University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Enter Lopez, and Giraldo.
Lopez.
Yes;—though, perhaps, my warmth is cooled by years,
Yet I love thine, Giraldo: may it kindle,
Whene'er thy bosom feels thy country's glory!
Even it's excess I love; that generous flame
Forms the good citizen; the gallant soldier.
What an auspicious æra marks our days!
For seven long ages did the Moors pollute
Our Christian soil; nay, ruled our Christian sons!
But Heaven crowned all our toils; our plans; our trophies;
Our unextinguished valour, faith unshaken,
With never-fading laurels, or with palms
More sacred, from the moment when the cross
Waved on the high Alhambra!

Giraldo.
And who, Lopez,
Was evidently sent, as Heaven's vicegerent,
To crown our Spanish policy, and arms,
With a bright series of success, and triumph,
Who, but our glorious regent?—At the image,
Or name of Ximenes, my soul takes fire,
Inflamed with civick pride, flushed with the virtue,
And honour of Castile!

Lopez.
A juster cause,
Giraldo, never can awake thy ardour.
In varied scenes, propitious to fair fame,
He shines, with equal, and unrivalled lustre:
Whether he seeks, with piety sincere,
In the recesses of his chesnut-grove,
The pure, exalted pleasures of devotion;
Or whether he revisits Alcala;
And, there, improves the walks of literature;
Gives to the liberal arts his warm protection,
Minerva's more serene, sublimer province;
Blending his laurel with the peaceful olive;—
Or, if we view him in the royal palace,
The confessor, the counsellor, of kings;
The grateful voices of united Spain,
With the true patriots's warmth, would bear me witness,
How nobly he adorns his dignities.

Giraldo.
Genius, like other energies of nature
Of mighty force, subdues her weaker powers,
And moulds it's ductile captives to it's will:
It's keen, and active spirit supersedes
The true advantages of birth, and fortune;
It conquers, with it's ardent perseverance,
The prejudices, the malicious arts
Of human kind; and with it's inspiration,
Diverts, and breaks, the painted bubble, fashion,
Admired, and followed, by the vulgar throng.
Our cardinal evinced it's faculties
Intuitive, it's quick, and charming magick.
A pious monk, from a secluded cell,
And from secluded shades, inspired by genius,
Knew, in a moment, how to rule the world.

Lopez.
And yet his conquest of Oran (a conquest,
Which Ferdinand, though born, and trained, a hero,
Would never have presumed to meditate)
To which, planned by himself, he led, in person,
Gives the most burnished, and resplendent page
Of his eventful, and bright history.

Giraldo.
The real enterprize was so aspiring,
So picturesque, that to my mind it brings
My young, and beauteous dreams of chivalry.
Heavens! can I ere forget (thou knowest, I served,
Too young a volunteer, in that campaign!)
How my great master in all noble arts,
Tempered, from unexampled self-controul,
Giving fair scope to judgment, his high spirit,
With the calm style adapted to the juncture!
Blended his claim to absolute command
With mild expostulation's gentler empire;
And thus composed, and moulded to his purpose,
Two mutinous, and desperate myrmidons,
Raised by himself to highest warlike honours,
The ruffian of Navarre, and Vianelli!
Can I forget the new, and awful sight,
That struck my boyish fancy, and will warm
With youthful fire, my frost of hoary age!
A reverend prelate, with impassive soul,
Then only more august by seventy years,
And habited in robes pontifical;
Addressing, in the van, our listening army,
With force of language irresistible,
And with as powerful majesty of manner!
His varied speech inflaming, now, the soldier
With earthly honours; now, with those rewards
That mock the waste of time; that are eternal,
Inspired the faithful with a holy zeal,
And love of glorious deeds, unfelt before.

Lopez.
No wonder, that the valour was determined,
And conquered all before it, which was fired,
At once, by eloquence, and by religion!

Giraldo.
At first, I imaged to myself, our troops
Led by a legate sent us from the skies.
And as undisciplined imagination
Is fertile to create, and to combine
Quickly successive, and fantastick pictures,
In fleeting scenes, I to my mind recalled
What I had read of Rome's illustrious worthies.
One while, our chieftain was my pious Numa,
Next, my Camillus; then, my Cincinnatus.

Lopez.
Giraldo, I'm enamoured with thy portrait,
Faithful, at once, and vivid; when the virtues,
And talents (various both) of our great man,
Are thus collected to one point of view,
With double energy, they strike the mind.

