Sif. O God! my heart My heart-strings break!-Did not her dying words Dwell on my name? Did not her latest sigh Breathe tenderness for me?-for me, the wretch, Whose rash suspicion, whose intemperate rage, Abandon'd her to shame!-Ha! gracious Heaven! Does she not move? Does not returning light Dawn in her feeble eye? Her opening lips Breathe the sweet hope of life. Cle. Where have I been? What dreadful dreams have floated in my brain! Beauf. sen. How fares my child? Cle. O faint! exceeding faint! My father!-my dear father!-Do I wake? Beauf. jun. My dear sister! Sif. Transporting rapture! Will my love return To life, to reason too? indulgent Power! Cle. What sound, what well-known voice is that I hear! Support me, raise me to his long-lost arms! Sif. Ah! do not wound me, do not pierce my heart With any thought so dreadful. Art thou given Cle. How thy sweet accents sooth the pangs of death! Witness, ye angels, thus in thy dear arms Bestows upon departed saints, be thine! Cle. Farewell, my brother! comfort and support Our father's feeble age---To heal his grief Good Heaven, her dying agonies approach. Cle. The keenest pang of death, is that I feel For thy surviving woe. Adieu, my love! I do entreat thee with my last, last breath, Restrain thy tears--nor let me grieve to think Thou feel'st a pain I cannot live to cure. Sif. Might'st thou but live, how light were every pain Fate could inflict! Cle. It will not be !-I faint My spirits fail-farewell-receive me, Heaven. lovely eyes Are clos'd in death-no more to look on me! My fate is fix'd, and in this tortur'd breast Anguish--remorse-despair-must ever dwell. Beauf. sen. Offended power, at length with pitying eyes Look on our misery! Cut short this thread, That links my soul too long to wretched life! And let mankind, taught by his hapless fate, Learn one great truth, experience finds too late; That dreadful ills from rash resentment flow, And sudden passions end in lasting woe. [Exeunt. "Order your coach-conduct me safe to town"Give me my jewels-wardrobe-and my maid, "And pray take care my pin-money be paid: "Else know, I wield a pen-and, for his glory, "My dear's domestic feats may shine in story! "Then for the child-the tale was truly sad"But who for such a bantling would run mad? "What wife, at midnight hour inclin'd to roam, "Would fondly drag her little chit from home? "What has a mother with her child to do? "Dear brats-the nursery's the place for you." Such are the strains of many a modish fair! Yet memoires-not of modern growth-declare The time has been, when modesty and truth Were deem'd additions to the charms of youth; Ere, in the dice-box, ladies found delight, Or swoon'd, for lack of cards, on Sunday-night; When women hid their necks, and veil'd their faces, Nor romp'd, nor rak'd, nor star'd, at public places: Nor took the airs of Amazons-for graces! When plain domestic virtues were the mode, And wives ne'er dreamt of happiness abroad, But cheer'd their offspring, shunn'd fantastic airs, And, with the joys of wedlock, mixt the cares. Such modes are past-yet sure they merit praise; For marriage triumph'd in those wassel days: * Addressing the Boxes. THE ORPHAN OF CHINA. BY MURPHY. PROLOGUE. BY W. WHITEHEAD. ENOUGH of Greece and Rome. The exhausted store, Of either nation, now can charm no more: But praise th'advent'rous youth who brings them home. One dubious character, we own, he draws, A patriot, zealous in a monarch's cause! Vice is the task the varying hand to guide, vade Each other's bounds, and mingle light with shade. From noble motives our allegiance springs, Justice, with mercy joined, the throne maintains; And in his people's hearts, our monarch reigns. SCENE I. Enter MANDANE and MIRVAN. ACT I. That hang o'er Zamti's house. Mir. Alas! Mandane, Amidst the general wreck who does not feel Man. Yes, all.-We all Must feel the kindred-touch; daily the cries To fall at once, and bury us in ruin. Man. Oh! there-there lies the thought That wakens all a mother's fears-alas! Mir. Your son-kind Heaven! Have you not check'd his ardour ?-with your Your soft authority, restrained the hero Man. Alas, good Mirvan, Thou little know'st his danger!-but that truth Mir. I hope, Mandane Thy truth and honour have been ever spotless. Besides thy wrongs, thy countless wrongs, the wounds He gave your injured family and name Mir. Alas! those wounds must still lie bleed- Untented by the hand of time-Not all Mir. And quickly fall it must!-the hand of Blooming in years, to his detested bed! heaven Weighs this great empire down. Man. Nay, tax not Heaven! Almighty Justice never bares its arm 'Gainst innocence and truth. 'Tis Timurkan, As Mir. From yon lofty tower, my eyes, straining toward the distant plain, Sent forth an anxious look, through clouds of dust The savage bands appeared; the western sun From the glad multitude proclaimed the approach Yes, tyrant, yes :--thy unextinguished foe Man. Urge no more— My woes must rest concealed. Yet should the Learn from the captives of yon vanquished host, Oh! should they know that the dear youth That for his righteous cause this war began, Mir. Seek not thus To multiply the ills that hover round you; And o'er the Mandarin, his manners pure, Man. Yes, Mirvan, yes--Religion wears a mien Hope idly flutters on my trembling tongue, Mir. Compose this storm of grief; Man. Celestial Powers! What labouring sighs heave in his breast?-what terror Rolls in the patriot's eye?-haste, Mirvan, hence; Enter ZAMTI. Man. Zamti! Zumti. Mandane! Man. Ah! what hast thou seen? More fatal e'en than that, which first beheld Zamti. Name not the day, Which saw this city sacked-fresh stream my eyes, Why in that moment could not Zamti fall! Man. Thy sanctity, the symbol of thy God, Zamti. Yes, my Mandane, in that hour of car- For purposes yet in the womb of time, I was reserved. I was ordained to save In sevenfold night, till your own hour is come; What hast thou heard?-Tell me--has fate To rouse his soul, and bid him walk abroad, decreed The doom of China? Zamti. China is no more! The eastern world is lost---this mighty empire Of savage force---falls from its towering hopes; Man. Yet, why, ye Powers! Vicegerent of your power; and if thy servant, By any word or deed the great design, Why should a tyrant, trained to lust and murder, Mandane vows ne'er to betray his cause, A lawless ravager from savage wilds, Where cheerful day ne'er dawns, but lowering heaven For ever rolls a turbulence of clouds; Why should a monster thus usurp the world, Zamti. Far hence, Mandane, Or genius could inspire, must fade away, Man. Fatal day! Be it enrolled in the records of Heaven! [Both rise. Zamti. And now my heart more lightly beats; methinks, With strength redoubled I can meet the shock Man. And lo! the trial comes - For see where Etan mourns- -See where the youth, Unknowing of the storm that gathers o'er him, Brings some new tale of woe. Enter ETAN. Etan. My honoured father, And you, my helpless mother,-ah! where now, Zamti. In virtue-I and this dear faithful woman We ask no more. Man. Ah! quickly, Etan, say What means that pallid look? What new event |