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Por. Remember what our father oft has told us:
The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate,
Puzzled in mazes, and perplexed with errors:
Our understanding traces them in vain,
Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search;
Nor sees with how much art the windings run,
Nor where the regular confusion ends.

DIALOGUE.

SCENE FROM THE TRAGEDY OF MAHOMET.-Miller.

MAHOMET AND ALCANor.

Mahomet. Why dost thou start, Alcanor? whence that horror?

Approach, old man, without a blush, since Heaven,
For some high end decrees our future union.

Alcanor. I blush not for myself, but thee, thou tyrant;
For thee, bad man, who com'st with serpent guile,
To sow dissension in the realms of peace.

Thy very name sets families at variance,

"Twixt son and father bursts the bonds of nature,
And scares endearment from the nuptial pillow!
And is it, insolent dissembler! thus

Thou com'st to give the sons of Mecca peace,
And me an unknown god?

Mah. Were I to answer any but Alcanor,

That unknown god should speak in thunder for me;

But here with thee I'd parley as a man.

Alc. What canst thou say? what urge in thy defence?

What right hast thou received to plant new faiths,

Or lay a claim to royalty and priesthood?

Mah. The right that a resolved and towering spirit

Has o'er the grovelling instinct of the vulgar

Alc. Patience, good heavens! have I not known thee, Mahomet,

When void of wealth, inheritance, or fame,

Rank'd with the lowest of the low at Mecca?

Mah. Dost thou not know, thou haughty, feeble man, That the low insect, lurking in the grass,

And the imperial eagle, which aloft
Ploughs the ethereal plain, are both alike
In the eternal eye?

Alc.

What sacred truth! from what polluted lips!

Asic
Mah. Hear me; thy Mecca trembles at my name;
If therefore thou wouldst save thyself or city,
Embrace my proffer'd friendship. What to-day
I thus solicit, I'll command to-morrow.

Alc. Contract with thee a friendship! frontless man
Know'st thou a god can work that miracle?
Mah. I do-necessity-thy interest.
Alc. Interest is thy god, equity is mine.
Propose the tie of this unnatural union;
Say, it's the loss of thy ill-fated son,
Who in the field fell victim to my rage;
Or the dear blood of my poor captive children,
Shed by thy butchering hands?

Mah. Ay, 't is thy children.

Mark me then well, and learn the important secret,
Which I'm sole master of-Thy children live.

Alc. Live!

Mah. Yes! both live.

Alc. What say'st thou? Both?

Mah. Ay, both.

Alc. And dost thou not beguile me?

Mah. No, old man.

Alc. Propitious heavens! Say, Mahomet, for now
Methinks I could hold endless converse with thee;
Say what's their portion, liberty or bondage?

Mah. Bred in my camp, and tutor❜d in my law,

I hold the balance of their destinies;

And now 't is on the turn-their lives or deaths

"T is thine to say which shall preponderate.

Alc. Mine! can I save them? name the mighty ransomIf I must bear their chains, double the weight,

And I will kiss the hand that puts them on;
Or if my streaming blood must be the purchase,
Drain every sluice and channel of my body;
My swelling veins will burst to give it passage!

Mah. I'll tell thee then: Renounce thy pagan faith, Abolish thy vain gods, and

Alc. Ha!

Mah. Nay, more:

Surrender Mecca to me, quit this temple,
Assist me to impose upon the world,
Thunder my Koran to the gazing crowd,
Proclaim me for their prophet and their king,
And be a glorious pattern of credulity

To Korah's stubborn tribe. These terms perform'd,
Thy son shall be restor'd, and Mahomet's self
Will deign to wed thy daughter.

Alc. Hear me, Mahomet

I am a father, and this bosom boasts
A heart as tender as e'er parent bore.
After a fifteen years of anguish for them,

Once more to view my children, clasp them to me,
And die in their embraces-melting thought!
But were I doom'd or to enslave my country,
And help to spread black error o'er the earth,
Or to behold these blood embrued hands

Deprive me of them both-know me, then Mahomet,
I'd not admit a doubt to cloud my choice-

[Looks earnestly at Mahomet for sometime before he speaks.] Farewell!

