Bell's Characteristical Edition.

ALL FOR LOVE; OR, THE WORLD WELL LOST.

A TRAGEDY. BY MR. DRYDEN.

AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL DRURY-LANE,

Regulated from the Prompt-Book, by permission of the Managers, BY MR. Hopkins PROMPTER.

CHARACTERISTICKS.

I am made a fhallow-forded ftream-Seen to the bottom, all my clearnefs fcorn'd-And all my faults expos'd-Why was I rais'd the meteor of the world-Hung in the skies, and blazing as I travell'd-Till all my fires were fpest-But I have loft my reafon, have difgrac'd-The name of Soldier with inglorious cafe-Fate could not ruin me till I took pains And work'd against my Fortune, chid her from me, &c. and now the is gone-Gone, gone, divorc'd for ever-How I have lov'd-Witness ye days and nights, and all ye hours, &'c. Give, you Gods!-Give to your boy, your Cæfar-This rattle of a globe to play withal This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off-I'll not be pleas'd with lefs than Cleopatra I can never be conquer'd but by love. ANTONY.

Tell her I'll none on 't-I'm not asham'd of honeft poverty-Not all the diamonds of the Eaft can bribe-Ventidius from his faith-I can die with you when time fhall ferve-But Fortune calls upon us now to live-To fight, to conquer-Gods! let me fee that day-And if I have ten years behind take all-I'll thank you for th' exchange Now you fhall fee I love you By my few hours of life-I am fo pleas'd with this brave Roman fate-That I would not be Cæfar to outlive you-When we put off this flefh, and mount together-I fall be shown to all th' ethereal crowd-Lo! this is he who dy'd with Antony-Gods! forgive me if you will; for I die perjur'd-Rather than kill my friend. VENTIDIUS.

Nature has caft me in fo foft a mould-That but to hear a ftory feign'd for pleafure-07 fome fad lover's death, moiftens my eyes-And robs me of my manhood-I difcover'd-And blam'd the love of ruin'd Antony-Yet with that I were he to be so ruin'd-Oh, friendship! friendship!-Ill cant thou anfwer this, and reason worse-If to have lov'd be guilt, then I have finn'd-But if to have repented of that love-Can wash away my crime, I have repented-If I have offended paft forgiveness-Let her not fuffer: fhe is innocent. DOLAR.

Pleasure forfook my earlieft infancy-The luxury of others robb'd my cradle-And ravish'd thence the promife of a man-Caft out from Nature, difinherited-Of what her meaneft children claim by birth-Gods! is this juft, that I who know no joys-Muft die because Cleopatra loves---Had I my wifh thefe tyrants of all nature---Who ford it o'er mankind, fhould perish, perifh---Each by the other's fword---I can work Cæfar---To spare her life, and let this madman perish---What can I fay to fave my felf from death--- No natter what becomes of Cleopatra---Ah me! my gift of lying is gone---And this court-devil, which I fo uft' have rais'd-- Forfakes me at my need---Oh! Fate comes too faft upon my wit---Hunts me too hard, and meets me at each double, ALEXAS.

My love is fo true---That I can neither hide it where it is---Nor fhow it where it is not--Nature meant me---A wife, a filly harmless household dove.--Fond without art, and kind without deceit---Bot Fortune, that has made a mistress of me---Has thruft me out to the wide world unfurnish'd---Offalsehood to be happy---What tell'ft thou me of Egypt---My life, my foul, is loft---Life too I would lefe for him--My Antony is loft, and I can mourn---For nothing else but him---I have no more to lose---My love is a noble madnefs- -I have lov'd with fuch tranfcendent paffion...I foar'd at firft quite out of reafon's view---And now I am loft above it---I'll die; I will not hear it---'Tis too late to fay I'm true---I'll prove it, and die... 'Tis fweet to die. To rush into the dark abode of Death---And meet my love---And seize him firft---I'll bring myself, my foul, to Antony---Death! I feel thee in my vein... Lay me on his breaft. CLEOPATRA.

Your Octavia---Still is your's---I have a heart disdains your coldnefs---But a wife's virtue Atill furmounts that pride---I love your honour---Because it is mine---Sir, you are free, free ev'n from her you loathe-I have a foul like your's; I cannot take Your love as alms, nor beg what I deferve--I may be dropt at Athens No matter where; I never will com. plain My duty shall be your'sTo the dear pledges of our former love-My tendernefs and care fhall be transferr'dAnd they fhall cheer by turns my widow'd nights I despair To have you whole, and fcorn to take you half. Whatever you refolve-I'll follow, ev'n to death.

