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And spread their flames resistless o'er the world?
What sleepy charms benumb these active heroes,
Depress their spirits, and retard their speed
Beyond the fear of lingering punishment?
Aspasia, now within her lover's arms,
Securely sleeps, and, in delightful dreams,
Smiles at the threatenings of defeated rage.
Car. We come, bright virgin, though relenting

nature

Shrinks at the hated task, for thy destruction; When, summoned by the sultan's clamorous fury, We asked, with timorous tongue, the offender's

name,

He struck his tortured breast, and roared, 'Irene!' We started at the sound; again enquired; Again his thundering voice returned, Irene!" Irene. Whence is this rage? what barbarous tongue has wronged me?

What fraud misleads him, or what crimes incense? Has. Expiring Cali named Irene's chamber The place appointed for his master's death.

Irene. Irene's chamber! From my faithful bosom

Far be the thought !-But hear my protestation. Car. 'Tis ours, alas! to punish, not to judge! Not called to try the cause, we heard the sentence,

Ordained the mournful messengers of death. Irene. Some ill-designing statesman's base intrigue!

Some cruel stratagem of jealous beauty!
Perhaps yourselves the villains that defame me,
Now haste to murder, ere returning thought
Recall the extorted doom.-It must be so;
Confess your crime, or lead me to the sultan.
There, dauntless truth shall blast the vile accuser;
Then shall you feel what language cannot utter,
Each piercing torture, every change of pain,
That vengeance can invent, or power inflict.

Enter ABDALLA, he stops short and listens.
Avd. [Aside.] All is not lost, Abdalla! see the

queen,

See the last witness of thy guilt and fear,
Enrobed in death-Dispatch her, and be great.
Car. Unhappy fair! Compassion calls upon me
To check this torrent of imperious rage.
While unavailing anger crowds thy tongue
With idle threats and fruitless exclamation,
The fraudful moments ply their silent wings,
And steal thy life away. Death's horrid angel
Already shakes his bloody sabre o'er thee.
The raging sultan burns till our return,
Curses the dull delays of lingering mercy,
And thinks his fatal mandates ill obeyed.
Abd. Is then your sovereign's life so cheaply
rated,

That thus you parley with detected treason?
Should she prevail to gain the sultan's presence,
Soon might her tears engage a lover's credit;
Perhaps her malice might transfer the charge;
Perhaps her poisonous tongue might blast Ab-
dalla.

Irene. O let me but be heard, nor fear from

me

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Horror and agony, are in that sound!
Let me but live, heap woes on woes upon me;
Hide me with murderers in the dungeon's gloom;
Send me to wander on some pathless shore;
Let shame and hooting infamy pursue me;
Let slavery harass, and let hunger gripe!

Car. Could we reverse the sentence of the sultan,

Our bleeding bosoms plead Irene's cause. But cries and tears are vain; prepare, with patience,

To meet that fate we can delay no longer.

[The mutes, at the sign, lay hold of her. Abd. Dispatch, ye lingering slaves! or nimbler hands,

Quick at my call, shall execute your charge;
Dispatch, and learn a fitter time for pity.

Irene. Grant me one hour, O grant me but a

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Abdalla, bid thy troubled breast be calm;
Now shalt thou shine the darling of the sultan,
The plot all Cali's, the detection thine.

Has. [To CAR.] Does not thy bosom, for I know thee tender,

A stranger to the oppressor's savage joy,
Melt at Irene's fate, and share her woes?

Car. Her piercing cries yet fill the loadedar,
Dwell on my ear, and sadden all my soul:
But let us try to clear our clouded brows,
And tell the horrid tale with cheerful face;
The stormy sultan rages at our stay.

Abd. Frame your report with circumspective

art,

Inflame her crimes, exalt your own obedience, But let no thoughtless hint involve Abdalla,

Car. What need of caution to report the fate Of her the sultan's voice condemned to die? Or why should he, whose violence of duty Has served his prince so well, demand our silence?

Abd. Perhaps my zeal, too fierce, betrayed my

prudence;

Perhaps my warmth exceeded my commission;
Perhaps I will not stoop to plead my cause,
Or argue with the slave that saved Demetrius.
Car. From his escape learn thou the power of
virtue,

Nor hope his fortune while thou want'st his worth.

