Sit down and weep the conquests he has made.
Lady, farewel: I leave thee not alone;

Yonder comes one whose love makes duty light. [Exit. Enter ANNA.

Anna. Forgive the rashness of your Anna's love: Urg'd by affection, I have thus presum'd

To interrupt your solitary thoughts;

And warn you of the hours that you neglect,
And lose in sadness.

Lady Rand. So to lose my hours

Is all the use I wish to make of time.

Anna. To blame thee, lady, suits not with my state: But sure I am, since death first prey'd on man, Never did sister thus a brother mourn. What had your sorrows been if you had lost, In early youth, the husband of your heart? Lady Rand. Oh!

Anna. Have I distrest you with officious love,
And ill-tim'd mention of your brother's fate?
Forgive me, lady: humble tho' I am,

The mind I bear partakes not of my fortune:
So fervently I love you, that to dry

These piteous tears,

Lady Rand. What power directed thy unconscious tongue

To speak as thou hast done? To name

Anna. I know not:

But, since my words have made my mistress tremble,
I will speak so no more; but silent mix

My tears with hers.

Lady Rand. No, thou shalt not be silent.
I'll trust thy faithful love, and thou shalt be
Henceforth th' instructed partner of my woes.
But what avails it? Can thy feeble pity
Roll back the flood of never-ebbing time?
Compel the earth and ocean to give up
Their dead alive?*

* "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death "aud hell delivered up the dead which were in them." Rev. xx. 13.

Anna. What means my noble mistress?

Lady Rand. Didst thou not ask what had my sorrows been,

If I in early youth had lost a husband?

In the cold bosom of the earth is lodg'd,
Mangl'd with wounds, the husband of my youth;
And in some cavern of the ocean lies

My child and his.

Anna. O! lady, most rever'd!

The tale wrapt up in your amazing words
Deign to unfold.

Lady Rand. Alas! an ancient feud,
Hereditary evil, was the source

Of my misfortunes. For it so befell,
That my brave brother did in battle save
The life of Douglas' son, our house's foe:
The youthful warriors vow'd eternal friendship.
To see the vaunted sister of his friend,
Impatient, Douglas to Balarmo came,

Under a borrow'd name.- -My heart he gain'd;
Nor did I long refuse the hand he begg'd:
My brother's presence authoriz'd our marriage.
Three weeks, three little weeks, with wings of down,
Had o'er us flown, when my lov'd lord was call'd
To fight his father's battles; and with him,
In spite of all my tears, did Malcolm go.

Scarce were they gone, when my stern sire was told
That the false stranger was lord Douglas' son.
Frantic with rage, the baron drew his sword
And question'd me. Alone, forsaken, faint,
Kneeling beneath his sword, fault'ring I took
An oath equivocal, that I ne'er would
Wed one of Douglas' name. Sincerity!
Thou first of virtues, let no mortal leave
Thy onward path! however pow'r may threat,
And death itself may haunt with all its fears,
To take dissimulation's winding way.*

This passage is altered from the original, though the strong figurative expression might perhaps have been defended by Isaiah v.

Anna. Alas! how few of woman's fearful kind, Durst own a truth so hardy!

Lady Rand. The first truth

Is easiest to avow. This moral learn,

This precious moral, from my tragic tale.
In a few days the dreadful tidings came

That Douglas and my brother both were slain.
My lord! my life! my husband!-mighty Godt!-
But I had sinn'd, and just are my afflictions!
Anna. My dearest lady! Many a tale of tears
I've listen'd to; but never did I hear
A tale so sad as this.

Lady Rand. In the first days

Of my distracting grief, I found myself-
As women wish to be who love their lords.

14. The author bas expressed the same sentiment in The Siege of Aquileia in better terms:

"There is but one,

Act IV.

"One only path which mortals safely tread, "The sacred path of rectitude and truth. "I follow, tho' it leads me to the tomb." On the very difficult subject of promises which are extorted by violence or fear, the reader may consult the late Dr. Pearson's Annotations on the Practical Part of Dr. Paley's" Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy." p. 57.

46

To this passage Mr. Cumberland, in his Critique, objects, that, "If Lady Randolph had inculcated the duty of speaking truth in all cases, and at all times, it had been a moral; but when she is only treating of the superior ease with which it is avowed at one time " rather than another, I think she might have called it a maxim "rather than a moral: and yet as such I doubt if it would have "held good in her case; for I conceive, if she could have hazarded "the first truth, and confessed her marriage, the second would have "been much the easiest to have owned, when she found herself→→

p. ix.

