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Stand forth, my children-Hymen, join their hands,

[A flourish of trumpets; they kneel, and HYMEN joins their hands. Tis Wisdom consecrates the sacred bands.

SONG-HYMEN.

Sweetest pleasures never ceasing,
Blessings, which the gods present,
Joys, with length of years increasing,
Rosy health, and sweet content,
Await the fair, and deck the youth,
United in the bands of truth.

And when old Time, with solemn pace,
Shall call to tell them, both must die;
Touch'd, as he views their fond embrace,
He'll bless them first, then pass them by.
Sweetest pleasures, &c.

Abu. What then, is all my greatness come to this?

Am I then baffled by a paltry Miss?
Your power, Madam, certainly prevails;
Wisdom, I find, pays no respect to tails.

Lean. O thanks, eternal thanks, to you be given,

Thou best and brightest ornament of Heaven! Min. Now strike the sprightly lyre; all care

Hymen says he'll have it so.

Hero. Take my hand, you have my heart,
Indeed, you've had it long ago;
And now we'll never, never part-
Hymen says he'll have it so.

Chorus. Joy and pleasure, &c.
Cupid is a foolish boy,

Saf.

Once he tried on me his bow;
But I never felt a joy,

Till Hymen said he'd have it so.

Chorus. Joy and pleasure, &c.
Abu.

Must I then give up the fair,
And see them laughing at my wo;
Live and lead a life of care?

The devil sure would have it so.
Chorus. Joy and pleasure, &c.
Sol.

Observe, ye fair, the moral here— Let virtue in your bosoms glow, You then may bid adieu to tearHymen says he'll have it so. Chorus. Joy and pleasure, &c.

ISABELLA:

OR,

THE FATAL MARRIAGE:

A TRAGEDY,

IN FIVE ACTS.

BY THOMAS SOUTHERN.

REMARKS.

THIS tragedy was restored to the stage, after a long period of neglect, by Garrick, who made many judicions alterations, and omitted some comic scenes, which it must be confessed were not well adapted to the moral taste of the age. In 1774, that inimitable actor appeared in the part of Biron, and contributed to the success of this excellent drama, which it was reserved for our own day to render irresistible and memorable, by the introduction of Mrs. Siddons to a London audience. That unrivalled mistress of the heart gave a pathos and importance to Isabella, which it had not before received; and Miss O'Neil's impassioned and native excellence, in her late personation of the character, will entitle her to a situation in Thespian annals, not far removed from her great predecessor. Of the ten plays written by Southern, Isabella and Oroonoko keep their place on the modern stage.

SCENE I-The Street.

Enter VILLEROY and CARLOS.

Car. This constancy of yours will establish an immortal reputation among the women.

Vil. If it would establish me with IsabellaCar. Follow her, follow her: Troy town was won at last.

Vil. I have followed her these seven years, and now but live in hopes.

Car. But live in hopes! Why, hope is the ready road, the lover's baiting place; and for aught you know, but one stage short of the pos session of your mistress.

Vil. But my hopes, I fear, are more of my own making than hers; and proceed rather from my wishes, than any encouragement she has given

me.

Car. That I can't tell: the sex is very various: there are no certain measures to be prescribed or followed, in making our approaches to the women, All that we have to do, I think, is to attempt them

in the weakest part. Press them but hard, and they will all fall under the necessity of a surrender at last. That favour comes at once; and sometimes when we least expect it.

Vil. I'm going to visit her.

Car. What interest a brother-in-law can have with her, depend upon.

Vil. I know your interest, and I thank you. Car. You are prevented; see, the mourner

comes:

She weeps, as seven years were seven hours;
So fresh, unfading, is the memory
Of my poor brother Biron's death:
I leave you to your opportunity.

[Exit VILLEROY. Though I have taken care to root her from our

house,

I would transplant her into Villeroy's-
There is an evil fate that waits upon her,
To which I wish him wedded-only him;
His upstart family, with haughty brow,
(Though Villeroy and myself are seeming friends,)
Look down upon our house; his sister too,
Whose hand I ask'd, and was with scorn refus'd,
Lives in my breast, and fires me to revenge.-
They bend this way.-

Perhaps, at last, she seeks my father's doors;
They shall be shut, and he prepar'd to give
The beggar and her brat a cold reception.
That boy's an adder in my path-they come,
I'll stand apart, and watch their motions.

