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Such majestic atoms

First made the world."

Mithridates is written with great power, and is one of the chief supports of our favourable opinion of Lee. So much of the plot as is necessary to understand our extracts, may be speedily told. Ziphares, son of Mithridates, king of Pontus, returning from a successful campaign against the Romans, solicits, as the reward of his services, his father's consent to his marriage with Semandra, the daughter of Archilaus, a veteran general. This request is made in the temple, just as the nuptials of Mithridates with Monima had been interrupted by evil omens. The amorous monarch conceives an instantaneous and violent passion for Semandra, and abruptly refusing his son's petition, has her conveyed to the palace. After a violent struggle with himself, his better feelings prevail, and he promises to unite the lovers, on the return of Ziphares from another military expedition on which he is sent; resolving in the mean time not to trust himself in Semandra's presence. He is tricked into the violation of this wholesome resolution by the agents of Pharnaces, another of his sons, the concealed but deadly enemy of his brother Ziphares, who is plotting to seize his father's crown by Roman assistance. The consequence of this renewed passion is a determination to possess Semandra at all events. She is terrified into receiving Ziphares with coldness on his return, by threats of his destruction if she suffered the slightest mark of affection to escape her; and then forcibly made the wife of Mithridates.

The scene in which Pelopidas induces Mithridates to violate the retirement of Semandra, is a finished exhibition of dexterous and successful villainy in the one, and of passion triumphing over reason by means of gross self-delusion in the other.

Mithridates. What are her charms to me?
Pelopidas. "Tis true, they are not;

And yet, methinks, the sight might draw down Jove-
Yet, I'd not ask you, for the world, to see her;
But that I think you're master of your promise:

I thought your godlike frame, your strength of mind,
Not to be shook; therefore I woo'd you, Sir,
In curiosity to see a wonder.

But if you doubt yourself.

Mith. I think I need not:

I think my virtue is resolved: but yet
I fear, and therefore I will go no farther.

Pelop. 'Tis well resolved: and yet, methinks, 'twould raise

Your pity, more than love, to see the tears

Force through her snowy lids their melting course,
To lodge themselves on her sad murmuring lips,
That talk such mournful things; when straight a gale
Of starting sighs carries those pearls away,

As dews, by winds, are wafted from the flowers.

Mith. "Tis wondrous pitiful: by heaven, it is!

I feel her sorrow working here; it calls
Fire to my breast, and water to my eyes,
And if I durst.-

Pelop. If you the least suspect

Your temper, if the smallest breath of love
But stir your heart; let me conjure you, Sir,
Not to go on; the dazzling mirror will
Disturb your quiet, and confound your reason.

Mith. "Twill be as well, tho' I believe no power
Can change my virtue,-yet 'twill be as well
If you relate exactly what you saw.

Pelop. Behold her then upon a flowery bank,
With her soft sorrows lull'd into a slumber.
The summer's heat had, to her natural blush,
Added a brighter and more tempting red;
The beauties of her neck and naked breasts,
Lifted by inward starts, did rise and fall
With motion that might put a soul in statues ;
The matchless whiteness of her folded arms,

That seem'd t'embrace the body whence they grew,
Fix'd me to gaze on all that field of love;
While to my ravish'd eyes officious winds,

Waving her robes, display'd such handsome limbs
As artists would in polish'd marble give

The wanton goddess.

Mith. Something there is stirs mightily my breast; 'Tis pity; sure, it can be only pity:

Who knows but that her multiplying fears,

And cruel griefs, in time may give her death?
"Twere most inhuman therefore not to go,
And comfort her with praises of Ziphares:
I'll tell her how he conquers, how he comes
Triumphant from the consul's overthrow,
To take the noble wreaths he has deserv'd,
Embraces from her arms; circles more rich
Than all the crowns my fruitless valour won.
Yet stay; I will not speak of him: "Twere rude
To break her rest: I'll see her, when she wakes.

Pelop. Then you dare trust your heart?
Mith. 'Tis sure I dare:

By heaven, my friends, I dare: I feel such strong
Collected manly virtue, that I'll on.

Pelop. O sacred Sir, turn back: if, conquer'd by
Her beauties, you should love again, I know
Pelopidas must bear the blame of all;

Therefore, my lord

Mith. Away; by heaven, I'll go.

Pelop. O'tis impossible if once you lov'd,
But you must certainly relapse:

Therefore your fearful servant kneels and begs
You would turn back : alas! he's conscious now
What a gross fault his foolish tongue committed,
By tempting unawares your reason forth.

Mith. I'll see her; yes, it is resolv'd, I'll see her,
With all that world of charms thou hast describ'd;
Therefore arise, and lead the way,

Pelop. Alas,

My lord, I fear you; but it is your pleasure,
And I'm your slave.

