Search well my chamber,
Feel no remorse at bearing off the gold;
Remember, what you leave you leave the slaves
Who slew me and when you have borne away
All safe off to your boats, blow one long blast
Upon the trumpet as you quit the palace.
The river's brink is too remote, its stream
Too loud at present to permit the echo

To reach distinctly from its banks. Then fly,-
And as you sail, turn back; but still keep on
Your way along the Euphrates: if you reach
The land of Paphlagonia, where the queen
Is safe with my three sons in Cotta's court,
Say what you saw at parting, and request
That she remember what I said at one
Parting more mournful still.

PANIA.

That royal hand! Let me then once more press it to my lips; And these poor soldiers who throng round you, and Would fain die with you?

[The Soldiers and PANIA throng round him, kissing his hand and the hem of his robe.

SARDANAPALus.

My best! my last friends!
Let's not unman each other-part at once:
All farewells should be sudden, when for ever,
Else they make an eternity of moments,
And clog the last sad sands of life with tears.
Hence, and be happy: trust me, I am not
Now to be pitied, or far more for what
Is past than present ;-for the future, 't is

In the hands of the deities, if such

There be I shall know soon. Farewell-farewell. [Exeunt PANIA and the Soldiers.

MYRRHA.

These men were honest: it is comfort still

That our last looks shall be on loving faces.

SARDANAPALUS.

And lovely ones, my beautiful!—but hear me!
If at this moment, for we now are on
The brink, thou feel'st an inward shrinking from
This leap through flame into the future, say it:
I shall not love thee less; nay, perhaps more,

For yielding to thy nature: and there's time Yet for thee to escape hence.

MYRRHA.

Shall I light

One of the torches which lie heap'd beneath The ever-burning lamp that burns without, Before Baal's shrine, in the adjoining hall?

SARDANAPALUS.

Do so. Is that thy answer?

MYRRHA.

Thou shalt see.

[Exit MYRRHA.

SARDANAPALUS (solus).

She's firm. My fathers! whom I will rejoin,
It may be, purified by death from some
Of the gross stains of too material being,
I would not leave your ancient first abode
To the defilement of usurping bondmen;
If I have not kept your inheritance

As ye bequeath'd it, this bright part of it,
Your treasure, your abode, your sacred relics
Of arms, and records, monuments, and spoils,
In which they would have revell'd, I bear with me
To you in that absorbing element,
Which most personifies the soul, as leaving
The least of matter unconsumed before
Its fiery working:-and the light of this
Most royal of funereal pyres shall be
Not a mere pillar form'd of cloud and flame,
A beacon in the horizon for a day,

And then a mount of ashes, but a light
To lesson ages, rebel nations, and

Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench full many
A people's records, and a hero's acts;
Sweep empire after empire, like this first
Of empires, into nothing; but even then

Shall spare this deed of mine, and hold it up
A problem few dare imitate, and none
Despise-but, it may be, avoid the life
Which led to such a consummation.

MYRRHA returns with a lighted Torch in one Hand and a Cup in the other.

[MYRRHA fires the pile.

'Tis fired! I come.

[As MYRRHA springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls.

NOTES.

Note 1. Page 291, line 19.

And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha.

"The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive, having included the Achaians and the Baotians, who, together with those to whom it was afterwards confined, would make nearly the whole of the Greek nation, and among the orientals it was always the general name for the Greeks."-Mitford's Greece, vol. i. p. 199.

Note 2. Page 294, line 1.
-"Sardanapalus,

The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes,
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus.

Eat, drink and love; the rest's not worth a fillip." "For this expedition, he took not only a small chosen body of the phalanx, but all his light troops. In the first day's march he reached Anchialus, a town said to have been founded by the king of Assyria, Sardanapalus. The fortifications, in their magnitude and extent, still in Arrian's time, bore the character of greatness, which the Assyrians appear singularly to have affected in works of the kind. A monument, representing Sardanapalus, was found there, warranted by an inscription in Assyrian characters, of course in the old Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether well or ill, interpreted thus: "Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in one day founded Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play: all other human joys are not worth a fillip." Supposing this version nearly exact (for Arrian says it was not quite so) whether the purpose has not been to invite to civil order a people disposed to turbulence, rather than to recom mend immoderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be questioned. What, indeed, could be the object of a

And that?

Is yours.

SARDANAPALUS.

MYRRHA.

SARDANAPALUS.

Hark!

MYRRHA.
Now!

SARDANAPALUS.

Adieu, Assyria! I loved thee well, my own, my father's land, And better as my country than my kingdom.

mended, is not obvious; but it may deserve observation that, in that line of coast, the southern of Lesser Asia, ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this day astonish the adventurous traveller by their magnificence and elegance. Amid the desolation which, under a singularly barbarian government, has, for so many centuries, been daily spreading in the finest countries of the globe, whether