[Exit.

Isa. I must not hear you.

Vil. Thus, at this awful distance, I have serv'd
A seven years' bondage-Do I call it bondage,
When I can never wish to be redeem'd?
No, let me rather linger out a life
Of expectation, that you may be mine,
Than be restor❜d to the indifference

Of seeing you, without this pleasing pain:
I've lost myself, and never would be found,
But in these arms.

Isa. Oh, I have heard all this!

-But must no more the charmer is no My buried husband rises in the face [more Of my dear boy, and chides me for my stay: Canst thou forgive me, child?

Vil. What can I say?

'The arguments that make against my hopes
Prevail upon my heart, and fix me more;
Those pious tears, you hourly throw away
Upon the grave, have all their quick'ning charms,

| And more engage my love, to make you mire:
When yet a virgin, free, and undispos'd,
I lov'd, but saw you only with mine eyes;
I could not reach the beauties of your soul:
I have since liv'd in contemplation,
And long experience, of your growing goodness:
What then was passion, is my judgment now,
Through all the several changes of your life,
Confirm'd and settled in adorning you.

Isa. Nay, then I must be gone. If you are my
friend,

If you regard my little interest,
No more of this.

I'm going to my father: he needs not an excuse
To use me ill pray leave me to the trial.

Vil. I'm only born to be what you would have

Samp. Well, what's to do now, I trow? You knock as loud as if you were invited; and that's more than I heard of; but I can tell you, you may look twice about you for a welcome in a great man's family, before you find it, unless you bring it along with you.

Isa. I hope I do, Sir.
your lord at home?
Samp. My lord at home!

Isa. Count Baldwin lives here still?

Samp. Ay, ay, Count Baldwin does live here; and I am his porter; but what's that to the pur pose, good woman, of my lord's being at home? Isa. Why, don't you know me, friend?

Samp. Not I, not I, Mistress; I may have seen you before, or so; but men of employment must forget their acquaintance; especially such as we are never to be the better for.

[Going to shut the door. Enter NURSE.

Nurse. Handsomer words should become you, and mend your manners, Sampson; do you know who you prate to?

Isa. I am glad you know me, Nurse.

Nurse. Marry, Heaven forbid, Madam, that I should ever forget you, or my little jewel: pray go in. [ISABELLA goes in with her Child.] Now my blessing go along with you, wherever you go, or whatever you are about. Fie, Sampson, how couldst thou be such a Saracen? A Turk would have been a better Christian, than to have done so barbarously by so good a lady.

Samp. Why, look you, Nurse, I know you of old: by your good will, you would have a finger in every body's pye; but mark the end on't. If I am called to account about it, I know what I have to say.

Nurse. Marry come up here; say your plea sure, and spare not. Refuse his eldest son's

widow and poor child the comfort of seeing him? She does not trouble him so often.

Samp. Not that I am against it, Nurse, but we are but servants, you know; we must have no likings, but our lord's, and must do as we are orJered. But what is the business, Nurse? You have been in the family before I came into the world: what's the reason, pray, that this daughter-in-law, who has so good a report in every body's mouth, is so little set by, by my lord? Nurse. Why, I tell you, Sampson, more or less: I'll tell the truth, that's my way, you know, without adding or diminishing.

Samp. Ay, marry, Nurse.

Nurse. My lord's eldest son, Biron by name, the son of his bosom, and the son that he would have loved best, if he had as many as king Pyramus of Troy-this Biron, as I was saying, was a lovely sweet gentleman, and, indeed, nobody could blame his father for loving him: he was a son for the king of Spain; Heaven bless him! for I was his nurse. But now I come to the point, Sampson; this Biron, without asking the advice of his friends, hand over head, as young men will have their vagaries, not having the fear of his father before his eyes, as I may say, wilfully marries this Isabella.

