her Argalia is brought, being accused by the relations of those whom he had slain, and who are ready with suborned witnesses against him. Andremon's father does not appear; he, indeed, and Florenza knew the truth,

-but kept by fear in awe,

Where power offends the poor scarce hope for law.

The princess is struck by Argalia's appearance,

whose excelling worth

In this low ebb of fortune, did appear
Such as we fancy virtues that come near
The excellence of angels. Fear had not
Rifled one drop of blood, nor Rage begot
More colour in his cheeks.

His yielding spirits now prepare to meet

Death, cloath'd in thoughts white as his winding sheet.

He on his part, even in this dreadful situation, cannot but admire Pharonnida. The false evidence is so strong that he is condemned, and the jailors are hurrying him away, when Ariamnes comes in, and obtains a reprieve for three days, during which time enquiries may be made by his friends. Aphron also now appears, and warns them how they venture to shed blood so well allied, saying, they were spirits nobly born. Some embassadors from the Epirot court, who are come with a proposal of marriage for the princess, are sent for, and one of them acknowledges Aphron for his child, the other Argalia for his adopted son.

4. Still the sentence must be executed, if no new proof of his innocence be brought; and the hour of execution arrives, when Ariamnes comes in time with the father of Andremon and Florenza, and a troop of armed countrymen, by whose timely insurrection they have made way through a troop of soldiers stationed by Almanzor to prevent them from appearing. The damsel is called upon for her evidenceAnd here vain art

Look on and envy, to behold how far

Thy strict rules (which our youths afflictions are)
Nature transcends; in a discourse which she

With all the flowers of virgin modesty,

Not weeds of rhetoric strewed; to hear her miss,
Or put a blush for a parenthesis,

In the relating that uncivil strife

Which her sad subject was.

Argalia is acquitted, and Almanzor, not daring to appear, is outlawed. One of the Epirot embassadors relates how Argalia had been left when an infant to a cottager's care by two strangers, and afterwards adopted by himself, because he had seen him atchieve a rare feat of courage at a boar hunt. He shews a jewel which had been

left with him.

VOL. I.

4 I

The

The skilfullest lapidaries, judging it
Both for its worth and beauty only fit
To sparkle in the glorious cabinet

Of some great queen, such value on it set,
That all conclude the owner of 't must be
Some falling star in the night of royalty.

Before the embassadors depart, Molarchus, the Spartan admiral, invites them and the court on board his ship, and sails away with them. The other vessels do not for some time suspect treachery, and before they come up Molarchus has carried off Pharonnida in a boat, his crew having taken to the other, and having knocked a hole in the ship, leaving the king and his companions to sink in her. Argalia and Aphron swim to one of these boats, and win it, but Aphron is killed; in this he saves the king and Aphron's father; Ariamnes and his own fosterer are drowned. They make an island, where they learn Molarchus has carried Pharonnida into a castle. Argalia secretly gets in, kills him, and delivers her.

5. Molarchus being dead, no means remain of tracing the root of his conspiracy. Argalia, as a reward for his signal services, is ap pointed to be chief of the princess's guard, as Almanzor had been. The opportunities which his office led to confirm their love

Either in

Each action of the others did begin
To place an adoration; she doth see

Whatever he doth, as shining majesty

Beneath a cloud; or books where heaven transfers

Their oracles in unknown characters;

Like gold yet unrefin'd, or the adamant

Wrapt up in earth, he only seem'd to want
Knowledge of worth. Her actions in his sight
Appear like Fire's feign'd element, with light
But not destruction arin'd: like the fair Sun
When thro' a crystal aqueduct he hath run
His piercing beams, until grown temperate by
That cooling medium, thro' humility
Shone her majestic worth. In either's eyes
The other seem'd to wear such a disguise

As poets cloath'd their wandering gods in, when
In forms disguised they here convers'd with men.
-Like the amorous vine
When crawling o'er the weeds it strives to twine
Embraces with the elm, he stands: while she
Desires to bend, but like that lovesick tree
By greatness is denied. His eagle sight
Is born to gaze upon no lesser light;

-he

I have corrected the text, which reads honour. The whole book is villaintusly printed, and full of such blunders.

-he else had been

Degenerate from that royal eyery whence
He first did spring, altho' he fell from thence
Unfledged, the growing pinions of his fame
Wanting the purple tincture of his name
And titles (both unknown ;)—yet shall he fly
On his own merit's strength a pitch as high.

Pharonnida has a dream, which unfolds something of the mystery of his birth. She sees the three royal families of Sparta, Epire, and Elotia, which are all descended from one common stock. The first terminates in her, the second in Zoranza, the crown of the third falls from old Gelon's head at fierce Zoranza's feet; but presently she sees Gelon in a pilgrim's dress, leading in a lovely boy; and the rest of the dream shadows great dangers and Argalia her deliverer.

On the morrow Argalia delivers to her a packet from her father. It relates to the Epirot's courtship, and contains letters upon the subject from him himself.

