Sel. Could aught efface the merit
Of brave Axalla's name, yet when your daughter
Shall tell how well, how nobly she was used,
How light this gallant prince made all her bond-
age,

Most sure the royal Bajazet will own
That honour stands indebted to such goodness,
Nor can a monarch's friendship more than pay it.
Baj. Ha! know'st thou that, fond girl? Go
-'tis not well,

And when thou couldst descend to take a benefit
From a vile Christian, and thy father's foe,
Thou didst an act dishonest to thy race:
Henceforth, unless thou mean'st to cancel all
My share in thee, and write thyself a bastard,
Die, starve, know any evil, any pain,
Rather than taste a mercy from these dogs.
Sel. Alas! Axalla!

Ar. Weep not, lovely maid!

I swear, one pearly drop from those fair eyes
Would over-pay the service of my life!
One sigh from thee has made a large amends
For all thy angry father's frowns and fierceness.
Baj. Oh, my curst fortune !-Am I fallen thus
low!

Dishonoured to my face! Thou earth-born thing!
Thou clod! how hast thou dared to lift thy eyes
Up to the sacred race of mighty Ottoman,
Whom kings, whom even our prophet's holy off-
spring

At distance have bebeld? And what art thou?
What glorious titles blazon out thy birth?
Thou vile obscurity! ha!-say-thou base one.
Ar. Thus challenged, virtue, modest as she is,
Stands up to do herself a common justice;
To answer, and assert that inborn merit,
That worth, which conscious to herself she feels.
Were honour to be scanned by long descent,
From ancestors illustrious, I could vaunt
A lineage of the greatest, and recount,
Among my fathers, names of ancient story,
Heroes and god-like patriots, who subdued
The world by arms and virtue, and, being Romans,
Scorned to be kings; but that be their own praise:
Nor will I borrow merit from the dead,
Myself an undeserver. I could prove

My friendship such, as thou mightest deign to accept

With honour, when it comes with friendly office, To render back thy crown, and former greatness; And yet even this, even all is poor, when Selima, With matchless worth, weighs down the adverse scale.

Baj. To give me back what yesterday took from me,

Would be to give like Heaven, when having finish ed

This world (the goodly work of his creation),
He bid his favourite man be lord of all.
But this-

Ar. Nor is this gift beyond my power.
Oft has the mighty master of my arms.

Urged me, with large ambition, to demand
Crowns and dominions from his bounteous power:
'Tis true, I waved the proffer, and have held it
The worther choice to wait upon his virtues,
To be the friend and partner of his wars,
Than to be Asia's lord. Nor wonder then,
If, in the confidence of such a friendship,
I promise boldly for the royal giver,
Thy crown and empire.

Baj. For our daughter thus

Meanest thou to barter? Ha! I tell thee, Christian,

There is but one, one dowry thou canst give,
And I can ask, worthy my daughter's love.

Ar. Oh! name the mighty ransom; task my

aught else?

With a vile peace, patched up on slavish terms?
With tributary kingship?No!-To merit
A recompence from me, sate my revenge.
The Tartar is my bane, I cannot bear him :
One heaven and earth can never hold us both;
Still shall we hate, and with defiance deadly
Keep rage alive, till one be lost for ever;
As if two suns should meet in the meridian,
And strive, in fiery combat, for the passage.
Weep'st thou, fond girl? Now, as thy king, and
father,

I charge thee, drive this slave from thy remembrance!

Hate shall be pious in thee. Come, and join [Laying hold on her hand.

To curse thy father's foes.

Sel. Undone for ever!
Now, tyrant duty, art thou yet obeyed?
There is no more to give thee. Oh, Axalla!

[Bajazet leads out Selima, she looking
back on Axalla.

Ar. 'Twas what I feared; fool that I was to obey!

The coward, Love, that could not bear her frown,
Has wrought his own undoing. Perhaps e'en now
The tyrant's rage prevails upon her fears:
Fiercely he storms: she weeps, and sighs, and
trembles,

But swears at length to think on me no more.
He bade me take her. But, oh, gracious honour!
Upon what terms? My soul yet shudders at it,
And stands but half recovered of her fright.
The head of Tamerlane! monstrous impiety!
Bleed, bleed to death, my heart, be virtue's mar-

tyr.

ven)

In reverend regard holds all that bear
Relation to religion, and, on notice
Of his request, received him on the instant.
Mon. We will attend his pleasure. [Exeunt.

Enter TAMERLANE and a Dervise.

Tam. Thou bring'st me thy credentials from the highest,

From Alla, and our prophet. Speak thy message; It must import the best and noblest ends.

Der. Thus speaks our holy Mahomet, who has given thee

To reign and conquer: ill dost thou repay.
The bounties of his hand, unmindful of

The fountain whence thy streams of greatness flow.

Thou hast forgot high Heaven, hast beaten down And trampled on religion's sanctity.

Tam. Now, as I am a soldier and a king (The greatest names of honour), do but make Thy imputation out, and Tamerlane Shall do thee ample justice on himself. So much the sacred name of Heaven awes me, Could I suspect my soul of harbouring aught To its dishonour, I would search it strictly, And drive the offending thought with fury forth. Der. Yes, thou hast hurt our holy prophet's honour,

By fostering the pernicious Christian sect: Those, whom his sword pursued, with fell destruction,

Thou takest into thy bosom, to thy councils! They are thy only friends. The true believers Mourn to behold thee favour this Axalla.

