Of all his goodness dwell within my heart,
Thou wilt not wonder.

Evan. Joy and wonder rise

In mixed emotions! Though departing hence,
After the storms of a tempestuous life,
Though I was entering the wished-for port,
Where all is peace, all bliss, and endless joy,
Yet here contented I can linger still,
To view thy goodness, and applaud thy deeds,
Thou author of my life! Did ever parent
Thus call his child before? My heart's too full;
My old fond heart runs o'er; it aches with joy.
Euph. Alas, too much you over-rate your
daughter;

Nature and duty called me-Oh! my father,
How didst thou bear thy long, long sufferings?
How

Endure their barbarous rage?

Evan. My foes but did

To this old frame, what Nature's hand must do. In the worst hour of pain, a voice still whispered

me,

Rouse thee, Evander; self-acquitting conscience Declares thee blameless, and the gods behold thee.

I was but going hence, by mere decay,
To that futurity which Plato taught,
Where the immortal spirit views the planets
Roll round the mighty year, and, wrapt in bliss,
Adores the ideas of the eternal mind.
Thither, oh! thither was Evander going,
But thou recall'st me; thou!

Euph. Timoleon too

Invites thee back to life.

Evan. And does he still

Urge on the siege?

Euph. His active genius comes

To scourge a guilty race. The Punic fleet,
Half lost, is swallowed by the roaring sea.
The shattered refuse seek the Libyan shore,
To bear the news of their defeat to Carthage.
Evan. These are thy wonders, Heaven! Abroad
thy spirit

Moves o'er the deep, and mighty fleets are vanished. Euph. Ha!-hark!--what noise is that? It comes this way;

You must withdraw; trust to your faithful friends.
Pass but another day, and Dionysius
Falls from a throne usurped.

Evan. But ere he pays

The forfeit of his crimes, what streams of blood Shall flow in torrents round! Methinks I might Prevent this waste of nature-I'll go forth, And to my people shew their rightful king. Euph. Banish that thought; forbear; the rash attempt

Were fatal to our hopes; oppressed, dismayed, The people look aghast, and, wan with fear, None will espouse your cause.

Evan. Yes, all will dare

To act like men ;-their king, I gave myself
To a whole people. I made no reserve ;
My life was theirs; each drop about my heart
Pledged to the public cause; devoted to it:
That was my compact; is the subject's less?
If they are all debased, and willing slaves,
The young but breathing to grow grey in bond-

To thee, to all, will follow :-hark! a sound Comes hollow murmuring through the vaulted aisle.

It gains upon the ear. Withdraw, my father! All's lost if thou art seen.

Phil. And, lo! Calippus

Darts with the lightning's speed across the aisle. Evan. Thou at the senate-house convene my friends.

Melanthon, Dion, and their brave associates,
Will shew that liberty has leaders still.
Anon I'll meet them there: my child, farewell;
Thou shalt direct me now.

Euph. Too cruel fate!

The tomb is all the mansion I can give;
My mother's tomb! [
[Evander enters the tomb.
Phil. You must be brief; the alarm
Each moment nearer comes. In every sound
Destruction threatens. Ha! by Heaven this

I sought the good old king: the guilt is thine; May vengeance wait thee for it!

Phil. Still, Melanthon,

Let prudence guide thee.

Melan. Thou hast plunged thee down Far as the lowest depth of hell-born crimes; Thou hast out-gone all registers of guilt; Beyond all fable hast thou sinned, Philotas. Phil. By Heaven thou wrong'st me: didst thou know, old man

Melan. Could not his reverend age, could not his virtue,

His woes unnumbered, soften thee to pity?
Thou hast destroyed my king.

Phil. Yet wilt thou hear ine?

Your king still lives.

Melan. Thou vile deceiver!-Lives!

But where! Away; no more. I charge thee,

leave me.

Phil. We have removed him to a sure asylum.

Melan. Removed!-Thou traitor! what dark privacy

Why move him thence? The vile assassin's stab Has closed his days—calm, unrelenting villain! I know it all.

