Zamti. Dream on, deluded tyrant! yes, dream

on

In blind security! whene'er high Heaven
Means to destroy, it curses with illusion,
With error of the mind. Yes, wreak thy fury
Upon this captive youth; whoe'er he is,
If from his death this groaning empire rise,
Once more itself, resplendent, rich in arts
That humanize the world, he pays a debt
Due to his king, his country, and his God.
His father, wheresoe'er he dwell, in tears
Shall tell the glory on his boy derived ;
And even his mother, amidst her matron shrieks,
Shall bless the child-bed pang that brought him
forth

To this great lot, by fate to few allowed!
What wouldst thou, Mirvan?

Let me once more embrace thee----
Zamti. Good old man! [They embrace.
But wherefore art thou here? what of my boy?.
Morat. Ah! what indeed? Even from the

ocean's margin,

Parched with the sun, or chilled with midnight damps,

O'er hills, and rocks, and dreary continents,
In vain I've followed----

Zamti. Why didst let him forth?

Morat. Think not thy Morat urged him to the
deed.

His valour was the cause; and soon as fame
Proclaimed the prince alive, the mighty din
Of preparation through all Corea's realm
Alarmed his breast-indignant of controul,
He burst his covert, and now, hapless youth-
Zamti. Ah! dead! in battle fallen!
Morat. Alas! even now

He drags the conqueror's chain.

Zamti. Mandane then

May still embrace her son! My boy may live,
To know the sweets of freedom ere he die.
Morat. Alas! the measure of your woes is
full!

Unconscious of our frauds, the tyrant thinks
The prince his prisoner in your son.

Zumti. Ah! Morat!

In secret knew him, nor revealed he aught That touched his birth. But still the busy voice

Of fame, increasing as she goes, through all the ranks

Babbled abroad each circumstance. By thee
How he was privately convey'd-sent forth
A tender infant to be reared in solitude,
A stranger to himself! The warriors saw
With what a graceful port he moved in arms,
An early hero! deemed him far above
The common lot of life-deemed him Zaphimri,
And all with reverential awe beheld him.
This, this, my Zamti, reached the tyrant's ear,
And rises into horrid proof.

—[Turning aside.]---Oh! cruel,

Zamti. Now mark meMorat-my soncruel task,

To conquer nature while the heart-strings break! Morat. Why heave those sighs? and why that burst of grief?

Zamti. My son--his guiltless blood-I cannot speak! [Bursts into tears. Morat. Ha! Wilt thou shed his blood? Zamti. Thou wretched father!- [Half aside. Morat. Oh! had you known the virtues of the youth,

His truth, his courage, his enlightened mindZamti. I prithee urge no more--here nature's

voice

Speaks in such pleadings: such reproaches, Mo

rat,

-Here in my very heart--give woundings here,
Thou canst not know, and only parents feel!
Morat. And wilt thou, cruel in thy tears--
Zamti. Nay, cease,

In pity to a father, cease-Think, Morat--
Think of Zaphimri !

Morat. Ah! how fares the prince?
Zamti. He fares, my Morat, like a god on
earth,

Unknowing his celestial origin,

Yet quick, intense, and bursting into action; His great heart labouring with--he knows not what--

Prodigious deeds! Deeds, which ere long shall

rouse,

Astonish, and alarm the world.
Morat. What mean
Those mystic sounds?

Zamti. Revenge, conquest, and freedom!
Morat. Conquest and freedom!
Zamti. Ay! conquest and freedom!
The midnight hour shall call a chosen band
Of hidden patriots forth; who, when the foe
Sinks down in drunken revelry, shall pour
The gathered rage of twenty years upon him,
And vindicate the eastern world.

Morat. By Heaven! The news revives my soul.

Zamti. And canst thou think, To save one vulgar life, that Zamti now Will mar the vast design? No; let him bleed, Let my boy bleed! in such a cause as this, I can resign my son--with tears of joy Resign him! and one complicated pang Shall wrench him from my heart.The conqueror comes! [Warlike music withia, This is no hour for parleying-Morat, hence! And leave me to my fixed resolve.

Morat. Yet think,

Think of some means to save your Hamet.
Zamti. Oh!

