Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours.-They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule; we, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate; we serve a monarch whom we love God whom we adore.Whene'er they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress!-Whene'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship. They boast, they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error! Yes they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride. They offer us their protection-Yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs-covering and devouring them. They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise.-Be our plain answer this: The throne we honour is the people's choice;-the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy;-the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hope of bliss beyond the grave. -Tell your invaders this, and tell them too, we seek no change; and least of all, such change as they would bring us. Sheridan's Pizarro.

་་་་

[ocr errors]

19.-Brutus's Harangue on the Death of Cæsar.

ROMANS, Countrymen, and Lovers!-hear me for my cause; and be silent that you may hear. Believe me for mine honour; and have respect to mine honour,

that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom;

and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. --If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's, to him I say, that Brutus's love to Casar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome

more. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves; than that Cæsar were dead, to live all freemen?-As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition.-Who's here so base, that would be a bondman? if any, speak; for him have I offended. Who's here so rude, that would not be a Roman? if any, speak; for him have I offended. Who's here so vile, that will not love his country? if any, speak; for him have I offended.I pause for a reply.

None! then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar, than you should do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the capitol; his glory not extenuated wherein he was worthy; nor his of fences enforced, for which he suffered death.

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony; who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as, which of you shall not?-With this I depart that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death. Shakespeare,

20.-Osmond's Dream.

HARK, fellows! Instruments of my guilt, listen to my punishment!-Methought I wandered, through the low-browed caverns, where repose the reliques of my ancestors;-my eye dwelt with awe on their tombs, with disgust on mortality's surrounding emblems !— Suddenly a female form glided along the vault: it was Angela !-She smiled upon me, and beckoned me to advance. I flew towards her; my arms were already unclosed to clasp her, when suddenly her figure changed, her face grew pale, a stream of blood gushed from her bosom !-Hassan, 'twas Evelina! Such as when she sunk at my feet expiring, while my hand grasped the dagger, still crimsoned with her blood!“ We meet again this night!" murmured her hollow voice!

"Now rush to my arms, but first see what you have made me!-Embrace me, my bridegroom! we must never part again !"-While speaking, her form withered away: the flesh fell from her bones: her eyes burst from their sockets: a skeleton loathsome and meagre clasped me in her mouldering arms! Her infected breath was mingled with mine; her rotten fingers pressed my hand, and my face was covered with her kisses!-Oh, how I trembled with disgust!--And now blue dismal flames gleamed along the wall; the tombs were rent asunder; bands of fierce spectres rushed round me in frantic dance !-Furiously they gnashed their teeth, while they gazed upon me, and shrieked in loud yell " Welcome, thou fratricide!-Welcome, thou lost for ever!"-Horror burst the bands of sleep; distracted I flew hither: but my feelings-words are too weak, too powerless to express them.-Surely this was no idle dream!-'Twas a celestial warning! 'twas my better angel that whispered " Osmond, repent your former crimes! commit not new ones!"

Angela!-Oh! at that name all again is calm in my bosom. Hushed by her image my tumultuous passions sink to rest, and my terrors subside into that single fear, her loss!-My heart-strings are twisted round the maid, and ere I resign her, those strings must break. If I exist to-morrow night, she shall be mine. If I exist?-Ha! whence that doubt? "We meet again this night!"-so said the spectre !-Dreadful words, be ye blotted from my mind for ever!-Hassan, to your vigilance I leave the care of my beloved. Fly to me that instant, should any unbidden footstep approach yon chamber-door. I'll go to my couch again. Follow me, Saib, and watch me while I sleep. Then, if you see my limbs convulsed, my hands clenched, my hair bristling, and cold dews trembling on my brow! Seize me, rouse me! Snatch me from my bed!-I must not dream again.-O! faithless sleep, why art thou too leagued with my foes? There was a time, when thy presence brought oblivion to my sorrows; when thy poppy-crown was mingled with roses! Now, fear and remorse are thy sad companions, and I shudder to see thee approach my couch! Blood trickles

from thy garments; snakes writhe around thy brows; thy hand holds the well-known fatal dagger, and plunges it still reeking in my breast!-then do I shriek in agony; then do I start distracted from thy arms! Oh how I hate thee, sleep! Friend of virtue, Oh! how I dread thy coming!Castle Spectre.

[ocr errors][merged small]

SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you; trippingly on the tongue. But, if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the towncrier had spoke my lines. And, do not saw the air too much with your hand; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise. Pray you, avoid it.

[ocr errors]

Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action: with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing sc overdone, is from the purpose of playing; whose end is-to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this overdone or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which, must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, that, neither having the accent of Christian, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity so abominably. Shakespeare

SOLILOQUIES.

1.-Lady Randolph's Soliloquy, lamenting the Death of her Husband and Child.

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'.
Oh Douglas'! Douglas'! if departed ghosts
Are e'er permitted to review this world',
Within the circle of that wood' thou art,
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 perish'd 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! Though I am call'd
Another's' now, my heart is wholly thine'.
Incapable of change', affection lies

Buried', my Douglas, in thy bloody grave'.
Tragedy of Douglas.

2.-Douglas's Soliloquy in the Wood.

THIS is the place, the centre of the grove,
Here stands the oak, the monarch of the wood.-
How sweet, and solemn, is this midnight scene!
The silver moon, unclouded, holds her way
Through skies, where I could count each little star:
The fanning west-wind scarcely stirs the leaves:
The river, rushing o'er its pebbled bed,

« IndietroContinua »