Phil. By every power above,

Evander lives; in safety lives. Last night, When in his dark embrace sleep wrapt the world,

Euphrasia came, a spectacle of woe;
Dared to approach our guard, and with her

tears,

With vehemence of grief, she touched my

heart.

VOL. I.

I

gave

her father to her. Melan. How, Philotas! If thou dost not deceive me

Phil. No, by Heaven!

By every power above-But hark! those notes
Speak Dionysius near: anon, my friend,
I'll tell thee each particular; thy king,
Mean while, is safe—but lo! the tyrant comes;
With guilt like his I must equivocate,

And teach even truth and honour to dissemble.
Enter DIONYSIUS, CALIPPUS, &c.

Dion. Away each vain alarm; the sun goes down,

yet

Nor Timoleon issues from his fleet.
There let him linger on the wave-worn beach;
Here, the vain Greek shall find another Troy,
A more than Hector here. Though Carthage fly,
Ourself, still Dionysius here remains.
And means the Greek to treat of terms of peace?
By Heaven, this panting bosom hoped to meet
His boasted phalanx on the embattled plain.
And doth he now, on peaceful councils bent,
Dispatch his herald?-Let the slave approach.
Enter the Herald.

Dion. Now, speak thy purpose; what doth
Greece impart?

Her. Timoleon, sir, whose great renown in

arms

Is equalled only by the softer virtues
Of mild humanity, that sway his heart,
Sends me, his delegate, to offer terms,
On which even foes may well accord; on which
The fiercest nature, though it spurn at justice,
May sympathise with his,

Dion. Unfold thy mystery;
Thou shalt be heard.

Her. The generous leader sees, With pity sees, the wild destructive havock Of ruthless war; he hath surveyed around The heaps of slain that cover yonder field, And, touched with generous sense of human woe, Weeps o'er his victories.

Dion. Your leader weeps! Then, let the author of those ills thou speak'st of, Let the ambitious factor of destruction, 50

To plead Timoleon's cause; not mine the office
To justify the strong, the righteous motives,
That urge him to the war: the only scope
My deputation aims at, is, to fix

An interval of peace, a pause of horror,
That they, whose bodies on the naked shore
Lie weltering in their blood, from either host
May meet the last sad rites to nature due,
And decent lie in honourable graves.

Dion. Go tell your leader, his pretexts are vain. Let him, with those that live, embark for Greece, And leave our peaceful plains; the mangled limbs Of those he murdered, from my tender care Shall meet due obsequies.

Her. The hero, sir,

Wages no war with those, who bravely die.
'Tis for the dead I supplicate; for them
We sue for peace and to the living, too,
Timoleon would extend it; but the groans
Of a whole people have unsheathed his sword.
A single day will pay the funeral rites.
To-morrow's sun may see both armies meet
Without hostility, and all in honour;
You, to inter the troops, who bravely fell;
We, on our part, to give an humble sod
To those, who gained a footing on the isle,
And by their death have conquered.

Dion. Be it so;

I grant thy suit: soon as to-morrow's dawn
Illume the world, the rage of wasting war

In vain shall thirst for blood: but mark my words;
If the next orient sun behold you here,
That hour shall see me, terrible in arms,
Deluge yon plain, and let destruction loose.
Thou know'st my last resolve, and now, farewell.
Some careful officer conduct him forth.

[Exit Herald. By Heaven, the Greek hath offered to my sword An easy prey; a sacrifice to glut

My great revenge. Calippus, let each soldier,
This night, resign his wearied limbs to rest,
That ere the dawn, with renovated strength,
On the unguarded, unsuspecting foe,
Disarmed, and bent on superstitious rites,
From every quarter we may rush undaunted,
Give the invaders to the deathful steel,
And, by one carnage, bury all in ruih.
My valiant friends, haste to your several posts,
And let this night a calm unruffled spirit
Lie hushed in sleep away, iny friends, disperse!
Philotas, waits Euphrasia, as we ordered?

Phil. She's here at hand.