Inclosed within this rough lord's letters, she
Received his picture, which inform'd her he
Wanted dissimulation (that worst part

Of courtship) to put compliments of art
On his effigies; his stern brow far more
Glorying in the scars, than in the crown he wore.
His active youth made him retainer to

The court of Mars, something too long to sue
For entrance into Love's. Like mornings clad
In griesled frosts, ere plump-cheek'd Autumn had
Shorn the glebe's golden locks, some silver hairs
Mixt with his black appeared. His age despairs
Not of a hopeful heir, nor could his youth
Promise much more: the venerable truth
Of glorious victories that stuck his name
For ornament in the frontispiece of Fame,
Together with his native greatness were
His orators to plead for love.

Over these letters Pharonnida weeps in secret, and in a passionate soliloquy of great beauty declares her determination to endure all evils, even poverty

That weed which kills the gentle flower of love,

rather than renounce her hopes of Argalia. This is said so loud, Argalia as he is retiring hears her, listening indeed

Here ends the first book, or act, as it is designed, of the

poem.

that

Book 2. Canto 1. Almanzor meanwhile has been plotting rebellion. Amphibia, one of Pharonnida's ladies, envious of the favour shewn to Florenza, conspires with him. She is seized at a mask in the palace, forced into a coach, and carried off. The country is alarmed, and a body of peasants rescue her.

2. 3. Almanzor collects an army, and totally defeats the king, who flies to a castle in which he had previously secured his daughter. Almanzor sends here to explain his intentions, which, he says, are to save the country from the yoke of the Epirote, by marrying the princess himself. This proposal being rejected with disdain, he besieges the cattle, which holds out till reduced to extremity by famine. Then the king prepares to sally and die sword in hand. But at the very time, Argalia, who has been for succour to the Epirote, comes with a detachment from the main army, meaning to succour the castle, falls upon the besiegers in a fog and routs them. A party of the rebels take refuge in a cave; Argalia and the king pursue, and having conquered them, proceed to explore the wonders of the place. They find a dark and ugly lake, with an old tower in the midst thereof, to which they get by stones like ruined arches. In this tower is a magnificent room, where the statue of a king is sitting, with a lamp burning before him, a sceptre in his right hand, his left resting on a tablet on which these lines are written.

When striving to remove this light

Two princes leaves involved in night,
The time draws near that shall pull down
My old Morea's triple crown,
Uniting on one royal head

What to disjoin such discord bred.
But let the more remote take heed,
For there's a third ordained to bleed.
For when I'm read, not understood,
Then shall Epirus' royal blood

By ways no mortal yet must know
Within the Elotian channel flow.

Having read this, Argalia attempts to take away the lamp, when the sceptre strikes it, and they are left in darkness, according to the old tale so often repeated from the Gesta Romanorum down to the history of Goody Two Shoes's brother; when they have got new light they see that the image has mouldered to dust, and the whole enchantment is at an end. The Epirote army cuts off most of the fugitives, but Almanzor escapes.

4. 5. Chamberlayne is often pedantic, and his pedantry not unfrequently professional, as in the beginning of this Canto.

That too inferior branch which strove to rise

With the Basillick to anastomize,

Thus drain'd, the states plethoric humours are
Reduced to harmony,

A rebellion

A rebellion in some of his conquests calls away the Epirote suddenly. The king removes Pharonnida to a palace near the walls of his capital, Corinth. Argalia still continues commander of her guard. Amphibia makes the king suspicious of him, and as an honourable way of removing him, he is sent with succours to the Epirot. The parting scene with the princess would have been beautiful but for the vile versification. The book concludes with the following remarkable passage, written, as appears by the margin, just before the second battle of Newbury.

But ere calmed thoughts, to prosecute our story,
Salute thy ears with the deserved glory
Our martial lover purchased here-I must
Let my pen rest awhile, and see the rust
Scour'd from my own sword; for a fatal day
Draws on those gloomy hours, whose short steps may
In Britain's blushing chronicle write more
Of sanguine guilt than a whole age before.
To tell our too neglected troops that we
In a just cause are slow, we ready see

Our rallied foes; nor will it our slothful crime
Expunge, to say Guilt wakened them betime.
From every quarter the affrighted scout
Brings swift alarums in; hovering about
The clouded tops of the adjacent hills,
Like ominous vapours lie their troops: noise fills
Our yet unrallied army, and we now,
Grown legible, in the contracted brow,
Discern whose heart looks pale with fear. If in
This rising storm of blood, which doth begin
To drop already, I'm not wash'd into

The grave, my next safe quarter shall renew
Acquaintance with Pharonnida-till then

I leave the muses to converse with men.

Book 3. Canto 1. An episodical love story, which ends in the banishment of Euriolus and Mazara, two of the knights of her guard. 2. The king surprizes his daughter reading a letter from Argalia; a scene of high merit follows, and he sends to the Epirot Zoranza to make away with him, as a man equally dangerous to both. Zoranza gives him the command of the town of Ardenna, but the governor has secret instructions to murder him in the night. Accordingly at midnight a band of assassins enter his chamber. Now it happened that there was a prophecy current in the town, which declared, that when it should be stained by treachery under the veil of friendship, its tower should be surprized. To elude this prediction they carry Argalia out of the town to murder him; a body of Turks rescue him and surprize the town, but are driven out and reimbark, carrying Argalia away prisoner. Zoranza then, to remove all witnesses of his treason,

poisons