they imitate, instruct. The feigned hero inflames the true; and the dead virtue animates the living. Since, therefore, the world is governed by precept and example, and both these can only have influence from those persons who are above us; that kind of poesy, which excites to virtue the greatest men, is of the greatest use to humankind.

It is from this consideration, that I have pre

* James Duke of York, afterwards James 11.

sumed to dedicate to your royal highness these faint representations of your own worth and valour in heroic poetry: Or, to speak more properly, not to dedicate, but to restore to you those ideas, which in the more perfect part of my characters I have taken from you. Heroes

may lawfully be delighted with their own praises, both as they are further incitements to their virtue, and as they are the highest returns which mankind can make them for it.

And certainly, if ever nation were obliged, either by the conduct, the personal* valour or the good fortune of a leader, the English are acknowledging, in all of them, to your royal highness. Your whole life has been a continued series of heroic actions; which you began so early, that you were no sooner named in the world, but it was with praise and admiration. Even the first blossoms of your youth paid us all that could be expected from a ripening manhood. While While you practised but the rudiments of war, you out-went all other captains; and have since found none to surpass, but yourself alone. The opening of your glory was like that of light: You shone to us from afar; and disclosed your first beams on distant nations: Yet so, that the lustre of them was spread abroad, and reflected brightly on your native country. You were then an honour to it,

* Although the valour of the unfortunate James 11. seems to have sunk with his good fortune, there is no reason to question his having merited the compliment in the text. The Duke of Buckingham, in his memoirs, has borne witness to the intrepidity with which he encountered the dangers of his desperate naval actions with the Dutch. Captain Carleton, who was also an eye-witness of his deportment on that occasion, says, that while the balls were flying thickly around, the Duke of York was wont to rub his hands, and exclaim, cheerfully to his captain, "Spragge, Spragge, they follow us fast."

when it was a reproach to itself. When the fortunate usurper sent his arms to Flanders, many of the adverse party were vanquished by your fame, ere they tried your valour.* The report of it drew over to your ensigns whole troops and companies of converted rebels, and made them forsake successful wickedness, to follow an oppressed and exiled virtue. Your reputation waged war with the enemies of your royal family, even within their trenches; and the more obstinate, or more guilty of them, were forced to be spies over those whom they commanded, lest the name of York should disband that army, in whose fate it was to defeat the Spaniards, and force Dunkirk to surrender. Yet, those victorious forces of the rebels were not able to sustain your arms. Where you charged in person, you were a conqueror. It is true, they afterwards recovered courage; and wrested that victory from others which they had lost to you; and it was a greater action for them to rally, than it was to overcome. Thus, by the presence of your royal highness, the English on both sides remained victorious, and that army, which was broken by your valour, became a terror to those for whom they conquered. Then it was, that at the cost of other nations you informed and cultivated that valour, which was to defend your native country, and to vindicate its honour from the insolence of our encroaching neighbours. When the Hollanders, not contented to withdraw themselves from the obedience which they owed their lawful sovereign,

* When General Lockhart commanded the troops of the Protector in Flanders, the Duke of York was a volunteer in the Spanish army, and was present at the defeat which the latter received before Dunkirk, 17th of June 1658.