Or general pique all blockheads have to brains: Nothing shall daunt his pen when truth does call; No, not the picture-mangler at Guildhall.

*

The rebel tribe, of which that vermin's one, Have now set forward, and their course begun; And while that prince's figure they deface,

As they before had massacred his name, Durst their base fears but look him in the face, They'd use his person as they've us'd his fame:

A face in which such lineaments they read

Of that great martyr's, whose rich blood they shed,

That their rebellious hate they still retain,
And in his son would murder him again.
With indignation then, let each brave heart
Rouse, and unite to take his injur'd part;
Till royal love and goodness call him home,
And songs of triumph meet him as he come;
Till heaven his honour, and our peace re-
store,

And villains never wrong his virtue more.

WHEN once a poet settles an ill name,
Let him write well, or ill, 'tis all the same:
For critics now-a-days, like flocks of sheep,
All follow, when the first has made the leap.
And, do you justice, most are well inclin'd
To censure faults you know not how to find:
Some cavil at the style, and some the actors;
For, right or wrong, we pass for malefactors.
Some well-bred persons carp at the decorum,
As if they bore the drawing-room before 'em.
Sometimes your soft respectful spark discovers,
Our ladies are too coming to their lovers;
For they who still pursue, but ne'er enjoy,
In ev'ry case expect a siege of Troy.

There are some authors too who offer battle, And with their time and place, maul Aristotle. Ask what they mean; and, after some grimace, They tell you, twelve's the time; and for the

place,

The chocolate-house, at the looking-glass. To please such judges, some have tir'd their brains,

And almost had their labour for their pains: After a twelvemonth vainly spent in plotting, These mettled critics cry 'tis good for nothing: But wiser authors turn their plots upon you, And plot to purpose when they get your money.

SCENE I.-Before Count BALDWIN's House.

Enter VILLEROY and CARLOS.

Car. This constancy of yours will establish an immortal reputation among the women.

Vil. If it would establish me with IsabellaCar. Follow her, follow her: Troy town was won at last.

Vil. I have followed her these seven years, and now but live in hopes.

Car. But live in hopes! Why, hope is the ready road, the lover's baiting-place; and, for aught you know, but one stage short of the possession of your mistress.

Vil. But my hopes, I fear, are more of my own making than her's; and proceed rather from my wishes, than any encouragement she has given me.

Car. That I cannot tell: the sex is very various; there are no certain measures to be prescribed or followed, in making our approaches to the women. All that we have to do, I think, is to attempt them in the weakest part. Press them but hard, and they will all fall under the necessity of a surrender at last. That favour comes at once; and sometimes when we least expect it.

Vil. I shall be glad to find it so.

Car. You will find it so. Every place is to be taken, that is not to be relieved: she must comply.

Vil. I am going to visit her.

Car. What interest a brother-in-law can have with her, depend upon.

Vil. I know your interest, and I thank you. Car. You are prevented; see, the mourner

comes;

She weeps, as seven years were seven hours;
So fresh, unfading, is the memory
Of my poor brother's, Biron's, death:
I leave you to your opportunity. [Exit VIL.
Though I have taken care to root her from our
house,

I would transplant her into Villeroy's-
There is an evil fate that waits upon her,
To which I wish him wedded-Only him:
His upstart family, with haughty brow,
(Though Villeroy and myself are seeming friends)
Looks down upon our house; his sister, too,
Whose hand I asked, and was with scorn refused,
Lives in my breast, and fires me to revenge.-
They bend this way

Perhaps, at last, she seeks my father's doors;
They shall be shut, and be prepared to give
The beggar and her brat a cold reception.
That boy's an adder in my path-they come;
I'll stand apart, and watch their motions.

[Retires.

Enter VILLEROY, with ISABELLA and her little Son.

Isa. Why do you follow me? you know I am A bankrupt every way; too far engaged Ever to make return: I own you have been More than a brother to me, my friend; And at a time when friends are found no more, A friend to my misfortunes.

Vil. I must be always your friend. Isa. I have known, and found you Truly my friend; and would I could be yours; But the unfortunate cannot be friends: Fate watches the first motion of the soul, To disappoint our wishes; if we pray For blessings, they prove curses in the end, To ruin all about us. Pray, be gone; Take warning, and be happy.

Vil. Happiness!

There's none for me without you: Riches, name,
Health, fame, distinction, place, and quality,
Are the incumbrances of groaning life,
To make it but more tedious without you.
What serve the goods of fortune for? To raise
My hopes, that you at last will share them with

me.

Long life itself, the universal prayer,
And Heaven's reward of well-deservers here,
Would prove a plague to me; to see you always,
And never see you mine! still to desire,
And never to enjoy!

Isa. I must not hear you.

Vil. Thus, at this awful distance, I have served A seven years' bondage-Do I call it bondage, When I can never wish to be redeemed? No, let me rather linger out a life Of expectation, that you may be mine, Than be restored to the indifference Of seeing you, without this pleasing pain: I've lost myself, and never would be found, But in these arms.