Giraldo.
My hero is as amiable as great;
Famed for the practice of humanity.
When Ximenes, with Pedro of Navarre,
Entered Oran, subdued, and desolate,
Through walls of slaughtered Moors; the pious victor
Felt his proud conquest fade; 'twas, in his breast,
Changed into grief, and horrour; tears adorned
His venerable face; with look severe,
He to his warriour turned:—“Oh! why, Navarre,
“So prodigal of blood? The Moors were men,
“Our natural brothers; and, perhaps, ere long,
“Had been our brethren in the Christian faith!
“All human triumphs have their dark alloy.
“Each mortal stab superfluously given
“To them; given in wild, military ravage,
“Is a heart's wound to me.”

Lopez.
This anecdote,
Reflecting brighter fame than any laurel,
That e'er encircled a victorious brow,
Flows, in soft harmony with all his conduct,
In social, civil, and religious life.
And would this father of a grateful country,
Who, though his soul is generous, and humane,
Almost beyond example, can be stern,
At the command of justice, and severe,
Almost with heavenly awe; would he resolve
To quell his charming tenderness of nature,
For the state's good, and in religion's cause;
With firmness to atchieve one glorious deed;
I'd almost learn indifference to the names
Recorded in our holy calendar;
And he should be my tutelary saint!

Giraldo.
What action, Lopez, can thy mind imagine
Too great for his performance?

Lopez.
You know Zaigri?

Giraldo.
The famous Moorish prince, the gallant captive,
Now in Granada, whom fair Leonora,
The daughter of Medina's duke, esteems
Too highly; who, at Munda's well-fought battle
(Munda, where empire has been thrice disputed!)
Sprung from his tent, forgetting malady,
To save his royal father, old Abdallah,
Pressed by a host of foes?

Lopez.
I mean the same.

Giraldo.
What conduct dost thou wish, from Ximenes,
To Zaigri?

Lopez.
'Tis my wish, that the good prelate
Would make a convert of his royal friend;
Would, for this end, exert a kind compulsion;
With true regard, would force him to be saved.
To sacrifice our present ease, is virtue.
What various good would Ximenes effect,
By feeling, for a while, the pangs of friendship!
His conscience ever would approve the deed;
His friend's eternal weal would be secured;
And thousands added to the Christian world!

Giraldo.
How superstition steels a heart humane!
And ranks oppressive with angelick deeds!
Have you to learn the regent's character?
I know him; he's a prodigy complete;
A churchman; yet he's not a hypocrite;
A churchman; yet he riots not in power;
A churchman; yet he most delights in mercy.
Yes; when the sun, propitious to our clime,
With wintry aspect rules the jocund spring,
A Ximenes will persecute a Zaigri.

Lopez.
Surely, all means are worthy of our praise,
Which bring mankind within the church's pale.
I fear, Giraldo will reject my tenet.
And if I was not, now, too long detained,
But with great pleasure to myself, I'd hear thee,
Well-pleased, even on this topick: from Alonzo,
Our regent's secretary, I've received
A message; my attendance it requires.
Different opinions, on important subjects
Are not with friendship incompatible.
Farewell, Giraldo.

Giraldo.
Lopez, fare you well.

[Exit Lopez.
Giraldo,
alone.
“Surely, all means are worthy of our praise,
“Which bring mankind within the church's pale!”
Curse on the doctrine!—Oh! benignant heaven!
Is not my execration ratified
By those eternal laws that spring from thee;
Laws coexistent with the first of beings!
If Ximenes could wound a Zaigri's conscience
(I feel it base, to form the supposition!)
All my sincere encomium I'd retract;
I'd give it to the winds.—He, who torments
Our mortal part, formed with acute sensations,
Is a fell tyrant: but the wretch who tortures
Our frame ethereal; who, with sacrilege
Never to be forgiven, presumes to check
The free, celestial spirit; who would chain
The mind, inspired by reason's heavenly ray;
Endowed with power discursive, or to choose,
Or to refuse;—the wretch, who bids the bloom
Of conscience wither (conscience, the good man's empire!)
—Who racks the soul; is, surely, more a tyrant;
More a refiner on barbarity.
The culprit lives on earth, supremely hated;
And, when he dies, hell's fiercest fiends receive him.
For him, there is no hope of purgatory.
His soul, whose essence is, the dross of evil,
No penal fires can ever purify!
[Exit Giraldo.

SCENE II.

