Omnes. We all congratulate Amphitryon. Merc. Keep your congratulations to yourselves, gentlemen. 'Tis a nice point, let me tell you that; and the less that's said of it the better. Upon the whole matter, if Amphitryon takes the favour of Jupiter in patience, as from a god, he's a good heathen. Sos. I must take a little extraordinary pains tonight, that my spouse may come even with her lady, and produce a squire to attend on young Hercules, when he goes out to seek adventures; that when his master kills a man, he may stand ready to pick his pockets, and piously relieve his aged parents.Ah, Bromia, Bromia, if thou hadst been as handsome and as young as Phædra!-I say no more, but somebody might have made his fortunes as well as his master, and never the worse man neither.

For, let the wicked world say what they please,
The fair wife makes her husband live at ease:
The lover keeps him too; and but receives,
Like Jove, the remnants that Amphitryon leaves.
'Tis true, the lady has enough in store,
To satisfy those two, and eke two more:
In fine, the man, who weighs the matter fully,
Would rather be the cuckold than the cully.

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE,

SPOKEN BY PHÆDRA.

I'm thinking, (and it almost makes me mad,)
How sweet a time those heathen ladies had.
Idolatry was even their Gods' own trade:
They worshipped the fine creatures they had made.
Cupid was chief of all the deities;

And love was all the fashion, in the skies.

When the sweet nymph held up the lily hand,
Jove was her humble servant at command;
The treasury of heaven was ne'er so bare,
But still there was a pension for the fair.
In all his reign, adultery was no sin;
For Jove the good example did begin.

Mark, too, when he usurped the husband's name,
How civilly he saved the lady's fame.

The secret joys of love he wisely hid;

But you, sirs, boast of more than e'er you did.
You teaze your cuckolds, to their face torment 'em ;
But Jove gave his new honours to content him,
And, in the kind remembrance of the fair,
On each exalted son bestowed a star.

For these good deeds, as by the date appears,
His godship flourished full two thousand years.
At last, when he and all his priests grew old,
The ladies grew in their devotion cold;
And that false worship would no longer hold.
Severity of life did next begin ;

And always does, when we no more can sin.
That doctrine, too, so hard in practice lies,
That the next age may see another rise.
Then, pagan gods may once again succeed :
And Jove, or Mars, be ready, at our need,
To get young godlings; and so mend our breed.

}

KING ARTHUR:

OR,

THE BRITISH WORTHY.

A

DRAMATIC OPERA.

-hîc alta theatris

Fundamenta locant,-scenis decora alta futuris.

Purpurea intexti tollant aulæa Britanni.

-Tanton' placuit concurrere motu,

Jupiter, æterna gentes in pace futuris!

Et celebrare domestica facta.

VIRG. Æn. 1.

Georg. 3.

Eneid. 12.

HOR.

KING ARTHUR.

THE Seventeenth century was still familiar with

- Whate'er resounds,

In fable or romance, of Uther's son,

Begirt with British and Armoric knights.

Fired by the splendid fictions which romancers had raised on the basis of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh traditions, Milton had designed the exploits of King Arthur for the subject of his lofty epic strain. What we have lost, in his abandoning the theme, can only be estimated by the enthusiastic tone into which he always swells, when he touches upon the "shores of old romance." The sublime glow of his imagination, which delighted in painting what was beyond the reach of human experience; the dignity of his language, formed to express the sentiments of heroes and of immortals; his powers of describing alike the beautiful and terrible; above all, the justice with which he conceived and assigned to each supernatural agent a character as decidedly peculiar, as lesser poets have given to their human actors, would have sent him forth to encounter such a subject with gigantic might. Whoever has ventured, undeterred by their magnitude, upon the old romances of "Lancelot du Lac," " Sir Tristrem," and others, founded on the achievements of the Knights of the Round Table, cannot but remember a thousand striking Gothic incidents, worthy subjects of the pen of Milton. What would he not have made of the adventure of the Ruinous Chapel, the Perilous Manor, the Forbidden Seat, the Dolorous Wound, and many others susceptible of being described in the most sublime poetry! Even when that sun had set, Arthur had yet another chance for immortality; for Dryden repeatedly expressed his intention to found an epic poem upon his history. Our poet, it may be guessed, was too much in the trammels of French criticism, to have ventured upon a style of composition allied to the Gothic romance. His poem would probably have been formed upon the model of the ancients, which, although more classical and correct, might have wanted the force, which reality of