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Alon. Oh!

[Swoons.

Zan. Why, this is well-why, this is blow for blow! Where are you? Crown me, shadow me with laurels, Ye spirits which delight in just revenge!

Let Europe and her pallid sons go weep;
Let Afric and her hundred thrones rejoice :
Oh, my
dear countrymen, look down and see
How I bestride your prostrate conqueror !
I tread on haughty Spain, and all her kings.
But this is mercy, this is my indulgence;
'Tis peace, 'tis refuge from my indignation.
I must awake him into horrors. Hoa!

Alonzo, hoa! the Moor is at the gate!
Awake, invincible, omnipotent!

Thou who dost all subdue!

Alon. Inhuman slave!

Zan. Fallen Christian, thou mistak❜st my character.
Look on me. Who am I?—I know, thou say'st
The Moor, a slave, an abject, beaten slave:
(Eternal woes to him that made me so!)
But look again. Has six years cruel bondage
Extinguished majesty so far, that naught
Shines here to give an awe of one above thee?
When the great Moorish king, Abdallah, fell,
Fell by thy hand accursed, I fought fast by him.
His son, though, through his fondness, in disguise,
Less to expose me to th' ambitious foe.—
Ha! does it wake thee?-O'er my father's corse
I stood astride till I had clove thy crest;
And then was made the captive of a squadron,
And sunk into thy servant-But, oh! what,

What were my wages? Hear not Heaven, nor earth!

My wages were a blow! by Heaven, a blow!

And from a mortal hand!

Alon. O villain, villain!

Zan. All strife is vain.

[Showing a dagger.

Make friends of tigers!

Alon. Is thus my love returned?

Is this my recompense?

Lay not your young, oh, mothers, on the breast,
For fear they turn to serpents as they lie,

And pay you for their nourishment with death!—
Carlos is dead, and Leonora dying!

Both innocent, both murdered, both by me.

Zan. Must I despise thee too, as well as hate thee?
Complain of grief, complain thou art a man.-
Priam from fortune's lofty summit fell;

-

Great Alexander 'midst his conquests mourned;
Heroes and demi-gods have known their sorrows
Cæsars have wept; and I have had my blow;
But 'tis revenged, and now my work is done.
Yet, ere I fall, be it one part of vengeance
To force thee to confess that I am just.
Thou seest a prince, whose father thou hast slain,
Whose native country thou hast laid in blood,
Whose sacred person (oh!) thou hast profaned,
Whose reign extinguished :--what was left to me,
So highly born? No kingdom, but revenge;
No treasure but thy tortures and thy groans.
If men should ask who brought thee to thy end,
Tell them, the Moor, and they will not despise thee.
If cold white mortals censure this great deed,
Warn them, they judge not of superior beings,
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,
With whom revenge is virtue. Fare thee well-

Now, fully satisfied, I should take leave:

But one thing grieves me, since thy death is near—
I leave thee my example how to die.

As he is going to stab himself, ALONZO rushes upon him
to prevent him. In the mean time, enter Don Alvarez,
attended. They disarm and seize Zanga.
puts the dagger in his bosom.

ALONZO

Alon. No, monster, thou shalt not escape by death. Oh, father!

Alv. Oh, Alonzo !-Isabella,

Touched with remorse to see her mistress' pangs,

Told all the dreadful tale.

Alon. What groan was that?

Zan. As I have been a vulture to thy heart,

So will I be a raven to thine ear,

As true as ever snuffed the scent of blood,

As ever flapped its heavy wing against

The window of the sick, and croaked despair.
Thy wife is dead.

[ALVAREZ goes aside, and returns.

Alv. The dreadful news is true.

Alon. Prepare the rack; invent new torments for him. Zan. This too is well. The fixed and noble mind

Turns all occurrence to its own advantage;

And I'll make vengeance of calamity.

Were I not thus reduced, thou wouldst not know,
That, thus reduced, I dare defy thee still.

Torture thou mayst, but thou shalt ne'er despise me.
The blood will follow where the knife is driven,

The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear,
And sighs and cries by nature grow on pain.
But these are foreign to the soul: not mine

The groans that issue, or the tears that fall;
They disobey me; on the rack I scorn thee,
As when my falchion clove thy helm in battle.
Alv. Peace, villain '

Zan. While I live, old man, I'll speak:

And, well I know, thou dar'st not kill me yet;

For that would rob thy blood-hounds of their prey.
Alon. Who called Alonzo?

Alv. No one called, my son.

Alon. Again! "Tis Carlos' voice, and I obey.

Oh, how I laugh at all that this can do! [Shows the dagger.
The wounds that pained, the wounds that murdered me,
Were given before; I am already dead;

This only marks my body for the grave.
Afric, thou art revenged,-Oh, Leonora !

[Stabs himself.

[Dies.

Zan. Good ruffians, give me leave; my blood is yours, The wheel's prepared, and you shall have it all. Let me but look one moment on the dead, [ALONzo's body. And pay yourselves with gazing on my pangs. [He goes to Is this Alonzo? Where's the haughty mien ?

Is that the hand which smote me? Heavens, how pale! And art thou dead? So is my enmity.

I war not with the dust. The great, the proud,

The

conqueror of Afric, was my foe.

A lion preys not upon carcasses.

This was the only method to subdue me.
Terror and doubt fall on me all thy good
Now blazes, all thy guilt is in the grave.
Never had man such funeral applause :
If I lament thee, sure thy worth was great.
O vengeance, I have followed thee too far,
And to receive me, hell blows all her fires.

[Exeunt.

William Mason.

CARACTACUS.

Awfulness of a Scene of Pagan Rites.

THIS is the secret centre of the isle :

Here, Romans, pause, and let the eye of wonder
Gaze on the solemn scene; behold yon oak,

How stern he frowns, and with his broad brown arms
Chills the pale plain beneath him: mark yon altar,
The dark stream brawling round its rugged base;
These cliffs, these yawning caverns, this wide circus,
Skirted with unhewn stone; they awe my soul,
As if the very genius of the place
Himself appeared, and with terrific tread
Stalked through his drear domain.

And yet, my friends,

If shapes like his be but the fancy's coinage,
Surely there is a hidden power that reigns
'Mid the lone majesty of untamed Nature,
Controlling sober Reason; tell me else,

Why do these haunts of barbarous Superstition
O'ercome me thus? I scorn them; yet they awe me.

ELFRIDA.

Against Homicide.

THINK what a sea of deep perdition whelms
The wretch's trembling soul, who launches forth
Unlicensed to eternity. Think, think,
And let the thought restrain thy impious hand.
The race of man is one vast marshalled army,

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