PROLOGUE.

WRITTEN BY R. B. SHERIDAN.

CHILL'D by rude gales, while yet reluctant May
Withholds the beauties of the vernal day,

As some fond maid whom matron frowns reprove,
Suspends the smile her heart devotes to love:
The season's pleasures, too, delay their hour,
And winter revels with protracted power:
Then blame not, Critics, if, thus late, we bring
A Winter Drama-but reproach-the Spring.
What prudent Cit dares yet the season trust,
Bask in his whiskey, and enjoy the dust?
Hors'd in Cheapside, scarce yet the gayer spark
Achieves the Sunday triumph of the Park;

Scarce yet you see him, dreading to be late,

Scour the New Road, and dash thro' Grosvenor Gate;
Anxious-yet timorous, too!-his steed to shew,
The hack Bucephalus of Rotten Row.

Careless he seems, yet, vigilantly sly,
Wooes the gay glance of ladies passing by,
While his off-heel, insidiously aside,
Provokes the caper which he seems to chide.
Scarce rural Kensington due honour gains;
The vulgar verdure of her walk remains!
Where night-rob'd misses amble two by two,
Nodding to booted beaux-'How'do, how'do?"
With generous questions, that no answer wait.
'How vastly full! A'n't you come vastly late?
'I'n't it quite charming? When do you leave town?
'A'n't you quite tired? Pray can't we sit down!'
Those suburb pleasures of London May,

Imperfect yet, we hail the cold delay;

Should our play please-and you're indulgent everBe your decree-' 'Tis better late than never.'

PIZARRO.

ACT. I.

SCENE I.-A Tented Field in the background-the foreground, a Pavilion near Pizarro's Tent:

ELVIRA discovered reclining on a couch. VALVERDE enters, and attempts to kiss her hand; ELVIRA rises.

El. AUDACIOUS! Whence is thy privilege to interrupt the few moments of repose my harassed mind can snatch amid the tumults of this noisy camp? Shalll inform thy master, Pizarro, of this presumptuous treachery?

Val. I am his servant, it is true-trusted by him— and I know him well; and therefore 'tis I ask, by what magic could Pizarro gain thy heart, by what fatality still holds he thy affection?

Ew. Hold! thou trusty secretary!

Val. Ignobly born! in mind and manners rude, ferocious, and unpolish'd, though cool and crafty if occasion need-in youth audacious-ill his first manhooda licensed pirate-treating men as brutes, the world as booty; yet now the Spanish hero he is styled-the first of Spanish conquerors! and for a warrior so accomplished, 'tis fit Elvira should leave her noble family, her fame, her home, to share the dangers, humours, and the crimes of such a lover as Pizarro!

Ew. What! Valverde moralizing! But grant I am in error, what is thy incentive? Passion, infatuation, call it what thou wilt; but what attaches thee to this despised, unworthy leader? Base lucre is thy object, mean fraud thy means. Could you gain me, thou only hop'st to win a higher interest in Pizarro-I know you.

Val. On my soul, thou wrong'st me; what else my faults, I have none towards thee: but indulge the

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scorn and levity of thy nature; do it while the time permits; the gloomy hour, I fear, too soon approaches. Ew. Valverde a prophet, too.

Val. Hear me, Elvira-Shame from his late defeat, and burning wishes for revenge, again have brougth Pizarro to Peru; but trust me, he overrates his strength, nor measures well the foe. Encamped in a strange country, where terror cannot force, nor corruption buy, a single friend, what have we to hope? The army murmuring at increasing hardships, while Pizarro decorates with gaudy spoil the gay pavilion of his luxury, each day diminishes our force.

El. But are you not the heirs of those that fall? Val. Are gain and plunder, then, our only purpose? Is this Elvira's heroism?

Ew. No, so save me, Heaven! I abhor the motive, means, and end of your pursuits; but I will trust none of you:-in your whole army there is not one of you that has a heart, or speaks ingenuously-aged LasCasas, and he alone, excepted.

Val. He! an enthusiast in the opposite and worse extreme!

