MOSCON.

I cannot bring my mind,

Great as my haste to see the festival
Certainly is, to leave you, Sir, without

Just saying some three or four hundred words.
How is it possible that on a day

Of such festivity, you can bring your mind
To come forth to a solitary country

With three or four old books, and turn your back
On all this mirth?

CLARIN.

My master's in the right;

There is not anything more tiresome
Than a procession day, with troops of men,
And dances, and all that.

MOSCON.

From first to last,

Clarin, you are a temporizing flatterer;

You praise not what you feel, but what he does ;—

Toadeater!

You lie

CLARIN.

under a mistake

For this is the most civil sort of lie

That can be given to a man's face. I now

Say what I think.

CYPRIAN.

Enough, you foolish fellows,

Puffed up with your own doting ignorance,

You always take the two sides of one question.

Now go, and as I said, return for me

When night falls, veiling in its shadows wide
This glorious fabric of the universe.

MOSCON.

How happens it, although you can maintain

VOL. III.

Ꮓ

Livia is she who has surprised my heart;
But he is more than half way there.-Soho!
Livia, I come; good sport, Livia, soho!

CYPRIAN.

Now since I am alone, let me examine
The question which has long disturbed my
With doubt, since first I read in Plinius
The words of mystic import and deep sense

mind

[Excit.

[Exit.

In which he defines God. My intellect

Can find no God with whom these marks and signs Fitly agree. It is a hidden truth

Which I must fathom.

Enter the DEVIL, as a fine Gentleman.

DEMON.

[Reads.

Search even as thou wilt,

But thou shalt never find what I can hide.

CYPRIAN.

What noise is that among the boughs? Who moves?

What art thou ?

DÆMON.

"Tis a foreign gentleman.

Even from this morning I have lost my way
In this wild place, and my poor horse, at last
Quite overcome, has stretched himself upon
The enamelled tapestry of this mossy mountain,
And feeds and rests at the same time. I was
Upon my way to Antioch upon business
Of some importance, but wrapt up in cares
(Who is exempt from this inheritance?)
I parted from my company, and lost
My way, and lost my servants and my

CYPRIAN.

comrades.

"Tis singular, that, even within the sight
Of the high towers of Antioch, you could lose
Your way.
Of all the avenues and green paths
Of this wild wood there is not one but leads,
As to its centre, to the walls of Antioch;

Take which you will you cannot miss your

DÆMON.

And such is ignorance! Even in the sight
Of knowledge it can draw no profit from it.
But, as it still is early, and as I

Have no acquaintances in Antioch,
Being a stranger there, I will even wait

road.

The few surviving hours of the day,
Until the night shall conquer it. I see,
Both by your dress and by the books in which
You find delight and company, that you
Are a great student;—for my part, I feel
Much sympathy with such pursuits.

CYPRIAN.

Have you

Studied much ?—

DEMON.

No; and yet I know enough

Not to be wholly ignorant.

CYPRIAN.

Pray, Sir,

What science may you know?—

DEMON.

Many.

CYPRIAN.

Alas!

Much pains must we expend on one alone,
And even then attain it not;-but you
Have the presumption to assert that you
Know many without study.

DÆMON.

And with truth.

For, in the country whence I come, sciences
Require no learning,-they are known.

CYPRIAN.

Oh, would

I were of that bright country! for in this
The more we study, we the more discover
Our ignorance.

DEMON.

It is so true that I

Had so much arrogance as to oppose
The chair of the most high Professorship,

And obtained many votes, and though I lost,
The attempt was still more glorious than the failure
Could be dishonourable: if you believe not,

Let us refer it to dispute respecting
That which you know best, and although I

Know not the opinion you maintain, and though It be the true one, I will take the contrary.

CYPRIAN.

The offer gives me pleasure. I am now
Debating with myself upon a passage

Of Plinius, and my mind is racked with doubt
To understand and know who is the God
Of whom he speaks.

DEMON.

It is a passage, if

I recollect it right, couched in these words: "God is one supreme goodness, one pure essence, One substance, and one sense, all sight, all hands."

'Tis true.

CYPRIAN.

DÆMON.

What difficulty find you here?

CYPRIAN.

I do not recognize among the Gods
The God defined by Plinius: if he must
Be supreme goodness, even Jupiter
Is not supremely good; because we see
His deeds are evil, and his attributes

Tainted with mortal weakness. In what manner
Can supreme goodness be consistent with

The passions of humanity?

DÆMON.

The wisdom

Of the old world masked with the names of Gods

The attributes of Nature and of Man;

A sort of popular philosophy.