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ZENOBIA.

A TRAGEDY. ANONYMOUS,

O Pening the drama with foliloquy, unless what

the character speaks appertains peculiarly to self, we cannot entirely approve; and what Zelmira offers at the beginning of this tragedy, we deem an unessential, faint, trite effort at description; what she says to her husband Zopiron, concerning the havoc which ambition causes, is expressed in terms commendably humane, a most hateful picture of Pharasmanes is given, and we are informed, that he holds in captivity a beauteous dame, distinguished by the name of Ariana, for whose virtue Zelmira conceives tender apprehenfions; the entrance of Zenobia is well prepared, by mention of the distress her mind appears to wear; and her fainting under a load of forrow when she comes in view, affects the tender mind: there is something pretty in her fense of obligation for the tender affiduity of her attendants, and their disinterested attachment; but we think them very strange, very improper messengers to supervise and bring intelligence of the impending battle; it must convey an Amazonian idea to suppose them capable of fuch a charge; befides, Zopiron, who now disappears so oddly, might have either undertaken the matter himself, or recommended a proper messenger.

In Zenobia.

In the conference between Zenobia and Zelmira, Pharasmanes's brutal, bloody character, is set in a clearer light, by the direct charge of fratricide, in murdering Mithridates, an amiable monarch, whose virtues, exclusive of natural ties, should have secured him from such violence; it appears too, that the tyrant illegally holds the crown of Armenia, given to his eldest son Rhadamistus by Mithridates : a crown Pharafmanes seized by force of arms, purfuing even the life of his plundered child. On Zelmira's charging Rhadamistus with the murder of his wife, Zenobia gives a nervous and pathetic account of the affair, from whence we learn that prince was sent when young to Mithridates' court, where an early affection grew between him and Zenobia, to whom he was married. At length, driven to despair by the unnatural rage of Pharafmanes, the royal couple determined to seek an afylum in death, for which purpose they plunged into the river Araxes; in the transport of relation, Zenobia, known to Zelmira only as Ariana, lips out her real name, which seems to promise further explanation; but the entrance of Tigranes, an officer and creature of Pharafmanes stops it.

The appearance of some captives strikes Zenobia with apprehenfion that the Romans have been vanquished, but Tigranes informs her they are only fome persons who were intercepted going to the Roman camp, for which the king has fentenced them to be impaled alive; the latter end of this line we think liable to objection,

They suffer death in mifery of torment.

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The

Zenobia.

The word mifery seems superfluously annexed to torment, as not tending to add any force, but rather furnishing a poverty of idea; there may be mifery without torment, but there cannot be torment without misery. Upon viewing the unhappy objects of unrelenting tyranny, Zenobia tenderly recognizes Megistus, for whom the professes most friendly regard, as he does for her, and on the authority of being beloved by Pharafmanes, she takes him under her protection. This meeting is extremely well conceived, and the cause of her esteem for the old man judiciously concealed.

In the scene between Tigranes and Zelmira we are informed, that Teribazus, the younger fon of Pharafmanes, loves Zenobia; a short sketch of that young prince's character is given by Tigranes, who afterwards drops a distant intimation of being himfelf a foe to Zenobia; here Teribazus presents himself, and makes kind enquiry of Zelmira for Ariana: Zenobia comes in upon his words, and enquires concerning the fate of war, when she is informed, that the king has condescended to treat of peace, and that an ambassador from the Roman camp is to have audience in Pharasmanes's tent; from this Zenobia cannot draw any presage in her own favour, however, proceeds to an immediate and warm interceffion for Megistus, whom she calls more than father; she drops also some unfavourable hints of Tigranes's officiousness in the act of crimination; the prince, glad of an occafion to oblige the object of his affection, promises not only life but liberty

Zenobid

liberty to the old man, and reproves Tigranes with confiderable afperity.

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This defirable point gained, Zenobia's mental gloom appears for some time gilded with the enlivening rays of heart-felt fatisfaction; in the full flow of her feelings, and to account for being so interefted for Megiftus, she reveals herself at large, and relates how the good old man rescued her, when floated far from Rhadanistus; rescued her just expiring, from the flood, and with her faved a boy of which the then was pregnant; the remainder of this scene, where she mentions living with Megiftus, separation from her child, captivity with Pharafmanes, and the grief of her husband loft, is poetically pathetic, well calculated for capital action, without any ftrain or exaggeration of nature.

That dramatic writers, forty years fince, when actors chaunted according to the flow of verse, paying more respect to harmony of expreffion than meaning, should tag their acts with those paltry unnatural clap traps, rhimes, is not at all surprising; but for a poet of this day to intrude them upon public taste, is what we could not reasonably expect, and muft therefore blame in this play, especially those at the end of the first act, which are servilely fimilar to one of Andromache's speeches in the Distreffed Mother; we have also an objection to speaking of spirit, in the ftile of a diftinct fex, when the most ignorant must know, that the corporeal compofition only, admits such a diftinction; the paffage runs

Till

Zenobia.

Till you shall bid this fad, world weary spirit,
To peaceful regions wing her weary flight.

There is another line in this scene cenfurable, as being both in idea and expression exactly fimilar to a passage in Dryden's Virgil; Zenobia, speaking of her husband's fatal catastrophe, says,

- the last dismal accents

That trembled on thy tongue came bubbling upSpeaking of a fea-nymph's departure under water, Dryden has it thus,

And her last words came bubbling up in air.

At the beginning of the second act, Tigranes presents himself ruminating, in a short foliloquy, upon fome terms of reproach, uttered against him by Teribazus, which occafions him to declare resentment against the Prince, marking Zenobia also as an object of hatred; Pharafmanes approaches this minifterial tool of tyranny, and like the true man of blood, regrets that proposed negotiation from the Roman camp, has stopped the glorious havoc of impending battle; then enquires, whether the captives have fuffered death according to his fentence; this gives Tigranes's malevolence an opportunity of accusing Teribazus, by infinuation of fufpending their fate; thus he touches the monarch's, impatience, who expresses himself in terms of severity against the Prince, just as Zenobia enters, who supplicates in pathetic terms, mercy for the captives; this suit, from an amourous inclination, Pharafmanes grants; the perfuafion of one, and VOL, I. the

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