DRAMATIC SCENES.

COUNT JULIAN.

None of these poems of a dramatic form were offered to the stage, being no better than Imaginary Conversations in metre.-W. S. L.

CHARACTERS.

COUNT JULIAN. RODERIGO, King of Spain. OPAS, Metropolitan of Seville. SISABERT, betrothed to COVILLA. Muza, Prince of Mauritania. ABDALAZIS, son of Muza. TARIK, Moorish Chieftain. COVILLA,* daughter of JULIAN. EGILONA, wife of RODERIGO. HERNANDO, OSMA, RAMIRO, &c., Officers.

FIRST ACT: FIRST SCENE.

Camp of Julian.

OPAS. JULIAN.

Opas. See her, Count Julian: if thou lovest God,

See thy lost child.

Julian.
I have avenged me, Opas,
More than enough: I only sought to hurl

The

Florinda.
Here is no im-

*The daughter of Count Julian is usually called city of Covilla, it is reported, was named after her. probability: there would be a gross one in deriving the word, as is also pretended, from La Cava. Cities, in adopting a name, bear it usually as a testimony of victories or as an augury of virtues. Small and obscure places occasionally receive what their neighbours throw against them; as Puerto de la mala muger in Murcia: but a generous people would affix no stigma to innocence and misfortune. It is remarkable that the most important era in Spanish history should be the most obscure. This is propitious to the poet, and above all to the tragedian. Few characters of such an era can be glaringly misrepresented, few facts offensively perverted.

The brand of war on one detested head,
And die upon his ruin. O my country!
O lost to honour, to thyself, to me,
Why on barbarian hands devolves thy cause,
Spoilers, blasphemers!

Opas.
Is it thus, Don Julian,
When thy own offspring, that beloved child
For whom alone these very acts were done
By them and thee, when thy Covilla stands
An outcast and a suppliant at thy gate,
Why that still stubborn agony of soul,

Those struggles with the bars thyself imposed?

Is she not thine? not dear to thee as ever?

Julian. Father of mercies! show me none, whene'er
The wrongs she suffers cease to wring my heart,
Or I seek solace ever, but in death.

All my peace

Opas. What wilt thou do then, too unhappy man?
Julian. What have I done already?
Has vanisht; my fair fame in aftertime
Will wear an alien and uncomely form,
Seen o'er the cities I have laid in dust,
Countrymen slaughtered, friends abjured!
Opas.
Julian.

And faith?

Alone now left me, filling up in part
The narrow and waste interval of grief:
It promises that I shall see again

My own lost child.

Opas.

Yes, at this very hour.

Julian. Till I have met the tyrant face to face, And gain'd a conquest greater than the last,

Till he no longer rules one rood of Spain,

And not one Spaniard, not one enemy,
The least relenting, flags upon his flight,
Till we are equal in the eyes of men,
The humblest and most wretched of our kind,
No

peace for me, no comfort, no . . no child!
Opas. No pity for the thousands fatherless,
The thousands childless like thyself, nay more,
The thousands friendless, helpless, comfortless.