He died my convert.

Your gratitude for his defence was shown; It proved you valued life when I was gone. INDAMORA. Not that I valued life, but feared to die.

Think that my weakness, not inconstancy. AURENG-ZEBE. Fear showed you doubted

of your own intent, 519 And she who doubts, becomes less innocent. Tell me not you could fear;

Fear's a large promiser. Who subject live To that base passion, know not what they give.

No circumstance of grief you did denyAnd what could she give more, who durst

Till, at one throw, I lost all back to Fate. [Enter] to him the EMPEROR, drawing in INDAMORA: Attendants

EMPEROR. It must not be, that he by whom we live,

Should no advantage of his gift receive.
Should he be wholly wretched?—he alone,
In this blest day, a day so much his own?
(To INDAMORA)

I have not quitted yet a victor's right; 580
I'll make you happy in your own despite.
I love you still; and if I struggle hard
To give, it shows the worth of the reward.
INDAMORA. Suppose he has o'ercome;
must I find place

Among his conquered foes, and sue for grace? 585

-Be pardoned, and confess I loved not well?

What though none live my innocence to tell,

I know it. Truth may own a gen'rous pride;

I clear myself, and care for none beside. AURENG-ZEBE. O Indamora, you would break my heart!

590

625

MELESINDA. Had he been kind, I could no love have shown; Each vulgar virtue would as much have done.

My love was such, it needed no return,
But could, though he supplied no fuel, burn;
-Rich in itself, like elemental fire,
Whose pureness does no aliment require. 630
In vain you would bereave me of my lord,
For I will die.-Die is too base a word-
I'll seek his breast, and, kindling by his
side,

Adorned with flames, I'll mount a glorious bride.

Exit

Morat stands there to drive them back again.

With those huge bellows in his hands, he blows 654

New fire into my head. My brain-pan glows. See! see! there's Aureng-Zebe, too, takes his part,

But he blows all his fire into my heart.
AURENG-ZEBE. Alas! what fury's this?
NOURMAHAL. (Staring upon him, and
catching at him) That's he, that's he!
I know the dear man's voice-
And this my rival, this the cursed she.
They kiss; into each other's arms they

run.

659

Close, close, close!-Must I see, and must have none?

1 exhale.

The gratitude of poets is so troublesome a virtue to geat men that you are often in danger of your own benefits; for you are threatened with some epstle, and not suffered to do good in quiet, or to compound for their silence whom you have oblined. Yet, I confess, I neither am nor ought to be surprised at this indulgence; for your Lordship as the same right to favor poetry which to great and noble have ever had. Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit. 1Q Anthony or Antony.

There is somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born for worthy actions, and those who can transmit them to posterity; and though ours be much the inferior part, it comes at least within the verge of alliance; nor are we unprofitable members of the conmonwealth, when we animate others to those virtues which we copy and describe from you.

'Tis indeed their interest, who endeavor the subversion of governments, to discourage poets and historians; for the best which can happen to them is to be forgotten. But such who under kings are the fathers of their country, and by a just and prudent ordering of affairs preserve it, have the same reason to cherish the chroniclers of their actions, as they have to lay up in safety the deeds and evidences of their estates; for such 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 Majesty, the most knowing judge of men, and the best master, has acknowledged the ease and benefit he receives in the incomes of his treasury, which you found not only disordered, but exhausted. All things were in the confusion of a chaos, without form or method, if not reduced beyond it, even to annihilation; so that you had not only to separate the jarring elements, but (if that boldness of expression might be allowed me) to create them. Your enemies had so embroiled the management of your office, that they looked on your advancement as the instrument of your ruin. And as if the clogging of the revenue, and the confusion of accounts, which you found in your entrance, were not sufficient, they added their own weight of malice to the public calamity, by forestalling the credit which should cure it. Your friends on the other side were only