SCENE I.

Enter Achillas and Achoreus.

2

ACT I.

Achoreus. LOVE the king, nor do dis-
I
pute his power,

For that is not confin'd, uor to be censur'd
By me, that am his subject; yet allow me
The liberty of a man, that still would be
A friend to justice, to demand the motives
That did induce young Ptolomy, or Photinus,
(To whose directions he gives up himself,
And I hope wisely) to commit his sister,
The princess Cleopatra-If I said
The queen, Achillas, 'twere, I hope, no trea-
She being by her father's testament
(Whose inemory I bow to) left co-heir
In all he stood possess'd of.

Achil. 'Tis confess'd,

[son,

[doms
My good Achoreus, that in these eastern king-
Women are not exempted from the sceptre,
But claim a privilege equal to the male;
But how much such divisions have ta'en from
The majesty of Egypt, and what factions
Have sprung from those partitions, to the ruin
Of the poor subject, doubtful which to follow,
We have too many and too sad examples:
Therefore the wise Photinus, to prevent
The murders, and the massacres, that attend
On disunited government, and to shew
The king without a partner, in full splendor,
Thought it convenient the fair Cleopatra
(An attribute not frequent in this climate)
Should be committed to safe custody,
In which she is attended like her birth,
Until her beauty, or her royal dower,
Hath found her out a husband.

To whose charge, by the will of the dead king,

This government was deliver'd, or great Pom-
pey,

That is appointed Cleopatra's guardian
As well as Ptolomy's, will e'er approve
Of this rash counsel, their consent not sought
for,

That should authorize it?

Achil. The civil war,

In which the Roman empire is embark'd
On a rough sea of danger, does exact
Their whole care to preserve themselves, and
give them

No vacant time to think of what we do,
Which hardly can concern them.

Achor. What's your opinion

Of the success? I have heard, in multitudes
Of soldiers, and all glorious pomp of war,
Pompey is much superior.

Achil. I could give you

A catalogue of all the several nations
From whence he drew his powers; but that
were tedious.

[ber, They have rich arms, are ten to one in numWhich makes them think the day already

Lucan; and endeavours to shew the superiority of the False One over the Pompey of Corneille; in all which particulars we think him too prolix and too uninteresting to be entirely copied : Nor do we believe that our Authors meant (as the Rev. Commentator on the Tempest imagines) to break a lance with Shakespeare on this occasion. The Prologue utterly disclaims any competition either with his Julius Cæsar or his Antony and Cleopatra, truly asserting, that although the personages are the same with those that are celebrated in those plays, the situations of those personages, that furnish the subject of The False One, are totally different.

2 Achil. I love the king, &c.] The gross error of making Achillas speak this has run through all the editions. Seward.

We are very sorry Mr. Seward should begin a play he seems to admire, with a fallacious assertion: The first folio (in which Ach. stands for Achoreus throughout, and for Achillas only in one short scene, when Achoreus is not present) gives this speech to Ach. i. e. Achoreus. 3 So much I have heard

Casar himself confess.] This reading supposes Achillas to have been in Greece, and in Cæsar's presence. The correction is very obvious. Seward,

Inur'd to his command, and only know
To fight and overcome: And tho' that famine
Reigns in his camp, compelling them to taste
Bread made of roots forbid the use of man,
(Which they with scorn threw into Pompey's
As in derision of his delicates)

[canip,
Or corn not yet half ripe, and that a banquet;
They still besiege him, being ambitious only
To come to blows, and let their swords de-
Who hath the better cause.
[termine

Enter Septimius.4

Achar. May victory

Attend on't, where it is.

Achil. We ev'ry hour Expect to hear the issue.

Sept. Save my good lords!

By Isis and Osiris, whom you worship,
And the four hundred gods and goddesses
Ador'd in Rome, I am your honours' servant.
Achor. Truth needs, Septimius, no oaths.
Achil. You're cruel;

If you deny him swearing, you take from him
Three full parts of his language.

Sept. Your honour's bitter.

Confound me, where I love I cannot say it,
But I must swear't: Yet such is my ill fortune,
Nor vows nor protestations win belief;
I think, (and I can find no other reason)
Because I am a Roman.

Achor. No, Septimius;

To be a Roman were an honour to you, [it,
Did not your manners and your life take from
And cry aloud, that from Rome you bring
nothing
[here,
But Roman vices, which you would plant
But no seed of her virtues.

Sept. With your reverence,

I am too old to learn.

Achor. Any thing honest; That I believe without an oath.

And old religious principles, that fool us!

