EPILOGUE.

SPOKEN BY LIMBERHAM.

I beg a boon, that, ere you all disband,
Some one would take my bargain off my hand :
To keep a punk is but a common evil;

To find her false, and marry,—that's the devil.
Well, I ne'er acted part in all my life,

But still I was fobb'd off with some such wife.
I find the trick ; these poets take no pity
Of one that is a member of the city.
We cheat you lawfully, and in our trades;
You cheat us basely with your common jades.
Now I am married, I must sit down by it;
But let me keep my dear-bought spouse in quiet.
Let none of you damn'd Woodalls of the pit,
Put in for shares to mend our breed in wit;
We know your bastards from our flesh and blood,
Not one in ten of yours e'er comes to good.
In all the boys, their fathers' virtues shine,
But all the female fry turn Pugs-like mine.
When these grow up, Lord, with what rampant gadders
Our counters will be throng'd, and roads with padders!
This town two bargains has, not worth one farthing,-
A Smithfield horse, and wife of Covent-Garden.*

* Alluding to an old proverb, that whoso goes to Westminster for a wife, to St Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade. Falstaff, on being informed that Bardolph is gone to Smithfield to buy him a horse, observes, "I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield; an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived." Second Part of Henry IV. Act. I. Scene II.

CEDIPUS.

The dreadful subject of this piece has been celebrated by seve ral ancient and modern dramatists. Of seven tragedies of Sophocles, which have reached our times, two are founded on the history of Edipus. The first of these, called " Edipus Tyrannus," has been extolled by every critic since the days of Aristotle, for the unparalleled art with which the story is managed. The dreadful secret, the existence of which is announced by the pestilence, and by the wrath of the offended deities, seems each moment on the verge of being explained, yet, till the last act, the reader is still held in horrible suspense. Every circumstance, resorted to for the purpose of evincing the falsehood of the oracle, tends gradually to confirm the guilt of Edipus, and to accelerate the catastrophe; while his own supposed consciousness of innocence, at once interests us in his favour, and precipitates the horrible discovery. Dryden, who arranged the whole plan of the following tragedy, although assisted by Lee in the execution, was fully aware of the merit of the "Edipus Tyrannus;" and, with the addition of the under-plot of Adrastus and Eurydice, has traced out the events of the drama, in close imitation of Sophocles. The Grecian bard, however, in concurrence with the history or tradition of Greece, has made dipus survive the discovery of his unintentional guilt, and reserved him, in blindness and banishment, for the subject of his second tragedy of " Edipus Coloneus." This may have been well judged, considering that the audience were intimately acquainted with the important scenes which were to follow among the descendants of Edipus, with the first and second wars against Thebes, and her final conquest by the ancestors of those Athenians, before whom the play was rehearsed, led on by their demi-god Theseus. They were also prepared to receive, with reverence and faith, the belief on which the whole interest turns, that if Edipus should be restored to Thebes, the vengeance of the gods against the devoted city might be averted; and to applaud his determination to remain on Athenian ground, that the predestined curse might descend on his unnatural sons and ungrateful country. But while the modern reader admires the lofty tone of poetry and high strain of morality which pervades " Edipus Coloneus," it must appear more natural to his feelings, that the life of the hero,

stained with unintentional incest and parricide, should be terminated, as in Dryden's play, upon the discovery of his complicated guilt and wretchedness. Yet there is something awful in the idea of the monarch, blind and exiled, innocent in intention, though so horribly criminal in fact, devoted, as it were, to the infernal deities, and sacred from human power and violence by the very excess of his guilt and misery. The account of the death of Edipus Coloneus reaches the highest tone of sublimity. While the lightning flashes around him, he expresses the feeling, that his hour is come; and the reader anticipates, that, like Malefort in the "Unnatural Combat," he is to perish by a thunder-bolt. Yet, for the awful catastrophe, which we are led artfully to expect, is substituted a mysterious termination, still more awful. Edipus arrays himself in splendid apparel, and dismisses his daughters and the attending Athenians. Theseus alone remains with him. The storm subsides, and the attendants return to their place, but Œdipus is there no longer he had not perished by water, by sword, nor by fire-no one but Theseus knew the manner of his death. With an impressive hint, that it was as strange and wonderful as his life had been dismally eventful, the poet drops a curtain over the fate of his hero. This last sublime scene Dryden has not ventured to imitate; and the rants of Lee are a poor substitute for the calm and determined despair of the " Edipus Coloneus.”

Seneca, perhaps to check the seeds of vice in Nero, his pupil, to whom incest and blood were afterwards so familiar,* composed the Latin tragedy on the subject of Edipus, which is alluded to by Dryden in the following preface. The cold declamatory rhetorical style of that philosopher was adapted precisely to counteract the effect, which a tale of terror produces on the feelings and imagination. His taste exerted itself in filling up and garnishing the more trifling passages, which Sophocles had passed over as unworthy of notice, and in adjusting incidents laid in the heroic age of Grecian simplicity, according to the taste and customs of the court of Nero. Yet though devoid of dramatic effect, of fancy, and of genius, the Edipus of Seneca displays the masculine eloquence and high moral sentiment of its author; and if it does not interest us in the scene of fiction, it often compels us to turn our thoughts inward, and to study our own hearts.

Nero is said to have represented the character of Edipus, amongst others of the same horrible cast.-Suctonius, Lib. VI. Cap. 21.

Thus Seneca is justly ridiculed by Dacier, for sending Laius forth with a numerous party of guards, to avoid the indecorum of a king going abroad too slenderly attended. The guards lose their way within a league of their master's capital; and, by this awkward contrivance, their absence is accounted for, when he is met by Edipus.