There let 'em hang, and taint the southern wind.
The partners of their crime will learn obedience,
When they look up and see their fellow-traitors
Stuck on a fork, and blackening in the sun.

LUCIUS. Sempronius, why, why wilt thou urge the fate Of wretched men?

SEMPRONIUS.

How wouldst thou clear rebellion?

Lucius (good man) pities the poor offenders,

That would imbrue their hands in Cato's blood.

CATO. Forbear, Sempronius !--see they suffer death,

But in their deaths remember they are men.

Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous.
Lucius, the base degenerate age requires
Severity, and justice in its rigour;

This awes an impious, bold, offending world,
Commands obedience, and gives force to laws.
When by just vengeance guilty mortals perish,
The gods behold their punishment with pleasure,
And lay the uplifted thunder-bolt aside.

SEMPRONIUS. Cato, I execute thy will with pleasure.
CATO. Meanwhile we'll sacrifice to liberty.

Remember, O my friends, the laws, the rights,
The generous plan of power deliver'd down,
From age to age, by your renown'd forefathers,
(So dearly bought, the price of so much blood)
O let it never perish in your hands!
But piously transmit it to your children.
Do thou, great liberty, inspire our souls,
And make our lives in thy possession happy,
Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence.

SCENE VI.

SEMPRONIUS and the leaders of the mutiny.

FIRST LEADER. Sempronius, you have acted like yourself, One would have thought you had been half in earnest. SEMPRONIUS. Villain, stand off! base, groveling, worthless wretches,

Mongrels in faction, poor faint-hearted traitors!

SECOND LEADER.

Sempronius,

Nay, now you carry it too far,

Throw off the mask, there are none here but friends. SEMPRONIUS. Know, villains, when such paltry slaves

presume

To mix in treason, if the plot succeeds,

They're thrown neglected by: but if it fails,

They're sure to die like dogs, as you shall do.

Here, take these factious monsters, drag 'em forth
To sudden death.

FIRST LEADER.

Enter Guards.

Nay, since it comes to this

SEMPRONIUS. Dispatch 'em quick, but first pluck out their

tongues,

Lest with their dying breath they sow sedition.

SCENE VII.

SYPHAX, SEMPRONIUS.

SYPHAX. Our first design, my friend, has prov'd abortive;

Still there remains an after-game to play:

My troops are mounted; their Numidian steeds.

Snuff up the wind, and long to scour the desert:
Let but Sempronius head us in our flight,

We'll force the gate where Marcus keeps his guard,
And hew down all that would oppose our passage.

A day will bring us into Cæsar's camp.

SEMPRONIUS. Confusion! I have fail'd of half my purpose: Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind!

SYPHAX. HOW! will Sempronius turn a woman's slave? SEMPRONIUS. Think not thy friend can ever feel the soft Unmanly warmth and tenderness of love.

Syphax, I long to clasp that haughty maid,

And bend her stubborn virtue to my passion :

When I have gone thus far, I'd cast her off.

SYPHAX. Well said! that's spoken like thyself, Sempronius. What hinder then, but that thou find her out,

And hurry her away by manly force?

SEMPRONIUS. But how to gain admission? for access Is given to none but Juba, and her brothers.

SYPHAX. Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's guards The doors will open, when Numidia's prince

Seems to appear before the slaves that watch them.
SEMPRONIUS. Heavens, what a thought is there! Mar-
cia's my own!

How will my bosom swell with anxious joy,
When I behold her struggling in my arms,
With glowing beauty and disorder'd charms,
While fear and anger, with alternate grace,
Pant in her breast, and vary in her face!

a Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's guards. It was so natural for Syphax, so much in his character, to suggest this expedient, that one has no suspicion of its being contrived to carry on the fable, and so bring about the interesting discovery in the third scene of the fourth act.-It is by the invention and improvement of such incidents as these, that the true dramatic poet is distinguished from an ordinary play-writer.

b

So Pluto, seiz'd of Proserpine, convey'd

To hell's tremendous gloom th' affrighted maid,

There grimly smil'd, pleas'd with the beauteous prize,
Nor envy'd Jove his sun-shine and his skies.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

LUCIA, MARCIA.

LUCIA. Now tell me, Marcia, tell me from thy soul,
If thou believ'st 'tis possible for woman

To suffer greater ills than Lucia suffers ?

MARCIA. O Lucia, Lucia, might my big-swoln heart
Vent all its griefs, and give a loose to sorrow
Marcia could answer thee in sighs, keep pace
With all thy woes, and count out tear for tear.

LUCIA. I know thou'rt doom'd, alike, to be belov’d
By Juba and thy father's friend, Sempronius;

But which of these has power to charm like Portius!
MARCIA. Still must I beg thee not to name Sempronius?
Lucia, I like not that loud boisterous man;

Juba to all the bravery of a hero

Adds softest love, and more than female sweetness;

Juba might make the proudest of our sex,

Any of woman-kind, but Marcia, happy.

LUCIA. And why not Marcia? come, you strive in vain To hide your thoughts from one who knows too well

The inward glowings of a heart in love.

So Pluto, &c. The simile is in character; but is not so properly addressed to Syphax: I could wish the Numidian had been dismissed, and this last speech had past in soliloquy.

VOL. I.-19*

MARCIA. While Cato lives, his daughter has no right
To love or hate, but as his choice directs.

LUCIA. But should this father give you to Sempronius ?
MARCIA. I dare not think he will: but if he should-

Why wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer
Imaginary ills, and fancy'd tortures?

I hear the sound of feet! they march this way!
Let us retire, and try if we can drown

Each softer thought in sense of present danger.
When love once pleads admission to our hearts
(In spite of all the virtue we can boast)

The woman that deliberates is lost.

a

SCENE II.

SEMPRONIUS, dressed like Juba, with Numidian guards.

SEMPRONIUS. The deer is lodg'd. I've tracked her to

her covert.

Be sure you mind the word, and when I give it,
Rush in at once, and seize upon your prey.
Let not her cries or tears have force to move you.
How will the young Numidian rave, to see
His mistress lost! if aught could glad my soul,
Beyond th' enjoyment of so bright a prize,
"Twould be to torture that young gay barbarian.

-But, hark, what noise! death to my hopes! 'tis he,

* The woman that deliberates is lost. This line has been thought too free and injurious to the sex: but it is to be remembered that Marcia is speaking of virtuous love, which vindicates the sentence from such imputations. What, then, it may be asked, is meant by--"In spite of all the virtue we can boast?" clearly, the virtue of firmness, in resolving not to admit a lawful passion in unfit circumstances. But all the virtue of this sort, which the best women can muster up, will hardly keep its ground against deliberation. However, the severe Marcia was lost by surprise, and not by deliberation.