Moliere and Racine met with equal fuccefs: one made the world laugh, amus'd, and entertain'd them; the other mov'd, terrify'd and made us weep. Moliere expos'd the folly of an old miser in love; Racine painted the weakness of a great man, and fo contriv'd, as at the fame time even to make that weakness refpectable.

Were we to order Vateau and le Brun, each of them, to paint us a wedding; one wou'd give us the representation of a groupe of peasants in an arbour, full of vulgar joy and jollity, plac'd round a ruftic table, where drunkenness, riot, debauchery, and immoderate laughter reign'd without controul: the other wou'd paint the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, the feaft of the gods, with all their folemn and majestic celebration of it. Thus both of them wou'd reach the highest degree of perfection in their art, by means: intirely different.

We may fairly apply every one of thefe examples to Mariamne. The bad temper of a woman; the love of an old husband; the malicious tricks of a sister-inław; are fubjects in themselves inconfiderable, and

feem

feem rather adapted to comedy: but at the fame time a king, whom all the world have honour'd with the name of Great, paffionately enamour'd with the finest woman in the universe; the rage and fury of a monarch fo famous for his virtues and his crimes, his paft cruelty, and his prefent remorfe; that perpetual and rapid tranfition from love to hatred, and from hatred to love; the ambition of his fifter; the intrigues of his ministers; the diftrefsful fituation of a princess whose virtue and beauty have been so often celebrated and talk'd of to this day, who had seen her father and brother doom'd to death by her husband; and to complete her misfortunes, faw herself belov'd by the murtherer of her family. What a field is here! what an opening for any genius but mine! can we fay this is a fubject unfit for tragedy? Here we may indeed averr, that, according as things turn out, they change their names.

DRAMATIS

VARUS, a Roman Prætor, Governor of Syria.
HEROD, King of Palaeftine.

MARIAMNE, Wife of Herod.

SALOME, Sifter of Herod.

ALBINUS, Friend to Varus.

MAZAEL, Herod's Ministers.
IDAMAS,

NABAL, an old Officer under the Afmonæan Kings.
ELIZA, Confidante of Mariamne.

Herod's Guard, Attendants on Varus, Herod, and Mariamnc.

SCENE JERUSALEM.

MARIAMNE.

MARIAM NE.

A

TRAGEDY.

ACT I. SCENE I.

SALOME, MAZAEL,

MAZAEL.

T is enough: the pow'r of Salome,
By all acknowledg'd, and by all obey'd,
On its firm bafis ftands immoveable :
I fled to Azor, with the light'ning's speed,
Ev'n from Samaria's plain to Jordan's spring,
And quick return'd: my prefence there indeed
Was needful, to cut off th'aspiring hopes
Of Ifrael's moody race: thy brother Herod,
So long detain'd at Rome, was almost grown
A stranger in his kingdom; and the people,

Ever capricious, turbulent, and bold,
Still to their kings unjuft, aloud proclaim'd,
That Herod was condemn'd to flavery
By haughty Rome; and Mariamne, rais'd
To the high rank of her proud ancestors,
Wou'd from the blood of our high-priests felect
A king, to rule o'er conquer'd Palaeftine.
With grief I fee, fhe is by all ador'd;

Her name the dear delight of ev'ry tongue;
Ifrael reveres the race from whence the fprang,
Ev'n to idolatry: her birth, her beauty,

And, above all, her forrows, melt the hearts
Of the rude rabble, who, thou knowft, deteft
And rail at us. They call her their dear fov'reign,
And feem to threaten thee with fwift deftruction.
I faw the fickle multitudes alarm'd

With idle tales like thefe, but foon I taught e'm
Another leffon; foon I made e'm tremble:

Told e'm great Herod, fraught with double pow'r,
And arm'd with vengeance, wou'd e'er long return:
His name alone ftruck terror to their fouls,
They faw their folly then, and wept in filence.

SALOME.

Thou told'ft them truth, for Herod comes, and foon

Shall make rebellious Sión bend beneath him.

Antony's