Has. The sultan comes, still gloomy, still enraged.

Enter MAHOMET and MUSTAPHA.

Mah. Where's this fair traitress? Where's this smiling mischief,

Whom neither vows could fix, nor favours bind? Has. Thine orders, mighty sultan! are performed,

And all Irene now is breathless clay!

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Car. Your fierce impatience forced us from your presence,

Urged us to speed, and bade us banish pity,

Mah. Your hasty zeal defrauds the claim of Nor trust our passions with her fatal charms.

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Mur. Forgive, great sultan! that, by fate prevented,

I bring a tardy message from Irene.

Mah. Some artful wile of counterfeited love! Some soft decoy to lure me to destruction! And thou, the cursed accomplice of her treason, Declare thy message, and expect thy doom.

Mur. The queen requested, that a chosen troop

Might intercept the traitor Greek, Demetrius, Then lingering with his captive mistress here.

Mus. The Greek, Demetrius, whom the expiring Bassa

Declared the chief associate of his guilt!

Mah. A chosen troop-to intercept-Demetrius

The queen requested-Wretch, repeat the mes

sage;

Mah. What hadst thou lost by slighting those commands?

Thy life perhaps-Were but Irene spared,
Well if a thousand lives like thine had perished!
Such beauty, sweetness, love, were cheaply
bought,

With half the grovelling slaves that load the globe.
Mus. Great is thy woe! but think, illustrious

sultan,

Such ills are sent for souls like thine to conquer.
Shake off this weight of unavailing grief;
Rush to the war, display thy dreadful banners,
And lead thy troops victorious round the world.
Mah. Robbed of the maid, with whom I wish-

ed to triumph,

No more I burn for fame or for dominion; Success and conquests now are empty sounds. Remorse and anguish seize on all my breast; Those groves, whose shades embowered the dear Irene,

Heard her last cries, and fanned her dying beauties,

Shall hide me from the tasteless world for ever. [MAH. goes out and returns. Yet ere I quit the sceptre of dominion, Let one just act conclude the hateful day. Hew down, ye guards, those vassals of destruction, [Pointing to HAS. and CAR. Those hounds of blood, that catch the hint to kill;

Bear off, with eager haste, the unfinished sentence,

And speed the stroke, lest mercy should o'ertake them.

Car. Then hear, great Mahomet, the voice of

truth!

Mah. Hear? shall I hear thee! didst thou hear Irene?

Car. Hear but a moment!

Mah. Hadst thou heard a moment,

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Thou might'st have lived, for thou hadst spared

Irene.

Car. I heard her, pitied her, and wished to save her.

Mah. And wished-Be still thy fate to wish in vain!

Car. I heard, and softened, till Abdalla brought Her final doom, and hurried her destruction. Mah. Abdalla brought her doom! Abdalla brought it!

The wretch, whose guilt, declared by tortured Cali,

My rage and grief had hid from my remembrance! Abdalla brought her doom!

Has. Abdalla brought it,

While she yet begged to plead her cause before

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Rushed out and seized me, thoughtless and unarmed,

Breathless, amazed, and on the guarded beach Detained me, till Demetrius set me free.

Mus. So sure the fall of greatness raised on

crimes;

So fixed the justice of all-conscious Heaven.
When haughty guilt exults with impious joy,
Mistake shall blast, or accident destroy;
Weak man, with erring rage, may throw the dart,
But Heaven shall guide it to the guilty heart.
[Exeunt omnes.

EPILOGUE.

SPOKEN BY ASPASIA.

MARRY a Turk! a haughty tyrant king,
Who thinks us women born to dress and sing,
To please his fancy-see no other man—
Let him persuade me to it-if he can :
Besides, he has fifty wives; and who can bear
To have the fiftieth part her paltry share?
'Tis true, the fellow's handsome, strait and
tall;

But how the devil should he please us all?
My swain is little-true-but be it known,
My pride's to have that little all my own.
Men will be ever to their errors blind,
Where woman's not allow'd to speak her mind;
I swear this eastern pageantry is nonsense,

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THE

ROMAN FATHER.

