Char. Oh Heaven, and can I thus withdraw myself from my father? Il concerted flight would be a fresh fault in me, and my father already impates too many faults to me. The only instance in which I am guilty, he knows not at all.

Isa. Would that I knew not.

Char. If in this I have offended thee, thou shalt have revenge and soon. Leave me in these halls, if grief should not lead me to death, the hatred, and rancour of a father will conduct me thither; a father who hath sworn in his heart of blood, my death? in this horrible palace (dear however to me since it lodgeth thee), ah! suffer me to breathe out my life near thee,

'Isa.-Ah prospect; as long as thon remainest here, I fear too much for thee--a voice portending thy sad fate sounds in my bosom; hearken, this is the first and at once the last proof of love which I ask from thee; if thou lovest me, withdraw thyself from thy cruel father.

Char.-Oh Lady! it is a thing impossible.

Isa.-Leave me then now, more than before. Alas; preserve my fame untouched, and at the same time preserve thine own, clear thyself thus of the false crimes of which envious rage accuses thee. Live, I command thee, live; may my virtue remain unimpaired with thee, my thoughts, my heart, and my soul in spite of myself are with thee; but of my footsteps lose the traces, and canse that I shall not hear thee ever more-hitherto Heaven only is witness of the fault, may it be hidden entirely from the world, may it be hidden from us, and pluck out the recollection of it even from thy heart-if thou canst.

Char.-Wilt thou not hear me ever more? (While he wishes to follow her, she absolutely forbids him.)

SCENE III.

Charles.

Char.-Ah wretched ine......Oh, day-Does she thus leave me! Oh, my barbarous fate. I am happy and miserable at the same time,

SCENE IV.

Charles and Peres.

Peres.-I am in search of thee, my Lord. But Oh Heaven, wherefore art thou so perturbed; Oh what can it be? Thou art as it were, beside thyself. Ah speak thou shalt have me

as a part

ner of the grief. But art thou silent? Did I not grow up by thy side from thy tenderest years? Hast thou not always named

me a friend?

Char.--And darest thon in this palace, titter such a name,-a name always proscribed by the impious court although it is daily heard here. To the fatal. To me useless. Thy fidelity is now out of place, yield, yield to the torrent, and do thou also follow the fickle crowd and to the sovereign idol present with it gaintal incense and

Peres.-Alas. Do not thus slight me. Distinguish me from the deceitful crowd. But what avails it my swearing fidelity here- here, where every one swears and betrays it. Put my heart ånd hand to a more sine test, say what danger you wish me to encounter for thee, where is the enemy most obnoxious to thee? Speak.

Char.-I have no other enemy than my father, since I have not the wish (nor ought 1) to honor his vile people with such a name. To my father I oppose silence; to the rest contempt.

Peres. But the king does not know the truth, an nureasonable displeasure against thee is kindled in him, and others purposely exasperate it. I shall be the first to tell it him plainly for thee.

Char.-What sayest thon Peres? The king knows the truth much more than you imagine, he hates it rather than is ignorant of it. Nor does he pay attention to any voice in my favor. Peres-Ah it is the force of nature that he should hear it!

--

Char. He has closed his impenetrable iron heart. Leave my defence to innocence and Heaven, which sometimes vouchsafes to bestow upon innocence a benign regard. Were I guilty thou art the only person whom I would not disdain as an intercessor; what greater proof of my friendship can I afford thee?

Peres.- of thy destiny (and may it be such as thon wishest) make me a partner; so inuch I desire, and no more---what other honorable burden remains in this horrible palace?

Char-But are you ignorant that my destiny, whatever it may be, cannot be happy.

Peres.-I am thy friend, not thine equal! ah, if indeed it be true that divided grief is lessened thou shalt have me as separable companion of thy every sorrow!

an in

Char.-Such grief is enclosed within my heart as brings me to death, deep grief which is nevertheless precions. Ah! alus is it such that I cannot disclose it to thee? ah no, I do not seek, nor is there a more generous friend than thee, and to give thee a true proof of friendship in opening to thee my heart. Oh, Heaven, I eannot! go now, what hast thon gained from so great and so ill placed a confidence! I do not deserve it; again I repeat it to theẹ leave me,---you know not the atrocions guilt which it is to keep faith with a man towards whom his king retains hatred.

1

keep it des though thou thy breast a

Peres. But thon knowest not what glory it is to pite of every king! In doubting me, thon piercest, canst not change my heart! dost thou hide within deadly sorrow which thou canst not tell me. 1 by no means wish to know it, but if I ask thee and wish, that thy grief should bring me to die with thee, couldst thou cruelly deny it me? Charles, dost thou wish it! then here is my unlucky hand! I give thee as a pledge of inauspicious friendship. I commiserate thee! but I shall no longer at any time complain of my destiny or of Heaven, which has been thus liberal to me in so choice a friend. O Philip how much am I less unhappy than thee, thou art deserving of pity rather than of envy, in the midst of vain pumps and false adulation, thou hast never known sacred friends ship.

ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE THE FIRST.

Philip and Gomes.

Phil. What thing, Gomes, above all others in the world, dost thou prize?