Isa. Oh, I have heard all this!

But must no more-the charmer is no more:
My buried husband rises in the face
Of my dear boy, and chides me for my stay:
Canst thou forgive me, child?

Child. Why, have you done a fault? You cry as if you had. Indeed now, I have done nothing to offend you: but if you kiss me, and look so very sad upon me, I shall cry too.

Isa. My little angel, no, you must not cry;
Sorrow will overtake thy steps too soon:
I should not hasten it.

Vil. What can I say!

The arguments that make against my hopes
Prevail upon my heart, and fix me more;
Those pious tears you hourly throw away
Upon the grave, have all their quickening charms,
And more engage my love, to make you mine:

When yet a virgin, free, and undisposed,
I loved, but saw you only with my eyes;
I could not reach the beauties of your soul:
I have since lived in contemplation,

And long experience of your growing goodness: What then was passion, is my judgment now, Through all the several changes of your life, Confirmed and settled in adoring you.

Isa. Nay, then, I must be gone. If you are my friend,

If you regard my little interest,

No more of this; you see, I grant you all
That friendship will allow: be still my friend:
That's all I can receive, or have to give.

I am going to my father; he needs not an excuse
To use me ill: pray leave me to the trial.
Vil. I am only born to be what you would
have me,

The creature of your power, and must obey;
In every thing obey you. I am going:
But all good fortune go along with you.
Isa. I shall need all your wishes-
Locked! and fast!

[Exit. [Knocks.

Where is the charity that used to stand,
In our forefathers' hospitable days,
At great men's doors, ready for our wants,
Like the good angel of the family,
With open arms taking the needy in,
To feed and clothe, to comfort and relieve them!
Now even their gates are shut against their poor.
[She knocks again.

Enter SAMPSON to her.

Samp. Well, what's to do now, I trow? You knock as loud as if you were invited; and that is more than I heard of; but I can tell you, you may look twice about you for a welcome in a great man's family, before you find it, unless you bring it along with you.

Isa. I hope I bring my welcome along with me: Is your lord at home? Count Baldwin lives here still?

Samp. Ay, ay, Count Baldwin does live here; and I am his porter: but what's that to the purpose, good woman, of my lord's being at home?

Isa. Why, dont you know me, friend? Samp. Not I, not I, mistress; I may have seen you before, or so; but men of employment must forget their acquaintance; especially such as we are never to be the better for.

[Going to shut the door, Nurse enters, having overheard him.

Nurse. Handsomer words would become you, and mend your manners, Sampson: do you know who you prate to?

Isa. I am glad you know me, nurse. Nurse. Marry, Heaven forbid, madam, that I should ever forget you, or my little jewel: pray, go in [ISABELLA goes in with her child.] Now my blessing go along with you wherever you go, or whatever you are about. Fie, Sampson, how could'st thou be such a Saracen! A Turk would have been a better Christian, than to have done so barbarously by a good lady.

Sump. Why look you, nurse, I know you of

VOL. I.

old: by your good-will you would have a finger in every body's pye: but mark the end of it; if I am called to account about it, I know what I have to say.

Nurse. Marry come up here! say your pleasure, and spare not. Refuse his eldest son's widow, and poor child, the comfort of seeing him? She does not trouble him so often.

Samp. Not that I am against it, nurse: but we are but servants, you know: we must have no likings, but our lord's; and must do as we are ordered.

Nurse. Nay, that's true, Sampson.

Samp. Besides, what I did was all for the best: I have no ill-will to the young lady, as a body may say, upon my own account; only that I hear she is poor; and indeed I naturally hate your decayed gentry: they expect as much waiting upon as when they had money in their pockets, and were able to consider us for the trouble.

Nurse. Why, that is a grievance indeed in great families, where the gifts, at good times, are better than the wages. It would do well to be reformed.

Samp. But what is the business, nurse? You have been in the family before I came into the world: what is the reason, pray, that this daughter-in-law, who has so good a report in every body's mouth, is so little set by, by my lord?

Nurse. Why, I tell you, Sampson, more or less: I will tell the truth, that's my way, you know, without adding or diminishing.

Samp. Ay, marry, nurse.

Nurse. My lord's eldest son, Biron by name, the son of his bosom, and the son that he would have loved best, if he had as many as king Pyramus of Troy

Sump. How! King Pyramus of Troy! Why, how many had he?

Nurse. Why, the ballad sings he had fifty sons: but no matter for that. This Biron, as I was saying, was a lovely sweet gentleman, and, indeed, nobody could blame his father for loving him; he was a son for the king of Spain; God bless him, for I was his nurse. But now I come to the point, Sampson; this Biron, without asking the advice of his friends, hand over head, as young men will have their vagaries, not having the fear of his father before his eyes, as I may say, wilfully marries this Isabella.

Sump. How, wilfully! he should have had her consent, methinks.

