2 Friend. 'Twas a passado, sir.

1 Friend. Why, let it pass, and 'twas; I'm sure 'twas some

what.

What's that now?

2 Friend. That's a punto.

1 Friend. O, go to then,

I knew 'twas not far off: What a world's this!
Is coward a more stirring meat than bastard?
ho! I honour thee:

'Tis right and fair, and he that breathes against it
He breathes against the justice of a man ;
And man to cut him off, 'tis no injustice.

Thanks, thanks, for this most unexpected nobleness. [The Colonel is disarmed. Capt. Truth never fails her servant, sir, nor leaves him With the day's shame upon him.

1 Friend. Thou 'st redeem'd

Thy worth to the same height 'twas first esteem'd.

[The insipid levelling morality to which the modern stage is tied down would not admit of such admirable passions as these scenes are filled with. A puritanical obtuseness of sentiment; a stupid infantile goodness, is creeping among us, instead of the vigorous passions, and virtues clad in flesh and blood, with which the old dramatists present us. Those noble and liberal casuists could discern in the differences, the quarrels, the animosities of man, a beauty and truth of moral feeling, no less than in the iterately inculcated duties of forgiveness and atonement. With us all is hypocritical meekness. A reconciliation scene (let the occasion be never so absurd or unnatural) is always sure of applause. Our audiences come to the theatre to be complimented on their goodness. They compare notes with the amiable characters in the play, and find a wonderful similarity of disposition between them. We have a common stock of dramatic morality out of which a writer may be supplied without the trouble of copying it from originals within his own breast. To know the boundaries of honour, to be judiciously valiant, to have a temperance which shall beget a smoothness in the angry swellings of youth, to esteem life as nothing when the sacred reputation of a parent is to be defended, yet to shake and tremble under a pious cowardice when that ark of an honest confidence is found to be frail and tottering, to feel the true blows of a real disgrace blunting that sword which the imaginary strokes of a supposed false imputation had put so keen an edge upon but lately; to do, or to imagine this done in a feigned story, asks something more of a moral sense, somewhat a greater delicacy of perception in questions of right and wrong, than goes to the writing of two or three hackneyed sentences about the laws of honour as opposed to the laws of the land, or a common-place

against duelling. Yet such things would stand a writer nowadays in far better stead than Captain Ager and his conscientious honour; and he would be considered as a far better teacher of morality than old Rowley or Middleton if they were living.]

ALL'S LOST BY LUST: A TRAGEDY,

BY WILLIAM ROWLEY.

Roderigo king of Spain takes the opportunity to violate the daughter of Julianus, while that old general is fighting his battles against the Moors. Jacinta seeks her father in the camp, at the moment of victory.

JULIANUS. Servant.

Serv. Sir, here's a woman (forced by some tide of sorrow)
With tears entreats your pity, and to see you.
Jul. If any soldier has done violence to her,
Beyond our military discipline,

Death shall divide him from us: fetch her in.
I have myself a daughter, on whose face
But thinking, I must needs be pitiful:
And when I have told my conquest to my king,
My poor girl then shall know, how for her sake
I did one pious act.

Servant returns with JACINTA veiled.

Is this the creature?

Serv. Yes, my lord, and a sad one.

Jul. Leave us. A sad one!

The downcast look calls up compassion in me:
A corse going to the grave looks not more deadly.
Why kneel'st thou ? art thou wrong'd by any soldier?
Rise: for this honour is not due to me.

Hast not a tongue to read thy sorrows out?

This book I understand not.

Jacin. O my dear father!

Jul. Thy father, who has wrong'd him?

Jacin. A great commander.

Jul. Under me?

Jacin. Above you.

Jul. Above me! who's above a general?

None but the general of all Spain's armies;

And that's the king, king Roderick: he's all goodness,

He cannot wrong thy father.

Jacin. What was Tarquin?

Jul. A king, and yet a ravisher.

Jacin. Such a sin

Was in those days a monster; now 'tis common.

Jul. Prithee be plain.

Jacin. Have not you, sir, a daughter?

Jul. If I have not, I am the wretched'st man

That this day lives: for all the wealth I have
Lives in that child.

Jacin. O for your daughter's sake then hear my woes.
Jul. Rise then, and speak them.

