You may remember, scarce five years are past,
Since in your brigantine you sailed to see
The Adriatic wedded by our duke,
And I was with you: your unskilful pilot
Dashed us upon a rock, when to your boat
You made for safety, entered first yourself;
The affrighted Belvidera, following next,
As she stood trembling on the vessel's side,
Was by a wave washed off into the deep;
When instantly I plunged into the sea,
And buffeting the billows to her rescue,
Redeemed her life with half the loss of mine.
Like a rich conquest, in one hand I bore her,
And with the other dashed the saucy waves,
That thronged and pressed 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 you chose

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

:

Jaf. Would I were in my grave!

Pri.

And she, too, with thee; For living here, you 're but my cursed remembrancers I once was happy!

Jaf. You use me thus, because you know my soul
Is fond of Belvidera. You perceive

My life feeds on her, therefore thus you treat me.
Were I that thief, the doer of such wrongs
As you upbraid me with, what hinders me
But I might send her back to you with contumely,
And court my fortune where she would be kinder?
Pri. You dare not do't.

Jaf.
Indeed, my lord, I dare not.
My heart, that awes me, is too much my master :
Three years are past since first our vows were plighted,
During which time the world must bear me witness
I've treated Belvidera like your daughter,
The daughter of a senator of Venice :
Distinction, place, attendance, and observance,
Due to her birth, she always has commanded :

Out of my little fortune I have done this; Because, though hopeless e'er to win your nature, The world might see I loved her for herself;

Not as the heiress of the great Priuli.

Pri. No more. Jaf.

Yes, all, and then adieu for ever. There's not a wretch that lives on common charity But's happier than me; for I have known The luscious sweets of plenty; every night Have 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 withered 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.
[Exit.

Jaf. Yes, if my heart would let me—
This proud, this swelling heart: home I would go,
But that my doors are hateful to mine eyes,
Filled and dammed up with gaping creditors,
Watchful as fowlers when their game will spring;
I've now not fifty ducats in the world,

Yet still I am in love, and pleased with ruin.
O Belvidera! Oh! she is my wife-
And we will bear our wayward fate together,
But ne'er know comfort more. [BELVIDERA enters.
Jaf. Poor Belvidera!

...

Belvidera. Lead me, lead me my virgins To that kind voice. My lord, my love, my refuge! Happy my eyes when they behold thy face; My heavy heart will leave its doleful beating At sight of thee, and bound with sprightful joys. Oh smile as when our loves were in their spring, And cheer my fainting soul !

As when our loves

Jaf.
Were in their spring! Has, then, my fortune changed
Art thou not, Belvidera, still the same,
[thee?

Kind, good, and tender, as my arms first found thee?
If thou art altered, where shall I have harbour?
Where ease my loaded heart? oh, where complain?
Bel. Does this appear like change, or love decaying,
When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,
With all the resolution of strong truth?
Beats not my heart as 'twould alarum thine
To a new charge of bliss? I joy more in thee
Than did thy mother when she hugged thee first,
And blessed the gods for all her travail past.

Jaf. Can there in woman be such glorious faith?
Sure all ill stories of thy sex are false.

Oh woman, lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you;
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There's in you all that we believe of Heaven;
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.

Bel. If love be treasure, we 'll be wondrous rich :
I have so much my heart will surely break with 't:
Vows can't express it: when I would declare
How great's my joy, I'm dumb with the big thought;
I swell and sigh and labour with my longing.

Oh lead me to some desert, wide and wild,

Barren as our misfortunes, where my soul
May have its vent; where I may tell aloud
To the high heavens and every list'ning planet,
With what a boundless stock my bosom 's fraught;
Where I may throw my eager arms about thee,
Give loose to love, with kisses kindling joy,
And let off all the fire that's in my heart!

Jaf. O Belvidera! doubly I'm a beggar:
Undone by fortune and in debt to thee.

Want, worldly want, that hungry meagre fiend,

Is at my heels, and chases me in view.