Gomes.-Thy favour.

Phil. What means dost thou reckon upon for preserving it?

Gomes.-Those same means by which I obtained it-obeying thee and being silent,

Phil.--This day, then, you must do both one and the other. Gomes. It is no new charge to me-Thou knowest that I

Phil.-1 know that up to the present moment thou hast been the most trusty among my confidants; but upon this day, in which I am revolving in my wind И vast project, perhaps in cou fiding to thee so important and new a charge, I should first bring to your remembrance in a few words that your duty has given me satisfaction.

Gomes.-This day the great Philip will be able to know me even

better.

Phil.-That which I exact of thee now, may be easy; and to thee alone it can be easy: not so to any other person-The queen comes here in a few moments, and you will hear me converse with her at some length-during the time, observe and mark even the smallest movements of her countenance, fix upon her thy penetrat❤ ing gaze-such as that by which thon knowest how to read often even the hidden wish in the most secret breast of thy king, and silently to execute it.

SCENE THE SECOND.

Philip, Isabella and Gomes.

Isa. I have come, sire, for thy cominands.

Phil.-Oh Queen! an important reason has willed that I should

Phil.-Thou shalt soon bear! can I hope from thee? But what doubt is there, who better than thyself may give me sincere and impartial counsel ?

Isa. I to counsel thes?

Phil.-Yea, I value thine opinion more than any other person's; and if (up to the present tinie) thou hast not divided with me the care of my empire, thou shouldest not ascribe it either to the little affection of thy consort, or to the least want of confidence on the part of thy knig-only 1 have ever wished to withdraw thee totally from cares of state too serious for thy sex; but to my misfortune, the day has now arrived that I see a case arise wherein are mingled with reasons of state, family reasons also, to such a degree, that thon should'st be my principal adviser. But previous to my speaking, I would wish to hear from thee whether thon regardest as more awful, venerable and sacred, the name of father, or that of king?

Isa. They are both equally sacred, and who knows not that

Phil.---Such an one perhaps, such an one as ought to know it better, than any one else. But tell me also before I narrate the fact and tell me the truth-my son Charles, dost thou love or hate him?

Isa. My Lord!

Phil.---Well-I already understand thee; if you attend to the affections of thy heart, and not the voice of thy virtue, thou feelest that thou art his step-mother.

Isa.-Ah no, thou deceivest thyself; the prince

Phil. He is dear to thee then!- and thou bast therefore in thee so much virtue, that being the spouse of Philip thou lovest notwithstanding the son of Philip with a love-maternal !

Isa.-Thou alone art the standard to my thoughts-Thou lovest him, or at least I believe so, and in like manner I also love.

Phil. Since there is not contained, then, within thy kindly and great heart the temper of a step-mother, nor feelest thou the blind affection of a mother, I wish thee to be judge of my son-Hear me-Charles was for many years the only object of all my hopes; previous to the time when withdrawing his feet

from the path of virtue, he deceived my high expectations. Oh how many times since have I sought within myself paternal excuses for the repeated faults of my intractable son. But now his rash

aud frantic audacity has reached, to-day, it's highest point, and I am compelled to employ much more violent measures; a crime of such magnitude is superadded to his other so great delinquencies; one in comparison to which all the others are nothing; such as all that I can say fails to express: he has done outrages to me which have no equal; such which a father never expects from a son; such as make him to be no longer a son in my eyes.-But what, even thou thyselt; (and before thou knowest it too) art thou hor, rified? Hear it then, and be horrified in quite a different way. Thou knowest that for already more than five years that poor and miserable population of a marshy tract upon the sunken border of the sea has dared to attempt an opposition to my power, no less rebels to God than to their own king; making of one breach of faith the pretext for another; thou knowest how much gold and sweat and blood this war has been continually costing this empire to no purpose; but should it cost me both throne and life, I will not suffer this vile race to go un audaciously nor unpunished for their atrocious crime: I swear to sacrifice this impious people as a victim to Heaven; and despite of them they shall learn how to die, since they cannot know how to obey: now who would believe it, that with such ferocious and cruel enemies, my son, my only son alas, would have joined !

Isa. Is it the prince?

Phil. The prince, yes! many intercepted letters and clandestine messages, and his openly insolent seditious language, make me much too sure of it-al! think for thyself what may be the condition of a betrayed king and an unhappy father! and what fate may await (by just right) so guilty a son: do thou declare for me? Isa. Unhappy me! Dost thou desire that thy sou -?

the fate of

Phil. Yes, thou art now the arbitress of it: Thou shouldest neither fear the king nor flatter the father-Pronounce !

Isa. I fear nothing but lest I should offend against what is just; before the throne the innocent and guilty are often confounded together,

Phil,-But canst thou doubt concerning that of which the King assures thee! who can wish him not guilty more than I do? alas! to charge hun falsely with an unheard of crime!

Isa.---Hast thou then yet convicted him of it?

Phil---Ah who could ever convince him-fierce and proud he disdans meeting clear proofs, I will not say with reasons, but even with pretences. I should not be willing to speak to him of his new treason if I had not previously controuled in my breast the indignation of my first passion: but cold reason of state (although re