"As women wish to be who love their lords." I conceive the meaning of the passage to be, that it is always the easiest, or best, way to avow the truth in the first instance, whatever danger there may be in it, rather than attempt by dissimulationto avoid any present difficulty. Thus, had Lady Randolph, when urged to take an oath, that she would never wed one of Douglas' name, own'd that she was already married to one of the family, she would not have brought on herself the additional difficulty and guiltof concealing her pregnancy and the birth of the child, or owning. herself forsworn, or, what amounts to the same thing, that she had been guilty of equivocation in the oath she had taken. Thus, the first truth, or fact, had been easiest to avow.

The 12mo. reads Heaven.

But who durst tell my father? The good priest
Who join'd our hands, my brother's ancient tutor,
With his lov'd Malcolm, in the battle fell:
They two alone were privy to the marriage.
On silence and concealment I resolv'd,

Till time should make my father's fortune mine.
That very night on which my son was born,
My nurse, the only confident I had,

Set out with him to reach her sister's house:
But nurse, nor infant, have I ever seen,
Or heard of, Anna, since that fatal hour.
My murder'd child!--had thy fond mother fear'd
The loss of thee, she had loud fame defy'd,
Despis'd her father's rage, her father's grief,
And wander'd with thee thro' the scorning world.

Anna. Not seen, nor heard of! then perhaps he lives.
Lady Rand. No. It was dark December: wind and

Had beat all night. Across the Carron lay
The destin'd road; and in it's swelling flood
My faithful servant perish'd with my child.
O hapless son! of a most hapless sire!
But they are both at rest; and I alone
Dwell in this world of woe;

Nor e'en the dreary comfort is permitted me,
The comfort of a solitary sorrow.

Tho' dead to love, I was compell'd to wed
Randolph, who snatch'd me from a villain's arms;
And Randolph now possesses the domains,
That by Sir Malcolm's death on me devolv'd;
Domains, that should to Douglas' son have giv'n
A baron's title, and a baron's power.

Such were my soothing thoughts, while I bewail'd
The slaughter'd father of a son unborn.
And when that son came, like a ray from heav'n,
Which shines and disappears; alas! my child!
How long did thy fond mother grasp
the hope
Of having thee, she knew not how, restor❜d.
Year after year hath worn her hope away;
But left still undiminish'd her desire.

[rain

Anna. The hand, that spins th' uneven thread of life, May smooth the length that's yet to come of your's. Lady Rand. Not in this world: I have consider'd well 'It's various evils, and on whom they fall.

Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself,
And sweet affection prove the spring of woe!'
O! had I died when my lov'd husband fell!
Had some good angel op'd to me the book
Of Providence, and let me read my life,
My heart had broke, when I beheld the sum
Of ills, which one by one I have endur'd.*

Anna. That God, whose ministers good angels are,
Hath shut the book in mercy to mankind.
But we must leave this theme: Glenalvon comes:
I saw him bend on you his thoughtful eyes,
And hitherwards he slowly stalks his way.

Lady Rand. I will avoid him. An ungracious person Is doubly irksome in an hour like this.

Anna. Why speaks my lady thus of Randolph's heir? Lady Rand. Because he's not the heir of Randolph's Subtle and shrewd, he offers to mankind [virtues. An artificial image of himself:

* On this passage Mr. Cumberland observes in his Critique, “I "conceive her meaning to be, that if the good angel had permitted "her to read before hand the catalogue of all the ills she had one by "one endured, it would have broken her heart to have beheld the

sum of them; and the deduction naturally to be drawn from this "position is, that if breaking her heart had caused her death, (which ❝ in all likelihood would have been the result) it should follow that "the courtesy of the good angel in opening the book, and suffering "her to peruse the incidents of her future life, so very close upon "her instant death, would have marred the truth of prophecy, and "disappointed the decrees of Providence." p. XI.

Literally speaking this is true. But the criticism I consider as hypercritical, The meaning is sufficiently obvious to the understanding and heart of every hearer and reader, that, had she known béforehand what afflictions awaited her, her heart had been overwhelmed with sorrow at the anticipation of them. The idea of the angel and The book of Providence, I suppose to be taken from the book of Revelations, in the fourth and following chapters; and, after reading them, may we not exclaim with Balaam in a similar case, "Alas, who shall live when God doeth this!"? (Numb. xxiv, 23.). The reply of Anna is good.

+ The 12mo. reads Power.