And swell my heaving soul out when I please.
Alv. Heaven comfort you!

Seb. What, art thou giving comfort!

Wouldst thou give comfort, who hast given despair?
Thou seest Alonzo silent; he's a man.

He knows, that men, abandoned of their hopes,
Should ask no leave, nor stay for sueing out
A tedious writ of ease from lingering heaven,
But help themselves as timely as they could,
And teach the Fates their duty.

Dor. [To ALV. and ANT.] Let him go;
He is our king, and he shall be obeyed.

Alv. What, to destroy himself? O parricide! Dor. Be not injurious in your foolish zeal, But leave him free; or, by my sword, I swear To hew that arm away, that stops the passage To his eternal rest.

Ant. [Letting go his hold.] Let him be guilty of his own death, if he pleases; for I'll not be guilty of mine, by holding him. [The King shakes off ALV.

Alo. [To DoR.] Infernal fiend,

Is this a subject's part?

Dor. "Tis a friend's office.

He has convinced me, that he ought to die;
And, rather than he should not, here's my sword,
To help him on his journey.

Seb. My last, my only friend, how kind art thou, And how inhuman these!

Dor. To make the trifle, death, a thing of moment!

Seb. And not to weigh the important cause I had To rid myself of life!

Dor. True; for a crime

So horrid, in the face of men and angels,

As wilful incest is!

Seb. Not wilful, neither.

Dor. Yes, if you lived, and with repeated acts

Refreshed your sin, and loaded crimes with crimes, To swell your scores of guilt.

Seb. True; if I lived.

Dor. I said so, if you lived.

Seb. For hitherto was fatal ignorance, And no intended crime.

Dor. That you best know;

But the malicious world will judge the worst.
Alv. O what a sophister has hell procured,
To argue for damnation!

Dor. Peace, old dotard,

Mankind, that always judge of kings with malice, Will think he knew this incest, and pursued it. His only way to rectify mistakes,

And to redeem her honour, is to die.

Seb. Thou hast it right, my dear, my best Alonzo! And that, but petty reparation too;

But all I have to give.

Dor. Your pardon, sir;

You may do more, and ought.

Seb. What, more than death?

Dor. Death! why, that's children's sport; a stageplay death;

We act it every night we go to bed.
Death, to a man in misery, is sleep.

Would you, who perpetrated such a crime,
As frightened nature, made the saints above
Shake heaven's eternal pavement with their trem-
bling

To view that act,-would you but barely die?
But stretch your limbs, and turn on t'other side,
To lengthen out a black voluptuous slumber,
And dream you had your sister in your arms?
Seb. To expiate this, can I do more than die?
Dor. O yes, you must do more, you must be damned;
You must be damned to all eternity;

And sure self-murder is the readiest way.

Seb. How, damned?

Dor. Why, is that news?

Alv. O horror, horror!

Dor. What, thou a statesman,
And make a business of damnation

In such a world as this! why, 'tis a trade;
The scrivener, usurer, lawyer, shopkeeper,
And soldier, cannot live but by damnation.
The politician does it by advance,
And gives all gone beforehand.

Seb. O thou hast given me such a glimpse of hell,
So pushed me forward, even to the brink
Of that irremeable burning gulph,

That, looking in the abyss, I dare not leap.
And now I see what good thou mean'st my soul,
And thank thy pious fraud; thou hast indeed
Appeared a devil, but didst an angel's work.

Dor. 'Twas the last remedy, to give you leisure;
For, if you could but think, I knew you safe.
Seb. I thank thee, my Alonzo; I will live,
But never more to Portugal return;

For, to go back and reign, that were to show
Triumphant incest, and pollute the throne.
Alv. Since ignorance-

Seb. O, palliate not my wound;

When you have argued all you can, 'tis incest.
No, 'tis resolved: I charge you plead no more;
I cannot live without Almeyda's sight,
Nor can I see Almeyda, but I sin.

Heaven has inspired me with a sacred thought,
To live alone to heaven, and die to her.

Dor. Mean you to turn an anchorite?

Seb. What else?

The world was once too narrow for my mind,
But one poor little nook will serve me now,
To hide me from the rest of human kind.
Africk has deserts wide enough to hold

Millions of monsters; and I am, sure, the greatest.
Alv. You may repent, and wish your crown too late.
Seb. O never, never; I am past a boy:

A sceptre's but a plaything, and a globe
A bigger bounding stone. He, who can leave
Almeyda, may renounce the rest with ease.
Dor. O truly great!

A soul fixed high, and capable of heaven.
Old as he is, your uncle cardinal

Is not so far enamoured of a cloister,

But he will thank you for the crown you leave him.
Seb. To please him more, let him believe me dead,
That he may never dream I may return.
Alonzo, I am now no more thy king,

But still thy friend; and by that holy name
Adjure thee, to perform my last request;-
Make our conditions with yon captive king;
Secure me but my solitary cell;

"Tis all I ask him for a crown restored.

Dor. I will do more:

But fear not Muley-Zeydan; his soft metal
Melts down with easy warmth, runs in the mould,
And needs no further forge.

[Exit DORAX.

Re-enter ALMEYDA led by MORAYMA, and followed by her Attendants.

Seb. See where she comes again!

By heaven, when I behold those beauteous eyes,
Repentance lags, and sin comes hurrying on.
Alm. This is too cruel!

Seb. Speak'st thou of love, of fortune, or of death,
Or double death? for we must part, Almeyda.
Alm. I speak of all,

For all things that belong to us are cruel;
But, what's most cruel, we must love no more.
O'tis too much that I must never see you,
But not to love you is impossible.

2

No, I must love you; heaven may bate me that,
And charge that sinful sympathy of souls
Upon our parents, when they loved too well.
Seb. Good heaven, thou speak'st my thoughts, and
I speak thine!

Nay, then there's incest in our very souls,
For we were formed too like.

Alm. Too like indeed,

And yet not for each other.

Sure when we part, (for I resolved it too,
Though you proposed it first,) however distant,
We shall be ever thinking of each other,
And the same moment for each other pray.
Seb. But if a wish should come athwart our prayers!
Alm. It would do well to curb it, if we could.
Seb. We cannot look upon each other's face,
But, when we read our love, we read our guilt:
And yet, methinks, I cannot chuse but love

Alm. I would have asked you, if I durst for shame,
If still you loved? you gave it air before me.
Ah, why were we not born both of a sex?
For then we might have loved without a crime.
Why was not I your brother? though that wish
Involved our parents' guilt, we had no parted;
We had been friends, and friendship is no incest.
Seb. Alas, I know not by what name to call thee!
Sister and wife are the two dearest names,
And I would call thee both, and both are sin.
Unhappy we! that still we must confound
The dearest names into a common curse.

Alm. To love, and be beloved, and yet be wretched! Seb. To have but one poor night of all our lives: It was indeed a glorious, guilty night; So happy, that-forgive me, heaven!--I wish, With all its guilt, it were to come again. Why did we know so soon, or why at all, That sin could be concealed in such a bliss?