Nurse. No, wilfully marries her; and, which was worse, after she had settled all her fortune upon a nunnery, which she broke out of to run away with him. They say they had the church's forgiveness, but I had rather it had been his father's.

Samp. Why, in good truth, these nunneries I see no good they do. I think the young lady was in the right to run away from a nunnery: and I think our young master was not in the wrong but in marrying without a portion.

Nurse. That was the quarrel, I believe, Sampson: upon this, my old lord would never 2 G

see him; disinherited him; took his younger brother, Carlos, into favour, whom he never cared for before; and at last forced Biron to go to the siege of Candy, where he was killed.

Samp. Alack-a-day, poor gentleman! Nurse. For which my old lord hates her, as if she had been the cause of his going thither. Samp. Alas, alas, poor lady! she has suffered for it: she has lived a great while a widow. Nurse. A great while indeed, for a young woman, Sampson.

Sump. Gad so! here they come; I will not

venture to be seen.

Enter Count BALDWIN, followed by ISABELLA and her Child.

C. Bald. Whoever of your friends directed
you,

Misguided and abused you—there's your way;
I can afford to shew you out again.
What could you expect from me?

Isa. Oh, I have nothing to expect on earth!
But misery is very apt to talk:
I thought I might be heard.

C. Bald. What can you say?

Is there in eloquence, can there be in words
A recompensing power, a remedy,
A reparation of the injuries,

The great calamities, that you have brought
On me and mine? You have destroyed those
hopes

I fondly raised, through my declining life,
To rest my age upon; and most undone me.
Isa. I have undone myself too.

C. Bald. Speak it again!

Say still you are undone, and I will hear you,
With pleasure hear you.

Isa. Would my ruin please you?

C. Bald. Beyond all other pleasures. Isa. Then you are pleased-for I am most undone.

C. Bald. I prayed but for revenge, and Heaven has heard,

And sent it to my wishes: these grey hairs Would have gone down in sorrow to the grave, Which you have dug for me, without the thought, The thought of leaving you more wretched

here.

Isa. Indeed I am most wretched-When I lost My husband

C. Bald. Would he had never been, Or never had been yours!

Isa. I then believed

The measure of my sorrow then was full :
But every moment of my growing days

Makes room for woes, and adds them to the sum.
I lost with Biron all the joys of life:
But now its last supporting means are gone.
All the kind helps that Heaven in pity raised,
In charitable pity to our wants,
At last have left us: now bereft of all,
But this last trial of a cruel father,
To save us both from sinking. Oh, my child!
Kneel with ine, knock at nature in his heart!
Let the resemblance of a once-loved son

Speak in this little one, who never wronged you,
And plead the fatherless and widow's cause!
Oh, if you ever hope to be forgiven,
As you will need to be forgiven too,
Forget our faults, that Heaven may pardon yours!
C. Bald. How dare you mention Heaven!
Call to mind

Your perjured vows; your plighted, broken faith
To Heaven, and all things holy: were you not
Devoted, wedded to a life recluse,
The sacred habit on, professed and sworn,
A votary for ever? Can you think
The sacrilegious wretch, that robs the shrine,
Is thunder-proof?

Isa. There, there, began my woes.
Let women all take warning at my fate;
Never resolve, or think they can be safe,
Within the reach and tongue of tempting men.
Oh! had I never seen my Biron's face,
Had he not tempted me, I had not fallen,
But still continued innocent and free
Of a bad world, which only he had power
To reconcile, and make me try again.

C. Bald. Your own inconstancy, your grace-
less thoughts,

Debauched and reconciled you to the world:
He had no hand to bring you back again,
But what you gave him. Circe, you prevailed
Upon his honest mind, transforming him
From virtue, and himself, into what shapes
You had occasion for; and what he did
Was first inspired by you. A cloister was
Too narrow for the work you had in hand:
Your business was more general; the whole world
To be the scene: therefore you spread your
charms

To catch his soul, to be the instrument,
The wicked instrument, of your cursed flight.
Not that you valued him; for any one,
Who could have served the turn, had been as
welcome.

Isa. Oh! I have sins to Heaven, but none to him.

C. Bald. Had my wretched son Married a beggar's bastard; taken her Out of her rags, and made her of my blood, The mischief might have ceased, and ended

there.

But bringing you into a family,

Entails a curse upon the name and house
That takes you in: the only part of me
That did receive you, perished for his crime.
'Tis a defiance to offended Heaven

Barely to pity you: your sins pursue you:
The heaviest judgments that can fall upon you,
Are your just lot, and but prepare your doom:
Expect them, and despair-Sirrah, rogue,
How durst thou disobey me? [To the Porter.
Isa. Not for myself for I am past the hopes
Of being heard but for this innocent-
And then I never will disturb you more.

C. Bald. I almost pity the unhappy child:
But being yours-

Isa. Look on him as your son's;
And let his part in him answer for mine.