Jacin. No, let me kneel still:

Such a resemblance of a daughter's duty
Will make you mindful of a father's love:
For such my injuries must exact from you,
As you would for

Jul. And so they do;

your own.

For whilst I see thee kneeling, I think of my Jacinta. Jacin. Say your Jacinta then, chaste as the rose

Coming on sweetly in the springing bud,

And ne'er felt heat, to spread the summer sweet;
But, to increase and multiply it more,

Did to itself keep in its own perfume;

Say that some rapine hand had pluck'd the bloom',
Jacinta, like that flower, and ravish'd her,

Defiling her white lawn of chastity

With ugly blacks of lust: what would you do?

Jul. O 'tis too hard a question to resolve,

Without a solemn council held within
Of man's best understanding faculties:
There must be love, and fatherhood, and grief,
And rage, and many passions; and they must all

Beget a thing call'd vengeance: but they must sit upon't.

Jacin. Say this were done by him that carried

The fairest seeming face of friendship to yourself.

Jul. We should fall out.

Jacin. Would you in such a case respect degrees?
Jul. I know not that.

1 66 Cropt this fair rose," &c.-Otways.

Jacin. Say he were noble.

Jul. Impossible: the act's ignoble. The bee can breed No poison, though it suck the juice of hemlock.

Jacin. Say a king should do it; were the act less done, By the greater power? does majesty

Extenuate a crime?

Jul. Augment it rather.

Jacin. Say then that Roderick, your king and master,
To quit the honours you are bringing home,
Had ravish'd your Jacinta.

Jul. Who has sent

A fury in this foul-fair shape to vex me?

I have seen that face methinks, yet know it not:
How darest thou speak this treason 'gainst my king?
Durst any man in the world bring me this lie,

By this, he had been in hell: Roderick a Tarquin!
Jacin. Yes, and thy daughter (had she done her part)
Should be the second Lucrece. View me well:
I am Jacinta.

Jul. Ha!

Jacin. The king my

ravisher.

Jul. The king thy ravisher! O, unkingly sound!
He dares not sure; yet in thy sullied eyes
I read a tragic story.

ANTONIO, ALONZO, and other Officers, enter.

Jul. O noble friends,

Our wars are ended, are they not?

All. They are, sir.

Jul. But Spain has now begun a civil war,

And to confound me only. See you my daughter?
She sounds the trumpet which draws forth my sword
To be revenged.

Alon. On whom? speak loud your wrongs;

Digest your choler into temperance:

Give your considerate thoughts the upper hand
In your hot passions, 'twill assuage the swelling
Of your big heart: if you have injuries done you,
Revenge them, and we second you.

Jacin. Father, dear father.

Jul. Daughter, dear daughter.

Jacin. Why do you kneel to me, sir?

Jul. To ask thee pardon that I did beget thee.

I brought thee to a shame, stains all the way
"Twixt earth and Acheron: not all the clouds

(The skies' large canopy), could they drown the seas With a perpetual inundation,

Can wash it ever out: leave me, I pray.

Alon. His fighting passions will be o'er anon,

And all will be at peace.

Ant. Best in my judgment

[Falls down.

We wake him with the sight of his won honours.
Call up the army, and let them present

His prisoners to him; such a sight as that
Will brook no sorrow near it.

Jul. 'Twas a good doctor that prescribed that physic.
I'll be your patient, sir; show me my soldiers,
And my new honours won: I will truly weigh them
With my full griefs; they may perhaps o'ercome.
Alon. Why, now there's hope of his recovery.
Jul. Jacinta welcome, thou art my child still:
No forced stain of lust can alienate

Our consanguinity.

Jacin. Dear father,

Recollect your noble spirits; conquer grief,
The manly way: you have brave foes subdued,
Then let no female passions thus o'erwhelm you.
Jul. Mistake me not, my child, I am not mad,
Nor must be idle; for it were more fit
(If I could purchase more) I had more wit,
To help in these designs: I am grown old:
Yet I have found more strength within this arm
Than (without proof) I durst have boasted on.
Roderick, thou king of monsters, couldst thou do this,
And for thy lust confine me from the court?

There's reason in thy shame, thou shouldst not see me.
Ha! they come, Jacinta, they come, hark, hark;
Now thou shalt see what cause I have given my king.

Vanquished Moor's address to the Sun.

Descend thy sphere, thou burning deity.
Haste from our shame, go blushing to thy bed;