No More Learning

_Cleo. _ Your words are like the notes of dying swans,
Too sweet to last. Were there so many hours
For your unkindness, and not one for love?

_Ant. _ No, not a minute. --This one kiss--more worth
Than all I leave to Cæsar. [_Dies. _

_Cleo. _ O, tell me so again,
And take ten thousand kisses for that word.
My lord, my lord! speak, if you yet have being;
Sign to me, if you cannot speak; or cast
One look! Do any thing, that shows you live.

_Iras. _ He's gone too far to hear you;
And this you see, a lump of senseless clay,
The leavings of a soul.

_Char. _ Remember, madam,
He charged you not to grieve.

_Cleo. _ And I'll obey him.
I have not loved a Roman, not to know
What should become his wife; his wife, my Charmion!
For 'tis to that high title I aspire;
And now I'll not die less. Let dull Octavia
Survive, to mourn him dead: My nobler fate
Shall knit our spousals with a tie, too strong
For Roman laws to break.

_Iras. _ Will you then die?

_Cleo. _ Why should'st thou make that question?

_Iras. _ Cæsar is most merciful.

_Cleo. _ Let him be so
To those that want his mercy: My poor lord
Made no such covenant with him, to spare me
When he was dead. Yield me to Cæsar's pride?
What! to be led in triumph through the streets,
A spectacle to base plebeian eyes;
While some dejected friend of Antony's,
Close in a corner, shakes his head, and mutters
A secret curse on her, who ruined him!
I'll none of that.

_Char. _ Whatever you resolve,
I'll follow, even to death.

_Iras. _ I only feared
For you; but more should fear to live without you.

_Cleo. _ Why, now, 'tis as it should be. Quick, my friends,
Despatch; ere this, the town's in Cæsar's hands:
My lord looks down concerned, and fears my stay,
Lest I should be surprised;
Keep him not waiting for his love too long.
You, Charmion, bring my crown and richest jewels;
With them, the wreath of victory I made
(Vain augury! ) for him, who now lies dead:
You, Iras, bring the cure of all our ills.

_Iras. _ The aspicks, madam?

_Cleo. _ Must I bid you twice? [_Ex. _ CHAR. _and_ IRAS.
'Tis sweet to die, when they would force life on me,
To rush into the dark abode of death,
And seize him first; if he be like my love,
He is not frightful, sure.
We're now alone, in secresy and silence;
And is not this like lovers? I may kiss
These pale, cold lips; Octavia does not see me:
And, oh! 'tis better far to have him thus,
Than see him in her arms. --O welcome, welcome!

_Enter_ CHARMION _and_ IRAS.

_Char. _ What must be done?

_Cleo. _ Short ceremony, friends;
But yet it must be decent. First, this laurel
Shall crown my hero's head: he fell not basely,
Nor left his shield behind him. --Only thou
Could'st triumph o'er thyself; and thou alone
Wert worthy so to triumph.

_Char. _ To what end
These ensigns of your pomp and royalty?

_Cleo. _ Dull, that thou art! why,'tis to meet my love;
As when I saw him first, on Cydnos' bank,
All sparkling, like a goddess: so adorned,
I'll find him once again; my second spousals
Shall match my first in glory. Haste, haste, both,
And dress the bride of Antony.

_Char. _ 'Tis done.

_Cleo. _ Now seat me by my lord. I claim this place;
For I must conquer Cæsar too, like him,
And win my share of the world. --Hail, you dear relicks
Of my immortal love!
O let no impious hand remove you hence;
But rest for ever here! Let Egypt give
His death that peace, which it denied his life. --
Reach me the casket.

_Iras. _ Underneath the fruit the aspick lies.

_Cleo. _ Welcome, thou kind deceiver! [_Putting aside the leaves. _
Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key,
Dost open life, and, unperceived by us,
Even steal us from ourselves; discharging so
Death's dreadful office, better than himself;
Touching our limbs so gently into slumber,
That death stands by, deceived by his own image,
And thinks himself but sleep.

_Serap. _ The queen, where is she? [_Within. _
The town is yielded, Cæsar's at the gates.

_Cleo. _ He comes too late to invade the rights of death.
Haste, bare my arm, and rouse the serpent's fury.
[_Holds out her arm, and draws it back. _
Coward flesh,
Would'st thou conspire with Cæsar to betray me,
As thou wert none of mine? I'll force thee to it,
And not be sent by him,
But bring myself, my soul, to Antony.
[_Turns aside, and then shows her arm bloody. _
Take hence; the work is done.

_Serap. _ Break ope the door, [_Within. _
And guard the traitor well.

_Char. _ The next is ours.

_Iras. _ Now, Charmion, to be worthy
Of our great queen and mistress. [_They apply the aspicks. _

_Cleo. _ Already, death, I feel thee in my veins:
I go with such a will to find my lord,
That we shall quickly meet.
A heavy numbness creeps through every limb,
And now 'tis at my head: My eye-lids fall,
And my dear love is vanished in a mist.
Where shall I find him, where? O turn me to him,
And lay me on his breast! --Cæsar, thy worst;
Now part us, if thou canst. [_Dies. _
[IRAS _sinks down at her feet, and dies;_ CHARMION
_stands behind her chair, as dressing her head. _

_Enter_ SERAPION, _two Priests,_ ALEXAS _bound, Egyptians. _

_Priest. _ Behold, Serapion, what havock death has made!

