Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/51

Rh circumſtance recalled into my thought a ſpeech in the tragedy, which very much affected the whole audience, and was attended to with the greateſt, and moſt ſolemn inſtance of approbation, and awful ſilence.’ The incidents of the play plunge a heroic character into the laſt extremity; and he is admoniſhed by a tyrant commander to expect no mercy, unleſs he changes the Chriſtian religion for the Mahometan. The words with which the Turkiſh general makes his exit from his priſoner are,

‘Upon which the captive breaks into the following ſoliloquy,

‘The gentleman (continues Sir Richard) to whoſe memory I devote this paper, may be the emulation of