Canst thou bear cold and hunger? Can these limbs,
Framed for the tender offices of love,

Endure the bitter gripes of smarting poverty?
When banished by our miseries abroad
(As suddenly we shall be) to seek out

In some far climate where our names are strangers
For charitable succour, wilt thou then,
When in a bed of straw we shrink together,

And the bleak winds shall whistle round our heads;
Wilt thou then talk thus to me? Wilt thou then
Hush my cares thus, and shelter me with love?

Bel. Oh I will love thee, even in madness love thee:

Though my distracted senses should forsake me,
I'd find some intervals when my poor heart
Should 'suage itself, and be let loose to thine.
Though the bare earth be all our resting-place,
Its roots our food, some clift our habitation,
I'll make this arm a pillow for thy head,
And as thou sighing liest and swelled with sorrow,
Creep to thy bosom, pour the balm of love
Into thy soul, and kiss thee to thy rest;
Then praise our God, and watch thee till the morning.
Jaf. Hear this, you Heavens, and wonder how you

made her !

Reign, reign, ye monarchs that divide the world;
Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know

Tranquillity and happiness like mine;
Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall
And rise again, to lift you in your pride;

They wait but for a storm, and then devour you:

I in my private bark already wrecked,

Like a poor merchant, driven on unknown land,
That had by chance packed up his choicest treasure
In one dear casket, and saved only that:
Since I must wander farther on the shore,
Thus hug my little but my precious store,
Resolved to scorn and trust my fate no more.

Parting.

Where am I? Sure I wander midst enchantment,
And never more shall find the way to rest.
But O Monimia! art thou indeed resolved
To punish me with everlasting absence?
Why turn'st thou from me? I'm alone already.
Methinks I stand upon a naked beach
Sighing to winds and to the seas complaining,
Whilst afar off the vessel sails away,
Where all the treasure of my soul's embarked.
Wilt thou not turn? O could those eyes but speak,
I should know all, for love is pregnant in them;
They swell, they press their beams upon me still.
Wilt thou not speak? If we must part for ever,
Give me but one kind word to think upon,
And please myself withal, whilst my heart's breaking.

A Witch.

Through a close lane as I pursued my journey,
And meditated on the last night's vision,
I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself;
Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled and red,
Cold palsy shook her head, her hands seemed withered,
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapped
The tattered remnant of an old striped hanging,
Which served to keep her carcass from the cold.
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patched
With different coloured rags-black, red, white, yellow-
And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness.

I asked her of my way, which she informed me;
Then craved my charity, and bade me hasten
To save a sister. At that word I started!

A Splenetic View of Woman.
Woman the fountain of all human frailty!
What mighty ills have not been done by woman!
Who was 't betrayed the Capitol? A woman.
Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman.
Who was the cause of a long ten years' war,
And laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman;
Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman;
Woman to man first as a blessing given,
When innocence and love were in their prime.
Happy a while in Paradise they lay,

But quickly woman longed to go astray;
Some foolish new adventure needs must prove,
And the first devil she saw she changed her love;
To his temptations lewdly she inclined
Her soul, and for an apple damned mankind.

Morning.

Wished Morning's come; and now upon the plains
And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks,
The happy shepherds leave their homely huts,
And with their pipes proclaim the new-born day.
The lusty swain comes with his well-filled scrip
Of healthful viands, which, when hunger calls,
With much content and appetite he eats,
To follow in the fields his daily toil,
And dress the grateful glebe that yields him fruits.
The beasts that under the warm hedges slept,
And weathered out the cold bleak night, are up,
And, looking towards the neighbouring pastures, raise
The voice, and bid their fellow-brutes good-morrow.
The cheerful birds, too, on the tops of trees,
Assemble all in choirs, and with their notes
Salute and welcome up the rising sun.

A Boar Hunt.