Alonzo, Secretary to Ximenes, sitting at a Table; Ink, Paper, Books, before him.
Alonzo,
alone.
Our noble regent's illness, every moment
Fast brings him to the confines of the grave:
A loss irreparable I shall grieve,
Soon as his breath expires; the gentlest master,
And the most generous friend;—but what am I?
Spain, and the Indies, when our regent dies,
Will lose a father!
A Servant enters.
Sir, two gentlemen;
The one from Florence, from the capital
Of England comes the other; and they wish
A private interview with Ximenes.

Alonzo.
You have their names?

Servant.
Randolfo, Sir, and Audley.

Alonzo.
They've been expected long; first, show them hither.

[The Servant returns with Audley and Randolfo; leaves them, and retires.
Alonzo
proceeds.
Most worthy Sirs, you're welcome to Granada;
Thrice welcome, in the name of Ximenes
I knew you well before you entered Spain;
Your high repute in learning; to these realms
You come, to realize a noble object;
To cultivate the human mind with arts
Ingenuous; to co-operate with one,
Whose heart, and talents, even excell his station.

Audley.
Your welcome, Sir, is civil; it is courtly;
I now expect a greeting to receive
From Ximenes himself; at his desire,
Warmly repeated, we have left the land
Where first we saw the light; and whence, mankind,
Seldom, but for some great and cogent reason,
Are voluntary exiles.

Alonzo.
Sir, the cause,
Why, now, our regent is invisible,
Except to those who smoothe the bed of sickness,
I'm sorry to announce; a painful illness,
And obstinate, presses him hard to-day;
Sinks all his faculties; and will, I fear,
Ere long, put out Spain's brightest luminary.

Randolfo.
The melancholy tidings that you give us
Of one, whose virtuous fame is spread o'er Europe,
Are, to the good afflictive; we shall wait,
Till Heaven is more propitious to our visit.

Audley.
Waiting, with servile patience, on the great,
Perhaps may suit the policy of Florence;
But we, rough, honest sons of Saxon freedom,
Never lose sight, or never ought to lose it,
Of man's original equality.
Yet, we are not barbarians; to invade
The languid hour of sickness; and to urge
It's pressure, is remote from my intention.
I know the virtues of Spain's cardinal;
But I would have it known, on what foundation
My mind was fixed, when I took leave of England.
I left it, with a full, and firm resolve
To do my duty; that, while I performed,
I felt that he, who, with man's best ambition,
Devotes his life to learning, and to virtue,
Deserves esteem and friendship, even from kings.
Thus Horace, though, sometimes, to freedom's foes
He deigned to offer incense, thought, and acted;
And thus, Augustus, though he shackled Rome.

Alonzo.
Persue that strain, till we forbid it, here.

Audley.
Then, doubtless, I proceed with greater pleasure.
The mind, enriched with intellectual stores,
And in that wealth delighting, will assert
The rights of liberty and independence,
Whether it dwells in Britain, or Iberia.
Few are it's wants; the subjugated senses
Dare not insult it with their low desires:
And why doth he persue, why idolize
Sublime examples, but into his soul
To work their greatness; and from them to learn,
With equal spirit, ever to distinguish
The bold decisions of our pride, and caprice,
From Heaven's eternal, and it's just decrees?

Alonzo.
Thy speech, ingenuous Englishman, transcribes
The very heart, and soul of Ximenes.
Why, he has, now, for fifty glorious years,
Been toiling, watching, risking every danger,
In all the sacred rights of human nature;
In the great charter issued from Heaven's court,
To equalize our subjects.—Would you walk
Some minutes on the terrace; from that door
It lies; I long to bring congenial spirits
Together; you shall soon from me receive
A message.
[Exit Alonzo.

Randolfo.
For your own advantage trust me;
By flexibility alone, good Audley,
We can expect (though strong our other titles)
Ease with the world, and favours from the great.

Audley.
A conscious, rational, immortal being;
A being, who should owe his satisfaction,
His raptures of existence, to his God,
And to himself alone, had better want
That flexibility, however specious
The fruits it brings, than in his bosom bear
The mortifying sense, that he has acted,
Even for an hour, the hypocrite, and slave.

[Exeunt Audley and Randolfo.

SCENE III.