I have brought you a new song will make
you laugh,

Tho you were at your prayers.
Achor. What is the subject?
Be free, Septimius.

Sept. 'Tis a catalogue

lant

Of all the gamesters of the court and city,
Which lord lies with that lady, and what gal-
[relate
Sports with that merchant's wife; and does
Who sells her honour for a diamond,
Who for a tissue robe; whose husband's jea-
lous,
[wife,
And who so kind, that, to share with his
Will make the match himself: Harmless
conceits,

Tho' fools say they are dangerous. I sang it
The last night, at my lord Photinus' table.
Achor. How? as a fiddler?
Sept. No, Sir, as a guest,

A welcome guest too; and it was approv'd of
By a dozen of his friends, though they were
touch'd in't:

For look you, 'tis a kind of merriment,
When we have laid by foolish modesty
(As not a man of fashion will wear it)
To talk what we have done, at least to hear it;
If merrily set down, it fires the blood,
And heightens crest-fall'n appetite.

Achor. New doctrine!

Achil. Was't of your own composing?
Sept. No, I bought it

Of a skulking scribbler for two Ptolomies;
But the hints were mine own: The wretch
was fearful;

But I have damn'd myself, should it be question'd,

That I will own it.

Achor. And be punish'd for it?
Take heed, for you may so long exercise
Your scurrilous wit against authority, [jests
The kingdom's counsels, and make profane
(Which to you, being an atheist, is nothing)
Against religion, that your great maintainers,

4 Enler Septinius.] The vulgar editions have much oftener wrote it Septinius than Septimius, and have given him the former name in the persons of the drama.-The reader will undoubtedly observe the fine moral couched under this infamous wretch's character, viz. That even among the grossest superstition of the Heathens, the atheistical scoffer at religion was the most pernicious pest of all society. The character seems drawn with exquisite art, and our Poets have by it much excelled their master Lucan, and their competitor Corneille. In the former there is only a sketch of a fierce inhuman villain, and in the latter Septimius is in the first scene introduced as a privy-counsellor, makes an harangue to persuade the death of Pompey, commits the murder, and being blamed for it by Cæsar, is said to have killed himself with the same sword with which he slew Pompey: But he has absolutely no character at all, nor is it judicious to make him die the death of Brutus and Cassius; though a Frenchman may perhaps look upon the punishment of Cæsar, in the same light with the vile assassination o Pompey.

Seward.

s Acho. What is the subject?

Be free, Septimius.] The mistake of giving this to Achoreus makes him speak much out of character. It is perfectly consonant to that of Achillas, to desire to hear Septimius's ribraldry.

Seward.

This speech is as proper for Achoreus as the two next; and all three imply a contempt for Septimius, not a desire to hear his ribaldry.'

Unless they would be thought copartners with

you,

[mius,

Will leave you to the law; and then, Septi-
Remember there are whips.

Sept. For whores, I grant you, 6

When they are out of date; 'till then, they're
safe too,

Or all the gallants of the court are eunuchs.
And, for mine own defence, I'll only add this;
I'll be admitted for a wanton tale,

To some most private cabinets, when your
priesthood,
[dess,
Tho' laden with the mysteries of your god-
Shall wait without unnoted: So I leave you
To your pious thoughts.

Achil. "Tis a strange impudence

This fellow does put on.

Achor. The wonder great,

He is accepted of.

Achil. Vices, for him,

[Exit.

Make as free way as virtues do for others.

'Tis the time's fault; yet great ones still have
grac'd,
[flattery,

To make them sport, or rub them o'er with
Observers of all kinds.?

[low

[me,

What my intelligence costs me; but ere long
You shall know more. The king, with him a
Roman.
[wat

How can I want, when your beams shine upon
Unless employment to express my zeal

To do your greatness service. Do but think

6

Sep. For whores, I grant you,

Achor. The scarlet livery of unfortunate Dy'd deeply on his face.

When they are out of date, 'till then are safe too.] Former editions.

Seward.

1 Observers of all kinds.] Observers and observants are used in the old Authors in the sense of parasites and sycophants. So, in King Lear, they are stiled,

ducking observants

That stretch their duties nicely.'

and now in a danger

When he should use his service.] Mr. Sympson thinks this dark, it may therefore be proper to explain it, as it seems to me a very beautiful sentiment. Septimius was not only a fugitive from Pompey, but had deserted him in the midst of danger, when he was engaged in a war with Cæsar.' One need not add how infamous such a desertion is held among soldiers. Seward.

