Through bowing slaves, I range the private

rooms,

And of to-morrow's action fix the scene.

Dem. To-morrow's action? Can that hoary wisdom,

Borne down with years, still doat upon to-morrow?

That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward, and the fool condemned to lose
An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect!
Strange! that this general fraud from day to day
Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
The soldier, labouring through a winter's march,
Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph;
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms,
To-morrow brings the visionary bride;
But thou, too old to bear another cheat,
Learn, that the present hour alone is man's.

Leon. The present hour with open arms in-
vites;

Seize the kind fair, and press her to thy bosom. Dem. Who knows, ere this important morrow rise,

But fear, or mutiny may taint the Greeks?
Who knows if Mahomet's awaking anger
May spare the fatal bow-string till to-morrow?
Abd, Had our first Asian foes but known this
ardour,

We still had wandered on Tartarian hills.
Rouse, Cali! shall the sons of conquered Greece
Lead us to danger, and abash their victors?
This night with all her conscious stars be witness
Who merits most, Demetrius or Abdalla,
Dem. Who merits most !—I knew not we were
rivals.

Cali. Young man, forbear-The heat of youth,

no more

Well-'tis decreed-This night shall fix our fate.
Soon as the veil of evening clouds the sky,
With cautious secrecy, Leontius, steer
The appointed vessel to yon shaded bay,
Formed by this garden on the shaded deep;
There, with your soldiers armed, and sails ex-
panded,

Await our coming, equally prepared
For speedy flight, or obstinate defence.
[Exit Leontius.
Dem. Now pause, great Bassa, from the
thoughts of blood,

And kindly grant an ear to gentler sounds!
If e'er thy youth has known the pangs of absence,
Or felt the importance of obstructed love,
Give me, before the approaching hour of fate,
Once to behold the charms of bright Aspasia,
And draw new virtue from her heavenly tongue.
Cali. Let prudence, ere the suit be further
urged,

Dem. Prudence and love conspire in this re

quest,

Lest, unacquainted with our bold attempt, Surprize o'erwhelm her, and retard our flight. Cali. What I can grant, you cannot ask in vainDem. I go to wait thy call; this kind consent Completes the gift of freedom and of life.

[Exit Demetrius. Abd. And this is my reward-to burn, to languish,

To rave unheeded, while the happy Greek,
The refuse of our swords, the dross of conquest,
Throws his fond arms about Aspasia's neck,
Dwells on her lips, and sighs upon her breast;
Is't not enough, he lives by our indulgence,
But he must live to make his masters wretched!
Cali. What claim hast thou to plead ?
Abd. The claim of power,

The unquestioned claim of conquerors and kings! Cali. Yet, in the use of power, remember justice.

Abd. Can then the assassin lift his treacherous hand

Against his king, and cry, Remember justice?
Justice demands the forfeit life of Cali;
Justice demands-But see the approaching sul-

tan.

Oppose my wishes, and-Remember justice. Cali. Disorder sits upon thy face-retire. [Exit Abdalla.

Enter MAHOMET.

Long be the sultan blessed with happy love!
My zeal marks gladness dawning on thy cheek,
With raptures such as fire the pagan crowds,
When pale, and anxious for their years to come,
They see the sun surmount the dark eclipse,
And hail unanimous their conquering god.

Mah. My vows, 'tis true, she hears with less

aversion;

She sighs, she blushes, but she still denies.
Cali. With warmer courtship press the yield-
ing fair,

Call to your aid, with boundless promises,
Each rebel wish, each traitor inclination,
That raises tumults in the female breast,
The love of power, of pleasure, and of show.
Mah. These arts I tried, and, to inflame her
more,

By hateful business hurried from her sight,
I bade a hundred virgins wait around her,
Soothe her with all the pleasures of command,
Applaud her charms, and court her to be great.
[Exit Mahomet.

Cali. He's gone-Here rest, my soul, thy fainting wing,

Here recollect thy dissipated powers.
Our distant interests, and our different passions
Now haste to mingle in one common centre,
And fate lies crowded in a narrow space.

Yet in that narrow space what dangers rise?—
Far more I dread Abdalla's fiery folly,
Than all the wisdom of the grave divan.
Reason with reason fights on equal terms;
The raging madman's unconnected schemes
We cannot obviate, for we cannot guess.
Deep in my breast be treasured this resolve,
When Cali mounts the throne Abdalla dies!
Too fierce, too faithless for neglect or trust.-
Enter IRENE, and ASPASIA, with attendants.
Amidst the splendour of encircling beauty,
Superior majesty proclaims the queen,
And nature justifies our monarch's choice.
Irene. Reserve this homage for some other fair;
Urge me not on to glittering guilt, nor pour
In my weak ear the intoxicating sounds.

