You've done me the worst office you can do.
You've shewn me destiny's preposterous crime;
An unripe fate, disclosed ere nature's time.

Plac. Assuage, great prince, your passion, lest you shew

There's somewhat in your soul which fate can bow. Por. Fortune should by your greatness be controuled:

Arm your great mind, and let her take no hold.
Mar. To tame philosophers teach constancy ;
There is no farther use of it in me.

Gods! but why name I you!

All that was worth a prayer to you is
I ask not back my virtue, but my son.

gone;

Alb. His too great thirst of fame his ruin brought; Though, sir, beyond all human force he fought.

Plac. This was my vision of this fatal day!
Alb. With a fierce haste he led our troops the

way,

While fiery showers of sulphur on him rained ;
Nor left he, till the battlements he gained:
There with a forest of their darts he strove,
And stood, like Capaneus defying Jove;
With his broad sword the boldest beating down,
While fate grew pale lest he should win the town;
And turned the iron leaves of its dark book,
To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook;
Till, sought by many deaths, he sunk, though late,
And by his fall asserted doubtful fate.

Val. Oh my dear brother! whom heaven let us

see,

And would not longer suffer him to be !

chuse,

Max. And didst not thou a death with honour [TO ALB. But impudently liv'st to bring this news?

After his loss how did'st thou dare to breathe?
But thy base ghost shall follow him in death.

A decimation I will strictly make

Of all, who my Charinus did forsake;
And of each legion, each centurion

Shall die-Placidius, see my pleasure done.
Por. Sir, you will lose, by this severity,

Your soldiers' hearts.

Max. Why, they take pay to die.
Por. Then spare Albinus only.
Mar. I consent

To leave his life to be his punishment.
Discharged from trust, branded with infamy,
Let him live on, till he ask leave to die.
Ber. Let me petition for him.

Max. I have said;

And will not be intreated, but obeyed.

But, empress, whence does your compassion grow? Ber. You need not ask it, since my birth you

know.

The race of Antonines was named the good:
I draw my pity from my royal blood.

Max. Still must I be upbraided with your line?
I know you speak it in contempt of mine.
But your late brother did not prize me less,
Because I could not boast of images;
And the Gods own me more, when they decreed,
A Thracian shepherd should your line succeed.
Ber. The Gods! O do not name the powers

vine,

They never mingled their decrees with thine.
My brother gave me to thee for a wife,
And for my dowry thou didst take his life.

di

Max. The Gods by many victories have shewn,
That they my merits and his death did own.
Ber. Yes, they have owned it; witness this just
day,

When they begin thy mischiefs to repay.
See the reward of all thy wicked care

Before thee; thy succession ended there.
Yet, but in part my brother's ghost is pleased;
Restless till all the groaning world be eased.
For me, no other happiness I own,

Than to have borne no issue to thy throne.
Mar. Provoke my rage no farther, lest I be
Revenged at once upon the gods and thee.
Por. What horrid tortures seize my labouring
mind,

O, only excellent of all thy kind,

To hear thee threatened, while I idle stand! Heaven! was I born to fear a tyrant's hand? [Aside. Max. [to Ber.] Hence from my sight!—thy blood, If thou dost stay

Ber. Tyrant! too well to that thou knowest the

way.

[Going. Por. Let baser souls from falling fortunes fly : I'll pay my duty to her, though I die.

[Exit, leading her. Mar. What made Porphyrius so officious be? The action looked as done in scorn of me.

Val. It did, indeed, some little freedom shew; But somewhat to his services you owe.

Max. Yet if I thought it his presumption were― Plac. Perhaps he did not your displeasure hear. Mar. My anger was too loud, not to be heard. Plac. I'm loth to think he did it not regard. Max. How, not regard!

Val. Placidius, you foment,

On too light grounds, my father's discontent.
But when an action does two faces wear,
Tis justice to believe what is most fair.

I think, that, knowing what respect there rests
For her late brother in the soldiers' breasts,
He went to serve the emperor; and designed
Only to calm the tempest in her mind,
Lest some sedition in the camp should rise.

Max. I ever thought him loyal as he's wise. Since therefore all the Gods their spite have shewn To rob my age of a successive throne;

And you who now remain,

The only issue of my former bed,

In empire cannot, by your sex, succeed;
To bind Porphyrius firmly to the state,
I will this day my Cæsar him create :
And, daughter, I will give him you for wife.
Val. O day, the best and happiest of my life!
Plac. O day, the most accurst I ever knew!

[Aside. Max. See to my son performed each funeral

due:

"Then to the toils of war we will return,

And make our enemies our losses mourn. [Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-The Royal Camp.

Enter BERENICE and PORPHYRIUS.

Ber. Porphyrius, you too far did tempt your fate, In owning her, the emperor does hate. "Tis true, your duty to me it became;

But, praising that, I must your conduct blame. Por. Not to have owned my zeal at such a time, Were to sin higher than your tyrant's crime.

Ber. "Twas too much, my disgrace to accompany; A silent wish had been enough for me.

Por. Wishes are aids faint servants may supply, Who ask heaven for you what themselves deny. Could I do less than my respect to pay, Where I before had given my heart away?

Ber. You fail in that respect you seem to bear, When you speak words unfit for me to hear.

Por. Yet you did once accept those vows I paid. Ber. Those vows were then to Berenice made; But cannot now be heard without a sin,

When offered to the wife of Maximin.

Por. Has, then, the change of fortune changed your will?

Ah! why are you not Berenice still?

To Maximin you once declared your hate;
Your marriage was a sacrifice to th' state:
Your brother made it to secure his throne,
Which this man made a step to mount it on.
Ber. Whatever Maximin has been, or is,

I am to bear, since heaven has made me his;
For wives, who must themselves of power divest,
When they love blindly, for their peace love best.
Por. If mutual love be vowed when faith you
plight,

Then he, who forfeits first, has lost his right.

Ber. Husbands a forfeiture of love may make;
But what avails the forfeit none can take?
As, in a general wreck,

The pirate sinks with his ill-gotten gains,
And nothing to another's use remains,
So, by his loss, no gain to you can fall :
The sea, and vast destruction swallows all.

Por. Yet he, who from the shore the wreck des cries,

May lawfully enrich him with the prize.

Ber. Who sees the wreck, can yet no title plead, Till he be sure the owner first is dead.

Por. If that be all the claim I want to love, This pirate of your heart I'll soon remove, And, at one stroke, the world and you set free. Ber. Leave to the care of heaven that world and

me.

Por. Heaven as its instrument my courage sends.