Page images
PDF
EPUB

To nothing this essential, (happier far,
Than miserable, to have eternal being)
Or if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On his side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne ;
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.

XV-Speech of Belial, advising Peace.-18.
I SHOULD be much for open war, O peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urg'd
Main reason to persuade immediate war,
Did not dissuade the nost, and em to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
When he who most excels in feats of arms,
In what he counsels, and in what excels,
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge? The towers of heaven are fill'd
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable; oft on the bordering deep
Incamp their legions; or, with obscure wing,
Scout far and wide, into the realm of night,
Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way
Bv force, and at our heels all hell should rise
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heaven's purest light-yet our great enemy,
All incorruptible, would on his throne,
Sit unpolluted; and th' etherial mould,
Incapable of stain, would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope
Is flat despair. We must exasperate
Th' almighty vic or to spend all his rage,
And that must end us; that must be our cure,
To be no more. Sad fate! For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
Te perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry foe
Can give it, or will ever? How he can,
Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.
Will he, so wise ler loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence, or unaware,

To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves
To punish endless? Wherefore cease we then?
Say they who counsel war, we are decreed,
Reserv'd and destin'd to eternal woe;

Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse? Is this then worse,
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What when e fled amain, pursued and struck
With heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? This heli then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds; or when we lay
Chain'd on the burning lake? That sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindied those grim fires,
Awak'd should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or from above
Should intermit ed vengeance arm again
His red right hand to lague us? What if all
Her stores were open'd and this firmament
Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire?
Impendent horrors, threat'ning hideous fall
Oce day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhoring glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurl'd
Each on his rock transfix'd, the sport and prey
O wrecking whirlwinds, or forever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains;
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited unpi ied unrepriev'd,

Ages of hopeless end! This would be worse
War, therefore open or conceal'd, alike
My voice dissuades.

DRAMATIC PIECES.

I. DIALOGUES.

1.-Belcour and Stockwell.-WEST INDIAN.

Stock. MR. BELCOUR, I am rejoiced to see you; you are welcome to England.

Bel. I thank you heartily, good Mr. Stockwell. You and I have long conversed at a distance; now we are met; and the pleasure this meeting gives me, amply compensates for the perils I have run through in accomplishing it.

Stock. What perils, Mr. Belcour? I could not have thought you would have met with a bad passage at this time year.

Bel. Nor did we. Courier like, we came posting to your shores, upon the pinions of the swiftest gales that ever blew. It is upon English ground all my difficul ties have arisen; it is the passage from the river side I complain of.

Stock. Indeed! What obstructions can you have met between this and the river side?

Bel. Innumerable! Your town's as full of defiles as the island of Corsica; and I believe they are as obistinately defended. So much burry, bustle and confusion: on your quays; so many sugar casks, porter butts and common council men in your streets; that voless a man marched with artillery in his front, it is more than the labor of an Hercules can effect, to make any tolerable way through your town.

Stock. I am sorry you have been so incommoded.

Bel. Why, truly it was all my own fault. Accustomed to a land of slaves, and out of patience with the whole tribe of customhouse extortioners, boatmen, tide waiters

and water bailiffs, that beset me on all sides, worse than a swarm of moschetoes, I proceeded a little too roughly to brush them away with my ratan. The sturdy rogues took this in dudgeon; and beginning to rebel, the mob chose different sides, and a furious scuffle ensued ; in the course of which, my person and apparel suffered so much, that I was obliged to step into the first tavern to refit, before I could make my approachés in any decent trim.

Stock. Well, Mr Belcour, it is a rough sample you have had of my countrymen's spirit; but I trust you will not think the worse of them for it.

Bel. Not at all, not at all: I like them the better.-Were I only a visitor, I might perhaps wish them a little more tractable; but, as a fellow subject, and a sharer in their freedom, I applaud their spirit--though I feel the effects of it in every bone in my skin-Well, Mr. Stockwell, for the first time in my life, bere am I in England; at the fountain head of pleasure; in the land of beauty, of arts and elegancies. My happy stars have given me a good estate, and the conspiring winds have blow me hither to spend it.

Stock. To use it, not to waste it, I should hope; to treat it, Mr. Belcour, not as a vassal over whom you have a wanton despotic power, but as a subject whom you are bound to govern with a temperate and restrained authority.

Bel. True, Sir, most truly said; mine's a commission, not a right; I am the offspring of distress, and every child of sorrow is my brother. While I have hands to hold, therefore, I will hold them open to mankind. But Sir, my passions are my masters; they take me where they will; and oftentimes they leave to reason and virtue, nothing but my wishes and my sighs.

Stock. Come, come, the man who can accuse, corrects himself.

Bel. Ah! That is an office I am weary of. I wish a friend would take it up! I would to heaven you had leisure for the employ. But did you drive a trade to the four corners of the world, you would not find the task so toilsome as to keep me from faults.

Stock. Well, I am not discouraged. This candor tells me I should not have the fault of self-conceit to combat; that, at least is not amongst the number.

Bel. No; if I knew that man on earth who thought more humbly of me than I do of myself, I would take his opinion, and forego my own.

Stock. And were I to choose a pupil, it should be one of your complexion: so if you will come along with me, we will agree upon your admission, and enter upon a course of lectures directly.

Bel. With all my heart.

11.-Lady Townly and Lady Grace.

PROVOKED Husband. Lady T. OH, my dear Lady Grace! How could you leave me so unmercifully alone all this while ? Lady G. 1 thought my Lord had been with you. Lady T. Why, yes-and therefore I wanted lief; for he has been in such a fluster here—— Lady G. Bless me! For what?

your re

Lady T. Only our usual breakfast; we have each of us had our dish of matrimonial comfort this morningwe have been charming company.

Lady G. I am mighty glad of it; sure it must be a vast happiness, when man and wife can give themselves the same turn of conversation!

Lady T. Oh, the prettiest thing in the world!

Lady G. Now I should be afraid, that where two people are every day together so, they must be often in want of something to talk upon.

Lady T. Oh, my dear, you are the most mistaken in the world! Married people have things to talk of, child, that never enter into the imagination of others.

Why, here's my Lord and I, now; we have not been married above two short years, you know, and we have already eight or ten things constantly in bank, that whenever we want company, we can take up any one of them for two hours together, and the subject nev. er the flatter; nay, if we have occasion for it, it will be as fresh next day too, as it was the first hour it entertained us.

Lady G. Certainly, that must be vastly pretty.

« PreviousContinue »