Mith. Reply not; but obey.

Semandra escapes him, but the consciousness of meditated injury to his son seeks for relief in suspicions of his fidelity, and the shouts of the people without on his triumphal return, with the insinuations of Pelopidas and Pharnaces, inflame him almost to madness.

Pelop. He comes, my Lord, and with a port as proud,
As if he had subdu'd the spacious world;
And all Sinope's streets are fill'd with such

A glut of people, you would think some God
Had conquer'd in their cause, and they thus rank'd
That he might make his entrance on their heads :
While from the scaffolds, windows, tops of houses,
Are cast such gaudy showers of garlands down,
That even the crowd appear like conquerors,
And the whole city seems like one vast meadow,
Set all with flowers, as a clear heaven with stars.

Mith. Ungrateful slaves! By Mars, when I return'd,

Worn with the hardship of a ten years' war,
My armies heavy gaited, bruis'd, and hack'd,
With cutting Roman lives ;

They ne'er receiv'd me with a pomp like this.

Pelop. Nay, as I heard, e'er he the city enter'd,
Your subjects lin'd the ways for many furlongs ;
The very trees bore men: and, as our God,
When from the portal of the east he dawns,
Beholds a thousand birds upon the boughs,
To welcome him with all their warbling throats,
And prune their feathers in his golden beams;
So did your subjects, in their gaudiest trim,
Upon the pendant branches speak his praise.
Mothers, who cover'd all the banks beneath,
Did rob their crying infants of the breast,
Pointing Ziphares out to make them smile;
And climbing boys stood on their fathers' shoulders,
Answering their shouting sires with tender cries,

To make the concert up of general joy.

Mith. What, will you bear your part too? O the Gods!

He is transported with the ample theme,

And plays the orator! Plagues rot thy tongue,

And blasted be the lungs that breath'd his welcome.

Perish the bodies that went forth to meet him,

A

prey

for worms to stink in hollow ground.

O viper, villain! Not content to take

My love, but life! Wilt thou unthrone me too?
Shall Mithridates live to be depos'd;

A stale, the image of what once he was;
The very ghost of his departed greatness;

A thing for slaves to be familiar with,

To gape, to nod, and sleep in my scorn'd face?
Awake, awake, thou sluggard majesty,

Rouse thee to act, &c.—

The fourth act opens with Mithridates waking from sleep, on the morning after his forcible marriage of Semandra. We can only insert parts of this scene, the whole of which is admirable.

Mith. What hoa! Pelopidas! Why, Andravar!
Haste to my help.

The

Enter Pelopidas, Andravar.

Pelop. What would your majesty?

Mith. I would, what I must ne'er expect on earth,
peace I had. Come nearer. 0 my friends,

If fate did e'er foreshew a doom in sleep,

Mine is at hand.

Prest with remorse, I rested on my couch,
And slept; but oh, a dream so full of terror,
The pale, the trembling midnight ravisher
Ne'er saw, when cold Lucretia's mourning shadow
His curtains drew, and lash'd him in the eyes
With her bright tresses, dabbled in her blood.

Pelop. I have heard of dreams that proved ominous;
But I could never fix my faith on fancies.

Mith. Methought, by heavenly order I was doom'd
To seek my fate alive in th' other world :
Straight, like a feather, I was borne by winds
To a steep promontory's top, from whence
I saw the very mouth of opening hell;
Shooting so fast through the void caves of night,
I had not time to ponder of my passage.

I shot the lake of oaths, where fleeting ghosts,
Whose bodies were unburied, begg'd for waftage:
Then was I thrown down the infernal courts,
Infinite fathom, till I soar'd again

To the bright, heavenly plains, the happy fields.

Andr. I wonder that the brittle thread of thought
Should hold in such a maze !

Mith. Oh, now it comes !

After that heavenly sounds had charm'd my ears,
Methought I saw the spirits of my sons,

Slain by my jealousy of their ambition,

Who shriek'd, He's come! Our cruel father's come!
Arm, arm, they cried, through all th' enamell'd grove:
Strait had their cries alarm'd the wounded host

Of all those Romans massacred in Asia:

I heard the empty clank of their thin arms,
And tender voices cried, Lead, Pompey, lead.
Strait they came on, with chariots, horse and foot.
When I had leisure to discern their chief,

Methought, that Pompey was my son Ziphares.

At this juncture, the actual approach of Pompey, to avenge the disgrace which the Roman arms had sustained, is announced: Mithridates exclaims,

Not Pompey, but

Ziphares comes, with all his wrongs for arms,

Like the lieutenant of the Gods, against me:
Semandra too, like bleeding victory,

Stands on his side.

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