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Of blood; whose unmov'd stream was never drawn
Into the current of affection. But, when I
Replied with more familiar arguments,
Thinking to make her apprehension bold;
Her modest blush fell to a pale dislike,
And she refus'd it with such confidence,
As if she had been prompted by a love
Inclining firmly to some other man,
And in that obstinacy she remains."

She is, however, eventually forced to marry Rousard; and on the evening of the ceremony, Borachio, a scoundrel in the employ of D'Amville, disguises himself as a soldier, and announces the death of Charlemont. After describing a battle, he proceeds in these pretty fanciful lines.

"Walking next day upon the fatal shore,
Among the slaughter'd bodies of their men,
Which the full stomach'd sea had cast upon
The sands, it was my unhappy chance to light
Upon a face, whose favour when it liv'd
My astonish'd mind inform'd me I had seen.
He lay in's armour, as if that had been
His coffin, and the weeping sea, (like one,
Whose milder temper doth lament the death
Of him whom in his rage he slew) runs up
The shore; embraces him; kisses his cheek,
Goes back again and forces up the sands
To bury him; and every time it parts
Sheds tears upon him; till at last (as if
It could no longer endure to see the man
Whom it had slain, yet loath to leave him) with
A kind of unresolv'd, unwilling pace,
Winding her waves one in another, like

A man that folds his arms, or wrings his hands
For grief; ebb'd from the body and descends,
As if it would sink down into the earth,
And hide itself for shame of such a deed.”

This is too much for Montferrers, who is taken suddenly ill, and persuaded, by a hypocritical, pretended clergyman, to make a will in favour of his brother D'Amville. The Atheist now determines to consummate the business by a master-piece of policy, and, with the assistance of Borachio, contrives the murder of Montferrers. The thunder roars, and the lightning flashes around them; but D'Amville, believing in neither good

spirit nor bad, white spirit nor grey, exults amidst the war of elements in the success of his stratagems. To deceive the relatives of the deceased, he pretends excessive grief; and, to cheat the world, performs a solemn funeral over Montferrers and Charlemont. Meanwhile, the ghost of Montferrers appears to Charlemont in a dream, apprizes him of his father's death, and admonishes him to return to France. Charlemont awakes and endeavours to argue away his fears.

"Charl. O my affrighted soul! what fearful dream Was this that wak'd me? Dreams are but the rais'd Impressions of premeditated things,

By serious apprehension left upon

Our minds; or else the imaginary shapes
Of objects proper to th' complexion or
The dispositions of our bodies. These
Can neither of them be the cause why I

Should dream thus, for my mind has not been mov'd
With any one conception of a thought
To such a purpose; nor my nature wont
To trouble me with phantasies of terror.
It must be something that my genius would
Inform me of. Now gracious heaven forbid!
O! let my spirit be depriv'd of all

Fore-sight and knowledge, ere it understand
That vision acted; or divine that act

To come. Why should I think so?-left I not
My worthy father i' the kind regard
Of a most loving uncle? Soldier, saw'st

No apparition of a man?

Sol. You dream, sir, I saw nothing.
Charl. Tush! These idle dreams
Are fabulous. Our boiling phantasies,
Like troubled waters, falsify the shapes

Of things retain'd in them; and make 'em seem
Confounded, when they are distinguish'd. So
My actions, daily conversant with war,
(The argument of blood and death) had left,
Perhaps, th' imaginary presence of

Some bloody accident upon my mind;
Which mix'd confusedly with other thoughts,
(Whereof th' remembrance of my father might
Be one) presented all together, seem

Incorporate, as if his body were

The owner of that blood, the subject of

That death; when he's at Paris, and that blood
Shed here-it may be thus. I would not leave
The war, for reputation's sake, upon

An idle apprehension; a vain dream."

He, however, obeys the admonition, and on arriving at the church-yard, where his father's remains are deposited, he sees Castabella shedding tears over his own monument.

She thus addresses the Deity:

"Casta. O thou that knowest me justly Charlemont's, Though in the forc'd possession of another,

Since from thine own free spirit we receive it,

That our affections cannot be compell'd,

Though our actions may; be not displeas'd, if on

The altar of his tomb, I sacrifice

My tears. They are the jewels of my love
Dissolved into grief: and fall upon

His blasted spring, as April dew upon

A sweet young blossom shak'd before the time."

