10. THE SAME.-SECOND SCENE.

Sentinel, Rolla, and Alonzo.

(Enter Rolla, disguised as a Monk.)

Rolla. Inform me, friend, is Alonzo, the Peruvian, confined in this dungeon?

Sent. He is.

Rolla. I must speak with him.

Sent. You must not.

Rolla. He is my friend.

Sent. Not if he were your brother.

Rolla. What is to be his fate?

Sent. He dies at sunrise.

Rolla. Ha! then I am come in time

Sent. Just to witness his death.

Rolla (advancing towards the door). Soldier, I must speak

with him.

Sent. (pushing him back with his gun). Back! back! it is impossible.

Rolla. I do entreat you but for one moment.

Sent. You entreat in vain: my orders are most strict.

Rolla. Look on this wedge of massy gold! look on these precious gems! In thy land they will be wealth for thee and thine, beyond thy hope or wish. Take them-they are thine; let me but pass one moment with Alonzo.

Sent. Away! Wouldst thou corrupt me? Me, an old Castilian!-I know my duty better.

Rolla. Soldier! hast thou a wife?

Sent. I have.

Rolla. Hast thou children?

Sent. Four-honest, lovely boys.

Rolla. Where didst thou leave them?

Sent. In my native village, in the very cot where I was born. Rolla. Dost thou love thy wife and children?

Sent. Do I love them! God knows my heart;—I do. Rolla. Soldier! Imagine thou wert doomed to die a cruel death in a strange land-what would be thy last request? Sent. That some of my comrades should carry my dying blessing to my wife and children.

Rolla. What if that comrade was at thy prison door, and should there be told, thy fellow-soldier dies at sunrise, yet thou shalt not for a moment see him, nor shalt thou bear his dying

blessing to his poor children, or his wretched wife-what wouldst thou think of him who thus could drive thy comrade from the door?

Sent. How?

Rolla. Alonzo has a wife and child; and I am come but to receive for her, and for her poor babe, the last blessing of my friend.

Sent. Go in. (Exit Sentinel.)

Rolla (calls). Alonzo! Alonzo!

(Enter Alonzo, speaking as he comes in.)

Alon. How! is my hour elapsed? Well, I am ready.
Rolla. Alonzo !-know me!

This

Alon. Rolla! O Rolla! how didst thou pass the guard? Rolla. There is not a moment to be lost in words. disguise I tore from the dead body of a friar, as I passed our field of battle. It has gained me entrance to thy dungeon now take it thou, and fly!

me.

Alon. And Rolla

Rolla. Will remain here in thy place.

Alon. And die for me! No! rather eternal tortures rack

Rolla. I shall not die, Alonzo.

It is thy life Pizarro seeks, not Rolla's; and thy arm may soon deliver me from prison. Or, should it be otherwise, I am as a blighted tree in the desert; nothing lives beneath my shelter. Thou art a husband and a father: the being of a lovely wife and helpless infant depend upon thy life. Go, go, Alonzo! not to save thyself, but Ĉora, and thy child.

Alon. Urge me not thus, my friend. I am prepared to die in peace.

Rolla. To die in peace! devoting her you have sworn to live for, to madness, misery, and death!

Alon, Merciful heavens !

Rolla. If thou art yet irresolute, Alonzo-now mark me well. Thou knowest that Rolla never pledged his word and shrunk from its fulfilment. Know then, if thou art proudly obstinate, thou shalt have the desperate triumph of seeing Rolla perish by thy side.

Alon. O Rolla! you distract me! Wear you the robe, and though dreadful the necessity, we will strike down the guard, and force our passage.

Rolla. What, the soldier on duty here?

Alon. Yes, else seeing two, the alarm will be instant death.

Rolla. For my nation's safety, I would not harm him! That soldier, mark me, is a man! All are not men that wear the human form. He refused my prayers, refused my gold, denying to admit, till his own feelings bribed him. I will not risk a hair of that man's head, to save my heart-strings from consuming fire. But haste! A moment's further pause, and all is lost.

Alon. Rolla, I fear thy friendship drives me from honor and from right.

Rolla. Did Rolla ever counsel dishonor to his friend? (Throwing the friar's garment over his shoulders.) There!conceal thy face. Now, God be with thee!

KOTZEBUE.

11. PEDANTRY.

DIGIT, a mathematician; TRILL, a musician; SESQUIPEDALIA, a linguist and philosopher; DRONE, a servant of Mr. Morrell, in whose house the scene is laid.

(Digit alone.)