OCTAVIA. CHARMION.

I only fear'd for you-But more should fear to live without you. Now, to be worthy Of our great queen and miftrefs.

TRAS.

B

EDINBURG:

THOMAS EARL OF DANBY,

Fifcount Latimer, and Baron Osborne of Kiveton in Yorkshire, Lord High Treasurer of England, one of his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, and Knight of the mon noble Order of the Garter, &c.

MY LORD,

THE gratitude of poets is fo troublesome a virtue to great men

that you are often in danger of your own benefits, for you are threatened with fome epiftle, and not fuffered to do good in quiet, or to compound for their filence whom you have obliged. Yet I confefs I neither am nor ought to be furprised at this indulgence, for your Lordship has the fame right to favour poetry which the great and noble have ever had;

Carmen amat, quifquis carmine digna gerit.

There is fomewhat of a tie in nature betwixt thofe who are born for worthy actions and those who can tranfmit them to pofterity; and though ours be much the inferiour part, it comes at least within the verge of alliance; nor are we unprofitable members of the commonwealth when we animate others to thofe virtues which we copy and, defcribe from you.

It is indeed their interest who endeavour the fubverfion of governments to difcourage poets and hiftorians, for the best which can happen to them is to be forgotten; but fuch who under kings are the fathers of their country, and by a just and prudent ordering of affairs preferve it, have the fame reafon to cherish the chroniders of their actions as they have to lay up in fafety the deeds and evidences of their eftates; for fuch records are their undoubted titles to the love and reverence of after ages. Your Lordship's administration has already taken up a considerable part of the English annals, and many of its most happy years are owing to it. His Majefty, the moft knowing judge of men, and the best master, has acknowledged the eafe and benefit he receives in the incomes of his Treafury, which you found not only difordered but exhausted. All things were in the confufion of a chaos, without form or method, if not reduced beyond it, even to annihilation; fo that you had not only to feparate the jarring elements, but (if that boldness of expreffion might be allowed me) to create them. Your enemies had fo embroiled the management of your office that they looked on your advancement as the inftrument of your ruin; and as if the clogging of the revenue and the confufion of accounts which you found in your entrance were not fufficient, they added their own weight of malice to the publick calamity by foreftalling the credit which fhould cure it: your friends, on the other fide, were only capable of pitying but not of aiding you; no farther help or counfel was remaining to you but what was founded. on yourfelf; and that indeed was your fecurity; for your diligence, your conftancy, and your prudence, wrought more furely within when they were not difturbed by any outward motion. The higheft virtue is beft to be trufted with itself, for affiftance only can be given by a genius fuperiour to that which it affifts; and it is the nobleft kind of debt when we are only obliged to God and nature. This then, my Lord, is your juft commendation, that you have wrought out yourfelf a way to glory by thofe very means that were defigned for your

