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A DIALOGUE of the DEAD on the News from Denmark. The Speakers Oliver Cromwell and Andrew Marvell.

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Marv. Nothing certain. It is faid that the late prime minifter has confeffed. Crom. What?

Marv. I could learn nothing for certain, but it is faid his confeflion was dishonourable to the queen.

Crom. How was this confeffion obtained?

Mar. By fhewing him the dreadful inftruments of torture.

Crom. Aye, aye, it is a certain truth fed inftruments of torture are legally althat a faction in power, where the bleflowed, can never fail for want of any proof they defire. Having effected a revolution, having gone fuch daring lengths, it is their interest to blacken the queen, whom they have dethroned, to accufe her of every crime, and the rack will find them proofs in abundance. But does the king of England allow the queen and her friends to be thus tried?

Marv. I know nothing to the contrary. Nay, hitherto he has allowed the dowager to proceed in her own way of extorting the proofs of his fitter's guilt. Nothing I fay, has publickly appeared to the contrary.

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Crom.

106
Extract from the
Crom. By heaven, the honour of
England is stained!

Mary. But how would you act were you at the head of the English nation!

Grecian Daughter.

trial, let the King of England infift that his fifter fhall have it. By every thing stupid, what is more abfurd than to leave it all to the management of a party whofe every hope, whofe very lives depend upon blackening the queen? Ama

.

Marv. But let us fuppofe that her guilt is fairly proved.

Crom. Why, I would act---I would not negociate and negociate as filly James Stuart did in the cafe of his inju-zing! red daughter the Princefs Palatine.--Were I king of England my fifter thould have juftice done her, and the world fhould witnefs it. An English fleet fhould ride before Copenhagan, the King of Denmark should be fet at his entire freedom, fome of the principal of the English nobility fhould be prefent at the examination of every witnefs, of every prifoner.--.

Mary. But would not that be an infringement of the conftitution of Denmark?

Crom. By no means. Let their forms and their laws be inviolably obferved. But let England demand a fair

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Crom. The world should know that I had acted with fpirit---future Hiflorians fhould not even furmife that the was innocent, and that I had tamely fuffer ed her to be fo cruelly injured---if the is guilty let her be confined for life--but if innocent, as every circumstance induces me to believe--if innocent--by the glory of England, the British thunders fhould reverfe her wrongs--fhould annihilate that faction who had dared thus to infult and dethrone the fister of the British Monarch--

Cetera defunt.

For the OXFORD MAGAZINE.

EXTRACT from the GRECIAN DAUGHTER.

AVING given an Account of this piece we fhall now prefent our Readers, with a few Paffages from the printed Play, well worthy notice.

The author informs us in a poftfcript, that this tragedy is founded on a paffage in Valerius Maximus, which pallage is quoted, and contains the story of the Roman charity. Valerius Maximus, fays he, goes on in the fame place, and tells a Greek tale, in which the Heroine performs the fame act of piety, to a father in the decline of life. For the purpofes of the drama, the latter story has been preferred, the author has taken the liberty to place it in the reign of Dionyfas the younger, at the point of time when Timoleon laid fiege to Syracufe. As the general effect, it was thought, would be better produced, if the whole had an air of read history.

The author does not wish to conceal, what we obferved before, that the fubect of his tragedy has been touched in fome foreign pieces: but he thinks it has been only touched. The Zelmire of Monf. Belloy, the celebrated author of the fiege of Calais, begins after the daughter has delivered her father out of prifon. The play indeed has many beauties, and if the fentiments and bufinefs of that piece coincided with the defign of The Grecian Daughter, the author, would not have blushed to tread in his fteps, but a new fable was abfolutely neceifary, and perhaps, in the prefent humour of the times, it is not unlucky that no more than three lines could be adopted from Monf. Belloy.

Euphrafia's piety to her father is exemplary. In a conference in the firft act with Melanthon, a friend to the

Atque ita mentitur, fic veris. falfa re-depoted and imprifoned Evander, fhe

mifcet,

Primo ne madium, medio ne difcreffet

fays,

---"The task be mine, To tend a father with delighted care,

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For the OXFORD MAGAZINE.
OBSERVATIONS on the PRESENT TIMES.

On Tuesday laft, at the Pantheon, an encounter happened between a Lady of Quality and a Lady of eafy Virtue -The former, paffing by the latter, exclaimed in a disdainful tone, "What defpicable wretches thefe common creatures are!" To which the latter replied, "Not fo faft, my Lady: She may well refift temptation who was never tempted-all is not gold that glitters."

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DAILY PAPERS.

WAS led into a train of strange

ragraph.---It is very true, faid I, The Woman of Virtue was certainly too hafty, and the Woman of no Virtue was as certainly in the right. Were the chastity of every woman in the Pantheon to be put to the proof, how very few would be able to go thro' the proof with honour !

