-How full of heaven this solitude appears,
This healthful comfort of the happy swain;
Who from his hard, but peacefull bed rous'd up,
In's morning exercise saluted is

By a full quire of feather'd choristers,
Wedding their notes to the inamour'd air.
Here, Nature in her unaffected dresse,
Plaited with vallies and imbost with hills,
Enchas'd with silver streams, and fring'd with woods,
Sits lovely in her native russet.

*

Enter the King, disguised.

"Tis he, but strangely chang'd.

King. Oroandes, you're now a loyal subject. Oro. All my ambition ne'er, flew higher, sir, Than in that region of your thoughts to thrive.

King. There it was grown to full maturity,
Ere thou wrotest man, my Oroandes; but I must,
Like wanton Nero, either ruine all

The glorious structure of thy hopes, or live
Imprison'd in thy loyalty;-thy life,

"Till now my strongest fortresse, is become
The fatall engine of my ruine.

Oro,

-Heavens! what have I done to merit this? King. Nothing but been too virtuous, and by that Center'd affections, which I must remove, Or shake thee into chaos.

Oro. This language blasts me: sure, I have no sin
Ponderous enough to buoy your vengeance up
Unto this dangerous height. Did I but think
One viper lodg'd in my remotest thought,
I'd tear each fibre of my heart to find

The monster forth; and, in my blood imbalm'd,
Throw it as far as life's short span can reach.
But heaven my witnesse is, no flame of zeal
But hath been yours i' the second magnitude;
My vowes, of kin to those I paid the gods,
My prayers, but love and duty fir'd into
A holy calenture: yet if all this,.
Like a small star's kind influence govern'd by
A regall planet's crosse aspects, must drop
It's fading beams into that house of death,
Your fierce destructive anger, let me shew

The latitude of my obedience, in

Dying at the command of him for whom

I only wish to live. Did my friends

Look on the object through their tears, the ghost
Of my dead mother, capable of grief
As of eternity, and yet clothed in
Humanitie's most frail affections; all

Those rivulets of sorrow should not wash

The sanguine stain of my resolves, so they,
If executed, could procure a calm

In this high tempest of your soul.

King. Thy virtue fathomes not my depth of guilt; Such a prevention of my anger would Only exchange the active passion for Sorrow as insupportable: those characters, Which must unfold the sables of my soul, Are in dark hieroglyphicks hid, through which Thy strength of judgment cannot pierce.

Oro. You speak in misty wonders, sir; such as lead My apprehension into wild meanders, King. This will unriddle all your

doubts-Draw.

Oro. Against my sovereign!—an act so wicked would

Retort the guilty steel into my breast.

Fear never yet marbled a coward's blood

More than obedience mine; that breath hath lockt
In ice the panting channels of my heart,

No spirits dare from their cold center move.

King. Will you deny, when I command?

Oro. Pardon me, royall sir; had such a voice
Legitimated my attempts, I had

Not paus'd at the encounter of a danger,
Horrid, as all the wars o' th' elements,

When ruffled into stormes, could present:

I would bestride a cloud with lightning charg'd,
In's full career affront a thunderbolt,

Leap through the clefts of earthquakes, or attempt
To prop the ruins of a falling rock,
Yet count all this my happiness, so I
Met death in the white robes of loyalty.
But to encounter such a ghastly foe

In the black shadow of rebellion, shakes

The strongest pillars of my soul. You are my king!
My king-whose frowns should be

More dreadfull to me, than oraculous truths

When threat'ning sudden ruines; your sacred person

Is circl'd with divinity, which, without reverence
To touch, is sacrilege; to look on, sin;
Unlesse each glance is usher'd with a prayer.
Kings are but living temples, wherein is,
As in the nation's center, the chief seat
Of their protecting god and shall I then
Pollute my hands in blood, whose every drop
Would swell my countrey's tears into a flood?

King. Are my attempts priz'd at so cheap a rate?
Wears not my sword a danger on it's point
As well as thine ?-draw-or I shall conclude
"Tis fear, not loyalty, that charms thy hand.

Oro. This stirs my blood:-were you a private man,
That only had his better genius to

Protect him, though allied to me by all

The ties of nature and of friendship, yet,

Being thus far urg'd, our swords long since should have
Made known whose stars the brighter influence had.