Cali. Make haste, bright maid, to rule the wil-
ling world;

Awed by the rigour of the sultan's justice,
We court thy gentleness.

Asp. Can Cali's voice

Concur to press a hapless captive's ruin?
Cali. Long would my zeal for Mahomet and
thee

Detain me here. But nations call upon me,
And duty bids me choose a distant walk,
Nor taint with care the privacies of love.

[Erit Cali. Asp. If yet this shining pomp, these sudden honours,

Swell not thy soul beyond advice or friendship,
Not yet inspire the follies of a queen,
Or tune thine ear to soothing adulation,
Suspend awhile the privilege of power,
To hear the voice of truth; dismiss thy train,
Shake off the incumbrances of state a moment,
And lay the towering sultaness aside,

[Irene signs to her attendants to retire.
While I foretell thy fate; that office done-
No more I boast the ambitious name of friend,
But sink among thy slaves without a murmur.

Irene. Did regal diadems invest my brow, Yet should my soul, still faithful to her choice, Esteem Aspasia's breast the noblest kingdom.

Asp. The soul, once tainted with so foul a crime,

No more shall glow with friendship's hallowed ardour:

Those holy beings, whose superior care
Guides erring mortals to the paths of virtue,
Affrighted at impiety like thine,

Resign their charge to baseness and to ruin.
Irene. Upbraid me not with fancied wicked-

ness;

I am not yet a queen, or an apostate.
But should I sin beyond the hope of mercy,
If, when religion prompts me to refuse,
The dread of instant death restrains my tongue!
Asp. Reflect, that life and death, affecting
sounds!

Are only varied modes of endless being:

Unfit for toil, and polished into weakness,
Made passive fortitude the praise of women:
Our only arms are innocence and meekness.
Not then with raving cries I filled the city,
But, while Demetrius, dear lamented name!
Poured storms of fire upon our fierce invaders,
Implored the eternal Power to shield my country,
With silent sorrows, and with calm devotion.

Irene. Oh! did Irene shine the queen of Tur key,

No more should Greece lament those prayers rejected!

Again should golden splendour grace her cities,
Again her prostrate palaces should rise,
Again her temples sound with holy music:
No more should danger fright, or want distress,
The smiling widows, and protected orphans.

Asp. Be virtuous ends pursued by virtuous

There shalt thou view, from far, the quiet cottage,

And sigh for cheerful poverty in vain;
There wear the tedious hours of life away,
Beneath each curse of unrelenting Heaven,
Despair, and slavery, solitude, and guilt!

Irene. There shall we find the yet untasted bliss,

Of grandeur and tranquillity combined.

Asp. Tranquillity and guilt, disjoined by Hea

ven,

Still stretch, in vain, their longing arms afar,
Nor dare to pass the insuperable bound;
Ah! let me rather seek the convent's cell;
There, when my thoughts, at interval of prayer,
Descend to range these mansions of misfortune,
Oft shall I dwell on our disastrous friendship,
And shed the pitying tear for lost Irene.

Irene. Go, languish on in dull obscurity!
Thy dazzled soul, with all its boasted greatness,
Shrinks at the o'erpowering gleams of regal state,
Stoops from the blaze, like a degenerate eagle,
And flies for shelter to the shades of life.

Asp. On me should Providence, without a
crime,

The weighty charge of royalty confer;
Call me to civilize the Russian wilds,
Or bid soft science polish Briton's heroes:
Soon shouldst thou see, how false thy weak re-
proach.

My bosom feels, enkindled from the sky,
The lambent flames of mild benevolence,
Untouched by fierce ambition's raging fires.
Irene. Ambition is the stamp, impressed by
Heaven,

To mark the noblest minds; with active heat
Informed, they mount the precipice of power,
Grasp at command, and tower in quest of em-
pire;

While vulgar souls compassionate their cares, Gaze at their height, and tremble at their danger:

Thus meaner spirits, with amazement, mark
The varying seasons, and revolving skies,
And ask, what guilty power's rebellious hand
Rolls, with eternal toil, the ponderous orbs;
While some archangel, nearer to perfection,
In easy state, presides o'er all their motions,
Directs the planets with a careless nod,
Conducts the sun, and regulates the spheres.
Asp. Well mayest thou hide, in labyrinths of
sound,

The cause that shrinks from reason's powerful voice.

Stoop from thy flight, trace back the entangled thought,

And set the glittering fallacy to view.
Not power I blame, but power obtained by crime.
Angelic greatness is angelic virtue.

