Our swords and manhoods be best counsellors, Our expeditions, precedents. To win is nothing, Where Reason, Time, and Counsel are our camp

masters:

But there to bear the field, then to be conquerors, Where pale Destruction takes us, takes us beaten, In wants and mutinies, ourselves but handfuls, And to ourselves our own fears, needs a new

way,

A sudden and a desperate execution:

Here, how to save, is loss; to be wise, dangerous; Only a present well-united strength,

And minds made up for all attempts, dispatch it: Disputing and delay here cool the courage; Necessity gives [no] time for doubts; things in

finite,

According to the spirit they are preach'd to;
Rewards like them, and names for after-ages,

age, proposes the reading of present evil, instead of peril, supposing that danger and peril are synonimous terms: But peril does not here mean danger; it means trial, or hazard. Periculum, in Latin, from which peril is derived, has the same signification. The whole of Suetonius's speech tends to prove the necessity of hazarding an action, even on disadvantage. Mason.

To ourselves.] i. e. In addition to the circumstance that ourselves are but handfuls, our fears, the fears or dangers of our situation.

7 Necessity gives time for doubts.] The whole context seems to require gives No time for doubts:

DISRUTING and DELAY here cool the courage.

See the whole speech.-Ed. 1778. It is strange that the last editors did not adopt an emendation so really and absolutely necessary.

8 Rewards LIKE THEM.] The editors having obscured the sense by putting the words

things infinite,

According to the spirit they are preached to

Must steel the soldier, his own shame help to arm

him:

And having forced his spirit, ere he cools,
Fling him upon his enemies; sudden and swift,
Like tigers amongst foxes, we must fight for't:
Fury must be our fortune; shame we have lost,
Spurs ever in our sides to prick us forward:
There is no other wisdom nor discretion
Due to this day of ruin, but destruction;
The soldier's order first, and then his anger.
Dem. No doubt they dare redeem all.
Suet. Then no doubt

The day must needs be ours.

woman

That the proud

Is infinite in number better likes me,

Than if we dealt with squadrons; half her army Shall choke themselves, their own swords dig their graves.

I'll tell ye all my fears; one single valour,
The virtues of the valiant Caratach,

More doubts me than all Britain." He's a soldier
So forged out, and so temper'd for great fortunes,
So much man thrust into him, so old in dangers,
So fortunate in all attempts, that his mere name
Fights in a thousand men, himself in millions,
To make him Roman: But no more.-Petillius,
How stands your charge?

Pet. Ready for all employments,
To be commanded too, sir.

Suet. 'Tis well govern'd;

To-morrow we'll draw out, and view the cohorts:

into parentheses, conclude that the text is either corrupt, or that a line is lost. But nothing can be plainer. Rewards like THEM, means infinite rewards; them referring to things infinite, in the preceding line but one.

9 More doubts me.] That is, inspires me with greater doubts.

I' th' mean time, all apply their offices.
Where's Junius?

Pet. In's cabin, sick o' th' mumps, sir.
Suet. How?

Pet. In love, indeed in love, most lamentably loving,

To the tune of Queen Dido.'

Dec. Alas poor gentleman!

Suet. 'Twill make him fight the nobler. With what lady?

I'll be a spokesman for him.

Pet. You'll scant speed, sir.
Suet. Who is't?

Pet. The devil's dam, Bonduca's daughter,
Her youngest, crack'd i' th' ring.*

Suet. I am sorry for him:

But sure his own discretion will reclaim him;
He must deserve our anger else. Good captains,
Apply yourselves in all the pleasing forms
Ye can, unto the soldiers; fire their spirits,
And set 'em fit to run this action;

Mine own provisions shall be shared amongst 'em,
Till more come in; tell 'em, if now they conquer,
The fat of all the kingdom lies before 'em.
Their shames forgot, their honours infinite,
And want for ever banish'd. Two days hence,
Our fortunes, and our swords, and gods be for us!

[Exeunt.

To the tune of Queen Dido.] This may refer to the old ballad of Queen Dido, or Æneas, Wandering Prince of Troy, printed by Percy, (ed. 1794, III. 193.)

• Her youngest, crackt i' th' ring.] Bonduca had been ravished by a Roman.

ACT II. SCENE I.

The same. The Tent of Penius.

Enter PENIUS, REGULUS, MACER, and DRUSIUS.

Pen. I must come?

Macer. So the general commands, sir.

Pen. I must bring up my regiment?
Macer. Believe, sir,

I bring no lie.

Pen. But did he say, I must come ?

Macer. So delivered.

Pen. How long is't, Regulus, since I com

manded

In Britain here?

So

Reg. About five years, great Penius.

Pen. The general some five months. Are all

my actions

poor and lost, my services so barren,

That I am remember'd in no nobler language
But must come up?

Macer. I do beseech you, sir,
Weigh but the time's estate.

Pen. Yes, good lieutenant,

I do, and his that sways it. Must come up?
Am I turn'd bare centurion? Must, and shall,
Fit embassies to court my honour?

Macer. Sir

Pen. Set me to lead a handful of my men Against an hundred thousand barbarous slaves,

That have march'd name by name with Rome's

best doers?

Serve 'em up some other meat; I'll bring no food
To stop the jaws of all those hungry wolves;
My regiment's mine own. I must, my language?3

Enter CURIUS.

Cur. Penius, where lies the host?
Pen. Where Fate may find 'em.
Cur. Are they ingirt?

Pen. The battle's lost.

Cur. So soon?

Pen. No; but 'tis lost, because it must be won;
The Britons must be victors. Whoe'er saw
A troop of bloody vultures hovering
About a few corrupted carcasses,

Let him behold the silly Roman host,
Girded with millions of fierce Britain swains,
With deaths as many as they have had hopes;
And then go thither, he that loves his shame!
I scorn my life, yet dare not lose my name.

Cur. Do not you hold it a most famous end, When both our names and lives are sacrificed For Rome's increase?

Pen. Yes, Curius; but mark this too: What glory is there, or what lasting fame Can be to Rome or us, what full example, When one is smother'd with a multitude, And crowded in amongst a nameless press? Honour got out of flint, and on their heads Whose virtues, like the sun, exhaled all valours,*

3 I must, my language,] That is, language to be used to me.

Mason. 4 Like the sun, exhaled all valours.] The simile and the argument both seem to require us to read vapours.Ed. 1778.

The text does not stand in need of any alteration. Our au