Re-enter Torrismond.

Tor. Still she is here, and still I cannot speak;
But wander, like some discontented ghost,
That oft appears, but is forbid to talk.[Going again.

Leo. O, Torrismond, if you resolve my death,
You need no more, but to go hence again;
Will you not speak?

Tor. I cannot.

Leo. Speak! oh, speak!
Your anger would be kinder than your silence.

Tor. Oh!—

Leo. Do not sigh, or tell me why you sigh.

Tor. Why do I live, ye powers!

Leo. Why do I live to hear you speak that word?
Some black-mouthed villain has defamed my virtue.

Tor. No, no! Pray, let me go.

Tor. Rise.

Leo. I will never rise;
I cannot chuse a better place to die.

Tor. Oh! I would speak, but cannot.

Leo. [Rising.]
Guilt keeps you silent then; you love me not:
What have I done, ye powers, what have I done,
To see my youth, my beauty, and my love,
No sooner gained, but slighted and betrayed;
And, like a rose, just gathered from the stalk,
But only smelt, and cheaply thrown aside,
To wither on the ground.

Ter. For heaven's sake, madam, moderate your passion!

Leo. Why namest thou heaven? there is no heaven for me.
Despair, death, hell, have seized my tortured soul!
When I had raised his grovelling fate from ground,
To power and love, to empire, and to me;
When each embrace was dearer than the first;
Then, then to be contemned; then, then thrown off!
It calls me old, and withered, and deformed,
And loathsome! Oh! what woman can bear loathsome?
The turtle flies not from his billing mate,
He bills the closer; but, ungrateful man,
Base, barbarous man! the more we raise our love,
The more we pall, and kill, and cool his ardour.
Racks, poison, daggers, rid me of my life;
And any death is welcome.

Leo. No! give it me,
Even though it be the sentence of my death.

Tor. Then see how much unhappy love has made us.
O Leonora! Oh!
We two were born when sullen planets reigned;
When each the other's influence opposed,
And drew the stars to factions at our birth.
Oh! better, better had it been for us,
That we had never seen, or never loved.

Leo. There is no faith in heaven, if heaven says so;
You dare not give it.

Tor. As unwillingly,
As I would reach out opium to a friend,
Who lay in torture, and desired to die.[Gives the Paper.
But now you have it, spare my sight the pain
Of seeing what a world of tears it costs you.
Go, silently, enjoy your part of grief,
And share the sad inheritance with me.

Leo. I have a thirsty fever in my soul;
Give me but present ease, and let me die. [Exeunt Queen and Teresa.

Enter Lorenzo.

Lor. Arm, arm, my lord! the city bands are up;
Drums beating, colours flying, shouts confused;
All clustering in a heap, like swarming hives,
And rising in a moment.

Tor. With design to punish Bertran, and revenge the king;
'Twas ordered so.

Tor. The queen, Lorenzo! durst they name the queen?

Lor. If railing and reproaching be to name her.

Tor. O sacrilege! say quickly, who commands
This vile blaspheming rout?

Lor. I'm loth to tell you;
But both our fathers thrust them headlong on,
And bear down all before them.

Tor. Death and hell!
Somewhat must be resolved, and speedily.
How say'st thou, my Lorenzo? dar'st thou be
A friend, and once forget thou art a son,
To help me save the queen?

Lor. [Aside.] Let me consider:—
Bear arms against my father? he begat me;—
That's true; but for whose sake did he beget me?
For his own, sure enough: for me he knew not.
Oh! but says conscience,—Fly in nature's face?—
But how, if nature fly in my face first?
Then nature's the aggressor; let her look to't.—
He gave me life, and he may take it back:
No, that's boys' play, say I.
'Tis policy for a son and father to take different sides:
For then, lands and tenements commit no treason.
[To Tor.] Sir, upon mature consideration, I have found my father to be little better than a rebel, and therefore, I'll do my best to secure him, for your sake; in hope, you may secure him hereafter for my sake.

Tor. Put on thy utmost speed to head the troops,
Which every moment I expect to arrive;
Proclaim me, as I am, the lawful king:
I need not caution thee for Raymond's life,
Though I no more must call him father now.