Mistake me not. When I talk of Chattity, I do not talk of Continence. Moralifts have abfurdly confounded the two names, and the abufe of terms ufually draws after it a confusion of

ideas. As a perfon may be chafte without tying himself down to continence : fo he may impofe Continence upon himfelf as a law, and yet not be chafte. Thought alone is fufficient to violate Chaftity, but it is not fufficient to make a breach of Continence. All mankind, without exception of age, fex, or quality, are obliged to be chaste: but no one is obliged to be continent. The one confifts in abstaining from the pleafures of Love the other in confining thofe pleafures within the bounds preferibed by the law of Nature. In a word, Chastity is a Virtue: Continence is not.

Thefe are the true characteristics of Chastity and where is the adventruous She who dares stand a trial? I am afraid they are very few---Were the bofom of every Fair-one infpected into, I fancy we should feldom finish the fearch without difcovering a wanton thought lurking in fome fly corner of it.

One might think, from the forcible current with which Adultry pushes every thing before it, that the mutilated edi tion of the Bible was again circulated-I mean that which was printed in the reign of Charles the First, when instead of Thou shalt not commit Adultery,"

they

Obfervations on the Prefent Times.

they inferted, "Thou shale commit . Adultery.” This polite vice of the times is become fo very fashionable, that unless a woman has taken her degrees in it, he is accounted nobody, and thunned like the Bafilisk. Our Ladies have carried it to an amazing extreme: They go to it like wrens and fparrows.

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fagacious and fharp-fcented as the ancient ones.

O for the dogs of Vulcan, to growl at the finners of thefe diffipated times! My readers must remember the defeription of thefe puppies: Vulcan had a Temple upon Mount Etna, which was guarded by them. Now their fmell was fo exquisitely true, that they difcerned, on the first approach of any one to the entrance of the Temple whether fuch perfon was chafte or not. They expreffed their knowledge of the Chaite by fawnning upon them, and greeting them with a thoufand figns and geftures of joy and careffing: but at the Unchafte they growled and barked inceffantly, till they drove them at laft from the TempleHad we but a couple of these trufty curs to guard the entrance of our modern Temple of Pleasure, the Pantheon, what havock would be made among the reputations of the Fair-fex? How many, who ftand now fair and unfpotted in the eye of the world, would appear foul and deformed, full of blors and ftains! ---Befides this, it would confiderably thin the company: I am afraid the number admitted would not be fufficient to fill up a Cotillon, and the Proprietors might fhut up their empty rooms in difpair---But, thanks to a thoughtlefs and good-natur'd age, husbands are not now fo curious or fo prying as to require fuch deep fcented brood of puppies to make experiments on their wives. When a Noble Lord, whom every body knows to be cornuted, was afked lately, why he did not look clofer after his wife he replied, with all the indifference in the world, That he was fo bufy with his own intrigues, he had rot time to look after his wife's.

pany with a relation of the manners A Nabob was entertaining the comand cuftoms of certain East Indian nations. In their ceremonies of marriage, faid he, they begin with making a fire between the married couple, to fignify their mutal love: a filken cord, which encompaffes their bodies, denotes the tye of marriage and a white linen cloth, placed between them, fignifies their chastity, and efpecially the chastity of the maid with refpect to all men.

I remember to have heard the fubftance of a fhort converfation, relative to this fabject, which happened fone time ago between fome celebrated perfonages. As it is a cafe in point, I thall relate it here: and it will thew at the fame sime, that fome of our own dogs are as

:

hearing this laft paffage, began to look A wag, who was in the company, on fly---and obferved at the fame time, that the ceremony of the linen cloth had as well been omitted, as it was at best but vouching for an uncertainty.

Indians pretend to be fure of a maid's Aye---replies the traveller, but the chastity by means of a certain root they have, which being held to a maid's nofe, does in a manner ftupify her, and deprive her of motion, if the be chafte : but if unchafte, agiates her whole frame with irregular and convulfive motions. Here there was an through the room. A Philofopher shook universal stare his head. A military gentleman fwore the virtues of the root were fabulous : But a Tutor obferved, that fuch phenomena were by fome allowed to be within the compafs of Natural Philofophy. A wealthy Citizen, who had read fome books, and who never doubted the truth of a sentence he had read, attributed the whole merit of the affair to magic. A Prieft and a Demon, fays he, will do the butinefs at any time. Such things have been, and why may they not be fo now? There was at Rome, in the Temple of Chastity, a fiatue which reprefented Truth, whofe mouth was always open : and if a chafte maid thurst her hand into it, the thould bring it out again without receiving any hurt: but if he had loit arm in two. her Chaitity, the ftatue would fnap her Was not there at Ephefus too a cave of the god Pan, in which, if a chaite maid were fhut up, there was heard an admirable harmony, and the would come forth with a garland of pine-leaves upon her head ---Et vice verfa. It is therefore evident, continues

he,

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