Had all his hairs been lives,
My great revenge had ſtomach for them all.
When Phædra is made acquainted with the ruin of Hyppolitus, the poet makes her utter the following beautiful ſpeech, which, however, is liable to the ſame objection as the former, for it ſeems rather a ſtudied declamation, than an expreſſion of the moſt agonizing throes ſhe is then ſuppoſed to experience.
What’s life? Oh all ye Gods! can life attone
For all the monſtrous crimes by which ’tis bought?
Or can I live? when thou, O Soul of honour!
O early hero! by my crimes art ruin’d.
Perhaps even now, the great unhappy youth,
Falls by the ſordid hands of butchering villains;
Now, now he bleeds, he dies,—O perjur’d traitor!
See his rich blood in purple torrents flows,
And nature ſallies in unbidden groans;
Now mortal pangs diſtort his lovely form,
His roſy beauties fade, his ſtarry eyes
Now darkling ſwim, and fix their cloſing beams;
Now in ſhort gaſps his lab’ring ſpirit heaves,
And weakly flutters on his falt’ring tongue,
And ſtruggles into ſound. Hear, monſter hear,
With his laſt breath, he curſes purjured Phædra:
He ſummons Phædra to the bar of Minos;
Thou too ſhalt there appear; to torture thee
Whole Hell ſhall be employ’d, and ſuff’ring Phædra
Shall find ſome care to ſee thee ſtill more wretched.
No man had a juſter notion of the difficulty of compoſing, than Mr. Smith, and he ſometimes would create greater difficulties than he had reaſon to apprehend. Mr. Smith had, indeed, ſome defects in his conduct, which thoſe are more apt to remember, who could imitate him in nothing elſe. Amongſt the blemiſhes of an innocent kind,
