with firmness,when escape becomes impossible, or cannot be attempted without the sacrifice of duty or of honour. Even a temporary lapse is not sufficient to fix the imputation of inconsistency of character. If virtue is finally triumphant, such a vacillation is only a proof of the difficulty of the struggle, and enhances the merit and glory of perseverance. The contest between human passions and the sense of duty, is the proper subject of tragedy. To exclude it would be to deprive that branch of poetry of much of its beauty, and all its instruction.

This poem was begun in 1784. The two first acts were then written; it was not finished till some years after.

The name of the wife of Mithridates was Monime. The Author thought himself justified in substituting a name of a more agreeable sound, and better suited to English verse, though not strictly Greek.

THE FALL OF CARTHAGE.

NEMESIS.

"FROM the star-paved court of highest Jove,"

The minister of his almighty will,

I come.

What guilt of miserable man

Flies this all-searching eye? Ye lofty thrones!

Ye cities! seats of government and arts!

On whom, well pleas'd, the universal sire

Smiles, when with holy awe, and faith unmov'd,

In humble hope you wait on his decrees;

But sends me forth, whose train the furies lead,
With fear, and mental blindness, and despair,
To scourge, and to destroy, when nations, swell'd
With vain presumption, confident in strength
And wisdom not their own, forget what arm
The thunder wields; or thankless, negligent,
And sunk in coward sloth, recoil appall'd,
Or move not, when his omens bid proceed.

Ye cities! and thou, Carthage! chief, where lull'd
By soul-corrupting wealth, thy dastard sons
Upon the altar of luxurious ease

Have bound their country's glory! Shake not all
Thy towers and temples, at the near approach
Of the avenging power, whose shout in vain
Sounded from Canna to the Lybian shore,

And bad thee grasp the sceptre of the world?
It comes, thine hour fore-doom'd! Fear, let thy touch
Of ice chill every heart! and, Madness, every mind
Pervert with folly! Lest, even yet, firm prudence,
And valour never daunted, should contend
With fate, and win almighty Jove to spare!
Thou, Punishment! rouze all thy terrors, call
Destruction from beside the bickering flame
Of Phlegethon, and the dread sisters, sprung
From Acheron and Night, o'er falling battlements
Well pleas'd who hover, listening to the shriek
Of matrons, and of violated maids,

While fierce Enyo bathes in human gore.
No vulgar city to your rage I give.

The towering queen of Lybia falls: her fleets
No more shall fix her sway in distant realms,
Spain or Trinacria, aud their gather'd wealth