Bel. All ill ones, sure, had charge of me this moment. Oh, give me daggers, fire or water: How I could bleed, how burn, how drown, the waves [Exit. Jaf. Dead! Pier. Come, now I'm ready. Captain, you should be a gentleman of honour: Pier. Now, Jaffier! now I'm going! Now- Thou honest heart, then!-there- [TO JAF. [Stabs him. [Stabs himself. Pier. Now thou hast indeed been faithful! This was nobly done!-We have deceived the senate. Jaf. Bravely. Pier. Ha, ha, ha -oh! oh! [Falls down on the scaffold, and dies. Jaf. Now, ye curs'd rulers, Thus of the blood ye've shed, I make libation, Pier. Yes, dead, Jaffier; they've all died like men I'm sick—I'm quiet. too, Worthy their character. Jaf. And what must I do? Pier. Oh, Jaffier! Jaf. Speak aloud thy burden'd soul, And tell thy troubles to thy tortur'd friend. Pier. Friend! Couldst thou yet be a friend, a generous friend, I might hope comfort from thy noble sorrows. Jaf. And I a kind one, That would not thus scorn my repenting virtue, Or think, when he's to die, my thoughts are idle. Pier. No! live, I charge thee, Jaffer. Jaf. Yes, I will live : But it shall be to see thy fall reveng'd, At such a rate, as Venice long shall groan for. Jaf. I will, by Heaven! Pier. Then still thou'rt noble, And I forgive thee. Oh!-yet-shall I trust thee! Jaf. No; I've been false already. Pier. Dost thou love me? Jaf. Rip up my heart, and satisfy thy doubtings. I never saw thee melted thus before; [Dies. [The scene closes upon them. Scene-Apartment in PRIULI'S House. Enter PRIULI, BELVIDERA distracted, and two of her women. Pri. Strengthen her heart with patience, pitying Heaven. Bel. Come, come, come, come, come; nay, come to bed, Pr'ythee, my love. The winds! hark how they whistle! Stand off, I say! What! gone? Remember, tyrant, Enter CAPTAIN, and whispers PRIULI. Pri. News-what news? Capt. Most sad, sir; Jaffier, upon the scaffold, to prevent A shameful death, stabb'd Pierre, and next himself; Both fell together. Bel. Ha! look there! My husband bloody, and his friend too! Murder! Who has done this? Speak to me, thou sad vision: On these poor trembling knees I beg it. Vanish'd! Pri. Oh! lead me into some place that's fit for Where the free air, light, and the cheerful sun, As long as I've to live; and there all leave me : [Parting.] With all his dreadful bristles raised on high; Till, brandishing my well-pois'd javelin high, NATHANIEL LEE. Another tragic poet of this period was NATHANIEL LEE, who possessed no small portion of the fire of genius, though unfortunately 'near allied' to madness. Lee was the son of a Hertfordshire clergyman, and [Exeunt Omnes. received a classical education, first at Westminster school, and afterwards at Trinity college, Cambridge. He tried the stage both as an actor and author, was four years in bedlam from wild insanity; but recovering his reason, resumed his labours as a dramatist, and though subject to fits of partial derangement, continued to write till the end of his life. He was the author of eleven tragedies, besides assisting Dryden in the composition of two pieces, Edipus and the Duke of Guise. The unfortunate poet was in his latter days supported by charity: he died in London, and was buried in St Clement's church, April 6, 1692. The best of Lee's tragedies are the Rival Queens, or Alexander the Great, Mithridates, Theodosius, and Lucius Junius Brutus. In praising Alexander, Dryden alludes to the power of his friend in moving the passions, and counsels him to despise those critics who condemn Where am I? Sure I wander 'midst enchantment, [Picture of a Witch.] Through a close lane as I pursued my journey, [Description of Morning.] Wish'd Morning 's come; and now upon the plains, [Killing a Boar.] Forth from the thicket rush'd another boar, The too much vigour of his youthful muse. We have here indicated the source both of Lee's strength and of his weakness. In tenderness and genuine passion, he excels Dryden; but his style often degenerates into bombast and extravagant frenzya defect which was heightened in his late productions by his mental malady. The author was aware of his weakness. It has often been observed against me,' he says in his dedication of Theodosius, 'that I abound in ungoverned fancy; but I hope the world will pardon the sallies of youth: age, despondency, and dulness, come too fast of themselves. I discommend no man for keeping the beaten road; but I am sure the noble hunters that follow the game must leap hedges and ditches sometimes, and run at all, or never come into the fall of a quarry.' He wanted discretion to temper his tropical genius, and reduce his poetical conceptions to consistency and order; yet among his wild ardour and martial enthusiasm are very soft and graceful lines. Dryden himself has no finer image than the following: Speech is morning to the mind; It spreads the beauteous images abroad, Which else lie furled and clouded in the soul. Or this declaration of love : I disdain All pomp when thou art by: far be the noise guise of idiocy after the rape of