King. I have unfetter'd all those legall bondes-draw ;
For thy denying, now but sleights my power.
Oro. Then, since there's no evasion,

Witnesse, ye gods, my innocence is wrong'd.
But, gratious sir,-

Before I fall, or stand lesse fortunate
To see your overthrow, oh let me know
What fate, what cruell fate, hath robb'd me of
The treasures of your love: I never yet
Sullied my soul with any thought that might
Deserve your hate; heaven is my faithful witnesse
I harbour none of you, but such as are

More full of zeal than those pure orizons,

Which martyr'd saints mix with their dying groans.

King. And must such goodnesse die !-know, noble youth,

I am so far from calling it desert

In thee, that hath unsheath'd my sword, that, in

This midnight storm of fancy, I can shed

Some drops of pity too: pity, to change
So true a subject for a treacherous guest.
I come not rashly to attempt thy life,
But long have struggled with my hot desire;
Stood fiery trials of temptations, which
Have sublimated reason, till it's grown
Too volatile to be contain'd within
My brain, that over-heated crucible.

I am diseas'd, and know no way to health

But through a deluge of thy blood.

Oro. There needs not, then, this storm to break down

The bayes that verge the crimson sea: this stroke

King. Hold-or else thou rob'st me of my fixt resolves.
-There is a cause,

Commands me die in the attempt, or kill thee.

Oro. Dear sir, reveal it;

That, ere I fall, my penitential tears

May from that leprous crime expunge my soul.

King. Alas, brave youth! thy innocence needs not
The laver of a tear; thy candid thoughts
White as the robes of angels are, but mine
The dress of devills: I that should protect,
Am come to rob my best of subjects—to rob
Thee of thy dearest treasure: I know thy love
To fair Eurione, inseparable,

As goodnesse from a deity; yet must
Deprive thee of this darling of thy soul.

Oro. With pardon, royall sir, I cannot think
The Cyprian princesse is so soon forgot;
With whom compar'd, my poor Eurione
Though bright to me, to more-discerning eyes
Shines dim as the pale moon, when she lets fall
Through a dark grove her melancholy beams.

King. Dost thou affect her, yet dispraise a beauty
That in its orb contracts divinity?

This profanation, what had else been sin,
Will render meritorious-guard thyself."

[They fight, and the King falls. Act IV. Scene II.

There is great dignity in the preceding scene; the following passage and soliloquy, also, possess considerable merit—there are some beautiful touches of natural emotion in the bitter agonies of self-reproach of Oroandes-in the gushing out of an anguished heart;-such appeals are never made in vainthey strike upon the golden chain which links us with our common nature, and awaken the deepest sympathies of the

heart.

Enter Oroandes and a Surgeon.

Oro. Not find the body, say'st?

Sur. No, sir; yet, by the large effusion of his blood,
Had a too sad assurance of the place:

Some mountaineers have certainly conveyed

His body thence to burial; those bloody characters
Are arguments of no lesse ill than death.

Oro. Then I am lost eternally-lost to all
That bears a show of goodnesse; heaven and earth
Will both strive to forget they ever knew
A soul deform'd with wickednesse like mine.
-My feverish sins dry up the dews of mercy
In their descent, and blast all vertue that
Approaches near me; I shall never find

A saint in heaven, or friend on earth, but will,
As a dire prodigy, created to

Scatter infection through the world, forsake
My hated company, as fit to mix

With none but the society of devils.

Sur. Sir, I wish, I in ought else could serve you.

Oro. I thank thee, friend

Heavens

grown,

What an unwieldy monster am I
Since, by this act, swel'd to a regicide-

-Oh! my accursed stars, that only lent
Your influence to light me to damnation ;
Not all my penitential tears shall e'er

Wash off the spots from my stain'd soul; this gangrene
Is cur'd by no lixivium, but of blood.

My heart is lodg'd within a bed of snakes,

Such as old fancies arm'd the furies with.

Conscience waits on me like the frighting shades
Of ghosts, when gastly messengers of death.
My thoughts are but the inforc't retreats
Of tortur'd reason to a troubled fancy.

Enter Oroandes, alone, in the habit of a Forrester.

Oro. Not yet--not yet at quiet-no disguise

Is dark enough to curtain o'er my guilt;
Pale as the ghastly looks of men condemn'd,
It sits upon my conscience. I see there is
No place affords that soul a safe retreat,
That is pursued by a sharp-scented sin.
The prosperous murtherer, that hath cloth'd his guilt
In royall ermins, all those furs of state
Cannot preserve from trembling; he looks on
Dejected wretches as assassinates,

[Exit Sur.

Act V.