The last lines are prettily said-of course the young soldier learns the wrong done to his love. Charlemont's appearance somewhat disconcerts the Atheist: he, however, puts a bold face on the matter, and throws Charlemont into prison for the thousand crowns he had lent him. Castabella solicits the mercy of D'Amville in favour of the prisoner, in terms which would melt any thing that had a heart."

"Casta. O father! Mercy is an attribute
As high as justice; an essential part
Of his unbounded goodness, whose divine
Impression, form, and image, man should bear.
And (methinks) man should love to imitate
His mercy; since the only countenance
Of justice, were destruction: if the sweet
And loving favour of his mercy did
Not mediate between it and our weakness.
Dear sir! since by your greatness you
Are nearer heav'n in place, be nearer it

In goodness. Rich men should transcend the poor,

As clouds the earth, rais'd by the comfort of

The sun to water dry and barren grounds."

From prison he is released through the means of Sebastian, the second son of D'Amville. Again foiled, he becomes kind in appearance, but rancorous in purpose, and employs his friend Borachio to shoot Charlemont while in the church-yard.

Borachio misses aim, and falls beneath the sword of his intended victim. On the very day of Castabella's marriage, Rousard, it seems, had been struck with sudden infirmity, and D'Amville, whose hopes of posterity are now becoming fainter, persuades Castabella to walk into the church-yard, where he makes an attempt against her chastity, but his design is frustrated by the appearance of Charlemont, who had put on a disguise he accidentally found, and which gave him the semblance of his father's ghost. "Misery makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows." Charlemont and Castabella are found asleep in the church-yard, with each a death's head for a pillow, by D'Amville, who immediately accuses them of the murder of Borachio, and they are sent to prison. D'Amville now retires to rest, but is alarmed in his sleep by the ghost of Montferrers-he wakes, and soliloquizes on his superior wisdom to the simple honest worshipper of "a fantastic providence," and is exulting over the state of his posterity, when the dead body of Sebastian, who had been slain, is brought in, and he immediately afterwards witnesses the death of his other son Rousard.

The boasted reason of the Atheist gives way before these repeated blows, and be appears before the court, which is about to try Charlemont and Castabella, in a state of frenzy. They are both convicted on their own confession (for Castabella is nobly resolved to share the fate of Charlemont), and offer themselves with alacrity to death. D'Amville, in a fantastic mood, determines, that they shall die by no ignobler hand than his own; but as he raises up the axe to cut off the head of Charlemont, he strikes out his own brains-confesses his villainy, and dies. The two lovers are doubtless made happy, and so concludes the Atheist's Tragedy; and, with the following little extracts, so must we conclude.

Impudence.

"Impudence!

Thou goddess of the palace, mistress of mistresses,
To whom the costly perfum'd people pray,

Strike thou my forehead into dauntless marble,
Mine eyes to steady sapphires. Turn my visage;
And, if I must needs glow, let me blush inward,
That this immodest season may not spy
That scholar in my cheeks, fool bashfulness;
That maid in the old time, whose flush of grace
Would never suffer her to get good cloaths."

Horror.

"Our sorrows are so fluent,

Our
eyes o'erflow our tongues; words spoke in tears
Are like the murmurs of the waters, the sound
Is loudly heard, but cannot be distinguish'd."

Avarice.

"Here sounds a music whose melodious touch,
Like angels' voices ravishes the sense.
Behold, thou ignorant astronomer,

Whose wandering speculation seeks among
The planets for men's fortunes! with amazement
Behold thine error, and be planet-struck.
These are the stars, whose operations make
The fortunes and the destinies of men.
Yond' lesser eyes of heav'n (like subjects rais'd
Into their lofty houses, when their prince
Rides underneath th' ambition of their loves)
Are mounted only to behold the face
Of your more rich imperious eminence,

With unprevented sight. Unmask, fair queen;

[Unpurses the gold.

Vouchsafe their expectations may enjoy
The gracious favour they admire to see.
These are the stars, the ministers of fate;
And man's high wisdom the superior power,
To which their forces are subordinate."

ART. IX.-Anecdotes of the Life of the Right Hon. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and of the principal Events of his time. With his Speeches in Parliament from the year 1756 to the year 1778, in 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1790.

The character of Lord Chatham has been so often (and in many cases so ably) delineated within the last forty years, that some apology may be required for any attempt to throw upon it additional light. Every one knows, that all the political parties who, within that time, have divided the state, though differing in every thing else, have yet been emulous to admire and to quote Lord Chatham: that Burke and Grattan have left to the world sketches of his character, which do equal honour to him and to themselves; and that even the pen of Junius has conspired to praise him. Nor is his name heard

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