Ha! Theseus, gods! My freezing blood congeals, Enter Theseus. THESEUS. Dost thou at last repent? Oh lovely Phædra! PHÆDRA. THESEUS. And mine and all.-Oh most abandon'd villain! Oh lasting scandal to our godlike race! That could contrive a crime so foul as incest. PHÆDRA. Incest! Oh name it not! The very mention shakes my inmost soul: Stand off, approach me, touch me not; fly To honour, nature, and the genial bed, hence, Far as the distant skies or deepest centre. THESEUS. Amazement Death! Ye gods who guide the world, What can this mean? So fierce a detestation, Was it for this your summons fill'd my soul And injure one so great, so good as Theseus. THESEUS. To injure one so great, so good as Phædra; PHÆDRA. Virtue! All-seeing gods, you know my virtue! THESEUS. What's Hell to thee? Could innocence so pure as Phædra's fear. And is there aught on Earth I would not suffer? Oh, were there vengeance equal to my crimes, Thou need'st not claim it, most unhappy youth, From any hands but mine: T' avenge thy fate, I'd court the fiercest pains, and sue for tortures; And Phædra's sufferings should atone for thine: Ev'n now I fall a victim to thy wrongs; Ev'n now a fatal draught works out my soul; Ev'n now it curdles in my shrinking veins The lazy blood, and freezes at my heart. Lycon brought in. THESEUS. Hast thou escap'd my wrath? Yet, impious On thee I'll empty all my hoard of vengeance, LYCON. O! mercy, mercy! THESEUS. Such thou shalt find as thy best deeds deserve, Such as thy guilty soul can hope from Theseus; Such as thou show'dst to poor Hippolitus. LYCON. Oh chain me! whip me! Let me be the scorn Of sordid rabbles, and insulting crowds! Give me but life, and make that life most wretched. PHÆDRA. Art thou so base, so spiritless a slave? Not so the lovely youth thy arts have ruin'd, Not so he bore the fate to which you doom'd him. THESEUS. Oh abject villain! Yet it gives me joy Drag him to all the torments Earth can furnish; And yet with joy I flew to his destruction, Boasted his fate, and triumph'd in his ruin. Not this I promis'd to his dying mother, When in her mortal pangs she sighing gave me The last cold kisses from her trembling lips, And reach'd her feeble wandering hands to mine; When her last breath, now quivering at her mouth, Implor'd my goodness to her lovely son; To her Hippolitus. He, alas! descends An early victim to the lazy shades, Thee through the dismal waste of gloomy death; Shall sport for ever, shall for ever drink THESEUS, I too must go ; I too must once more see the burning shore Of livid Acheron and black Cocytus, Whence no Alcides will release me now. PHÆDRA. Then why this stay? Come on, let's plunge together: See Hell sets wide its adamantine gates, heart. [Mistaking Theseus for Lycon, offers to stab him. GUARDS. Heavens! 'tis your lord. PHÆDRA. My lord! O equal Heaven! Complete thy horrors- THESEUS. At length she's quiet, And Earth now bears not such a wretch as Theseus; (Oh Heaven and Earth!) by Theseus doom'd, With clashing shields, and braying trumpets, descends. PHEDRA. He's doom'd by Theseus, but accus'd by Phædra, By Phædra's madness, and by Lycon's hatred. Yet with my life I expiate my frenzy, And die for thee, my headlong rage destroy'd : Thee I pursue (oh great ill-fated youth!) Pursue thee still, but now with chaste desires; drown'd The cries of infant Jove-I'll stifle conscience, And all the gnawing pangs of vain remorse? Therefore do justice on thyself—and live; Has vented all its rage.- -O wretched maid! ISMENA. Ruin'd!O all ye powers! O awful Theseus! Say, where's my lord? say, where has Fate dispos'd him? Oh speak! the fear distracts me. THESEUS. Gods! Can I speak? At thy own Athens reign. The happy crowd Deep was her anguish; for the wrongs she did you She chose to die, and in her death deplor'd Your fate, and not her own. HIPPOLITUS. I've heard it all. O! had not passion sully'd her renown, ISMENA. Unhappy Phædra! Was there no other way, ye pitying powers, No other way to crown Ismena's love? Then must I ever mourn her cruel fate, And in the midst of my triumphant joy, Ev'n in my hero's arms, confess some sorrow. THESEUS. O tender maid! forbear, with ill-tim'd grief, To damp our blessings, and incense the gods: But let's away, and pay kind Heav'n our thanks For all the wonders in our favour wrought; That Heaven, whose mercy rescued erring Theseus From execrable crimes, and endless woes. Then learn from me, ye kings that rule the world, With equal poize let steady justice sway, And flagrant crimes with certain vengeance pay, But, till the proofs are clear, the stroke delay. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.1 JAM non vulgares, Isis, molire triumphos, Augustos Isis nunquam tacitura Stuartos. Tu quoties crebris cumulâsti altaria donis Multa rogans numen, cui vincta jugalia curæ ! At jam votivam Superis suspende tabellam; Sunt rata vota tibi, sævique oblita doloris Amplexu parvi gaudet Regina Jacobi. Languentes dudum priscus vigor afflat ocellos, Infans et caræ suspensus in oscula Matris Numine jam spirat blando, visumque tenellum Miscet parva quidem, sed vivida Patris imago. O etiam patrio vivat celebratus honore, Vivat canitie terris venerandus eâdem ! 'From the Strenæ Natalitiæ Academiæ Oxoniensis in celsissimum Principem. Oxonii,è Theatro Sheldoniano. An. Dom. 1683,-The uncommon excellence of Edmund Smith's productions must ensure them a favourable reception; especially when it is considered, that at the time of their composition he was only one remove from a schoolboy. Had Dr. Johnson seen the first of these publications, he would not have been at a loss to determine, in the excellent life he has given the world of Smith, whether the latter was admitted in the university in the year 1689, as he would thence have been enabled to pronounce with certainty, that he was in 1688 a member of Christ Church. I take this to have been the year of Smith's admission; and that he was then just come off from Westminster, in time to signalize his abilities by writing on the Birth of the Prince of Wales, when a FRESHMAN (according to the university phrase) and before he was appointed to a studentship; for his name is subscribed to that copy of verses, with the addition of COMMONER. The great superiority of genius that is displayed in this first-school-boy's-production of Smith, beyond what Addison has discovered in his first performance-the Pastoral on the Inauguration of King William aud Queen Mary-sufficiently serves to account for Smith's being, as Dr. Johnson obone of the murmurers at fortune; and wondering, why he was suffered to be poor, when Addison was caressed and preferred." Smith could not but be conscious of the greater degree of literary merit he himself possessed even in the very department to which Addison owed the earlier part of his fame, THE WRITING OF LATIN VERSE; and on comparing their juvenile performances, it is evident that Smith had reason enough for that consciousness.Addison first recommended himself to notice by his dedication of the Muse Anglicane to Lord Ha ifax, and by the poems of his own therein inserted. But what are his poems in comparison of SMITH'S. serves, KYNASTON. Omen habet certè superâ quod vescitur aurâ Quos nunc Parca piis respexit mota querelis: I, Princeps, olim patrios imitare triumphos, Cumque Pater tandem divis miscebitur ipse EDMUNDUS SMITH, Edis Christi Commensalis. ON THE INAUGURATION OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY*. MAURITII ingentis celso de sanguine natum, 2 From the Vota Oxoniensia pro serenissimis Guilhelmo Rege et Maria Regina M. Britanniæ, &c. nuncupata. Oxonii, è Theatro Sheldoniano. An. Dom. 1689. |