Com. Where is that flave, Which told me they had beat you to your trenches ? Where is he? call him hither. Mar. Let him alone, He did inform the truth: but, for our gentlemen, The common file, (a plague! tribunes for them!) The mouse ne'er funn'd the cat, as they did budge From rafcals worfe than they. Com. But how prevail'd you? Mar. Will the time ferve to tell? I do not thinkWhere is the enemy? are you Lords o' th' field? If not, why cease you 'till you are fo? Com. Marcius, we have at difadvantage fought, And did retire to win our purpose. Mar. How lies their battle? know you on what fide They have plac'd their men of truft? Com. As I guefs, Marcius, Their bands i' th' vaward are the Antiates Of their best truft: o'er them Aufidius, Their very heart of hope. Mar. I do beseech you, By all the battles wherein we have fought, Com. Though I could wish, You were conducted to a gentle bath, Mar. Thofe are they, That most are willing; if any fuch be here, If any think, brave death out-weighs bad life, Let Let him, alone, (or many, if fo minded) Wave thus, t'exprefs his difpofition, And follow Marcius. [They all fhout, and wave their fwords, take him up in their arms, and caft up their caps. Oh! me alone, make you a fword of me: A fhield as hard as his. A certain number, Com. March on, my fellows: SCENE changes to Corioli. [Exeunt. Titus Lartius having fet a guard upon Corioli, going with drum and trumpet torvard Cominius and Caius Marcius; Enter with a Lieutenant, other Soldiers, and a fcout. Lart. S% O, let the ports be guarded; keep your duties, As I have fet them down. If I do fend, dispatch Thofe centries to our aid; the reft will ferve For a fhort holding; if we lose the field, We cannot keep the town. Lieu. Fear not our care, Sir. Lart. Hence, and shut your gates upon's: Our guider, come! to th' Roman camp conduct us. [Exeunt. SCENE changes to the Roman Camp. Alarum, as in battle. Enter Marcius and Aufidius, at feveral doors. I' Mar. T'LL fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee Auf. We hate alike: No Africk owns a ferpent I abhor More than thy fame, and envy; fix thy foot. Auf. If I fly, Marcius, Hallow me like a hare. Mar. Within these three hours, Tullus, And made what work I pleas'd: 'tis not my blood, Auf. Wert thou the Hector, That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny, [Here they fight, and certain Volfcians come to the aid of Aufidius. Marcius fights, 'till they be driven in breathless. Officious, and not valiant!-you have fham'd me Flourish. Alarum. A retreat is founded. Enter at one door, Cominius with the Romans; at another door, Marcius, with his arm in a scarf. Com. If I fhould tell thee o'er this thy day's work, Thou'lt not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it, Where fenators fhall mingle tears with fmiles; Where great patricians fhall attend and fhrug; I' th' end, admire; where Ladies fhall be frighted, And gladly quak'd, hear more; where the dull tribunes, That with the fufty plebeians, hate thine honours, Shall fay against their hearts,-We thank the gods, Our Rome hath fuch a foldier! Yet cam'ft thou to a morfel of this feaft र Having fully din'd before. Enter Titus Lartius with his Power, from the pursuit. Lart. O General, Here is the steed, we the caparison : Hadft thou beheld Mar. Pray now, no more: my mother, I have done as you have done; that's, what I can ; Hath overta'en mine act. Com. You fhall not be The grave of your deferving: Rome must know What you have done, before our army hear me. Com. Should they not, Well might they fefter 'gainst ingratitude, And tent themselves with death: Of all the horfes, We render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth, Your only choice. Mar. I thank you, General: But cannot make my heart consent to take [A long flourish. They all cry, Marcius! Marcius! caft up their caps and launces: Cominius and Lartius fand bare. R 6 Mar Mar. May these fame inftruments, which you profane, (10) Never found more! when drums and trumpets fhalt (10) May thefe fame inftruments, which you profane, When feel grows foft, as the parafite's filk, You bout me forth in acclamations byperbolical, &c.] Many of the verfes in this truly fine paffage are difmounted, unny merous, and imperfect: and the laft is no less than two foot and a half too long. For this reafon I have ventur'd to tranfpofe them to their measure; and the fenfe, 'tis plain, has been no less maim'd than the numbers. To remedy this part, I have had the affiftance of my ingenious friend Mr. Warburton; and with the benefit of his happy conjectures, which I have inferted in the text, the whole, I hope, is reftor'd to that purity, which was quite loft in the corrup tions. I fhall now fubjoin his comment, in proof of the emendati ons. "The meaning, that fenfe requires in the antithefis evidently "defign'd here, is this. If one change its usual nature to a thing "moft oppofite, then let the other do fo too. But courts and cities, "being made all of smooth-fac'd foothing, remain in their proper na66 ture. In the fecond part of the fentence, the antithefis between feel and the parafite's filk does not indeed labour with this abfurdi་་ ty: but it labours with another equally bad, and that is, nonfenfe "in the expreffion. The poet's whole thought feems to be this. If "drums and trumpets change their nature preposterously, let camps fo too: And in the latter part of the fentence, the emendation "feems to give a particular beauty to the expreffion. He had faid "before, If drums and trumpets prove flatterers; now here, alluding "to the fame thought, he fays, Then let hymns, foft mufick deftin'd 06 to the praifes of gods and beroes, be an overture for the wars: Where "the overture is used with great technical propriety.- -I fhould ob"ferve one thing, that the members of thefe two antithefes are con"founded one with another, which is a practice common with, the "beft authors and it is a figure the rhetoricians have found a name "for." Or |