Ew. Oh! had I earlier known that virtuous man how different might my lot have been?

Val. I will grant Pizarro could not then so easily have duped you; forgive me, but at that event I still must wonder.

Ew. Hear me, Valverde. When first my virgin fancy waked to love, Pizarro was my country's idol. 'Tis known that when he left Panama in a slight vessel, his force was not a hundred men. Arrived at the Island of Gallo, with his sword he drew a line upon the sand, and said, 'Pass those who fear to die or conquer with their leader.' Thirteen alone remained, and at the head of these the warrior stood his ground. Even at the moment when my ears first caught this tale, my heart exclaimed, 'Pizarro is its lord! What since I have perceived, or thought, or felt! you must have more worth to win the knowledge of.

Val. I press no further; still assured, that while

Alonzo de Molina, our general's former friend and pupil, leads the enemy, Pizarro never more will be a [Trumpets without.

conqueror.

Elv. Silence! I hear him coming; look not perplexed. How mystery and fraud confound the countenance! Quick, put on an honest face, if thou canst. Piz. [Speaking without.] Chain and secure him. I will examine him myself.

Enter PIZARRO.

Piz. Why dost thou smile, Elvira?

Elv. To laugh or weep without a reason, is one of the few privileges poor women have.

Piz. Elvira, I will know the cause, I am resolved. Elv. I am glad of that, because I love resolution, and am resolved not to tell thee. Now my resolution, I take it, is better of the two, because it depends upon myself, and thine does not.

Piz. Psha! trifler!

Val. Elvira was laughing at my apprehensions

that

Piz. Apprehensions!

Val. Yes--that Alonzo's skill and genius should so have disciplined and informed the enemy, as to――

Piz. Alonzo! the traitor! How I once loved that man! His noble mother intrusted him, a boy, to my protection. [Elvira walks about pensively in the background.] At my table did he feast-in my tent did he repose. I had marked his early genius, and the valorous spirit that grew with it. Often had I talked to him of our first adventures-what storms we struggled with-what perils we surmounted! When landed with a slender host upon an unknown land-then, when 1 told how famine and fatigue, discord and toil, day by day, did thin our ranks; amid closc-pressing enemies, how, still undaunted, I endured and dared-maintained my purpose and my power, in despite of growling mutiny or bold revolt, till, with my faithful few remaining, I became at last victorious!-When, I say, of these things I spoke, the youth Alonzo, with tears

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of wonder and delight, would throw him on my neck, and swear his soul's ambition owned no other leader. Val. What could subdue attachment so begun?

Piz. Las Casas.-He it was, with fascinating craft and canting precepts of humanity, raised in Alonzo's mind a new enthusiasm, which forced him, as the stripling termed it, to forego his country's claims for those of human nature.

Val. Yes, the traitor left thee, joined the Peruvians and became thy enemy, and Spain's.

Piz. But first with weariless remonstrance he sued to win me from my purpose, and untwine the sword from my determined grasp. Much he spoke of right, of justice, and humanity, calling the Peruvians our innocent and unoffending brethren.

Val. They!-Obdurate heathens! They our brethren!

Piz. But when he found, that the soft folly of the pleading tears he dropped upon my bosom, fell on marble, he flew and joined the foe; then, profiting by the lessons he had gained in wronged Pizarro's school, the youth so disciplined and led his new allies, that soon he forced me!-Ha! I burn with shame and fury while I own it!-in base retreat and foul discomfiture to quit the shore.

Val. But the hour of revenge is come.

Piz. It is; I have returned-my force is strengthened, and the audacious boy shall soon know that Pizarro lives, and has a grateful recollection of the thanks he owes him.

Val. 'Tis doubted whether still Alonzo lives.

Piz. 'Tis certain that he does; one of his armourbearers is just made prisoner: twelve thousand is their force, as he reports, led by Alonzo and Peruvian Rolla. This day they make a solemn sacrifice on their ungodly altars. We must profit by their security; and attack them unprepared-the sacrificers shall become the victims.

Ew. [Advancing.] Wretched innocents! and their own blood shall bedew their altars!