Tam. I fear me, thou outgoest the prophet's order,

And bring'st his venerable name to shelter
A rudeness, ill-becoming thee to use,
Or me to suffer. When thou namest my friend,
Thou namest a man beyond a monk's discerning,
Virtuous and great, a warrior and a prince.

Der. He is a Christian; there our law condemns him,

Although he were even all thou speakest, and

more.

Tam. 'Tis false; no law divine condemns the

virtuous,

For differing from the rules your schools devise.
Look round, how Providence bestows alike
Sunshine and rain, to bless the fruitful year,
On different nations, all of different faiths;
And (though by several names and titles wor-
shipped)

Heaven takes the various tribute of their praise;
Since at agree to own, at least to mean,
One best, one greatest, only Lord of all.

Thus, when he viewed the many forms of nature, He found that all was good, and blest the fair va riety.

Der. Most impious and profane !-Nay, frown not, prince!

Full of the prophet, I despise the danger
Thy angry power may threaten. I command thee
To hear, and to obey; since thus says Mahomet:
Why have I made thee dreadful to the nations?
Why have I given thee conquest, but to spread
My sacred law even to the utmost earth,
And make my holy Mecca the world's worship?
Go on, and wheresoe'er thy arms shall prosper,
Plant there the prophet's name; with sword and
fire

Drive out all other faiths, and let the world
Confess him only.

Tum, Had he but commanded
My sword to conquer all, to make the world
Know but one lord, the task were not so hard;
'Twere but to do what has been done already;
And Philip's son, and Cæsar, did as much;
But to subdue the unconquerable mind,
To make one reason have the same effect
Upon all apprehensions; to force this
Or this man, just to think as thou and I do;
Impossible! Unless souls were alike
In all, which differ now like human faces.

Der. Well might the holy cause be carried on, If Musselmen did not make war on Musselmen. Why holdest thou captive a believing monarch? Now, as thou hopest to 'scape the prophet's

curse,

Release the royal Bajazet, and join,
With force united, to destroy the Christians.

Tam. 'Tis well-I've found the cause that moves thy zeal.

Thou art, indeed, unhappy

Mon. Can you pity me,

And not redress? Oh, royal Tamerlane!

[Kneeling.

Thou succour of the wretched, reach thy mercy
To save me from the grave, and from oblivion!
Be gracious to the hopes that wait my youth.
Oh let not sorrow blast me, lest I wither,
And fall in vile dishonour! Let thy justice
Restore me my Arpasia; give her back,
Back to my wishes, to my transports give her,
To my fond, restless, bleeding, dying bosom!
Oh give her to me yet while I have life
To bless thee for the bounty! Oh, Arpasia!

Tam. Unhappy, royal youth, why dost thou ask
What honour must deny? Ha! is she not
His wife, whom he has wedded, whom enjoyed?
And wouldst thou have my partial friendship
break

That holy knot, which, tied once, all mankind
Agree to hold sacred and undissolveable?
The brutal violence would stain my justice,
And brand me with a tyrant's hated name
To late posterity.

Mon. Are then the vows,

The holy vows we registered in heaven,
But common air?

Tam. Could thy fond love forget
The violation of a first enjoyment?-

But sorrow has disturbed and hurt thy mind. Mon. Perhaps it has, and, like an idle mad

man,

That wanders with a train of hooting boys,
I do a thousand things to shame my reason.
Then let me fly, and bear my follies with me,
Far, far from the world's sight. Honour and
fame,

Arms, and the glorious war shall be forgotten;
No noble sound of greatness, or ambition,

Till the last trump do summon.

Tam. Let thy virtue

Stand up

and answer to these warring passions, That vex thy manly temper. From the moment When first I saw thee, something wondrous noble Shone through thy form, and won my friendship for thee,

Without the tedious form of long acquaintance;
Nor will I lose thee poorly for a woman.
Come, droop no more! thou shalt with me pursue
True greatness, till we rise to immortality.
Thou shalt forget these lesser cares, Moneses;
Thou shalt, and help me to reform the world.
Mon. So the good genius warns his mortal

charge

To fly the evil fate that still pursues him,
Till it have wrought his ruin. Sacred Tamer-
lane,

Thy words are as the breath of angels to me.
But, oh! too deep the wounding grief is fixt,
For any hand to heal.

Tam. This dull despair

Is the soul's laziness. Rouse to the combat,
And thou art sure to conquer. War shall re-
store thee;

The sound of arms shall wake thy martial ardour,
And cure this amorous sickness of thy soul,
Begun by sloth, and nursed by too much ease.
The idle god of love supinely dreams,
Amidst inglorious shades and purling streams;
In rosy fetters and fantastic chains,
He binds deluded maids and simple swains;
With soft enjoyments wooes them to forget
The hardy toils and labours of the great.
But, if the warlike trumpet's loud alarms
To virtuous acts excite, and manly arms,
The coward boy avows his abject fear,
On silken wings sublime he cuts the air,
Scared at the noble noise and thunder of the
[Exeunt.

war.

Der. Just entering here, I met the Tartar general, Fierce Omar.

Ha. He commands, if I mistake not, This quarter of the army, and our guards.

Der. The same. By his stern aspect, and the fires

That kindled in his eyes, I guessed the tumult
Some wrong had raised in his tempestuous soul;
A friendship of old date had given me privilege
To ask of his concerns. In short, I learned,
That, burning for the sultan's beauteous daughter,
He had begged her, as a captive of the war,
From Tamerlane; but meeting with denial
Of what he thought his services might claim,
Loudly he storms, and curses the Italian,
As cause of this affront. I joined his rage,