Mah. Why, fare thee well then, churlish dotard!
Inexorable fool! Now, by my arms,

I will have great revenge: I'll meet thy scorn
With treble retribution!

[Exit.

REBELLION AGAINST CHARLES I. JUSTIFIED.-Ed. Review.

THE principles of the Revolution have often been grossly misrepresented, and never more, than in the course of the present year. There is a certain class of men, who, while they profess to hold in reverence the great names and great actions of former times, never look at them for any other purpose, than in order to find in them some excuse for existing abuses.

In every venerable precedent, they pass by what is essential, and take only what is accidental: they keep out of sight what is beneficial, and hold up to public imitation all that is defective. If, in any part of any great example, there be anything unsound, these flesh-flies detect it with an unerring

They

instinct, and dart upon it with a ravenous delight. cannot always prevent the advocates of a good measure from compassing their end; but they feel, with their prototype,

that

"Their labours must be to pervert that end,

And out of good still to find means of evil.'

To the blessings which England has derived from the Revolution, these people are utterly insensible. The expulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of popular rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing with them. One sect there was, which, from unfortunate temporary causes, it was thought necessary to keep under close restraint. One part of the empire there was, so unhappily circumstanced, that at that time its misery was necessary to our happiness, and its slavery to our freedom! These are the parts of the Revolution,which the politicians of whom we speak love to contemplate, and which seem to them, not indeed to vindicate, but in some degree to palliate the good which it has produced.

Talk to them of Naples, of Spain, or of South America! they stand forth, zealots for the doctrine of Divine Rightwhich has now come back to us, like a thief from transportation, under the alias of Legitimacy. But mention the

Then SomThen the Revolution

miseries of Ireland! Then William is a hero. ers and Shrewsbury are great men. is a glorious era! The very same persons, who, in this country, never omit an opportunity of reviving every wretched Jacobite slander respecting the Whigs of that period, have no sooner crossed St. George's Channel, than they begin to fill their bumpers to their glorious and immortal memory.

measures.

They may truly boast that they look not at men, but at So that evil be done, they care not who does it-the arbitrary Charles or the liberal William, Ferdinand the Catholic or Frederick the Protestant! On such occasions, their deadliest opponents may reckon upon their candid construction. The bold assertions of these people have of late impressed a large portion of the public with an opinion, that James II. was expelled simply because he was a Catholic, and that the Revolution was essentially a Protestant Revolution.

But this certainly was not the case. Nor can any person, who has acquired more knowledge of the history of

those times than is to be found in Goldsmith's Abridgement, believe that, if James had held his own religious opinions without wishing to make proselytes, or if, wishing even to make proselytes, he had contented himself with exerting only his constitutional influence for that purpose, the Prince of Orange would ever have been invited over.

Our ancestors, we suppose, knew their own meaning. And, if we may believe them, their hostility was primarily not to Popery but to Tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant because he was a Catholic; but they excluded Catholics from the Crown, because they thought them likely to be tyrants. The ground on which they, in their famous Resolution, declared the throne vacant, was this, that James had broken the fundamental laws of the kingdom.' Every man, therefore, who approves of the Revolution of 1688, must hold, that the breach of fundamental laws on the part of the Sovereign justifies resistance. The question then is this: Had Charles I. broken the fundamental laws of England?

No person can answer in the negative, unless he refuses credit, not merely to all the accusations brought against Charles by his opponents, but to the narratives of the warmest Royalists, and to the confessions of the King himself. If there be any truth in any historian of any party, who has related the events of that reign, the conduct of Charles, from his accession to the meeting of the Long Parliament, had been a continued course of oppression and treachery.

He

Let those who applaud the Revolution and condemn the Rebellion, mention one act of James II. to which a parallel is not to be found in the history of his father. Let them lay their fingers on a single article in the Declaration of Right, presented by the two Houses to William and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged to have violated. had, according to the testimony of his own friends, usurped the functions of the Legislature, raised taxes without the consent of Parliament, and quartered troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious manner. Not a single session of Parliament had passed without some unconstitutional attack on the freedom of debate. The right of petition was grossly violated. Arbitrary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments, were grievances of daily and hourly occurrence. If these things do not justify resistance, the Revolution was treason: if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable.

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