Dion. Admit her to our presence. Rage and despair, a thousand warring passions,

All rise, by turns, and piecemeal rend my heart. Yet every means, all measures must be tried, To sweep the Grecian spoiler from the land, And fix the crown, unshaken, on my brow. Enter EUPHRASIA.

Euph. What sudden cause requires Euphrasia's presence?

Dion. Approach, fair mourner, and dispel thy
fears.

Thy grief, thy tender duty to thy father,
Has touched me nearly. In his lone retreat,
Respect, attendance, every lenient care
To soothe affliction, and extend his life,
Evander has commanded.

Euph. Vile dissembler!

Detested homicide! [Aside.]—And has thy heart Felt for the wretched?

Dion. Urgencies of state

Abridged his liberty; but, to his person
All honour hath been paid.

Euph. The righteous gods

Have marked thy ways, and will in time repay Just retribution.

Dion. If to see your father,

If here to meet him in a fond embrace,
Will calm thy breast, and dry those beauteous

come

With wreaths of triumph, and with conquest crowned,

And his Euphrasia spring with rapture to him, Melt in his arms, and a whole nation's voice Applaud my hero with a love like mine!

Dion. Ungrateful fair! Has not our sovereign
will

On thy descendants fixed Sicilia's crown?
Have I not vowed protection to your boy?

Euph. From thee the crown! From thee! Eu-
phrasia's children

Shall on a nobler basis found their rights;
On their own virtue, and a people's choice.
Dion. Misguided woman!

Euph. Ask of thee protection!
The father's valour shall protect his boy.

Dion. Rush not on sure destruction; ere too
late,

Accept our proffered grace. The terms are these:
Instant send forth a message to your husband;
Bid him draw off his Greeks, unmoor his fleet,
And measure back his way. Full well he knows
You and your father are my hostages;
And for his treason both may answer.
Euph. Think'st thou, then,

So meanly of my Phocion?-Dost thou deem

him

Poorly wound up to a mere fit of valour,
To melt away in a weak woman's tear?
Oh! thou dost little know him: know'st but little
Of his exalted soul. With generous ardour
Still will he urge the great, the glorious plan,
And gain the ever honoured, bright reward,
Which fame entwines around the patriot's brow,
And bids for ever flourish on his tomb,
For nations freed, and tyrants laid in dust.

Dion. By Heaven! this night Evander breathes
his last!

Euph. Better for him to sink at once to rest, Than linger thus beneath the gripe of famine, In a vile dungeon, scooped, with barbarous skill, Deep in the flinty rock; a monument

Of that fell malice, and that black suspicion,
That marked your father's reign; a dungeon drear-
Prepared for innocence !-Vice lived secure,
It flourished, triumphed, grateful to his heart;
"Twas virtue only could give umbrage; then,
In that black period, to be great and good
Was a state crime; the powers of genius, then,
Were a constructive treason,

Dion. Ha! beware,

Euph. Whate'er was laudable, whate'er was worthy,

Sunk under foul oppression; freeborn men Were torn in private from their household gods, Shut from the light of heaven in caverned cells, Chained to the grunsel edge, and left to pine In bitterness of soul; while, in the vaulted roof, The tyrant sat, and, through a secret channel, Collected every sound; heard each complaint Of martyred virtue; kept a register Of sighs and groans by cruelty extorted; Noted the honest language of the heart; Then on the victims wreaked his murderous rage, For yielding to the feelings of their nature.

Dion. Obdurate woman! obstinate in ill! Here ends all parley. Now your father's doom Is fixed, irrevocably fixed.

Euph. Thy doom, perhaps,

May first be fixed: the doom that ever waits The fell oppressor, from a throne usurped Hurled headlong down. Think of thy father's fate

They both are found; if, in Evander's arms,
Euphrasia meets my search, the fates atcne
For all my sufferings, all afflictions past.
Yes, I will seek them-ha!-the gaping tomb
Invites my steps-Now be propitious, Heaven!
[He enters the tomb.

Enter EUPHRASIA. Euph. All hail, ye caves of horror!- -In this gloom

Divine content can dwell, the heartfelt tear, Which, as it falls, a father's trembling hand Will catch, and wipe the sorrows from my eye.