Tor. [At the Door.]
Haste there; command the guards be all drawn up
Before the palace-gate.—By heaven, I'll face
This tempest, and deserve the name of king!
O Leonora, beauteous in thy crimes,
Never were hell and heaven so matched before!
Look upward, fair, but as thou look'st on me;
Then all the blest will beg, that thou may'st live,
And even my father's ghost his death forgive.[Exit.

SCENE II.—The Palace-Yard. Drums and Trumpets within.

Enter Raymond, Alphonso, Pedro, and their Party.

Raym. Now, valiant citizens, the time is come,
To show your courage, and your loyalty.
You have a prince of Sancho's royal blood,
The darling of the heavens, and joy of earth;
When he's produced, as soon he shall, among you,
Speak, what will you adventure to reseat him
Upon his father's throne?

Omn. Our lives and fortunes.

Raym. What then remains to perfect our success;
But o'er the tyrant's guards to force our way?

Enter Torrismond and his Party: As they are going to fight, he speaks.

Tor. [To his.] Hold, hold your arms.

Raym. [To his.] Retire.

Alph. What means this pause?

Ped. Peace; nature works within them. [Alph. and Ped. go apart.

Tor. How comes it, good old man, that we two meet
On these harsh terms? thou very reverend rebel;
Thou venerable traitor, in whose face
And hoary hairs treason is sanctified,
And sin's black dye seems blanched by age to virtue.

Raym. What treason is it to redeem my king,
And to reform the state?

Tor. That's a stale cheat;
The primitive rebel, Lucifer, first used it,
And was the first reformer of the skies.

Raym. What, if I see my prince mistake a poison,
Call it a cordial,—am I then a traitor,
Because I hold his hand, or break the glass?

Tor. How darest thou serve thy king against his will?

Raym. Because 'tis then the only time to serve him.

Tor. I take the blame of all upon myself;
Discharge thy weight on me.

Raym. O never, never!
Why, 'tis to leave a ship, tossed in a tempest,
Without the pilot's care.

Tor. I'll punish thee;
By heaven, I will, as I would punish rebels,
Thou stubborn loyal man!

Tor. Proclaim my title,
To save the effusion of my subjects' blood; and thou shalt still
Be as my foster-father near my breast,
And next my Leonora.

Raym. That word stabs me.
You shall be still plain Torrismond with me;
The abettor, partner, (if you like that name,)
The husband of a tyrant; but no king,
Till you deserve that title by your justice.

Tor. Then farewell, pity; I will be obeyed.—
[To the People.] Hear, you mistaken men, whose loyalty
Runs headlong into treason: See your prince!
In me behold your murdered Sancho's son;
Dismiss your arms, and I forgive your crimes.

Raym. Believe him not; he raves; his words are loose
As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense.
You see he knows not me, his natural father;
But, aiming to possess the usurping queen,
So high he's mounted in his airy hopes,
That now the wind is got into his head,
And turns his brains to frenzy.

Tor. Hear me yet; I am—

Raym. Fall on, fall on, and hear him not;
But spare his person, for his father's sake.

Ped. Let me come; if he be mad, I have that shall cure him. There's no surgeon in all Arragon has so much dexterity as I have at breathing of the temple-vein.

Tor. My right for me!

Raym. Our liberty for us!

Omn. Liberty, liberty!

Lor. On forfeit of your lives, lay down your arms.

Alph. How, rebel, art thou there?

Lor. Take your rebel back again, father mine: The beaten party are rebels to the conquerors. I have been at hard-head with your butting citizens; I have routed your herd; I have dispersed them; and now they are retreated quietly, from their extraordinary vocation of fighting in the streets, to their ordinary vocation of cozening in their shops.

Tor. [To Raym.]
You see 'tis vain contending with the truth;
Acknowledge what I am.

Raym. You are my king;—would you would be your own!
But, by a fatal fondness, you betray
Your fame and glory to the usurper's bed.
Enjoy the fruits of blood and parricide,
Take your own crown from Leonora's gift,
And hug your father's murderer in your arms!

Enter Queen, Teresa, and Women.

Alph. No more; behold the queen.