When you, Castalio, and your brother left me,
Forth from the thickets rushed another boar,
So large, he seemed the tyrant of the woods,
With all his dreadful bristles raised up high,
They seemed a grove of spears upon his back;
Foaming he came at me where I was posted,
Best to observe which way he 'd lead the chase,
Whetting his huge long tusks, and gaping wide,
As if he already had me for his prey;
Till brandishing my well-poised javelin high,
With this bold executing arm I struck
The ugly brindled monster to the heart.

Fine Speeches.

Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves

Or fools that use them when they want good sense; But honesty needs no disguise nor ornament.

Honest Men.

Honest men

Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves
Repose and fatten.

Otway translated one or two things from Ovid and Horace, wrote a number of prologues and epilogues, some epistles and occasional verses, and a few songs.

Windsor Castle, published posthumously, is a panegyric of Charles II. The Poet's Complaint of his Muse, or a Satire against Libels (1680), is largely laudation of the Duke of York; the fickle Muse having deserted her true love for Libel, the anti-Catholic agitation which temporarily drove James from England in 1679. The mutual devotion of the poet and the Muse is first described, and in the sixth of the twenty-one stanzas of this nondescript 'Pindaric' ode the breach between them is thus described :

But in this most transporting height,
Whence I looked down, and laught at fate,
All of a sudden I was altered grown ;
I round me looked, and found myself alone;
My faithless Muse, my faithless Muse, was gone;
I tried if I a verse could frame:

Oft I in vain invoked my Clio's name.

The more I strove, the more I failed,

I chafed, I bit my pen, curst my dull skull, and railed,
Resolved to force m' untoward thought, and at the last
A line came forth, but such a one, [prevailed.
No travelling matron in her child-birth pains,
Full of the joyful hopes to bear a son,
Was more astonished at th' unlooked-for shape
Of some deformed baboon, or ape,
Than I was at the hideous issue of my brains.
I tore my paper, stabbed my pen,
And swore I'd never write again,

Resolved to be a doating fool no more.
But when my reckoning I began to make,

I found too long I'd slept, and was too late awake;
I found m' ungrateful Muse, for whose false sake
I did myself undo,

Had robbed me of my dearest store,
My precious time, my friends, and reputation too;
And left me helpless, friendless, very proud, and poor.

The whistling winds blew fiercely o'er his head, Cold was his lodging, hard his bed; Aloft his eyes on the wide heavens he cast, Where we are told peace only's found at last; And as he did its hopeless distance see, Sighed deep and cried, How far is peace from me!

This is one of Otway's songs :

The Enchantment.

I did but look and love a-while, 'Twas but for one half hour; Then to resist I had no will,

And now I have no power.

To sigh and wish is all my ease;
Sighs, which do heat impart
Enough to melt the coldest ice,
Yet cannot warm your heart.

O! would your pity give my heart
One corner of your breast,

'Twould learn of yours the winning art,

And quickly steal the rest.

The best edition of Otway is Thornton's (3 vols. 1813). See Johnson's Lives, Ward's Dramatic Literature, Mr Gosse in Seventeenth Century Studies, and the Hon. Roden Noel's volume on Otway in the 'Mermaid Series' (1888). There are German books on the Don Carlos of Otway and Schiller and their relation to the romance of the Abbé St Réal by Löwenberg (1886) and Ernst Müller (1888).