Enter Leonora and Lucinda.
Lucinda.
No, Leonora; on thy wounded mind
I never shall, in vain, obtrude the dictates
Of cold, abstracted reason; that stale nostrum,
That panacea with philosophers,
Who, in the mass, and pomp confused of study,
Perversely, never read the page prescribed,
The page of most importance, human nature.
Too well I know the power of love to thwart it.
'Tis, in the tenour of its general action,
Soft, and persuasive; 'tis, to all appearance,
Humane, submissive, and a foe to tumult;
It is a gentle, pleasing melancholy.
But rouze it by some rude external cause,
That oft inopportunely supervenes,
To chafe its placid, and translucent current;
Then, in its rage, it tears, it drives the soul;
It is resistless as the whirlwind's force.
Rather I would advise thee, in thy breast,
Fair virtue's sacred mansion, to preserve
Inviolate the pure, empyreal flame;
With all its fears; with those anxieties
Which love is doomed to suffer, lest its raptures
Give to an earthly pilgrim too much bliss:
Rather I would advise thee to survey
The future blooming scenes that are displayed
By Hope's auspicious hand; and oft we find
The promises of Hope performed by time.

Leonora.
How my Lucinda's pleasing accents soothe me!
In unison they flow with my fond wishes;
They flow in unison with Zaigri's voice!
Thy doctrine is his own; and, sure, it pours
Sweet adulation in the ear of Love.
Oft he has told me—“Gentle Leonora,
“Calm be thy bosom; for its perturbations
“Must ever torture mine: our mutual passion
“(Whatever to oppose me, might be urged,
“In haughty tone, by prelates, or by muftis)
“Hath innocence, and virtue for its basis;
“And while we keep it fixed on this foundation,
“Its guardian is the universal God,
“Who, to effect his will, annihilates
“The prejudices, and the power of man.
“In him, and time confide; his providence,
“Oft slowly, as his wisdom planned its progress,
“But ever, surely, is matured by time.”

Lucinda.
Then let thy friend's and lover's kind remonstrance
Compose thy harrassed mind, and to thy fancy
(Thy fancy not erroneous) break the bars,
Only by fear strengthened to adamant,
The awful, but the temporary bars
'Twixt happiness, and thee!

Leonora.
Trust me, Lucinda,
Thy counsel I respect; revere my duty
Of resignation to the will of Heaven.
Yet I'm a being of the human species,
And for those objects which attach my soul,
Must have my doubts, fears, and anxieties.
What formidable foes annoy my rest!
Revenge, ambition, and fell institution,
Still more a tyrant than the other two,
O'er nature's peaceful, and innoxious laws;
Her laws benevolent; sources divine
Of all true, permanent felicity!
These cruel foes by day corrode my quiet,
A sickly hue diffusing o'er my life;
And oft, by night, invade me in a dream;
Some motley chaos of disordered fancy.
Of late, in feverish, interrupted slumbers,
Incongruous, and contrasted scenes I imaged:—
Our Andalusia ravaged by the Moors;
And yon Alhambra in its former splendour,
And I delighted in the revolution;
For Zaigri, as I thought, o'er fair Granada
The sceptre swayed, with me, a turbaned queen!
But this fine spell was, in a moment broken.
From that rich plain, to an Arabian desart,
Methought, we were transported; mixed with merchants
And pilgrims, in a helpless caravan,
Dying with thirst, and hunger; soon a vortex
Of burning sand arose; which, whirled with fury,
Wrapped us in death, and ended all our woes!

Lucinda.
The dreadful phantoms, which, in dreams, alarm us,
Should not disturb the waking, reasoning mind.
Come, Leonora, let thy friend console thee:—
Hast thou a friend, by her experienced woes,
More privileged than I, to recommend
A mind that can, by moral discipline,
Exalt itself above solicitude?
Thou knowest, that, in Alphonso's virtuous love,
I was supremely blest; my youthful soldier
Was wounded, and expired, before Oran.
But ere he died, he wrote me an adieu,
Concise, indeed, in words, but in its pathos,
A most affecting funeral oration.
“I go, Lucinda, to prepare a bower,
“In the blest region, for two faithful lovers;
“A bower of myrtle, and celestial palms!
“I fear, thy image, almost equally,
“Divided, with my God, my parting soul.”
While the farewell I read, a torpor seized me;
A stupefaction, from the sudden blow.
Then, tears of love embalmed the hallowed paper:
Next, I looked up to Heaven's omniscient eye;
To Providence, my father, and my judge;
Whose presence awed me to restrain my tears;
Lest I had given Alphonso's memory,
In grief's excess, too querulous a tribute.

Leonora.
So strongly doth Lucinda paint her fortune,
That while I hear it, I forget my own.