The scarlet livery of unfortunate war Dy'd deeply on his face.] If the reader supposes the hint taken from the bleeding captain at the beginning of Macbeth, who comes to relate the fate of the battle between Macbeth and Macdonel, he will, I believe, agree, that our Authors have here not only emulated, but much

excelled

Achil. 'Tis Labienus,

Cæsar's Lieutenant in the wars of Gaul,
And fortunate in all his undertakings: [pey,
But, since these civil jars, he turn'd to Pom-
And, tho' he followed the better cause,
Not with the like success.

Pho. Such as are wise
Leave falling buildings, fly to those that rise:
But more of that hereafter.

Lab. In a word, Sir,

These gaping wounds, not taken as a slave,
Speak Pompey's loss. To tell you of the battle,
How many thousands several bloody shapes
Death wore that day in triumph; how we
bore
[fury

The shock of Cæsar's charge; or with what
His soldiers came on, as if they had been
So many Cæsars, and like him, ambitious
To tread upon the liberty of Rome;

How fathers kill'd their sons, or sons their
fathers;

Or how the Roman piles on either side
Drew Roman blood, which spent, the prince

of weapons

(The sword) succeeded, which, in civil wars, Appoints the tent on which wing'd victory

Shall make a certain stand; then, how the
plains
[vultures,
Flow'd o'er with blood, and what a cloud of
And other birds of prey, hung o'er both ar-
Attending when their ready servitors, [mies,
The soldiers, from whom the angry gods
Had took all sense of reason and of pity,
Would serve in their own carcasses for a feast;
How Cæsar with his javelin forc'd them on
That made the least stop, when their angry
hands
[face; o
Were lifted up against some known friend's
Then coming to the body of the army,

He shews the sacred senate, and forbids them
To waste their force upon the common soldier,
(Whom willingly, if e'er he did know pity,
He would have spar'd)—

Pol. The reason, Labienus! [he was
Lab. Full well he knows, that in their blood
To pass to empire, and that thro' their bowels
He must invade the laws of Rome, and give
A period to the liberty o' th' world.
Then fell the Lepidi, and the bold Corvini,
The fam'd Torquati, Scipio's, and Marcelli,
Names, next to Pompey's, most renown'd on
earth.

excelled their master. But this cannot be said of their imitation of the following lines of Julius Cæsar, where the common fact of birds of prey following armies is turned to a noble omen.

Though our Authors' lines do not equal this, yet they strongly partake of the same spirit.

9 Or how the Roman piles on either side

Seward.

Drew Roman blood, which spent, the prince of weapons (The sword) succeeded.] Lucan, speaking in contempt of the Parthian archers, when Pompey had thoughts of taking shelter among them, says,

Ensis habit vires, et gens quæcunque virorum est,
Bella gerit gladiis.

Lib. viii.

The reader will observe what a noble flight of poetry our Authors have built on this sentiment. And if he will please to look over Lucan's whole description of this battle, in the seventh book, I believe he will agree that our Authors have chose the noblest of his sentiments, and expressed them with the highest dignity; that they have shewed great spirit in their additions, and as great judgment in their omissions; that they seldom fall below, but often rise above him. Whereas in the Pompey of Corneille (if prejudice does not make me too much depreciate French poetry) almost the reverse of all these appears. Lucan charges Cæsar with forbidding the dead bodies to be burned, (a thing indeed neither probable nor confirmed by history, nor at all consonant to Cæsar's temper and good sense) but on this supposition he has some of the noblest lines in his whole poem. Seward.

10

when their angry hands

Were lifted up against some known friend's face.]
Adversosque jubet ferro confundere vultus.

Lucan.

The famous speech of Cæsar in this battle-Miles faciem feri, is variously interpreted, either to hinder them from knowing each other, as fathers fought against sons and sons against fathers, or else, that the gay handsome youths of Pompey's army would be more afraid of their faces than any other part of their bodies. This last is Florus's reason, our Authors prefer the former: But perhaps a better reason than either might be the true one. Pompey's army consisted chiefly of new-levy'd troops; now to all raw fighters, blows on the face are more dreadful and more confounding than any other; not through fear of spoiling their beauty, but that they see more of the stroke than if 'twere aimed at any other part. Seward. 4 B

VOL. I.

May serve to give you counsel to be honest;
Religious and thankful, in themselves

Are forcible motives.] I have ventured to change the pointing here, and propose what

12 To be or just, or thankful, &c.] From hence to the end of Photinus's speech is almost a literal translation out of Lucan, and Corneille translates nearly in the same manner. He has taken great part of Lucan's sentiments, though he has not ranged them in the same order, and his translation wants much of the spirit of his original, which our Poets have extremely well preserved. Seward,