Samp. How, wilfully! he should have had her consent, methinks.

Nurse. No, wilfully marries her; and which was worse, after she had settled all her fortune upon a nunnery, which she broke out of to run away with him. They say they had the church's forgiveness, but I had rather it had been his father's.

Samp. Why, in good truth, and I think our young master was not in the wrong but in marrying without a portion.

Nurse. That was the quarrel, I believe, Sampson: upon this my old lord would never see him: disinherited him: took his younger brother, Carlos, into favour, whom he never cared for before: and, at last, forced Biron to go to the siege of Candy, where he was killed.

Samp. Alack a-day, poor gentleman! Nurse. For which my old lord hates her, as if she had been the cause of his going thither. Samp Alas, poor lady! she has suffered for it; she has lived a great while a widow !

Nurse. A great while indeed, for a young woman, Sampson.

Samp. Gad so here they come; I won't ven[They retire.

ture to be seen.

I fondly rais'd, through my declining life,
To rest my age upon; and most undone me.
Isa. I have undone myself too.

C. Bald. Speak it again;
Say still you are undone; and I will hear you,
With pleasure hear you.

Isa. Would my ruin please you?
C. Bald. Beyond all other pleasures.
Isa. Then you are pleas'd-for I am most un-
done.

C. Bald. I pray'd but for revenge, and Heaven
has heard,

And sent it to my wishes: these gray hairs
Would have gone down in sorrow to the grave
Which you have dug for me, without the thought,
The thought of leaving you more wretched here.
Isa. Indeed I am most wretched-

I lost with Biron all the joys of life:
But now its last supporting means are gone.
All the kind helps that Heaven in pity rais'd,
In charitable pity to our wants,
At last have left us: now bereft of all,
But this last trial of a cruel father,
To save us both from sinking. Óh, my child,
Kneel with me, knock at nature in his heart:
Let the resemblance of a once lov'd son
Speak in this little one, who never wrong'd you,
And plead the fatherless and widow's cause.
Oh, if you ever hope to be forgiven,
Forget our faults, that Heaven may pardon yours?
C. Bald. How dare you mention Heaven!
Call to mind

Your perjur'd vows; your plighted, broken faith
To Heaven, and all things holy; were you not
Devoted, wedded to a life recluse,
The sacred habit on, profess'd and sworn,
A votary for ever? Can you think
The sacrilegious wretch, that robs the shrine,
Is thunder proof?

Isa. There, there, began my woes.
Oh! had I never seen my Biron's face,
Had he not tempted me, I had not fallen,
But still continued innocent and free
Of a bad world, which only he had power
To reconcile, and make me try again.

C. Bald. Your own inconstancy
Reconcil'd you to the world:
He had no hand to bring you back again,
But what you gave him. Circe! you prevail'd
Upon his honest mind, transforming him
From virtue, and himself, into what shapes
You had occasion for; and what he did
Was first inspir'd by you.

Isa. Not for myself-for I am past the hopes
Of being heard-but for this innocent-
And then I never will disturb you more.

C. Bald. I almost pity the unhappy child:
But, being yours

Isa. Look on him as your son's;
And let this part in him answer for mine.
Oh! save, defend him, save him from the wrongs
That fall upon the poor!

C. Bald. It touches me

And I will save him-But to keep him safe,
Never come near him more.

Isa. What! take him from me!
No, we must never part.

I live but in my child.

No, let me pray in vain, and beg my bread
From door to door, to feed his daily wants,
Rather than always lose him.

C. Bald. Then have your child, and feed him
with your prayer.

Isa. Then Heaven have mercy on me!

[Exit, with Child.

C. Bald. You rascal, slave, what do I keep you for?

How came this woman in ?

Samp. Why, indeed, my lord, I did as good as tell her before, my thoughts upon the matterC. Bald. Did you so, Sir! Now then tell her mine;

Tell her I sent you to her. Begone, go all together-I shall be glad to hear of you; but never, never, see me more[Drives them off.

ACT II.

SCENE I-The Street.