It cannot be-the soul of Timurkan
Is bold and stirring: when occasion calls,
He springs aloft, like an expanding fire,
And marks his way with ruin. Now he knows
Zaphimri lives, his fear will make him daring
Beyond his former crimes-for joy and riot,
Which this day's triumph brings, remorseless rage
And massacre succeed and all our hopes
Are blasted for an unimportant boy.

[A second flourish. Morat. That nearer sound proclaims his dread approach.

Yet once more, Zamti, think—

Zamti. No more-I will send Those shall conduct thee where Orasming lives. There dwell unseen of all. But, Morat, first Seek my Mandane. Heavens! how shall I bear Her strong impetuosity of grief,

When she shall know my fatal purpose! Thou Prepare her tender spirit; sooth her mind, And save, Oh! save me from that dreadful conflict!

[Exeunt.

SCENE. II.

Two large Folding-gates in the back-scene are burst open by the Tartars, and then enter TIMURKAN, with his train.

Timur. Hail to this regal dome, this gorgeous palace!

Where this inventive race have lavished all
Their elegance :-ye gay apartments, hail!
Beneath your storied roof, where mimic life
Glows to the eye, and at the painter's touch
A new creation lives along the walls;
Once more receive a conqueror, arrived
From rougher scenes, where stern rebellion dared
Draw forth his phalanx; till this warlike arm
Hurled desolation on his falling ranks,
And now the monster, in yon field of death,
Lies overwhelmed in ruin.

Octar. There he fell,

No more to stalk thy realm: the eastern world,
From this auspicious day, beneath your feet
Lies bound in adamantine chains.

Timur. Thus, Octar,

Shall Timurkan display his conquering banners,
From high Samarcand's walls, to where the Tanais
Devolves his icy tribute to the sea.

Octar. But first this captive prince!
Timur. Yes, Octar, first

Zaphimri gluts my rage-bring him before us-first

We'll crush the seeds of dark conspiracy;
For Zamti-he, that false insidious slave,
Shall dearly pay his treasons.

Octar. Zamti's crimes

Hamet. Then, be thou witness for me, in that hour

I never shunned your thickest war; and if
In yonder field, where my poor countrymen,
In mangled heaps, lie many a rood extended,
Kind fate had doomed me to a noble fall,
With this right arm I earned it.

Timur. Say, what motive
Unsheathed thy rebel blade, and bade thee seek
These wars?

Hamet. The love of honourable deeds, The groans of bleeding China, and the hate Of tyrants.

Timur. Ha!--take heed, rash youth-I see This lesson has been taught thee. Octar, haste, Seek me the mandarin: let him forthwith Attend me here. [Exit OCTAR.] Now tremble at words!

my

Thy motive to these wars is known-thou art Zaphimri.

Hamet. I Zaphimri !

Timur. False one, yes:

Thou art Zaphimri--thou!-whom treacherous

guile

The last of China's race! Nay, mock not majesty, Nor with the borrowed robes of sacred kings Dress up a wretch like me--Were I Zaphimri, Think'st thou thy trembling eye could bear the shock

Of a much-injured king? Couldst thou sustain it? Say, couldst thou bear to view a royal orphan, Whose father, mother, brother, sisters, all,

wiles

Of sly hypocrisy, he wins the love

Of the deluded multitude. 'Twould seem,
Should we inflict that death his frauds deserve,
As if we meant destruction to their faith:
When a whole people's minds are once inflamed
For their religious rights, their fury burns
With rage more dreadful, as the source is holy.
Timur. Octar, thou reason'st right:---hence-
forth my art,

To make this stubborn race receive the yoke,
Shall be by yielding to their softer manners,
Their vesture, laws, and customs: thus to blend
And make the whole one undistinguished people.
The boy comes forth in sullen mood--what pas-

sions

Swell in his breast in vain !--

Whose native crown on thy ignoble brow
Thou dar'st dishonour? whose wide-wasted

Thou hast been tutored in thy lone retreat
By some sententious pedant. Soon these vain,
By thy approaching death.
These turgid maxims, shall be all subdued

Hamet. Let death come on;
Guilt, guilt alone shrinks back appalled-the brave
And honest still defy his dart ;-the wise
Calmly can eye his frown;—and misery
Invokes his friendly aid to end her woes.
Timur. Thy woes, presumptuous youth, with
all my fears,
Shall soon lie buried.

