Of thy confed'rates too be no lefs great
In hell than here: that when we would repeat
Our strengths in mufter, we may name you all,
And furies upon you for furies call.

Whilft what you do may ftrike them into fears,
Or make them grieve, and wish your mischief theirs.

Cat. It is decreed. Nor fhall thy fate, O Rome,
Refift my vow.
Tho' hills were fet on hills,

And feas met feas to guard thee, I would through:
I'd plough up rocks, steep as the Alps, in duft;
And lave the Tyrrhene waters into clouds;
But I would reach thy head, thy head, proud city!
The ills that I have done cannot be safe
But by attempting greater; and I feel

A fpirit within me chides my fluggish hands,
And fays, they have been innocent too long.
Was I a man bred great as Rome herself?
One form'd for all her honours, all her glories?
Equal to all her titles; that could stand
Close up with Atlas, and fuftain her name
As ftrong as he doth heaven? and was I,
Of all her brood, mark'd out for the repulfe
By her no-voice, when I stood candidate
To be commander in the Pontick war?
I will hereafter call her stepdame ever:
If fhe can lofe her nature, I can lofe
My piety; and in her ftony entrails
Dig me a feat; where I will live again,
The labour of her womb, and be a burden
Weightier than all the prodigies and monsters

That he hath teem'd with, fince she first knew Mars.

SCENE

III.

SCENE

Catiline, Aurelia.

Cat. Who's there?

Aur. 'Tis I.

Cat. Aurelia?

Aur. Yes.

Cat. Appear,

And break like day, my beauty, to this circle :
Upbraid thy Phoebus, that he is fo long

In mounting to that point, which should give thee
Thy proper fplendour. Wherefore frowns my fweet?
Have I too long been absent from these lips,

[He kiffeth them. This cheek, these eyes? what is my trefpafs? fpeak. Aur. It seems you know, that can accuse your felf. Cat. I will redeem it.

Aur. Still you fay fo. When?

Cat. When Oreftilla, by her bearing well These my retirements, and stoln times for thought, Shall give their effects leave to call her queen Of all the world, in place of humbled Rome. Aur. You court me now.

Cat. As I would always, love,

By this ambrofiack kifs, and this of nectar,
Wouldst thou but hear as gladly as I fpeak.
Could my Aurelia think I meant her lefs;
When, wooing her, I first remov'd a wife,
And then a fon, to make my bed and house
Spacious and fit t' embrace her? these were deeds
Not t' have begun with, but to end with more
And greater: He that, building, stays at one
Floor, or the fecond, hath erected none.
'Twas how to raise thee I was meditating;
To make some act of mine answer thy love:
That love, that when my state was now quite funk,

K 3

Came

Came with thy wealth, and weigh'd it up again,
And made my emergent fortune once more look
Above the main; which now fhall hit the ftars,
And stick my Creftilla there amongst 'em,
If any tempeft can but make the billow,
And any billow can but lift her greatness.
But I must pray my love, fhe will put on
Like habits with my felf. I have to do
With many men, and many natures. Some
That must be blown and footh'd; as Lentulus,
Whom I have heav'd with magnifying his blood,
And a vain dream out of the Sybils books,
That a third man of that great family
Whereof he is defcended, the Cornelii,
Should be a king in Rome: which I have hir'd
The flatt'ring augurs to interpret him,
Cinna and Sylla dead. Then bold Cethegus,
Whofe valour I have turn'd into his poifon,
And prais'd fo into daring, as he would
Go on upon the gods, kifs lightning, wrest
The engine from the Cyclops, and give fire
At face of a full cloud, and ftand his ire,
When I would bid him move. Others there are,
Whom envy to the ftate draws, and puts on
For contumelies receiv'd, (and fuch are fure ones)
As Curius, and the forenam'd Lentulus,
Both which have been degraded in the fenate,
And must have their difgraces ftill new rubb'd,
To make 'em fmart, and labour of revenge.
Others whom mere ambition fires, and dole
Of provinces abroad, which they have feign'd

With many men, and many natures.] The following defcription is artful in the poet, to let us into the true characters of the feveral confpirators, and prepare us for their appearance. It is perfectly confonant likewife to hiftoric truth; and is only a poetical tranflation of what Salluft himself hath given us in the introduction to his history of Catiline's Confpiracy.

Τα

To their crude hopes, and I as amply promis'd:
Thefe, Lecca, Vargunteius, Beftia, Autronius.
Some whom their wants opprefs, as th' idle captains
Of Sylla's troops: and divers Roman knights
(The profufe wafters of their patrimonies)
So threaten'd with their debts, as they will now
Run any defp'rate fortune for a change.

These for a time we must relieve, Aurelia,
And make our house their fafeguard: like for thofe
That fear the law, or ftand within her gripe,
For any act paft, or to come.

Such will

From their own crimes be factious, as from ours.
*Some more there be, flight airlings, will be won
With dogs and horfes, or perhaps a whore;
Which must be had: and if they venture lives.
For us, Aurelia, we must hazard honours
A little. Get thee ftore and change of women,
As I have boys; and give 'em time and place,
And all connivence: be thy felf, too, courtly;
And entertain, and feaft, fit up, and revel;
Call all the great, the fair, and fpirited dames'
Of Rome about thee: and begin a fashion
Of freedom and community. Some will thank thee,
Tho' the four fenate frown, whofe heads must ake
In fear and feeling too. We must not spare
Or coft or modefty. It can but fhew

Like one of Juno's, or of Jove's difguifes,
In either thee or me: and will as foon,

When things fucceed, be thrown by, or let fall,
As is a veil put off, a vifor chang'd,

Or the scene shifted in our theatres- [A noife without.
Who's that? It is the voice of Lentulus.

Aur. Or of Cethegus.

• Some more there be, flight AIRLINGS.] Airlings is an expreffive word, and very fignificantly denotes the levity and impotence of mind in most of the confpirators. But Mr. Theobald, diffatisfied with the word, and probably induced by the following terms, propofeth hirelings as the jufter reading.

K 4

Cat:

Cat. In, my fair Aurelia,

And think upon thefe arts. They must not fe
How far you're trufted with thefe privacıs
Tho' on their shoulders, necks, and heads

SCENE IV.

Lentulus, Cethegus, Catiline.

you rife.

Lent. It is, methinks, a morning full of fate!
It rifeth flowly, as her fullen car

Had all the weights of fleep and death hung at it!
She is not rofie-finger'd, but fwoln black!
Her face is like a water turn'd to blood,
And her fick head is bound about with clouds,
As if the threaten'd night 'ere noon of day!
It does not look as it would have a hail
Or health wifh'd in it, as on other morns.

Cet. Why, all the fitter, Lentulus: our coming
Is not for falutation, we have business.

Cat. Said nobly, brave Cethegus. Where's Autronius? Cet. Is he not come?

Cat. Not here.

Cet. Nor Vargunteius?

Cat. Neither.

Cet. A fire in their beds and bofoms,

That fo will ferve their floth rather than virtue,
They are no Romans, and at such high need
As now.

Len. Both they, Longinus, Lecca, Curius,
Fulvius, Gabinius, gave me word last night,
By Lucius Bestia, they would all be here,
And early.

Cet. Yes as you, had I not call'd you.

Lent. It is, methinks, a morning full of fate!] Lentulus is be fore defcribed as much addicted to fuperftition, and the obfervance of omens; this remark therefore upon the blacknefs of the morning, could not have proceeded with equal propriety from the mouth of any other. The beginning of Mr. Addison's Cato hath a great fimilitude to this fpeech of Lentulus, which almost induceth one to imagine it a copy from our poet.

Come