Raym. Behold the basilisk of Torrismond,
That kills him with her eyes—I will speak on;
My life is of no farther use to me:
I would have chaffered it before for vengeance;
Now let it go for failing.

Tor. My heart sinks in me while I hear him speak,
And every slackened fibre drops its hold,
Like nature letting down the springs of life;
So much the name of father awes me still—[Aside.
Send off the crowd; for you, now I have conquered,
I can hear with honour your demands.

Tor. O Leonora, what can love do more?
I have opposed your ill fate to the utmost;
Combated heaven and earth to keep you mine;
And yet at last that tyrant justice! Oh—

Leo. 'Tis past, 'tis past, and love is ours no more;
Yet I complain not of the powers above;
They made me a miser's feast of happiness,
And could not furnish out another meal.
Now, by yon stars, by heaven, and earth, and men,
By all my foes at once, I swear, my Torrismond,
That to have had you mine for one short day,
Has cancelled half my mighty sum of woes!
Say but you hate me not.

Tor. I cannot hate you.

Raym. Can you not? say that once more,
That all the saints may witness it against you.

Leo. Cruel Raymond!
Can he not punish me, but he must hate?
O, 'tis not justice, but a brutal rage,
Which hates the offender's person with his crimes!
I have enough to overwhelm one woman,
To lose a crown and lover in a day:
Let pity lend a tear, when rigour strikes.

Raym. Then, then you should have thought of tears and pity,
When virtue, majesty, and hoary age,
Pleaded for Sancho's life.

Leo. My future days shall be one whole contrition:
A chapel will I build, with large endowment,
Where every day an hundred aged men
Shall all hold up their withered hands to heaven,
To pardon Sancho's death.

Raym. Heaven may forgive a crime to penitence,
For heaven can judge if penitence be true;
But man, who knows not hearts, should make examples
Which, like a warning piece, must be shot off,
To fright the rest from crimes.

Leo. Had I but known that Sancho was his father,
I would have poured a deluge of my blood,
To save one drop of his.

Tor. Mark that, inexorable Raymond, mark!
'Twas fatal ignorance, that caused his death.

Raym. What! if she did not know he was your father,
She knew he was a man, the best of men;
Heaven's image double-stamped, as man and king.

Leo. He was, he was, even more than you can say;
But yet—

Raym. But yet you barbarously murdered him.

Leo. He will not hear me out!

Tor. Was ever criminal forbid to plead?
Curb your ill-mannered zeal.

Raym. Sing to him, syren;
For I shall stop my ears: Now mince the sin,
And mollify damnation with a phrase;
Say, you consented not to Sancho's death,
But barely not forbade it.

Tor. Never was fatal mischief meant so kind,
For all she gave has taken all away.
Malicious powers! is this to be restored?
'Tis to be worse deposed than Sancho was.

Raym. Heaven has restored you, you depose yourself.
Oh, when young kings begin with scorn of justice,
They make an omen to their after reign,
And blot their annals in the foremost page.

Tor. No more; lest you be made the first example,
To show how I can punish.

Raym. Once again:
Let her be made your father's sacrifice,
And after make me hers.

Tor. Condemn a wife!
That were to atone for parricide with murder.

Raym. Then let her be divorced: we'll be content
With that poor scanty justice; let her part.

Tor. Divorce! that's worse than death, 'tis death of love.

Leo. The soul and body part not with such pain,
As I from you; but yet 'tis just, my lord:
I am the accurst of heaven, the hate of earth,
Your subjects' detestation, and your ruin;
And therefore fix this doom upon myself.

Tor. Heaven! Can you wish it, to be mine no more?

Tor. Hear this, hear this, thou tribune of the people!
Thou zealous, public blood-hound, hear, and melt!

Raym. [Aside.]
I could cry now; my eyes grow womanish,
But yet my heart holds out.

Leo. Some solitary cloister will I chuse,
And there with holy virgins live immured:
Coarse my attire, and short shall be my sleep,
Broke by the melancholy midnight bell.
Now, Raymond, now be satisfied at last:
Fasting and tears, and penitence and prayer,
Shall do dead Sancho justice every hour.

Raym. [Aside.] By your leave, manhood! [Wipes his eyes.

