A Roman soul is bent on higher views: to civilize the rude unpolished world, and lay it under the restraint of laws; to make man mild and sociable to man; to cultivate the wild, licentious savage with wisdom, discipline and liberal arts,th' embellishments of life: virtues like these make human nature shine, reform the soul, and break our fierce barbarians into men. Syph. Patience, kind heavens! excuse an old man's warmth! What are these wond'rous civilizing arts, this Roman polish, and this smooth behaviour, that render man thus tractable and tame? Are they not only to disguise our passions, to set our looks at variance with our thoughts, to check the starts and sallies of the soul, and break off all its commerce with the tongue; in short, to change us into other creatures than what our nature and the gods designed us? 850 Jub. To strike thee dumb, turn up thy eyes to Cato! there may'st thou see to what a godlike height the Roman virtues lift up mortal man;

while good, and just, and anxious for his friends, he's still severely bent against himself; renouncing sleep, and rest, and food, and ease, he strives with thirst and hunger, toil and heat; and when his fortune sets before him all

the pomps and pleasures that his soul can wish, his rigid virtue will accept of none.

Syph. Believe me, prince, there's not an African, that traverses our vast Numidian deserts in quest of prey, and lives upon his bow, but better practises these boasted virtues. Coarse are his meals, the fortune of the chase, amidst the running stream he slakes his thirst, toils all the day, and at the approach of night on the first friendly bank he throws him down, or rests his head upon a rock till morn: then rises fresh, pursues his wonted game, and if the following day he chance to find a new repast or an untasted spring; blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.

J. ADDISON

851

Ch. I. Gis.

CHORUS-GISMUNDA

MADAM, forbear, suppress this headstrong rage.

Maidens, forbear your comfortable words. Ch. 2. O worthy Queen, rashness doth overthrow the author of his resolution.

Gis.

Where hope of help is lost, what booteth fear?
Ch. 3. Fear will avoid the sting of infamy.

Gis. May good or bad reports delight the dead?
Ch.4. If of the living yet the dead have care.
Gis. An easy grief by counsel may be cured.

Ch. 1. But headstrong mischief princes should avoid.
Gis. In headlong griefs and cases desperate?
Ch. 2. Call to your mind, Gismund, you are the Queen.
Gis. Unhappy widow, wife, and paramour.

Ch. 3. Think on the king. Gis. The king, the tyrant king?
Ch. 4. Your father. Gis. Yes, the murderer of my love.
Ch. 4. His force. Gis. The dead fear not the force of men.
Ch. 1. His care and grief. Gis. That neither car'd for me
nor grieved at the murder of my love.

852

My mind is settled; you, with these vain words, withhold me but too long from my desire. Depart ye to my chamber.

DEGREE

ULYSSES

Ulys. DEGREE being vizarded,

R. WILMOT

the unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, observe degree, priority and place,

insisture, course, proportion, season, form,

office and custom, in all line of order;
and therefore is the glorious planet Sol
in noble eminence enthroned and sphered
amidst the other: whose med 'cinable eye
corrects the ill aspects of planets evil

and posts, like the commandment of a king,

sans check, to good and bad; but when the planets

in evil mixture to disorder wander,

what plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
what raging of the sea! shaking of earth!

commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
divert and crack, rend and deracinate

853

the unity and married calm of states

quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked, which is the ladder of all high designs,

the enterprise is sick.

Take but degree away, untune that string,

and, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
in mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters

should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
and make a sop of all this solid globe:
strength should be lord of imbecility,

and the rude son should strike his father dead:
force should be right; or rather, right and wrong
(between whose endless jar justice resides)
should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
power into will, will into appetite;

and appetite, an universal wolf,

so doubly seconded with will and power,
must make perforce an universal prey,
and last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon
this chaos, when degree is suffocate,
follows the choking.

