And buffeting the billows to her rescue,
Redeem'd her life with half the loss of mine.
Like a rich conquest in one hand I bore her,
And with the other dash'd the saucy waves,
That throng'd and press'd to rob me of my prize.
I brought her: gave her to your despairing arms:
Indeed, you thanked me! but a nobler gratitude
Rose in her soul; for from that hour she loved me,
Till for her life, she paid me with herself.
Pri. You stole her from me, like a thief you stole her
At dead of night; that cursed hour
To rifle me of all my heart held dear.
May all your joys in her prove false like mine!
A sterile fortune, and a barren bed,
Attend you both; continual discord, make
Your days and nights bitter and grievous still;
May the hard hand of a vexatious need
Oppress and grind you: till at last, you
The curse of disobedience all your portion!
Jaff. Half of your curse you have bestowed in vain ;
Heaven hath already crown'd our faithful loves
With a young boy sweet as his mother's beauty:
May he live to prove more gentle than his grandsire,
And happier than his father!
Jaff. Yes, all; and then-adieu for ever!
There's not a wretch that lives on common charity,
But's happier than I: for I have known
The luscious sweets of plenty; every night
Hath slept with soft content about my head,
And never waked but to a joyful morning:
Yet now must fall: like a full ear of corn,
Whose blossom 'scaped, yet's wither'd in the ripening.
Pri. Home, and be humble; study to retrench;
Discharge the lazy vermin of thy hall,
Those pageants of thy folly;
Reduce the glittering trappings of thy wife
To humble weeds, fit for thy little state;
Then to some suburb cottage both retire;
Drudge to feed loathsome life; get brats, and starve.
Home, home, I say.
Jaff. Yes, if my heart would let me—
This proud, this swelling heart; home I would go,
But that my doors are hateful to my eyes,
Fill'd and damm'd up with gaping creditors.
I've not now fifty ducats in the world;
Yet still I am in love and pleased with ruin.
Oh! Belvidera!--Oh! she is my wife-
And we will bear our wayward fate together-
But ne'er know comfort more.
SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD.
[Mr. Justice Talfourd was born at Reading, 1795; his father was a brewer, his mother the daughter of a dissenting minister. Young Talfourd was sent to a dissenting grammar school, where he studied under the guidance of the celebrated Dr. Valpy. In 1813, he became the pupil of Mr. Chitty, and was called to the Bar in 1821: he travelled the Western Circuit, and was at the same time law reporter to the Times. His power as an orator and legal acumen soon brought him into notice. In 1835, he was returned as member of parliament for his native town. Sir Thomas Talfourd's most celebrated works are his three tragedies, Ion," the "Athenian Captive," and "Glencoe." prose writings, his "Vacation Rambles abounds with graceful passages, and evinces his fine literary culture. In May, 1854, he was in the act of addressing the grand jury at Stafford when he was seized with apoplexy, and died within the precincts of the court. His last words were, "If I were to be asked what is the great want of English society, I would say, in one word, the want of sympathy between class and class"-a sentiment in harmony with his whole life.
ADRASTUS discovered.-CRYTHES introducing ION.
Ad. Stranger, I bid thee welcome;
We are about to tread the same dark passage,
Thou almost on the instant.-Is the sword
Of justice sharpen'd, and the headsman ready?
Čry. Thou mayst behold them plainly in the court;
Even now the solemn soldiers line the ground,
The steel gleams on the altar, and the slave
Disrobes himself for duty.
Ad.
By Heaven! he does not change.
If, even now, thou wilt depart, and leave
Thy traitorous thoughts unspoken, thou art free.
Ion. I thank thee for thy offer; but I stand
Before thee for the lives of thousands, rich
In all that makes life precious to the brave;
Who perish not alone, but in their fall
Break the far-spreading tendrils that they feed,
And leave them nurtureless. If thou wilt hear me
For them, I am content to speak no more.
Ad. Thou hast thy wish, then. Crythes! till
Casts its thin shadow on the approaching hour,
I hear this gallant traitor. On the instant,
Come without word, and lead him to his doom.
Now leave us.
What, alone?
What generous source owns that heroic blood,
Which holds its course thus bravely? What great wars
Have nursed the courage that can look on death-
Certain and speedy death-with placid eye?
Ion. I am a simple youth, who never bore
The weight of armour-one who may not boast
Of noble birth, or valour of his own.
Deem not the powers which nerve me thus to speak
In thy great presence, and have made my heart,
Upon the verge of bloody death, as calm,
As equal in its beatings, as when sleep
Approach'd me nestling from the sportive toils
Of thoughtless childhood, and celestial forms
Began to glimmer through the deepening shadows
Of soft oblivion-to belong to me!
These are the strengths of Heaven; to thee they speak,
Bid thee to hearken to thy people's cry,
Or warn thee that thy hour must shortly come!
Ad. I know it must; so mayst thou spare thy warnings.
