200 THESEUS. Oh, he was all his godlike sire could wish, The pride of Theseus, and the hopes of Crete. In every word and look, each godlike act, THESEUS. Guiltless! Oh all ye gods! What can this mean? PHÆDRA. Mean! That the guilt is mine, that virtuous The maid's example, and the matron's theme, THESEUS. Is he then guiltless? Guiltless! Then what art thou? And oh just Heaven! What a detested parricide is Theseus! PHÆDRA. What am I? What indeed, but one more black THESEUS. Lycon! Here, guards!—Oh most abandon'd villain! Secure him, seize him, drag him piece-meal hither. Enter Guards. GUARDS. Who has, my lord, incurr'd your high displeasure? THESEUS. Who can it be, ye gods, but perjur'd Lycon? Who can inspire such storms of rage, but Lycon? Where has my sword left one so black, but Lycon? Where! Wretched Theseus! in thy bed and heart, The very darling of my soul and eyes! Oh beauteous fiend! But trust not to thy form. You too, my son, was fair; your manly beauties Tread with such early hopes the paths of honour. Charm'd every heart (O Heavens!) to your de THESEUS. struction. You too were good, your virtuous soul abborr'd What can this mean? Declare, ambiguous The crimes for which youdy'd. Oh impious Phædra! And is there aught on Earth I would not suffer? 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 doou'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, (Oh Heaven and Earth!) by Theseus doom'd, descends. PHÆDRA. 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; 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 to gether: See Hell sets wide its adamantine gates, See through the sable gates the black Cocytus In smoky circles rowls its fiery waves: Hear, hear the stunning harmonies of woe, The din of rattling chains, of clashing whips, Of groans, of loud complaints, of piercing shrieks, That wide through all its gloomy world resound. How huge Mægara stalks! what streaming fires Blaze from her glaring eyes! what serpents curl In horrid wreaths, and hiss around her head! Now, now she drags me to the bar of Minos. See how the awful judges of the dead Look stedfast hate, and horrible dismay! See Minos turns away his loathing eyes, Rage choaks his struggling words: the fatal urn Drops from his trembling hand: O all ye gods! What, Lycon here! Oh execrable villain! Then am I still on Earth? By Hell I am, A fury now, a scourge preserv'd for Lycon! See, the just beings offer to my vengeance That impious slave. Now, Lycon, for revenge; Thanks, Heaven, 'tis here.I'll steal it to his heart. [Mistaking Theseus for Lycon, offers to stab him. GUARDS. Heavens! 'tis your lord. PHEDRA. My lord! O equal Heaven! Must each portentous moment rise in crimes, And sallying life go off in parricide? Then trust not thy slow drugs. Thus sure of death [Stabs herself. Complete thy horrors-And if this suffice not, Thou, Minos, do the rest. THESEUS. At length she's quiet, The cries of infant Jove-I'll stifle conscience, 202 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!—— 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? For thee alone, my sorrows, luil'd, shall cease; At thy own Athens reign. The happy crowd ISMENA. you Must I then reign? Nay, must I live without She chose to die, and in her death deplor'd Not so, bh godlike youth! you lov'd Ismena; Your fate, and not her own. HIPPOLITUS. I've heard it all. O! had not passion sully'd her renown, [Offers to stab herself. Her faults were only faults of raging love, Enter Hippolitus. HIPPOLITUS. 1 The righteous gods, that innocence require, Protect the goodness which themselves inspire. Unguarded virtue human arts defies, Th' accus'd is happy, while th' accuser dies. [Exeunt omnes. ON THE 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 Academia 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 and 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 Must Anglicane to Lord Halifax, and by the poems of his own therein inserted. But what are his poems in comparison of SMITH'S. KYNASTON. serves, Omen habet certè superâ quod vescitur aurâ Quos nunc Parca piis respexit mota querelis: Cumque Pater tandem divis miscebitur ipse EDMUNDUS SMITH, Ædis Christi Commensalis. ON THE INAUGURATION OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. MAURITII ingentis celso de sanguine natum, Mauritioque parem, solenni dicere versu Te, Gulieline, juvat: nunc ô! mihi pectora flammâ Divinâ caleant, nunc me furor excitet idem, Qui Te, ingens heros, bello tot adire labores Instigat, mediosque ardentem impellit in hostes. Te tenero latè jactabat fama sub ævo: Cæpisti, quà finis erat; maturaque virtus Edidit ante diem fructus, tardèque sequentes Annos præcurrit longè, et post terga reliquit. Jam Te, jam videor flagrantes cernere vultus, Dum primas ducis fervens in prælia turmas : Jam cerno oppositas acies, quanto impete præceps Tela per et gladios raperis; quo fulmine beli Adversum frangis cuneum,et media agmina misces. Num ferus invadit Belgas Turennius heros, Invictis semper clarus Turennius armis, Et, quacunque ruit, ferro bacchatur et igni ? Tu primo vernans jucundæ flore juventæ Congrederis, ducente Dco, Deus ipse Batavis. Congrederis; non Te Gallorum immania terrent Agmina, non magni Turennius agminis instar. Heu quas tum ferro strages, quæ funera latè Edideris, quantosque viros demiseris orco! Sic cum congestos struxêre ad sidera montes Terrigenæ fratres, superos detrudere cœ o Aggressi, posito tum plectro intonsus Apollo Armatâ sumpsit fatalia spicula dextrâ. Tunc audax ruit in bellum, et furit acer in armis, Et Martem, atque ipsas longè ante t fulminis alas. 2 From the Vota Oxoniensia pro serenissimis Guilhelmo Rege et Maria R gina M. B.itanniæ, &c. nuncupata. Oxonii, è Theatro Sheldoniano. An. Dom. 1689. 204 Extremos o quàm vellem memorare labores! ON THE RETURN OF KING WILLIAM FROM IRELAND, After the battle of the Boyne3. O INGENS Heros! O tot defuncte perîclis! Tu tamen, ô toties Wilhelmi assueta triumphis fœdum, Exultantem immane, et vastâ clade superbum. Ad Trojam frustra pugnarunt mille carinæ, Et fugat, et sternit, totoque agit agmina campo. Attamen ô, non sic fausto movet alite bellum At nunc ad Cælum fugit, et pede sidera calcat, SINCE our Isis silently deplores The bard who spread her fame to distant shores; Since nobler pens their mournful lays suspend, My honest zeal, if not my verse, commend, Forgive the poet, and approve the friend. Your care had long his fleeting life restrain'd, One table fed you, and one bed contain'd; For his dear sake long restless nights you bore, While rattling coughs his heaving vessels tore, Much was his pain, but your affliction more. Oh! had no summons from the noisy gown Call'd thee, unwilling, to the nauseous town, Thy love had o'er the dull disease prevail'd, Thy mirth had cur'd where baffled physic fail'd; 3 From the Academiæ Oxoniensis Gratulatio But since the will of Heaven his fate decreed, pro exoptato screnissimi Regis Guilielmo ex Hi-To thy kind care my worthless lines succeed; bernia reditu. Oxoniæ, è Theatro Sheldoniano. Anno Dom. 1690. Fruitless our hopes, though pious our essays, |