Amidst the glare of courts, the shout of armies,
Will not the apostate feel the pangs of guilt,
And wish, too late, for innocence and peace?

Why does thy soul retire into herself?
Recline upon my breast thy sinking beauties:
Revive-revive to freedom and to love!

Asp. What well known voice pronounced the grateful sounds,

Freedom and love? Alas! I'm all confusion; A sudden mist o'ercasts my darkened soul; The present, past, and future, swim before me, Lost in a wild perplexity of joy.

Dem. Such ecstacy of love, such pure affection, What worth can merit, or what faith reward? Asp. A thousand thoughts, imperfect and distracted,

Demand a voice, and struggle into birth;
A thousand questions press upon my tongue,
But all give way to rapture and Demetrius!

Dem. O say, bright being! in this age of ab

sence,

What fears, what griefs, what dangers hast thou known?

Say, how the tyrant threatened, flattered, sighed,
Say, how he threatened, flattered, sighed in vain!
Say, how the hand of violence was raised,
Say, how thou calledst in tears upon Demetrius!

Asp. Inform me, rather, how thy happy courage
Stemmed in the breach the deluge of destruction,
And passed uninjured through the walks of death?
Did savage anger and licentious conquest
Behold the hero with Aspasia's eyes?
And, thus protected in the general ruin,
O say, what guardian power conveyed thee hither!
Dem. Such strange events, such uuexpected
chances,

Beyond my warmest hope, or wildest wishes,
Concurred to give me to Aspasia's arms,

I stand amazed, and ask, if yet I clasp thee.

That joins us thus, will never part us more.

Enter ABDALla.

Abd. It parts you now-the hasty sultan signed | The laws unread, and flies to his Irene.

Dem. Fixed and intent on his Irene's charms, He envies none the converse of Aspasia.

Abd. Aspasia's absence will inflame suspicion; She cannot, must not, shall not linger here, Prudence and friendship bid me force her from you. Dem. Force her! profane her with a touch, and die!

Abd. 'Tis Greece, 'tis freedom calls Aspasia hence;

SCENE I.

Dem. If we must part

Asp. No ! let us die together.

Dem. If we must part

Abd. Dispatch! the encreasing danger Will not adimit a lover's long farewell, The long drawn intercourse of sighs and kisses. Dem. Then-O my fair, I cannot bid thee

Approving justice smiles upon your cause,
And nature's rights entreat the asserting sword.
Yet when your hand is lifted to destroy,
Think-but excuse a woman's needless caution-
Purge well thy mind from every private passion,
Drive interest, love, and vengeance from thy
thoughts,

Fill all thy ardent breast with Greece and virtue!
Then strike secure, and heaven assist the blow!

Dem. Thou kind assistant of my better angel, Propitious guide of my bewildered soul, Calm of my cares, and guardian of my virtue! Asp. My soul, first kindled by thy bright example,

To noble thought and generous emulation, Now but reflects those beams that flowed from thee.

Dem. With native lustre, and unborrowed
greatness,

Thou shin'st, bright maid, superior to distress;
Unlike the trifling race of vulgar beauties,
Those glittering dew-drops of a vernal morn,
That spread their colours to the genial beam,
And, sparkling, quiver to the breath of May;
But when the tempest, with sonorous wing,
Sweeps o'er the grove, forsake the labouring
bough,

Dispersed in air, or mingled with the dust.

Asp. Forbear this triumph-still new conflicts

wait us,

Foes unforeseen, and dangers unsuspected.
Oft, when the fierce besieger's cager host
Beholds the fainting garrison retire,
And rushes joyful to the naked wall,
Destruction flashes from the insidious mine,
And sweeps the exulting conqueror away:
Perhaps in vain the sultan's anger spared me,

To find a meaner fate from treacherous friendship

Abdalla

Dem. Can Abdalla then dissemble? That fiery chief, renowned for generous freedom, For zeal unguarded, undissembled hate, For daring truth, and turbulence of honour?

Asp. This open friend, this undesigning hero, With noisy falsehoods forced me from your arms, To shock my virtue with a tale of love.

Dem. Did not the cause of Greece restrain my sword,

Aspasia should not fear a second insult.

Asp. His pride and love by turns inspired his tongue,

And intermixed my praises with his own;
His wealth, his rank, his honours he recounted,
Till, in the midst of arrogance and fondness,
The approaching sultan forc'd me from the pa-
lace;

Then while he gazed upon his yielding mistress,
I stole, unheeded, from their ravished eyes,
And sought this happy grove in quest of thee.

Dem. Soon may the final stroke decide our fate,

Lest baneful discord crush our infant scheme,
And strangled freedom perish in the birth.