Lucrece by Tar- The violated genius of thy country As from night's womb the glorious day breaks forth, So, from the blackness of young Tarquin's crime Of Junius Brutus catches bright occasion. rape I see the pillars of his kingdom totter: [Scene between Brutus and Titus, his son.] [Titus having joined the Tarquin conspiracy, is condemned by his own father to suffer the death of a traitor. Brutus takes a last farewell of him.] Rears his sad head, and passes sentence on thee: Shall never see thee more. Tit. Alas! my lord, Why art thou moved thus? why am I worthy of thy sorrow! Why should the godlike Brutus shake to doom me? Bru. They will, my Titus; Nor Heaven, nor earth, can have it otherwise; Brutus. Well, Titus, speak ; how is it with thee now? "Tis fix'd: O, therefore, let not fancy fond thee: I would attend awhile this mighty motion, Look'd down and listen'd to what we were saying: Titus. So well, that saying how, must make it nothing; So well, that I could wish to die this moment, Tit. Most certain, sir; for in my grave I 'scape Groans, and convulsions, and discolour'd faces, Yes, sir; I call the powers of heaven to witness, Bru. O Titus, O thou absolute young man! So fix'd thy death, that 'tis not in the power Tit. The axe? O heaven! Then must I fall so basely! What! Shall I perish by the common hangman? Bru. If thou deny me this, thou giv'st me nothing. Yes, Titus, since the gods have so decreed That I must lose thee, I will take th' advantage Of thy important fate-cement Rome's flaws, And heal their wounded freedom with thy blood; I will ascend myself the sad tribunal, And sit upon my sons; on thee, my Titus: Behold thee suffer all the shame of death, The lictor's lashes bleed before the people; Then with thy hopes and all thy youth upon thee, See thy head taken by the common axe, Without a groan, without one pitying tear, If that the gods can hold me to my purpose, To make my justice quite transcend example. Tit. Scourg'd like a bondman? Ha! a beaten slave! But I deserve it all: yet here I fail; The image of this suffering quite unmans me. Of cruel rigour? to behold me too? To sit unmov'd and see me whipt to death? Bru. Think that I love thee by my present passion, I own thy sufferings ought t' unman me thus, JOHN CROWNE was patronised by Rochester, in opposition to Dryden, as a dramatic poet. Between 1661 and 1698, he wrote seventeen pieces, two of which, namely, the tragedy of Thyestes, and the comedy of Sir Courtly Nice, evince considerable talent. The former is, indeed, founded on a repulsive classical story. Atreus invites his banished brother, Thyestes, to the court of Argos, and there at a banquet sets before him the mangled limbs and blood of his own son, of which the father unconciously partakes. The return of Thyestes from his retirement, with the fears and misgivings which follow, are vividly described: [Extract from Thyestes.] THYESTES. PHILISTHENES. PENEUS, Thy. O wondrous pleasure to a banish' man, Had from some mountain travell'd toward this place, And now a thousand objects more ride fast Thy. But with them Atreus too How miserable a thing is a great man! [Passions.] We oft by lightning read in darkest nights; And by your passions I read all your natures, Though you at other times can keep them dark. [Love in Women.] These are great maxims, sir, it is confess'd; [Inconstancy of the Multitude.] [Warriors.] I hate these potent madmen, who keep all THOMAS SHADWELL-SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE-WILLIAM WYCHERLEY-MRS APHRA BEHN. A more popular rival and enemy of Dryden was Phil. What ails my father that he stops, and shakes, THOMAS SHADWELL (1640-1692), who also wrote And now retires? Thy. Return with me, my son, And old friend Peneus, to the honest beasts, Pen. What are these to him? Thy. Nearer than I am, for they are himself. Pen. Gods drive these impious thoughts out of your mind. Thy. The gods for all our safety put them there. Return, return with me. seventeen plays, chiefly comedies, in which he affected to follow Ben Jonson. Shadwell, though only known now as the Mac-Flecknoe of Dryden's satire, possessed no inconsiderable comic power. His pictures of society are too coarse for quotation, but they are often true and well-drawn. When the Revolution threw Dryden and other excessive loyalists into the shade, Shadwell was promoted to the office of poetlaureate. SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE (1636-1694) gave a more sprightly air to the comic drama by his Man of Mode or Sir Fopling Flutter, a play which contains the first runnings of that vein of lively humour and witty dialogue which were afterwards displayed by Congreve and Farquhar. Sir George was a gay libertine, and whilst taking leave of a festive party one evening at his house in Ratisbon (where he resided as British plenipotentiary), he fell down the stairs and killed himself. The greatest of the comic dramatists was WILLIAM WYCHERLEY, born in the year 1640, in Shropshire, where his father possessed a handsome property. Though