W. SHAKESPEARE

854

TIMOLEON'S ACCEPTANCE OF COMMAND

UCH honours

to one ambitious of rule or titles,

whose heaven on earth is placed in his command,
and absolute power o'er others, would with joy,
and veins swollen high with pride, be entertain❜d.
They take not me; for I have ever loved
an equal freedom, and proclaim'd all such
as would usurp on others' liberties,

rebels to nature, to whose bounteous blessings
all men lay claim as true legitimate sons:
but such as have made forfeit of themselves
by vicious courses, and their birthright lost,
'tis not injustice they are mark'd for slaves,
to serve the virtuous. For myself, I know
honours and great employments are great burthens,
and must require an Atlas to support them.
He, that would govern others, first should be
the master of himself, richly endued

855

M.

with depth of understanding, height of courage,
and those remarkable graces which I dare not
ascribe unto myself.

I

MUSTAPHA-PRIEST

S it in us to rule a Sultan's will?

P. MASSINGER

P. We made them first for good, and not for ill. M. Our Gods they are, their God remains above. To think against anointed power is death. P. To worship tyrants is no work of faith. M. 'Tis rage of folly that contends with fate. P. Yet hazard something to preserve the state. M. Sedition wounds what should preservéd be.

P. To wound power's humors, keeps their honours free. M. Admit this true: what sacrifice prevails?

P. Force the petition is that never fails.

M. Where then is nature's place for innocence ?

P. Prosperity, that never makes offence.

M. Hath destiny no wheels but mere occasion ?
P. Could east upon the west else make invasion?
M. Confusion follows where obedience leaves.
P. The tyrant only that event deceives.

M. And are the ways of truth and honour such?
P. Weakness doth ever think it owes too much.
M. Hath fame her glorious colors out of fear?
P. What is the world to him that is not there?

856

VIVIEN TO MERLIN

LORD BROOKE

JHAT, O my Master, have you found your voice?

WHA

I beg the stranger welcome. Thanks at last! but yesterday you never open'd lip,

except indeed to drink; no cup had we:

in mine own lady palms I cull'd the spring
that gather'd trickling dropwise from the cleft,
and made a pretty cup of both my hands
and offer'd you it kneeling: then you drank
and knew no more, nor gave me one poor word;
O no more thanks than might a goat have given
with no more sign of reverence than a beard.
And when we halted at that other well,
and I was faint to swooning, and you lay

foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust of those
deep meadows we had traversed, did you know
that Vivien bathed your feet before her own?
And yet no thanks: and all through this wild wood
and all this morning when I fondled you:
boon, yes, there was a boon, one not so strange-
how had I wronged you? surely you are wise,
but such a silence is more wise than kind.

A. TENNYSON

857 THE MAID of orleans to the king of france

F when thou hearest of thousands who have fallen

IF

thou sayest, 'I am a King! and fit it is
that these should perish for me;'-if thy realm,
should, through the counsels of thy government,
be filled with woe, and in thy streets be heard
the voice of mourning and the feeble cry
of asking hunger; if in place of Law
iniquity prevail; if Avarice grind

the poor; if discipline be utterly

relaxed, Vice chartered, Wickedness let loose;
though in the general ruin all must share,
each answer for his own peculiar guilt,
yet at the Judgment-day, from those to whom
the power was given, the Giver of all power
will call for righteous and severe account.
Chuse thou the better part, and rule the land
in righteousness: in righteousness thy throne
shall then be stablished, not by foreign foes
shaken, nor by domestic enemies,

but guarded then by loyalty and love,

true hearts, Good Angels, and All-seeing Heaven.

R. SOUTHEY

858 BISHOP OF st andrews-queen dorothea

HESE nobles and myself

B.A.that are, or should be, eyes of commonweal,

seeing his highness' reckless course of youth,
his lawless and unbridled vein in love,

his too intentive trust to flatterers,

his abject care of counsel and his friends,
cannot but grieve; and since we cannot draw