Asp. My bosom harassed with alternate passions,

Now hopes, now fears.

Dem. The anxieties of love!

Asp. Think how the sovereign arbiter of kingdoms

Detests thy false associates' black designs,
And frowns on perjury, revenge, and murder.
Embarked with treason on the seas of fate,
When Heaven shall bid the swelling billows

Successful treasons punish impious kings.

Asp. Nor end my terrors with the sultan's death;

Far as futurity's untravelled waste
Lies open to conjecture's dubious ken,
On every side confusion, rage, and death,
Perhaps the phantoms of a woman's fear,
Beset the treacherous way with fatal ambush ;
Each Turkish bosom burns for thy destruction;
Ambitious Cali dreads the statesman's arts,
And hot Abdalla hates the happy lover.

Dem. Capricious man! to good and ill inconstant;

Too much to fear or trust, is equal weakness. Sometimes the wretch, unawed by heaven or hell,

With mad devotion idolizes honour.

The Bassa, reeking with his master's murder,
Perhaps may start at violated friendship.

Asp. How soon, alas! will interest, fear, or envy,

O'erthrow such weak, such accidental virtue, Nor built on faith, nor fortified by conscience? Dem. When desperate ills demand a speedy

cure,

Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.

Asp. Yet think a moment, ere you court destruction,

What hand, when death has snatched away Demetrius,

Shall guard Aspasia from triumphant lust !
Dem. Dismiss these needless fears-a troop
of Greeks,

Well known, long tried, expect us on the shore.
Borne on the surface of the smiling deep,
Soon shalt thou scorn, in safety's arms reposed,
Abdalla's rage and Cali's stratagems.

Asp. Still, still distrust sits heavy on my heart. Will e'er an happier hour revisit Greece!

Dem. Should Heaven, yet unappeased, refuse its aid,

Disperse our hopes, and frustrate our designs,
Yet shall the conscience of the great attempt
Diffuse a brightness on our future days;
Nor will his country's groans reproach Deme-
trius.

But how canst thou support the woes of exile?
Canst thou forget hereditary splendours,
To live obscure upon a foreign coast,
Content with science, innocence, and love?
Asp. Nor wealth, nor titles, make Aspasia's
bliss.

O'erwhelmed and lost amidst the public ruins,
Unmoved I saw the glittering trifles perish,
And thought the petty dross beneath a sigh.
Chearful I follow to the rural cell;
Love be my wealth, and my distinction virtue!
Dem. Submissive and prepared for each event,
Now let us wait the last award of Heaven,
Secure of happiness from flight or conquest,

tion.

The mighty Tuscan courts the banished arts
To kind Italia's hospitable shades;
There shall soft leisure wing the excursive soul,
And peace propitious smile on fond desire;
There shall despotic eloquence resume
Her ancient empire o'er the yielding heart;
There poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the western world.
Enter CALI.

Cali. At length the unwilling sun resigns the

world

To silence and to rest. The hours of darkness Propitious hours to stratagem and death! Pursue the last remains of lingering light.

Dem. Count not these hours as parts of vulgar time;

Think them a sacred treasure lent by Heaven,
Which, squandered by neglect, or fear, or folly,
No prayer recalls, no diligence redeems;
To-morrow's dawn shall see the Turkish king
Stretched in the dust, or towering on his throne;
To-morrow's dawn shall see the mighty Cali,
The sport of tyranny, or lord of nations.

Cali. Then waste no longer these important

moments

In soft endearments, and in gentle murmurs;
Nor lose in love the patriot and the hero.

Dem. 'Tis love combined with guilt alone, that melts

The softened soul to cowardice and sloth;
But virtuous passion prompts the great resolve,
And fans the slumbering spark of heavenly fire.
Retire, my fair; that power, that smiles on good-

ness

Guide all thy steps, calm every stormy thought, And still thy bosom with the voice of peace!

Asp. Soon may we meet again, secure and free, To feel no more the pangs of separation! [Erit. Dem. This night alone is ours-Our mighty foe, No longer lost in amorous solitude, Will now remount the slighted seat of empire, And show Irene to the shouting people: Aspasia left her sighing in his arms, And listening to the pleasing tale of power; With softened voice she dropped the faint refu sal,

Smiling consent she sat, and blushing love.

Cali. Now, tyrant, with satiety of beauty, Now feast thine eyes, thine eyes that ne'er hereafter

Shall dart their amorous glances at the fair,
Or glare on Cali with malignant beams!

Enter LEONTIUS, ABDALLA.

Leon. Our bark, unseen, has reached the appointed bay,

And where yon trees wave o'er the foaming surge Reclines against the shore: Our Grecian troop