Lucinda.
Then, with the sacred sympathy of friendship,
Let us resolve to blend our softened sorrows;
Softened by reason, and by resignation.
Let us retire to thy delightful arbour,
Which overlooks Granada's fertile plain,
That glows with all the brightest tints of nature,
And all her fragrance breathes. There, the lute's note
Shall undulate on Zephyr's balmy wing:
The sun descending; the pure sky of Spain;
Trees, fruits, and flowers; the varied sweets of nature,
With musick shall unite congenial powers.
These objects tune the soul; with gentle raptures,
They purify it from the servitude
To care, and passion; elevate our wishes
Above the province of capricious fortune;
Transport us to a mount, whose glorious summit
Virtue hath crowned with never-fading bloom!

SCENE IV.

Enters Torquemada, the Inquisitor General, alone.
The Christian pale is, every hour, enlarged;
And, every hour, are hereticks diminished.
Six thousand Korans, the licentious warrants
Of lawless love, and desolating conquest,
Are, by my order, as the church's sentence,
Now burning in Granada's royal square.
Since I enjoyed my high, tremendous office,
Not a few stubborn Jews, and impious Moors
Have in the flames expired: but, to reflect,
How infinite of proselytes the number,
Gained to our faith by charitable force,
Redeems the rigour of our inquisition;
Nay, proves it a criterion of salvation,
Appointed under Heaven's own auspices.
True; these benevolent severities
Alarm, and wound the sentiments of nature,
That feminine opposer of the saint;
But, sure, the kindness of religion bids us
Torture the body, to ensure the soul.
And what is genuine practical religion?
'Tis, with stern discipline, to quell the tumults
Of our importunate, rebellious feelings.
'Tis, from whatever pleasures most delight us,
Most firmly to abstain;—'tis, for the good
Of our immortal spirits, to inflict,
Deaf to mean pity, on ourselves, and others,
Spontaneous, and involuntary pains:
It is, to wage perpetual war with nature;
To draw, with priestly power, with heavenly magick,
Down, on the meretricious bloom of fancy,
A deep, a sable, yet celestial cloud;
In which, as in the prophet's car of vapour,
We shall ascend the skies!—A thought, now, strikes me;
And it shall have effect:—it will contract
Satan's dire influence, and enlarge the kingdom
Celestial.—Not a contumacious power
On earth, shall check my firm, and great resolve;
No, not the menace of our mighty regent,
Urged with imperial majesty of sway;—
A politician singularly great;
But a most tame, and despicable prelate.

Enters Giraldo.
Giraldo.
What dost thou meditate, mild Torquemada!
Perhaps, with Christian meekness, to compell
Some unbeliever to accept salvation?
Not, with a fruitless, though fraternal patience,
Which our Messiah ne'er exemplified,
To wait the slow, but radical effects,
Of cogent argument, of soft persuasion;
But with a quick, and more decisive process,
To plant the horrid stake; to pile the faggots;
To light the fire, and burn him into heaven?

Torquemada.
In language less irreverent, less familiar,
One of the most abandoned laity
Might have accosted me, by Providence,
And thy superiours, in this earthly kingdom,
The guardian constituted, the chief patron
Of Christian truth.

Giraldo.
Were not the theme too grave,
I should return thy arrogance with laughter.—
But deign from me, thou leader of the faithful,
To hear some serious, and important truth.
A Moor, though hated, though despised, by thee,
Who worships, as his father, and his judge,
The Power Supreme; who, just in all his conduct,
Extends his equity, his deeds benign,
Even to humanity's remotest verge;
This man, I tell thee, is, in fact, a Christian;
And thou art Antichrist!

Torquemada.
Protect me, Heaven!
What dreadful blasphemy assails my ear!
An advocate for infidels, for Moors!
Does not earth shake, and open, to devour us?
I quit the dangerous, the polluted spot!
[Exit Torquemada.

Giraldo,
alone.
A murrain seize your herd! You call yourselves
The servants of the heavenly Prince of Peace;
And half the miseries that afflict mankind,
Originate from you!—Father of mercies!
Thy pure, celestial precepts, did they flow
Through human life, through action, would diffuse
Comfort, and happiness, around the world!
Thy true religion, all, beneficence,
The soul illumines with perpetual sunshine;
Gives, to her persevering votaries,
The unaffected smile, the vivid hope,
Even 'midst the strong antipathies of nature;
Even on the borders of the dreary grave.
But this religion, hideously transformed
By priests, embitters, poisons all the welfare
Of individuals, and of commonwealths:
It might, without hyperbole, be termed
An extirpation of humanity!
[Exit Giraldo.