bred to the law, Wycherley did not practise his profession, but lived gaily upon town.' Pope says he had a true nobleman look,' and he was one of the favourites of the abandoned Duchess of Cleveland. He wrote various comedies, Love in a Wood (1672), the Gentleman Dancing Master (1673), the Country Wife (1675), and the Plain Dealer (1677). In 1704 he published a volume of miscellaneous poems, of which it has been said the style and versification are beneath criticism; the morals are those of Rochester.' In advanced age, Wycherley continued to exhibit the follies and vices of youth. His name, however, stood high as a dramatist, and Pope was proud to receive the notice of the author of the 'Country Wife.' Their published correspondence is well-known, and is interesting from the marked superiority maintained in their intercourse by the boy-poet of sixteen over his mentor of sixty-four. The pupil grew too great for his master, and the unnatural friendship was dissolved. At the age of seventy-five, Wycherley married a young girl, in order to defeat the expectations of his nephew, and died ten days afterwards, in December 1715. The subjects of most of Wycherley's plays were borrowed from the Spanish or French stage. He wrought up his dialogues and scenes with great care, and with considerable liveliness and wit, but without sufficient attention to character or probability. Destitute himself of moral feeling or propriety of conduct, his characters are equally objectionable, and his once fashionable plays may be said to be quietly inurned' in their own corruption and profligacy. A female Wycherley appeared in MRS APHRA BEHN, celebrated in her day under the name of Astræa The stage how loosely does Astræa tread ! Pope. The comedies of Mrs Behn are grossly indelicate; and of the whole seventeen which she wrote (besides various novels and poems), not one is now read or remembered. The history of Mrs Behn is remarkable. She was daughter of the governor of Surinam, where she resided some time, and became acquainted with Prince Oroonoko, on whose story she founded a novel, that supplied Southerne with materials for a tragedy on the unhappy fate of the African prince. She was employed as a political spy by Charles II., and, while residing at Antwerp, she was enabled, by the aid of her lovers and admirers, to give information to the British government as to the intended Dutch attack on Chatham. She died in 1689. [Scene from Sir George Etherege's Comical Revenge.] [A portion of this comedy is written in rhyme. Although the versification of the French dramatic poets is mostly so, its effect in our own language is far from good, especially in passages of rapid action. In the following scene, the hero and his second arrived at the place of meeting for a duel; but are set upon by hired assassins. Their adversaries opportunely appear, and set upon them.] Enter BEAUFORT and SIR FREDERICK, and traverse the stage. Enter BRUCE and Lovis at another door. Should I your friendship and my honour rate Enter the five villains with drawn swords. 1st Villain, pulling off his vizard.—Bruce, look on me, and then prepare to die. Bruce. O treacherous villain! 1st Villain. Fall on and sacrifice his blood to my revenge. Lovis. More hearts than one shall bleed if he must die. [They fight. Enter BEAUFORT and SIR FREDERICK. Beau. Heavens! what is this I see? Sir Frederick, draw. Their blood's too good to grace such villains' swords. Courage, brave men; now we can match their force ! Lovis. We'll make you slaves repent this treachery. Beau. So. [The villains run. Bruce. They are not worth pursuit; we'll let them go. Brave men! this action makes it well appear 'Tis honour, and not envy, brings you here. Beau. We come to conquer, Bruce, and not to see Such villains rob us of our victory. Your lives our fatal swords claim as their due; We'd wrong'd ourselves had we not righted you. Song. [In Mrs Behn's' Abdelazer, or the Moor's Revenge."] Love in fantastic triumph sat, Whilst bleeding hearts around him flow'd, For whom fresh pains he did create, And strange tyrannic power he show'd. From thy bright eyes he took his fires, Which round about in sport he hurl'd; But 'twas from mine he took desires Enough t' undo the amorous world. From me he took his sighs and tears, From thee his pride and cruelty; From me his languishment and fears, And every killing dart from thee: Thus thou, and I, the god have arm'd, And set him up a deity; But my poor heart alone is harm'd, While thine the victor is, and free. MISCELLANEOUS PIECES OF THE PERIOD 1649-1689. [Hallo my Fancy.] [Anonymous.] Bruce. Your friendship, noble youth, 's too prodigal; Fain would I know what makes the roaring thunder, For one already lost you venture all: Your present happiness, your future joy; Lovis. What can I venture for so brave a friend? I have no hopes but what on you depend. And what these lightnings be that rend the clouds asunder, And what these comets are on which we gaze and wonder. Hallo my fancy, whither wilt thou go! |