BY

WHITEHEAD.

PROLOGUE.

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Stripp'd each luxuriant plume from fancy's wings,
And torn up similies from vulgar things:
Nay, even each moral, sentimental stroke,
Where not the character but poet spoke,
He lopp'd, as foreign to his chaste design,
Nor spar'd a useless though a golden line.

These are his arts; if these cannot atone
For all those nameless errors yet unknown,
If, shunning faults which nobler bards commit,
He wants the force to strike th' attentive pit,
Be just, and tell him so; he asks advice,
Willing to learn, and would not ask it twice.
Your kind applause may bid him write-beware!
Or kinder censure teach him to forbear.

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ACT I.

SCENE I.-A Room in HORATIUS's House. A Soldier crosses the Stage, HORATIA following. Horatia. Stay, soldier. As you parted from my father,

Something I overheard, of near concern,
But all imperfectly. Said you not Alba
Was on the brink of fate, and Rome determined,
This day, to crush her haughty rival's power,
Or perish in the attempt?

Sold. 'Twas so resolved

This morning, lady, ere I left the camp.
Our heroes are tired out with lingering war,
And half-unmeaning fight.

Horatia. Alas! I hoped

The kind remorse, which touched the kindred states,

And made their swords fall lightly on the breasts Of foes they could not hate, might have produced❘ A milder resolution. Then this day

Is fixed for death or conquest? [He bows.] To me death,

Whoever conquers! [Aside.] I detain you, sir.
Commend me to my brothers; say, I wish-
But wherefore should I wish? The gods will

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Horatia. Oh, I am lost, Valeria, lost to virtue ! Even while my country's fate, the fate of Rome, Hangs on the conqueror's sword, this breast can feel

A softer passion, and divide its cares!

Alba to me is Rome. Wouldst thou believe it?
I would have sent, by him thou saw'st departing,
Kind wishes to my brothers; but my tongue
Denied its office, and this rebel heart
Even dreaded their success. Oh, Curiatius!
Why art thou there, or why an enemy?

And who can blame thy fears? If fortune make him

Awhile thy country's foe, she cannot cancel
Vows registered above. What though the priest
Had not confirmed it at the sacred altar;
Yet were your hearts united, and that union
Approved by each consenting parent's choice.
Your brothers loved him as a friend, a brother:
And all the ties of kindred pleaded for him,
And still must plead, whate'er our heroes teach

us,

Of patriot strength. Our country may demand
We should be wretched, and we must obey;
But never can require us not to feel,
That we are miserable: nature there
Will give the lie to virtue.

Horatia. True; yet sure

A Roman virgin should be more than woman.
Are we not early taught to mock at pain,
And look on danger with undaunted eyes ?—
But what are dangers? what the ghastliest form
Of death itself?-Oh, were I only bid,
To rush into the Tiber's foaming wave,
Swoln with uncommon floods, or from the height
Of yon Tarpeian rock, whose giddy steep
Has turned me pale with horror at the sight,
I'd think the task were nothing!-but to bear
These strange vicissitudes of torturing pain,
To fear, to doubt, and to despair as I do!

Valeria. And why despair? Have we so idly
learned

The noblest lessons of our infant days,
Our trust above? Does there not still remain
The wretch's last retreat-the gods, Horatia?
'Tis from their awful wills our evils spring,
And at their altars may we find relief.
Say, shall we thither?-Look not thus dejected,
But answer me. A confidence in them,
E'en in this crisis of our fate, will calm
Thy troubled soul, and fill thy breast with hope.
Horatia. Talk not of hope; the wretch on

yonder plain,

Who hears the victor's threats, and sees his sword

Impending o'er him, feels no surer fate, Though less delayed than mine! What should I hope?

That Alba conquer?-Cursed be every thought Which looks that way! The shrieks of captive

matrons

Sound in my cars!

Valeria. Forbear, forbear, Horatia, Nor fright me with the thought. Rome cannot

fall.

Think on the glorious battles she has fought; Has she once failed, though oft exposed to danger?

Valeria. Forbear this self-reproach; he is thy And has not her immortal founder promised,

husband,

That she should rise the mistress of the world

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