Thomas Southerne (1660–1746) was born at Oxmantown near Dublin, and studied at Trinity College, but in 1678 came to England and enrolled himself in the Middle Temple as a student of law. He entered the army in 1685, and rose rapidly to the rank of captain; but the Revolution dashed his hopes of further promotion. He was a friend of Dryden, who entrusted him with the completion of his Cleomenes, was praised by Pope, and lived to be spoken of as 'the poets' Nestor.' His later days were spent in retirement and in the possession of a considerable fortune, largely the outcome of his dramatic successes. He wrote ten plays, but only two fully exhibit his characteristic powers-Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage (1694), and Oroonoko (1696). The latter is founded on Aphra Behn's novel (see abové, page 57), and that on an actual occurrence; Oroonoko, an African prince, having been stolen from his native kingdom of Angola and carried to one of the West India Islands. The impassioned intensity of Oroonoko's sufferings, his burst of horror and indignation at the slave-trade, and his devotion to the beautiful and virtuous Imoinda are powerfully and pathetically presented. Isabella is more regular than Oroonoko, and the part of the heroine affords scope for a tragic actress scarcely inferior in pathos to Belvidera; but on the whole Southerne is excelled by Otway in depth of passion and vigorous character-drawing. The plot of Isabella is also based on Mrs Behn's romance of The Nun. In abject distress and believing her husband to be dead, Isabella is hurried into a second marriage. Biron returns, and the heroine's agony ends in madness and death. Comic scenes are interspersed throughout Southerne's tragedies, which, though they relieve the sombre colouring of the main action and interest of the piece, are sometimes misplaced and unwelcome. Thus there were comic scenes in Oroonoko, subsequently omitted. And bathos intrudes from time to time, as will be seen in the extracts. Of the comedies, one or two are amusing, though more than gross enough. In the following scene from Oroonoko hero and heroine unexpectedly meet after long separation, both being now slaves on the plantations of Surinam (at this time British), in the presence

of the Governor :

That I would have: my husband! then I am
Alive, and waking to the joys I feel :

They were so great, I could not think 'em true;
But I believe all that you say to me :
For truth itself, and everlasting love,
Grows in this breast, and pleasure in these arms.

Oroo. Take, take me all; inquire into my heart-
You know the way to every secret there-
My heart, the sacred treasury of love :
And if in absence I have disemployed

A mite from the rich store; if I have spent
A wish, a sigh, but what I sent to you,
May I be cursed to wish and sigh in vain,
And you not pity me.

And know you by myself. If these sad eyes,
Since last we parted, have beheld the face
Of any comfort, or once wished to see
The light of any other heaven but you,
May I be struck this moment blind, and lose
Your blessed sight, never to find you more.
Oroo. Imoinda! Oh! this separation
Has made you dearer, if it can be so,
Than you were ever to me.
You appear
Like a kind star to my benighted steps,
To guide me on my way to happiness :
I cannot miss it now. Governor, friend,
You think me mad; but let me bless you all,
Who anyways have been the instruments
Of finding her again. Imoinda's found!
And everything that I would have in her.
Blandford. Sir, we congratulate your happiness;
I do most heartily.

I have a thousand things to ask of her,
And she as many more to know of me.
But you have made me happier, I confess,
Acknowledge it, much happier than I
Have words or power to tell you. Captain, you,
Even you, who most have wronged me, I forgive.
I will not say you have betrayed me now:
I'll think you but the minister of fate,

To bring me to my loved Imoinda here.

Imo. How, how shall I receive you? how be worthy Of such endearments, all this tenderness? These are the transports of prosperity,

When fortune smiles upon us.

This little ring, with necromantic force,
Has raised the ghost of pleasure to my fears;
Conjured the sense of honour and of love
Into such shapes, they fright me from myself!
I dare not think of them.

Nurse (entering). Madam, the gentleman's below.
Isa. I had forgot; pray, let me speak with him.
[Exit Nurse.

This ring was the first present of my love
To Biron, my first husband; I must blush
To think I have a second. Biron died
(Still to my loss) at Candy; there's my hope.
Oh, do I live to hope that he died there?

It must be so; he's dead, and this ring left,
By his last breath, to some known faithful friend,
To bring me back again; that's all I have to trust to.
[Enter BIRON.

My fears were woman's-I have viewed him all;
And let me, let me say it to myself,

I live again, and rise but from his tomb.
Biron. Have you forgot me quite?

Why do you keep him from me?

I know his voice; my life, upon the wing,
Hears the soft lure that brings me back again;
'Tis he himself, my Biron, the dear man.
My true loved husband, do I hold you fast,
Never to part again? Can I believe it?