deftruction; you have not only restored but advanced the revenues of your mafter without grievance to the fubject; and as if that were little, yet the debts of the Exchequer, which lay heaviest both on the Crown and on private perfons, have by your conduct been established in a certainty of fatisfaction; an action so much the more great and honourable because the cafe was without the ordinary relief of laws, above the hopes of the afflicted, and beyond the narrownefs of the Treafury to redrefs, had it been managed by a lefs able hand. It is certainly the happiest and most unenvied part of all your fortune to do good to many while you do injury to none; to receive at once the prayers of the fubject and the praises of the prince; and by the care of your conduct to give him means of exerting the chiefeft (if any be the chiefeft) of his royal virtues, his diftributive justice to the deferving, and his bounty and compaffion to the wanting. The difpofition of princes towards their people cannot better be difcovered than in the choice of their minifters, who, like the animal fpirits betwixt the foul and body, participate fomewhat of both natures, and make the communication which is betwixt them. A king who is juft and moderate in his nature, who rules according to the laws, whom God made happy by forming the temper of his foul to the constitution of his government, and who makes us happy by afiuming over us no other fovereignty than that wherein our welfare and liberty confifts; a prince, I fay, of fo excellent a character, and fo fuitable to the wishes of all good men, could not better have conveyed himself into his people's apprehenfions than in your Lordfhip's perfon, who fo lively exprefs the fame virtues, that you feem not fo much a copy as an emanation of him. Moderation is doubtlefs an eftablishment of greatness; but there is a steadiness of temper which is likewife requifite in a minister of state; fo equal a mixture of both virtues that he may ftand like an isthmus betwixt the two encroaching feas of arbitrary power and lawless anarchy. The undertaking would be difficult to any but an extraordinary genius to ftand at the line and to divide the limits; to pay what is due to the great reprefentative of the nation, and neither to inhance nor to yield up the undoubted prerogatives of the crown. Thefe, my Lord, are the proper virtues of a noble Englishman, as indeed they are properly English virtues, no people in the world being capable of ufing them; but we who have the happiness to be born under fo equal and fo wellpois'd a government, a government which has all the advantages of liberty beyond a commonwealth, and all the marks of kingly fovereignty without the danger of a tyranny. Both my nature as I am an Englishman, and my reafon as I am a man, have bred in me a loathing to that fpecious name of a Republick, that mock appearance of a liberty, where all who have not part in the government are flaves; and flaves they are of a viler note than fuch as are fubjects to an abfolute dominion: for no Chriftian monarchy is fo abfolute but it is circumfcribed with laws; but when the executive power is in the lawmakers there is no farther check upon them, and the people muft fuffer without a remedy, because they are oppreffed by their reprefentatives. If. I muft ferve, the number of my mafters, who were born my equals, would but add to the ignominy of my bondage. The nature of our government, above

all other, is exactly fuited both to the situation of our country and the temper of the natives, an ifland being more proper for commerce and for defence than for extending its dominions on the continent; for what the valour of its inhabitants might gain, by reafon of its remotenefs and the cafualities of the feas it could not so easily preserve; and therefore neither the arbitrary power of one in a monarchy, nor of many in a commonwealth, could make us greater than we are. It is true that vafter and more frequent taxes might be gathered when the confent of the people was not afked or needed, but this were only' by conquering abroad to be poor at home; and the examples of our neighbours teach us that they are not always the happieft fubjects whofe kings extend their dominions fartheft. Since, therefore, we cannot win by an offenfive war, at least a land-war, the model of our government feems naturally contrived for the defenfive part; and the confent of a people is easily obtained to contribute to that power which must protect it. Felices nimium bona fi fua norint, Angligenae! And yet there are not wanting malcontents among us who, furfeiting themfelves on too much happiness, would perfuade the people that they might be happier by a change. Twas indeed the policy of their old forefather, when himself was fallen from the station of glory, to feduce mankind into the fame rebellion with him, by telling him he might yet be freer than he was, that is, more free than his nature would allow, or (if I may so say) than God could make him. We have al→ ready all the liberty which freeborn subjects can enjoy, and all beyond it is but licence. But if it be liberty of confcience which they pretend, the moderation of our church is fuch, that its practice extends not to the feverity of perfecution, and its difcipline is withal fo cafy, that it allows more freedom to diffenters than any of the fects would allow to it. In the mean-time what right can be pretended by these men to attempt innovations in church or state? Who made them the trustees, or (to fpeak a little nearer their own language) the keepers, of the liberty of England? If their call be extraordinary let them convince us by working miracles; for ordinary vocation they can have none to disturb the government under which they were born, and which protects them. He who has often changed his party, and always has made his intereft the rule of it, gives little evidence of his fincerity for the publick good: it is manifeft he changes but for himself, and takes the people for tools to work his fortune; yet the experience of all ages might let him know that they who trouble the waters firft have feldom the benefit of the fishing; as they who began the late rebellion enjoyed not the fruit of their undertaking, but were crushed themselves by the ufur pation of their own inftrument. Neither is it enough for them to answer that they only intend a reformation of the government but not the fubverfion of it; on fuch pretences all infurrections have. been founded; 'tis ftriking at the root of power, which is obedience. Every remonftrance of private men has the feed of treafon in it; and difcourfes which are couched in ambiguous terms are therefore the more dangerous, because they do all the mifchief of open fedition, yet are fate from the punishment of the laws. Thefe, my Lord, are confiderations which I fhould not pafs fo lightly over e