In dedications, especially those which poets write, mankind expect to find little sentiment and less truth. A grateful imagination adorns its benefactor with every virtue, and even flatters with sincerity. Hence the portrait of each patron of the muses is drawn with the same outline and finished as a model of perfection. Instructed by the errors of others, I presume not to make the panegyric of the Prince of Wales, nor to extol the patronage of literature as the most shining quality of a prince. Your Royal Highness will permit me to mention one sort of patronage which can never be praised too much; that, I mean, which extending its influence to the whole society, forms and excites the genius of individuals by exalting the spirit of the State.

1 For Douglas and Old Norval incognito.

Institutions that revive, in a great and highly civilized people, those virtues of courage, manhood, and love of their country, which are most apt in the progress of refinement to decay, produce at the same time that pleasing and ornamental genius, which cannot subsist in a mind that does not partake of those qualities which it describes. This is an observation which has escaped the notice of the greater part of writers who have inquired into the causes of the growth and decay of poetry and eloquence; but it has not escaped the penetration of Longinus, who writing in the decline of the Roman Empire, and lamenting that the true sublime was not to be found in the works of his time, boldly imputes that defect to the change of policy; and enumerates with indignation the vices of avarice, effeminacy, and pusillanimity, which, arising from the loss of liberty, had so enthralled and debased the minds of men that they could not look up, as he calls it, to anything elevated and sublime: and here, as in other questions, the great critic quotes the authority of his master Homer: "The day of slavery bereaves a man of half his virtue." The experience of succeeding times has shown that genius is affected by changes less violent than the loss of liberty; that it ever flourishes in times of vigor and enterprise, and languishes amidst the sure corruption of an inactive age.

Your Royal Highness, as heir apparent of the British Empire, hath in view the noblest field that ever a laudable ambition entered. The envied state of this Nation cannot remain precisely as it is; the tide must flow, or ebb faster than it has ever flowed. A prince destined in such a period to reign, begins a memorable era of perfection or degeneracy. The serious cares and princely studies of your youth, the visible tenor of your generous and constant mind, have filled the breasts of all good men with hopes of you equal to their wishes. That these hopes may be

SPOKEN BY MR. SPARKS

In ancient times, when Britain's trade was arms,

And the loved music of her youth, alarms; A godlike race sustained fair England's fame: Who has not heard of gallant Percy's1 name? Aye, and of Douglas? Such illustrious foes In rival Rome and Carthage never rose! 6 From age to age bright shone the British fire,

And every hero was a hero's sire. When powerful fate decreed one warrior's doom,

Up sprung the phoenix from his parent's tomb. But whilst those generous rivals fought and fell,

II

ACT I

SCENE I. The court of a castle,
surrounded with woods

Enter LADY RANDOLPH

LADY RANDOLPH. Ye woods and wilds, whose melancholy gloom

Accords with my soul's sadness, and draws forth

The voice of sorrow from my bursting heart,
Farewell a while. I will not leave you long;
For in your shades I deem some spirit dwells
Who, from the chiding stream or groaning
oak,

Still hears and answers to Matilda's moan.
O Douglas! Douglas! if departed ghosts
Are e'er permitted to review this world,
Within the circle of that wood thou art, 10
And with the passion of immortals hear'st
My lamentation: hear'st thy wretched wife
Weep for her husband slain, her infant lost.
My brother's timeless death I seem to mourn,
Who perished with thee on this fatal day.
To thee I lift my voice; to thee address
The plaint which mortal ear has never heard.
Oh, disregard me not; tho' I am called
Another's now, my heart is wholly thine.
Incapable of change, affection lies
Buried, my Douglas, in thy bloody grave.
But Randolph comes, whom Fate has made
my lord,

20

To chide my anguish and defraud the dead.

On Tiviot's pleasant banks; and now, of them No heir is left. Had they not been so stern, I had not been the last of all my race. 46 LORD RANDOLPH. Thy grief wrests to its purposes my words.

I never asked of thee that ardent love Which in the breasts of Fancy's children burns.

Decent affection and complacent kindness
Were all I wished for; but I wished in vain.
Hence with the less regret my eyes behold
The storm of war that gathers o'er this land;
If I should perish by the Danish sword,
Matilda would not shed one tear the more.
LADY RANDOLPH. Thou dost not think so?
woeful as I am,
56

I love thy merit, and esteem thy virtues.
But whither go'st thou now?

LORD RANDOLPH. Straight to the camp,
Where every warrior on the tip-toe stands
Of expectation, and impatient asks
Each who arrives, if he is come to tell
The Danes are landed.

LADY RANDOLPH.

winds,

60

Oh, may adverse

And roving armies shun the fatal shore. LADY RANDOLPH. War I detest: but war with foreign foes,

Whose manners, language, and whose looks are strange,

Is not so horrid, nor to me so hateful, 74
As that which with our neighbors oft we wage.
A river here, there an ideal line

By fancy drawn, divides the sister kingdoms.
On each side dwells a people similar
As twins are to each other; valiant both; 79
Both for their valor famous thro' the world:
Yet will they not unite their kindred arms,
And, if they must have war, wage distant
war,

But with each other fight in cruel conflict.
Gallant in strife and noble in their ire,
The battle is their pastime. They go forth
Gay in the morning, as to summer sport;
When ev'ning comes, the glory of the morn,
The youthful warrior, is a clod of clay.
Thus fall the prime of either hapless land;
And such the fruit of Scotch and English

Urged by affection, I have thus presumed
To interrupt your solitary thoughts,
And warn you of the hours that you neglect
And lose in sadness.

Is all the use I wish to make of time. ANNA. To blame thee, lady, suits not with my state:

But sure I am, since death first preyed on

That the false stranger was Lord Douglas' son.
Frantic with rage, the baron drew his sword
And questioned me. Alone, forsaken, faint,
Kneeling beneath his sword, falt'ring I took
An oath equivocal, that I ne'er would
Wed one of Douglas' name. Sincerity!
Thou first of virtues, let no mortal leave
Thy onward path! altho' the earth should
gape,

And from the gulf of hell destruction cry
To take dissimulation's winding way.

ANNA. Alas! how few of woman's fearful kind

Durst own a truth so hardy!

LADY RANDOLPH.

160

The first truth

234

Subtle and shrewd, he offers to mankind
An artificial image of himself;
And he with ease can vary to the taste
Of different men, its features. Self-denied,
And master of his appetites he seems;
But his fierce nature, like a fox chained up,
Watches to seize unseen the wished-for prey.
Never were vice and virtue poised so ill
As in Glenalvon's unrelenting mind.
Yet is he brave and politic in war,
And stands aloft in these unruly times.
Why I describe him thus I'll tell hereafter;
Stay, and detain him till I reach the castle.
Exit LADY RANDOLPH

241

ANNA. O Happiness! where art thou to be found?

246 I see thou dwellest not with birth and beauty, Tho' graced with grandeur and in wealth arrayed;

Nor dost thou, it would seem with virtue dwell;

Else had this gentle lady missed thee not.