_Serap. _ 'Twas what I feared. --
Charmion, is this well done?

_Char. _ Yes, 'tis well done, and like a queen, the last
Of her great race: I follow her. [_Sinks down; dies. _

_Alex. _ 'Tis true,
She has done well: Much better thus to die,
Than live to make a holiday in Rome.

_Serap. _ See, how the lovers sit in state together,
As they were giving laws to half mankind!
The impression of a smile, left in her face,
Shows she died pleased with him for whom she lived.
And went to charm him in another
Cæsar's just entering: grief has now no leisure.
Secure that villain, as our pledge of safety,
To grace the imperial triumph. --Sleep, blest pair,
Secure from human chance, long ages out,
While all the storms of fate fly o'er your tomb;
And fame to late posterity shall tell,
No lovers lived so great, or died so well. [_Exeunt. _


Footnotes:
1. There was anciently some foolish idea about a wren soaring on an
eagle's back. Colley Cibber, as Dr Johnson observed, converted the
wren into a linnet:

Perched on the eagle's towering wing,
The lowly linnet loves to sing.

2. Approach there--Ay, you kite! --
--Now, gods and devils!
Authority melts from me: of late, when I cried ho!
Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth
And cry, your will. --Have you no ears?
I am Antony yet. --

The same idea, which bursts from Shakespeare's Antony in a
transport of passion, is used by Dryden's hero. The one is goaded
by the painful feeling of lost power; to the other, absorbed in his
sentimental distresses, it only occurs as a subject of melancholy,
but not of agitating reflection.

3. Imitated, or rather copied, from Shakespeare.

_Don John. _ I came hither to tell you, and circumstances shortened
(for she hath been too long a talking of) the lady is disloyal.

_Claudia. _ Who? Hero?

_Don John. _ Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.




EPILOGUE.


Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,
Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail.
Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thundered through the pit;
And this is all their equipage of wit.
We wonder how the devil this difference grows,
Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:
For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood,
'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.
The thread-bare author hates the gaudy coat;
And swears at the gilt coach, but swears a-foot;
For 'tis observed of every scribbling man,
He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can;
Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
If pink and purple best become his face.
For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays;
Nor likes your wit just as you like his plays;
He has not yet so much of Mr Bayes.
He does his best; and if he cannot please,
Would quietly sue out his _writ of ease_.
Yet, if he might his own grand jury call,
By the fair sex he begs to stand or fall.
Let Cæsar's power the men's ambition move,
But grace you him, who lost the world for love!
Yet if some antiquated lady say,
The last age is not copied in his play;
Heaven help the man who for that face must drudge,
Which only has the wrinkles of a judge.
Let not the young and beauteous join with those;
For should you raise such numerous hosts of foes,
Young wits and sparks he to his aid must call;
'Tis more than one man's work to please you all.


* * * * *


END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.


Edinburgh:

Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.





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Title: The Works of John Dryden, Volume 18 of 18
Dialogue concerning Women; Characters; Life of Lucian;
Letters; Appendix; Index

Author: John Dryden

Editor: Walter Scott

Release Date: December 7, 2015 [EBook #50637]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN ***




Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Wayne hammond and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net










THE

WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN,

NOW FIRST COLLECTED

_IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES_.

ILLUSTRATED

WITH NOTES,

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,

AND

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

VOL. XVIII.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,
BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

1808.




CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME EIGHTEENTH.


PAGE.

Preface to a Dialogue concerning Women; being
a Defence of the Sex, 1

Character of M. St Evremont, 9

The Character of Polybius, 17

The Life of Lucian, 53

Dryden’s Letters, 83

Appendix, 183

Index, i




PREFACE
TO
A DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN;
BEING
A DEFENCE OF THE SEX,

ADDRESSED TO EUGENIA, BY WILLIAM WALSH, ESQ.

8VO, 1691.




PREFACE

TO

A DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN.


The author of this Dialogue, as Dr Johnson has observed, was more
remarkable for his familiarity with men of genius, than for any
productions of his own. He was the son of Joseph Walsh of Abberley,
in Worcestershire, and was born to an easy fortune. This last
circumstance may have contributed something to the extreme respect in
which he seems to have been held by the most accomplished of his age.
Dryden, in the Postscript to “Virgil,” calls Walsh the best critic
of the English nation; and, in the following Preface, he is profuse
in his commendation. But though these praises may have exceeded the
measure of Walsh’s desert, posterity owe a grateful remembrance to
him, who, though a staunch Whig, respected and befriended Dryden in
age and adversity, and who encouraged the juvenile essays of Pope, by
foretelling his future eminence. Walsh’s own Poems and Essays entitle
him to respectable rank among the minor poets. His Essay on the
Pastorals of Virgil, which he contributed to our author’s version, may
be found Vol. XIII. p.