Morat-my son-[Turning aside.]-Oh! cruel, cruel 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,

Ilis truth, his courage, his enlightened mind— Zamti. I prithee urge no more-here nature's voice

Speaks in such pleadings: such reproaches, Morat,

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

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; soothe 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.

For Zamtihe, that false insidious slave,

Shall dearly pay his treasons. Octar. Zamti's crimes

Think'st thou thy trembling eye could bear the shock

Of a much-injured king? Couldst thou sustain it?

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 reasonest 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
passions

Swell in his breast in vain!

Enter HAMET, in chains,

Timur. Thou art the youth,

Who mowed our battle down, and fleshed your sword

In many a slaughtered Tartar.

Hamet. True; I am.

Timur. Too well I marked thy rage, and saw thee hew

A wasteful passage through the embattled plain. Hamet. Then, be thou witness for me, in that

hour

Whose father, mother, brother, sisters, all,
Thy murderous arm hath long since laid in dust?
Whose native crown on thy ignoble brow
Thou darest dishonour?-whose wide-wasted
country

Thy arms have made a wilderness?

Timur. I see

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. Hear me, thou froward boy-darest thou be honest,

And answer who thou art?

Hamet. Dare I be honest!

I dare!—a mind, grown up in native honour,
Dares not be otherwise-then, if thy troops

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,

With truth declare, hast thou ne'er heard of
Zamti?

Hamet. Of Zamti! Oft, enraptured with his

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

[Talks apart to Octar. Zamti. Now, virtuous cruelty repress my

tears!

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.

[Exit. Zamti. 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, &c. Zamti. Hold, hold, my heart!

My gallant, generous youth! Mandane's air,
His mother's dear resemblance, rives my soul.
Man. [Within.] Oh! let me fly, and find the
barbarous man!

Where where is Zamti?

Zamti. Ha! 'tis Mandane

Wild as the winds, the mother all alive
In every heart-string, the forlorn one comes
To claim her boy!