Nothing but you could work so great a change;
There's more than life itself in dying here.
If I must fall, death's welcome in these arms.
Bir. Live ever in these arms.
Isa.

But pardon me ;
Excuse the wild disorder of my soul;
The joy, the strange surprising joy of seeing you,

Of seeing you again, distracted me.

Bir. Thou everlasting goodness!

What hand of Providence has brought you back
To your own home again? O satisfy

Th' impatience of my heart; I long to know
The story of thy sufferings. . . . Oh, tell me all,
For every thought confounds me.

Bir.

My best life! at leisure all. Isa. We thought you dead; killed at the siege of Candy. Bir. There I fell among the dead;

But hopes of life reviving from my wounds,
I was preserved but to be made a slave.

I often writ to my hard father, but never had
An answer; I writ to thee too.
Isa.
What a world of woe
Had been prevented but in hearing from you!
Bir. Alas! thou couldst not help me.

Isa. You do not know how much I could have done; At least, I'm sure I could have suffered all;

I would have sold myself to slavery,
Without redemption; given up my child,

The dearest part of me, to basest wants.

My life, but to have heard

Bir. My little boy! Isa. You were alive-which now too late I find.

[Aside.

And may he prove a father to your hopes,
Though we have found him none.

Bir.
Come, no more tears.
Isa. Seven long years of sorrow for your loss
Have mourned with me.

Bir.
And all my days to come
Shall be employed in a kind recompense
For thy afflictions. Can't I see my boy?

Isa. He's gone to bed; I'll have him brought to you.
Bir. To-morrow I shall see him; I want rest

Myself, after my weary pilgrimage.

Isa. Alas! what shall I get for you?

Bir. Nothing but rest, my love. To-night I would not Be known, if possible, to your family:

Bir. Grant me but life, good Heaven, and give the To make this wondrous goodness some amends: [means And let me then forget her, if I can.

Oh! she deserves of me much more than I
Can lose for her, though I again could venture
A father and his fortune for her love!
You wretched fathers, blind as fortune all!
Not to perceive that such a woman's worth
Weighs down the portions you provide your sons.
What is your trash, what all your heaps of gold,
Compared to this, my heartfelt happiness?
What has she in my absence undergone!

I must not think of that; it drives me back
Upon myself, the fatal cause of all.

Isa. (returning). I have obeyed your pleasure;
Everything is ready for you.

Bir. I can want nothing here; possessing thee,
All my desires are carried to their aim

Of happiness; there's no room for a wish,
But to continue still this blessing to me;

I know the way, my love. I shall sleep sound.
Isa. Shall I [attend] you?

Bir.
By no means;
I've been so long a slave to others' pride,
To learn, at least, to wait upon myself;
You'll make haste after?

[Going.

Isa. I'll but say my prayers, and follow you.
My prayers! no, I must never pray again.
Prayers have their blessings, to reward our hopes,
But I have nothing left to hope for more.
What Heaven could give I have enjoyed; but now
The baneful planet rises on my fate,

And what's to come is a long life of woe;
Yet I may shorten it. I promised him to follow-him! '
Is he without a name? Biron, my husband. . . .
My husband! Ha! What, then, is Villeroy?
Oh, Biron, hadst thou come but one day sooner
I would have followed thee through beggary,
Through all the chances of this mortal life,
Wandered the many ways of wretchedness
With thee, to find a hospitable grave;

For that 's the only bed that's left me now.
What's to be done? for something must be done.
Two husbands! yet not one! ...
And yet a wife to neither. Hold, my brain.
Ha! a lucky thought

Works the right way to rid me of them all;
All the reproaches, infamies, and scorns,
That every tongue and finger will find for me.
Let the just horror of my apprehensions
But keep me warm; no matter what can come.
'Tis but a blow. If I should miss my heart?-
But every part is mortal to such wounds.
Yet I will see him first,

Have a last look, to heighten my despair,
And then to rest for ever.