The envious gods in me have doom'd a race,
Whose glorious stream from the same cloud-girt founts,
Whence their own dawn upon the infant world;
And I shall sit on my ancestral throne
To meet their vengeance, but till then I rule
As I have ever ruled, and thou wilt feel.
Ion. I will not further urge thy safety to thee;
It may be, as thou say'st, too late; nor seek
To make thee tremble at the gathering curse
Which shall burst forth in mockery at thy fall;
But thou art gifted with a nobler sense-
I know thou art my sovereign!-sense of pain
Endured by myriad Argives, in whose souls,
And in whose fathers' souls, thou and thy fathers
Have kept their cherish'd state; whose heartstrings, still
The living fibres of thy rooted power,
Quiver with agonies thy crimes have drawn
From heavenly justice on them.
Ion. Yes; 'tis the eternal law, that where guilt is,
Sorrow shall answer it; and thou hast not
A poor man's privilege to bear alone,
Or in the narrow circle of his kinsmen,
The penalties of evil; for in thine,
A nation's fate lies circled. King Adrastus!
Steel'd as thy heart is with the usages
Of pomp and power, a few short summers since
Thou wert a child, and canst not be relentless.
Oh, if maternal love embraced thee then,
Think of the mothers who with eyes unwet
Glare o'er their perishing children; hast thou shared
The glow of a first friendship, which is born
'Midst the rude sports of boyhood, think of youth
Smitten amidst its playthings;-let the spirit
Of thy own innocent childhood whisper pity!
Ad. In every word thou dost but steel my soul.
My youth was blasted ;-parents, brother, kin-
All that should people infancy with joy—
Conspired to poison mine; despoil'd my life
Of innocence and hope-all, but the sword
And sceptre. Dost thou wonder at me now?
Ion. I know that we should pity-
Pity! Dare
To speak that word again, and torture waits thee!
I am yet King of Argos. Well, go on;
The time is short, and I am pledged to hear.
Ion. If thou hast ever loved
Ion. Thou hast! I see thou hast! Thou art not marble,
And thou shalt hear me! Think upon the time
When the clear depths of thy yet lucid soul
Were ruffled with the troublings of strange joy,
As if some unseen visitant from heaven
Touch'd the calm lake and wreath'd its images
In sparkling waves;-recall the dallying hope
That on the margin of assurance trembled,
As loth to lose in certainty too bless'd
Its happy being;-taste in thought again
Of the stolen sweetness of those evening-walks,
When pansied turf was air to winged feet,
And circling forests, by ethereal touch
Enchanted, wore the livery of the sky,
As if about to melt in golden light,
Shapes of one heavenly vision; and thy heart,
Enlarged by its new sympathy with one,
Grew bountiful to all!
That tone! that tone!
Whence came it? from thy lips? It cannot be
The long-hush'd music of the only voice
That ever spake unbought affection to me,
And waked my soul to blessing. O sweet hours
Of golden joy, ye come!-your glories break
Through my pavilion'd spirit's sable folds.
Roll on! roll on! Stranger, thou dost enforce me
To speak of things unbreathed by lip of mine
To human ear: wilt listen?
Ad. Again!—that voice again! Thou hast seen me moved
As never mortal saw me, by a tone
Which some light breeze, enamour'd of the sound,
Hath wafted through the woods, till thy young voice
Caught it to rive and melt me. At my birth
This city, which, expectant of its prince,
Lay hush'd, broke out in clamorous ecstasies;
Yet, in that moment, while the uplifted cups
Foamed with the choicest product of the sun,
And welcome thunder'd from a thousand throats,
My doom was seal'd. From the hearth's vacant space,
In the dark chamber where my mother lay,
Faint with the sense of pain-bought happiness,
Came forth, in heart-appalling tone, these words
Of me, the nursling-"Woe unto the babe!
Against the life which now begins shall life,
Lighted from thence, be arm'd, and, both soon quenched,
End this great line in sorrow!" Ere I grew
Of years to know myself a thing accurs'd,
A second son was born, to steal the love
Which fate had else scarce rifled: he became
My parents' hope, the darling of the crew
Who lived upon their smiles, and thought it flattery
To trace in every foible of my youth-
A prince's youth-the workings of the curse;
My very mother-Jove! I cannot bear
To speak it now-look'd freezingly upon me!
Ion. But thy brother!—
Ad.
Died. Thou hast heard the lie,
The common lie that every peasant tells
Of me, his master-that I slew the boy.
"Tis false! One summer's eve, below a crag
Which, in his wilful mood, he strove to climb,
He lay a mangled corpse: the very slaves,
Whose cruelty had shut him from my heart,
Now coin'd their own injustice into proofs
To brand me as his murderer.
Not in open speech :-they felt
I should have seized the miscreant by the throat,
And crush'd the lie half-spoken with the life
Of the base speaker; but the tale looked out
From the stolen gaze of coward eyes, which shrank
When mine have met them; murmur'd through the crowd
That at the sacrifice, or feast, or game,
Stood distant from me; burnt into my soul,
When I beheld it in my father's shudder!
Ion. Didst not declare thy innocence?
Ad.
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