"Can I heard, Sir, you were refug'd in this court, And come to beg a favour. Cleom. Good! a favour! Sure, thou mistak'st me for a king of Egypt; And think'st I govern here? Con. Y'are Cleomenes. Cleom. No thanks to Heaven for that; I should have dy'd, And then I had not been this Cleomenes. Panth. You promis'd patience, Sir. Cleom. Thou art a scurvy monitor, I am patient. Do I foam at lips; Or stare at eyes? Methinks I am wond'rous patient. I prithee, gentle Conus, tell the story- The victors robb'd the shrines, polluted temples, And dreadful shrieks, as in the act of rape. I was but teaching him to grace his tale Con. Your sick imagination feigns all this; Cleom. Has not the conqueror been at Sparta ? Cleom. Nay; then I know what follows victory. Nay, raise your thoughts yet higher, think some deity, By gentle dragons, scatter'd as she flew Her fruitful grains upon the teeming ground, Cleom. Do we dream, Pantheus ? Panth. No sure! we are awake-but 'tis he dreams. And enter'd Sparta like a choir of priests, As if they fear'd to tread on holy ground. No noise was heard; no voice, but of the cryer Act I. Sc. I. Dryden is peculiarly fond of infusing a sort of magnanimous self-complaisance into his hero, in which he is sometimes very happy, as in the following speech of Cleomenes of his son. "I love to see him sparkle out betime, For 'twas my flame that lighted up his soul: I'm pleas'd with my own work; Jove was not more With infant nature, when his spacious hand Had rounded this huge ball of earth, and seas, To give it the first push, and see it roll Along the vast abyss." We will place together, as they occur, the other passages in this play which are worthy of especial notice. Cassandra says of men, that There is put into the mouth of the Egyptian Sosibius, a very appropriate and well-expressed comparison. "For, as our Apis, tho' in temples fed, And under golden roofs, yet loaths his food, Act III. Sc. I. This same Sosibius has a singular theory concerning the mutability of human notions. "Man is but man; unconstant still, and various; There's no to-morrow in him, like to day. Cleomenes, in a reflecting mood, says, "Just such is death, With a black veil, covering a beauteous face! By erring nature: a mistaken phantom; A harmless, lambent fire. She kisses cold, What joys she brings; at least, what rest from grief! And be pleas'd not to be, or to be happy?" Cleander gives up the Egyptians. Ibid. Act IV. Scene I. " 'Tis all in vain; we have no further work; Act IV. Of the interesting character of " The Maiden Queen" we shall say nothing more, except that the winding up of the plot is very unsatisfactory and inartificial, but proceed to our business of pointing out the poetical beauties. Philocles, when speaking of the unknown lover who has neglected the Queen's advances, says "He's blind indeed! So the dull beasts in the first paradise With levell'd eyes gaz'd each upon their kind; There fix'd their love: and ne'er look'd up to view Act III. Scene I. A lover thus speaks of the happiness he should enjoy with the object of his affections: "All my ambition will in you be crown'd;` Ibid. We glean the following passages, the first of which is very lovely: "Then, setting free a sigh, from her fair eyes Which better did, what she design'd, pursue, Without her crime, to give her pow'r to you. Act IV. Sc. II. Philocles enters, and thus addresses the loved Candiope : "Phil. How now, in tears, my fair Candiope? So through a watʼry cloud The sun at once seems both to weep and shine. For what forefather's sin do you afflict Those precious eyes! For sure you have None of your own to weep. Cand. My crimes both great and many needs must shew, Since heav'n will punish them with losing you. Phil. Afflictions sent from heav'n without a cause, Make bold mankind enquire into its laws. But heav'n, which, moulding beauty takes such care, And destiny, that sees them so divine, No mortal hand so ignorant is found To weave coarse work upon a precious ground." Act III. Of the "Duke of Guise" only the first scene, the fourth act, and better part of the tifth, are by Dryden. The rest is the production of Nat. Lee. The following speech of Guise, is marked by the powerful pen of Dryden. "Poison on her name! Take my hand on't, that cormorant dowager In her lap. I was at Bayon with her, When she, the king, and grisly d'Alva met; His op'ning nostrils, and his dropping lids→→→→ Almost the only beautiful lines besides these in this play, are Lee's; a poet who has not had justice done him. We select the few passages that follow, which will perhaps dispose the reader to think more favorably of one, whose name is only associated with an idea of rant and fustian. Malicorne is taunting Grillon with a false accusation of his daughter. "Yet I have brain, and there is my revenge; Fast sighs and smiles, swol'n lips and heaving breasts, My soul presages." And in the speech of Marmoutiere, that shortly follows, there An enterprize like mine? I that resolv'd The king says, "O Marmoutiere! now will I haste to meet thee Looks like the midnight-moon upon a murther." The following is a beautiful, though fanciful reason, for attributing an awful importance to the last words of a dying man: |