Tor. He weeps! now he is vanquished.

Raym. No: 'tis a salt rheum, that scalds my eyes.

Leo. If he were vanquished, I am still unconquered.
I'll leave you in the height of all my love,
Even when my heart is beating out its way,
And struggles to you most.
Farewell, a last farewell, my dear, dear lord!
Remember me!—speak, Raymond, will you let him?
Shall he remember Leonora's love,
And shed a parting tear to her misfortunes?

Raym. [Almost crying.] Yes, yes, he shall; pray go.

Tor. Now, by my soul, she shall not go: why, Raymond,
Her every tear is worth a father's life.
Come to my arms, come, my fair penitent!
Let us not think what future ills may fall.
But drink deep draughts of love, and lose them all. [Exeunt Tor. with the Queen.

Enter Alphonso and Pedro.

Alph. Brother, there's news from Bertran; he desires
Admittance to the king, and cries aloud,—
This day shall end our fears of civil war!—
For his safe conduct he entreats your presence,
And begs you would be speedy.

Raym. Though I loath
The traitor's sight, I'll go. Attend us here.[Exit.

Enter Gomez, Elvira, Dominick, with Officers, to make the Stage as full as possible.

Ped. Why, how now, Gomez? what mak'st thou here, with a whole brotherhood of city-bailiffs? Why, thou look'st like Adam in Paradise, with his guard of beasts about him.

Gom. Ay, and a man had need of them, Don Pedro; for here are the two old seducers, a wife and priest,—that's Eve and the serpent,—at my elbow.

Dom. Take notice how uncharitably he talks of churchmen.

Gom. Indeed, you are a charitable belswagger! My wife cried out,—"Fire, fire!" and you brought out your church-buckets, and called for engines to play against it.

Alph. I am sorry you are come hither to accuse your wife; her education has been virtuous, her nature mild and easy.

Gom. Yes! she's easy, with a vengeance; there's a certain colonel has found her so.

Alph. She came a spotless virgin to your bed.

Elv. Indeed, sir, I have no reason to complain of him for disturbing of my sleep.

Dom. A fine commendation you have given yourself; the church did not marry you for that.

Ped. Come, come, your grievances, your grievances.

Dom. Why, noble sir, I'll tell you.

Gom. Peace, friar! and let me speak first. I am the plaintiff. Sure you think you are in the pulpit, where you preach by hours.

Dom. And you edify by minutes.

Gom. Where you make doctrines for the people, and uses and applications for yourselves.

Ped. Gomez, give way to the old gentleman in black.

Gom. No! the t'other old gentleman in black shall take me if I do; I will speak first!—Nay, I will, friar, for all your verbum sacerdotis. I'll speak truth in few words, and then you may come afterwards and lie by the clock as you use to do.—For, let me tell you, gentlemen, he shall lie and forswear himself with any friar in all Spain; that's a bold word now.—

Dom. Let him alone; let him alone; I shall fetch him back with a circum-bendibus, I warrant him.

Alph. Well, what have you to say against your wife, Gomez?

Gom. O Lord! O Lord!

Dom. Ay, and O lady! O lady too!—I redouble my oath, I had never seen him. Well, this noble colonel, like a true gentleman, was for taking the weaker part, you may be sure; whereupon this Gomez flew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado upon bastinado, and buffet upon buffet, which the poor meek colonel, being prostrate, suffered with a most Christian patience.

Gom. Who? he meek? I'm sure I quake at the very thought of him; why, he's as fierce as Rhodomont; he made assault and battery upon my person, beat me into all the colours of the rainbow; and every word this abominable priest has uttered is as false as the Alcoran. But if you want a thorough-paced liar, that will swear through thick and thin, commend me to a friar.

Enter Lorenzo, who comes behind the Company, and stands at his Fathers back unseen, over-against Gomez.

Lor. How now! What's here to do? my cause a trying, as I live, and that before my own father.—Now fourscore take him for an old bawdy magistrate, that stands like the picture of madam Justice, with a pair of scales in his hand, to weigh lechery by ounces!
[Aside.

Alph. Well—but all this while, who is this colonel Hernando?

Ped. What, backward and forward, Gomez! dost thou hunt counter?

