[Footnote 193: This last speech of my Lord Grizzle hath been of great service to our poets: "I'll hold it fast As life, and when life's gone I'll hold this last; And if thou tak'st it from me when I'm slain, I'll send my ghost and fetch it back again."--"Conq. of Gran." ] [Footnote 194: "My soul should with such speed obey, It should not bait at heaven to stop its way." ] [Footnote 195: Lee seems to have had this last in his eye: "'Twas not my purpose, sir, to tarry there: I would but go to heaven to take the air."--"Gloriana." "A rising vapour rumbling in my brains."--"Cleomenes." ] [Footnote 196: "Some kind sprite knocks softly at my soul, To tell me fate's at hand." ] [Footnote 197: Mr. Dryden seems to have had this simile in his eye, when he says: "My soul is packing up, and just on wing."--"Conq. of Gran." "And in a purple vomit pour'd his soul."--"Cleomenes." ] [Footnote 198: "The devil swallows vulgar souls Like whipt cream."--"Sebastian." ] [Footnote 199: "How I could curse my name of Ptolemy! It is so long, it asks an hour to write it. By heaven! I'll change it into Jove or Mars! Or any other civil monosyllable, That will not tire my hand."--"Cleomenes." ] [Footnote 200: Here is a visible conjunction of two days in one, by which our author may have either intended an emblem of a wedding, or to insinuate that men in the honeymoon are apt to imagine time shorter than it is. It brings into my mind a passage in the comedy called the Coffee-House Politician: "We will celebrate this day at my house to-morrow." ] [Footnote 201: These beautiful phrases are all to be found in one single speech of King Arthur, or the British Worthy.] [Footnote 202: "I was but teaching him to grace his tale With decent horror."--"Cleomenes." ] [Footnote 203: We may say with Dryden: "Death did at length so many slain forget, And left the tale, and took them by the great." I know of no tragedy which comes nearer to this charming and bloody catastrophe than Cleomenes, where the curtain covers five principal characters dead on the stage. These lines too-- "I ask'd no questions then, of who kill'd who? The bodies tell the story as they lie--" seem to have belonged more properly to this scene of our author; nor can I help imagining they were originally his. The Rival Ladies, too, seem beholden to this scene: "We're now a chain of lovers link'd in death; Julia goes first, Gonsalvo hangs on her, And Angelina hangs upon Gonsalvo, As I on Angelina."