Enter ZAMTI.

Timur. Now, pious false one, say, who is that youth

Zamti. His air, his features, and his honest mien,

Proclaim all fair within. But, mighty sir,
I know him not.

Timur. Take heed, old man, nor dare,
As thou dost dread my power, to practise guile

Beneath a mask of sacerdotal perfidy:
Priestcraft, I think, calls it a pious fraud.

Zamti. Priestcraft and sacerdotal perfidy
To me are yet unknown. Religion's garb
Here never serves to consecrate a crime:
We have not yet, thank Heaven, so far imbibed
The vices of the north.

Timur. Thou vile impostor!
Avow Zaphimri, whom thy treacherous arts
Concealed from justice; or else desolation
Again shall ravage this devoted land.

Zamti. Alas! full well thou know'st, that arm already

Hath shed all royal blood.

Timur. Traitor, 'tis false !

By thee, vile slave, I have been wrought to think The hated race destroyed: thy artful tale Abused my credulous ear. But know, at length, Some captive slaves, by my command impaled, Have owned the horrid truth-have owned they fought

To seat Zaphimri on the throne of China.

Thou specious traitor! thou false, hoary mora!ist!

[TO ZANTI Confusion has o'erta'en thy subtile frauds. To make my crown's assurance firm, that note Hereafter shall aspire to wrench it from me,

[Aside.

Zamti. Oh! ill-fated youth!
Hamet. The pious hermit, in that moss-grown
dwelling,

Found an asylum from heart-piercing woes,
From slavery, and that restless din of arms,
With which thy fell ambition shook the world.
There too the sage nurtured my greener years;
With him and contemplation have I walked
The paths of wisdom: what the great Confucius
Of moral beauty taught, whate'er the wise,
Still wooing knowledge in her secret haunts,
Disclosed of nature to the sons of men,
My wondering mind has heard: but, above all,
The hermit taught me the most useful science,
That noble science to be brave and good.

Zamti. Oh! lovely youth! at every word he utters,

A soft effusion, mixed of grief and joy,
Flows o'er my heart.

[Aside.

Timur. Who, said he, was your father? Hamet. My birth the pious sage-I know not why

Still wrapped in silence; and when urged to tell,
He only answered that a time might come,
I should not blush to know my father.

Timur. Now,

13

To make our vengeance sure, through all the east Each youth shall die, and carnage thin mankind, Till in the general wreck your boasted Orplian Shall undistinguished fall. Thou know'st my word Is fate. Octar, draw near-when treason lurks, Each moment's big with danger-thou observe These my commands

tears!

[Talks apart to OCTAR Zamti. Now, virtuous cruelty, repress my Cease your soft conflict, Nature! Hear me, Tar

tar:

That youth-his air-his every look unmans me quite.

Timur. Wilt thou begin, dissembler?
Zamti. Down, down, down~~~
It must be so, or all is lost---That youth,
I've dealt by him-as every king could wish
In a like case, his faithful subjects would.
Timur. Dost thou, then, own it? Triumph,
Timurkan,

And in Zaphimri's grave lie hushed my
fears!
Brave Octar, let the victim straight be led
To yonder sacred fane: there, in the view
Of my rejoicing Tartars, the declining sun
Shall see him offered to our living Lama,
For this day's conquest: thence a golden train
Of radiant years shall mark my future sway.

[Erit.

Zumti. Flow, flow my tears, and ease this aching breast!

Hamet. Nay, do not weep for me, thou good

old man!

If it will close the wounds of bleeding China,
That a poor wretch, like me, must yield his life,
I give it freely. If I am a king,
Though sure it cannot be, what greater blessing
Can a young prince enjoy, than to diffuse,
By one great act, that happiness on millions,
For which his life should be a round of care?
Come, lead me to my fate.

[Exit with OCTAR, &L Zamti. Hold, hold, my heart!—