Alph. Had this colonel any former design upon your wife? for, if that be proved, you shall have justice.

Gom. [Aside.] Now I dare speak,—let him look as dreadfully as he will.—I say, sir, and I will prove it, that he had a lewd design upon her body, and attempted to corrupt her honesty.
[Lorenzo lifts up his fist clenched at him.
I confess my wife was as willing—as himself; and, I believe, 'twas she corrupted him; for I have known him formerly a very civil and modest person.

Elv. You see, sir, he contradicts himself at every word; he's plainly mad.

Alph. Speak boldly, man! and say what thou wilt stand by: did he strike thee?

Gom. I will speak boldly; he struck me on the face before my own threshold, that the very walls cried shame to him.
[Lorenzo holds up again.
'Tis true, I gave him provocation, for the man's as peaceable a gentleman as any is in all Spain.

Dom. Now the truth comes out, in spite of him.

Ped. I believe the friar has bewitched him.

Alph. For my part, I see no wrong that has been offered him.

Dom. Fresh straw, and a dark chamber; a most manifest judgment! there never comes better of railing against the church.

Gom. Why, what will you have me say? I think you'll make me mad: truth has been at my tongue's end this half hour, and I have not power to bring it out, for fear of this bloody-minded colonel.

Alph. What colonel?

Gom. Why, my colonel—I mean my wife's colonel, that appears there to me like my malus genius, terrifies me.

Alph. [Turning.] Now you are mad indeed, Gomez; this is my son Lorenzo.

Gom. How? your son Lorenzo! it is impossible.

Alph. As true as your wife Elvira is my daughter.

Lor. What, have I taken all this pains about a sister?

Gom. No, you have taken some about me; I am sure, if you are her brother, my sides can show the tokens of our alliance.

Alph. to Lor. You know I put your sister into a nunnery, with a strict command not to see you, for fear you should have wrought upon her to have taken the habit, which was never my intention; and consequently, I married her without your knowledge, that it might not be in your power to prevent it.

Elv. You see, brother, I had a natural affection to you.

Elv. However, we are both beholden to friar Dominick; the church is an indulgent mother, she never fails to do her part.

Dom. Heavens! what will become of me?

Gom. Why, you are not like to trouble heaven; those fat guts were never made for mounting.

Lor. I shall make bold to disburden him of my hundred pistoles, to make him the lighter for his journey: indeed, 'tis partly out of conscience, that I may not be accessory to his breaking his vow of poverty.

Alph. I have no secular power to reward the pains you have taken with my daughter; but I shall do it by proxy, friar: your bishop's my friend, and is too honest to let such as you infect a cloister.

Gom. Ay, do, father-in-law, let him be stript of his habit, and disordered.—I would fain see him walk in querpo, like a cased rabbit, without his holy fur upon his back, that the world may once behold the inside of a friar.

Dom. Farewell, kind gentlemen; I give you all my blessing before I go.—May your sisters, wives, and daughters, be so naturally lewd, that they may have no occasion for a devil to tempt, or a friar to pimp for them.
[Exeunt, with a rabble pushing him.

Enter Torrismond, Leonora, Bertran, Raymond, Teresa, &c.

Bert. Bad men, when 'tis their interest, may do good.
I must confess, I counselled Sancho's murder;
And urged the queen by specious arguments:
But, still suspecting that her love was changed,
I spread abroad the rumour of his death,
To sound the very soul of her designs.
The event, you know, was answering to my fears;
She threw the odium of the fact on me,
And publicly avowed her love to you.

Raym. Heaven guided all, to save the innocent.

Bert. I plead no merit, but a bare forgiveness.

Tor. Not only that, but favour. Sancho's life,
Whether by virtue or design preserved,
Claims all within my power.

Leo. My prayers are heard;
And I have nothing farther to desire,
But Sancho's leave to authorise our marriage.

Tor. Oh! fear not him! pity and he are one;
So merciful a king did never live;
Loth to revenge, and easy to forgive.
But let the bold conspirator beware,
For heaven makes princes its peculiar care.[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.
BY A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S.

END OF THE SIXTH VOLUME.

Edinburgh,
Printed by J. Ballantyne & Co.