Digit. If theologians are in want of a proof that mankind are daily degenerating, let them apply to me, Archimedes Digit. I can furnish them with one as clear as any demonstration in Euclid's third or fifth book; and it is this, the sublime and exalted science of Mathematics is falling into general disuse. Oh that the patriotic inhabitants of this extensive country should suffer so degrading a circumstance to exist! Why, yesterday, I asked a lad of fifteen which he preferred, Algebra or Geometry; and he told me-oh horrible! he told me he had never studied them! I was thunderstruck, I was astonished, I was petrified! Never studied Geometry! never studied Algebra! and fifteen years old! The dark ages are returning. Heathenish obscurity will soon overwhelm the world, unless I do something immediately to enlighten it; and for this purpose I have now applied to Mr. Morrell, who lives here, and is celebrated for his patronage of learning and learned men. (A knock at the door.) Who

waits there?

(Enter Drone.)

Is Mr. Morrell at home?

Drone (speaking very slow). Can't say; s'pose he is; indeed, I am sure he is, or was just now.

Digit. Why, I could solve an equation while you are answer

ing a question of five words,-I mean if the unknown terms were all on one side of the equation. Can I see him?

Drone. There is nobody in this house by the name of Quation.

Digit (aside). Now, here's a fellow that cannot distinguish between an algebraic term and the denomination of his master! I wish to see Mr. Morrell upon an affair of infinite importance.

Drone. Oh, very likely, sir. I will inform him that Mr. Quation wishes to see him (mimicking) upon an affair of infinite importance.

Digit. No, no. Digit-Digit. My name is Digit.

Drone. Oh, Mr. Digy-Digy! Very likely. (Exit Drone.) Digit (alone.) That fellow is certainly a negative quantity. He is minus common sense. If this Mr. Morrell is the man I take him to be, he cannot but patronize my talents. Should he not, I don't know how I shall obtain a new coat. I have worn this ever since I began to write my theory of sines and cotangents; and my elbows have so often formed right angles with the plane surface of my table, that a new coat or a parallel patch is very necessary. But here comes Mr. Morrell.

(Enter Sesquipedalia.)

Sir (bowing low), I am your most Mathematical servant. I am sorry, sir, to give you this trouble; but an affair of consequence-(pulling the rags over his elbows)—an affair of consequence, as your servant informed you—

Sesquipedalia. Servus non est mihi, Domine; that is, I have no servant, sir. I presume you have erred in your calculation; and

Digit. No, sir. The calculations I am about to present you are founded on the most correct theorems of Euclid. You may examine them, if you please. They are contained in this small manuscript. (Producing a folio.)

Sesq. Sir, you have bestowed a degree of interruption upon my observations. I was about, or, according to the Latins, futurus sum, to give you a little information concerning the luminary who appears to have deceived your vision. My name, sir, is Tullius Maro Titus Crispus Sesquipedalia; by profession a linguist and philosopher. The most abstruse points in physics or metaphysics are to me transparent as ether. I have come to this house for the purpose of obtaining the patronage of a gentleman who befriends all the literati. Now, sir, perhaps I

have induced conviction, in mente tua, that is, in your mind, that your calculation was erroneous.

Digit. Yes, sir, as to your person, I was mistaken; but my calculations, I maintain, are correct, to the tenth part of a circulating decimal.

Sesq. But what is the subject of your manuscript? Have you discussed the infinite divisibility of matter?

Digit. No, sir; I cannot reckon infinity; and I have nothing to do with subjects that cannot be reckoned.

Sesq. Why, I cannot reckon about it. I reckon it is divisible ad infinitum. But perhaps your work is upon the materiality of light; and if so, which side of the question do you espouse?

Digit. Oh, sir, I think it quite immaterial.

Sesq. What! light immaterial! Do you say light is immaterial?

Digit. No; I say it is quite immaterial which side of the question I espouse. I have nothing to do with it. And besides, I am a bachelor, and do not mean to espouse any thing at present. Sesq. Do you write upon the attraction of cohesion? You know matter has the properties of attraction and repulsion.

Digit. I care nothing about matter, so I can find enough for mathematical demonstration.

Sesq. I cannot conceive what you have written upon, then. Oh, it must be the centripetal and centrifugal motions.

Digit (peevishly). No, no! I wish Mr. Morrell would come! Sir, I have no motions but such as I can make with my pencil upon my slate, thus. (Figuring upon his hand.) Six, minus four, plus two, equal eight, minus six, plus two. There, those are my motions.

Sesq. Oh, I perceive you grovel in the depths of Arithmetic. I suppose you never soared into the regions of Philosophy. You never thought of the vacuum which has so long filled the heads of philosophers.

Digit. Vacuum! (Putting his hand to his forehead.) Let me think.

Sesq. Ha! what! have you got it sub manu, that is, under your hand? Ha! ha! ha!

Digit. Eh! under my hand? What do you mean, .sir ?that my head is a vacuum? Would you insult me, sir? insult Archimedes Digit? Why, sir, I'll cipher you into infinite divisibility. I'll set you on an inverted cone, and give you a centripetal and centrifugal motion out of the window, sir! I'll scat ter your solid contents!