OUR author, by experience, finds it true,
'Tis much more hard to please himself than you;
And out of no feign'd modesty, this day
Damns his laborious trifle of a play:
Not that it's worse than what before he writ,
But he has now another taste of wit;
And, to confess a truth, though out of time,
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhyme.
Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound,
And nature flies him like enchanted ground:
What verse can do, he has perform'd in this,
Which he presumes the most correct of his ;
But spite of all his pride, a secret shame
Invades his breast at Shakespeare's sacred name:
Awed when he hears his godlike Romans rage,
He, in a just despair, would quit the stage;
And to an age less polish'd, more unskill'd,
Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield.
As with the greater dead he dares not strive,
He would not match his verse with those who live:
Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast,
The first of this, and hindmost of the last.
A losing gamester, let him sneak away;
He bears no ready money from the play.
The fate, which governs poets, thought it fit
He should not raise his fortunes by his wit.
The clergy thrive, and the litigious bar;
Dull heroes fatten with the spoils of war:
All southern vices, heaven be praised, are here
But wit's a luxury you think too dear.
When you to cultivate the plant are loth,
'Tis a shrewd sign 'twas never of your growth;
And wit in northern climates will not blow,
Except, like orange-trees, 'tis housed from snow.
There needs no care to put a playhouse down,
'Tis the most desart place of all the town:
We and our neighbours, to speak proudly, are,
Like monarchs, ruin'd with expensive war;
While, like wise English, unconcern'd you sit,
And see us play the tragedy of wit.
NOURMAHAL, the Empress.
INDAMORA, a Captive Queen.
MELESINDA, Wife to Morat.
ZAYDA, favourite Slave to the Empress.
SCENE-Agra, in the Year 1660.
Enter ARIMANT, ASAPH CHAN, and FAZEL CHAN.
Arim. Heaven seems the empire of the east to lay
On the success of this important day:
Their arms are to the last decision bent,
And fortune labours with the vast event:
She now has in her hand the greatest stake,
Which for contending monarchs she can make.
Whate'er can urge ambitious youth to fight,
She pompously displays before their sight;
Laws, empires, all permitted to the sword,
And fate could ne'er an ampler scene afford.
Asaph. Four several armies to the field are led,
Which, high in equal hopes, four princes head:
Indus and Ganges, our wide empire's bounds,
Swell their dyed currents with their natives' wounds:
Each purple river winding, as he runs,
His bloody arms about his slaughter'd sons.
Fazel. I well remember you foretold the storm,
When first the brothers did their factions form:
When each, by cursed cabals of women, strove
To draw the indulgent king to partial love. z.
Arim. What heaven decrees, no prudence can
To cure their mad ambition, they were sent
To rule a distant province each alone:
What could a careful father more have done?
He made provision against all, but fate,
While, by his health, we held our peace of state.
The weight of seventy winters prest him down,
He bent beneath the burden of a crown:
Sickness, at last, did his spent body seize,
And life almost sunk 'under the disease:
Mortal 'twas thought, at least by them desired,
Who, impiously, into his years inquired:
As at a signal, strait the sons prepare
For open force, and rush to open war:
Meeting, like winds broke loose upon the main,
To prove, by arms, whose fate it was to reign.
Asaph. Rebels and parricides!
Arim. Brand not their actions with so foul a name:
Pity at least what we are forced to blame.
When death's cold hand has closed the father's eye,
You know the younger sons are doom'd to die.
Less ills are chosen greater to avoid,
And nature's laws are by the state's destroy'd.
What courage tamely could to death consent,
And not, by striking first, the blow prevent?
Who falls in fight, cannot himself accuse,
And he dies greatly, who a crown pursues.
To them SOLYMAN AGA.
Solym. A new express all Agra does affright: Darah and Aureng-Zebe are join'd in fight; The press of people thickens to the court, The impatient crowd devouring the report. Arim. Teach changing news they changed affections bring,
And servilely from fate expect a king.
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