Enter VILLEROY and CARLOS, meeting. Vil. My friend, I fear to ask-but IsabellaThe lovely widow's tears, her orphan's cries, Thy father must feel for them-No, I read, I read their cold reception in thine eyesThou pitiest them-though Baldwin-but I spare

him

For Carlos' sake; thou art no son of his.
There needs not this to endear thee more to me.
Car. My Villeroy, the fatherless, the widow,
Are terms not understood within these gates-
You must forgive him; Sir, he thinks this woman
Is Biron's fate, that hurried him to death-
I must not think on't, lest my friendship stagger.
My friend's, my sister's, mutual advantage,
Have reconcil'd my bosom to its task.

Vil. Advantage! think not I intend to raise
An interest from Isabella's wrongs.
Your father may have interested ends
In her undoing, but my heart has none;
Her happiness must be my interest,
And that I would restore.

Car. Why, so I mean.

These hardships, that my father lays upon her,
I'm sorry for, and wish I could prevent;
But he will have his way. Since there's no
hope

From her prosperity, her change of fortune
May alter the condition of her thoughts,
And make for you.

Vil. She is above her fortune.

Car. Try her again. Women commonly love According to the circumstances they are in.

Vil. Common women may-
No: Though I live but in the hopes of her,
And languish for th' enjoyment of those hopes,
I'd rather pine in a consuming want

Of what I wish, than have the blessing mine,
From any reason but consenting love.
Oh! let me never have it to remember,
I could betray her coldly to comply:
When a clear gen'rous choice bestows her on

me,

I know to value the unequall'd gift:

I would not have it but to value it.

SCENE II-House.

ISABELLA and NURSE diccovered. ISABELLA'S 80% at play.

Isa. Sooner or later, all things pass away, And are no more. The beggar and the king, With equal steps, tread forward to their end: The reconciling grave

Swallows distinction first, that made us foes; Then all alike lie down in peace together. [Weeping

Nurse. Good Madam, be comforted." Isa. Do I deserve to be this outcast wretch; Abandon'd thus, and lost? But 'tis my lot, The will of Heaven, and I must not complain: I will not for myself: let me bear all The violence of your wrath; but spare my child Let not my sins be visited on him: They are; they must: a general ruin falls On every thing about me! thou art lost, Poor Nurse, by being near me.

Nurse. I can work, or beg, to do you service.
Isa. Could I forget

What I have been, I might the better bear
What I am destin'd to. Wild hurrying thoughts
Start every way from my distracted soul,
To find out hope, and only meet despair.
What answer have I ?

Enter SAMPSON.

Samp. Why, truly, very little to the purpose like a Jew as he is, he says you have had more already than the jewels are worth: he wishes you would rather think of redeeming 'em, than expect any more money upon 'em. [Exit.

Isa. So:-Poverty at home, and debts abroad! My present fortune bad; my hopes yet worse! What will become of me?

This ring is all I have left of value now;
'Twas given me by my husband; his first gift
Upon our marriage: I've always kept it
With my best care, the treasure next my life:
And now but part with it to support life,
Which only can be dearer. Take it, Nurse,
Take care of it:

Manage it as the last remaining friend
That would relieve us. [Exit NURSE.] Heaven
can only tell

Where we shall find another-My dear boy!
The labour of his birth was lighter to me
Than of my fondness now; my fears for him
Are more than, in that hour of hovering death,
They could be for myself. He minds me not,
His little sports have taken up his thoughts:
Oh, may they never feel the pangs of mine!
Thinking will make me mad: why must I think,
When no thought brings me comfort?

Enter NURSE.

Nurse. Oh, Madam! you are utterly ruined and undone; your creditors of all kinds are come

Car. Take your own way; remember what I in upon you; they have mustered up a regiment

offer'd.

of rogues, that are come to plunder your house, and seize upon all you have in the world: they are below. What will you do, Madam?

Isa. Do nothing! no, for I am born to suffer

Enter CARLOS.

Car. Oh, sister! can I call you by that name. And be the son of this inhuman man, Inveterate to your ruin? Can you think Of any way that I can serve you in?

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