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Of Agrippina: yet, your highness knows,
There is nor loss nor shame in providence;
Few can, what all should do, beware enough.
You may perceive with what officious face,
Satrius, and Natta, Afer, and the rest

Visit your house, of late, to enquire the secrets;
And with what bold and privileged art, they rail
Against Augusta, yea, and at Tiberius;
Tell tricks of Livia, and Sejanus; all
To excite, and call your indignation on,
That they might hear it at more liberty.
Agr. You're too suspicious, Silius.
Sil. Pray the gods,

I be so, Agrippina; but I fear

Some subtile practice. They that durst to strike
At so exampless, and unblamed a life,*

As that of the renowned Germanicus,
Will not sit down with that exploit alone:
He threatens many that hath injured one."
Ner. "Twere best rip forth their tongues, sear
out their eyes,

When next they come.

Sos. A fit reward for spies.

• At so exampless and unblam'd a life.] At a life that had no parallel; was beyond all example, or imitation. Examp-less is a term of the author's coining; and by the same poetical prero. gative, Chapman, in his verses on this tragedy, uses the word exampling.

"Our Phoebus may with his exampling beams." 5 He threatens many that hath injured one.}

Multis minatur, qui uni facit injuriam.

WHAL.

PUB. SYRUS.

In this fulness and frequency of sentence, as he calls it in his preface, Jonson placeth one part of the office of a tragic poet : and the learned reader will perceive, from the brevity and num. ber of these maxims, that instead of copying after the models of ancient Greece, he hath conformed to the practice of Seneca the tragedian. WHAL.

▾ Tacit. ibid. et pp. 90 et 92.

2 Suet. Tib. c. 2. Dion. Rom. Hist. Lib. lvii. p, 705.

Enter DRUSUS jun.

Dru. jun. Hear you the rumour?

Agr. What?

Dru. jun. Drusus is dying.*
Agr. Dying!

Nero. That's strange!

Agr. You were with him yesternight.

Dru. jun. One met Eudemus the physician, Sent for, but now; who thinks he cannot live. Sil. Thinks! if it be arrived at that, he knows, Or none.

Agr. 'Tis quick! what should be his disease? Sil. Poison, poison

Agr. How, Silius !

Nero. What's that?

Sil. Nay, nothing. There was late a certain blow

Given o' the face.

Nero. Ay, to Sejanus.

Sil. True.

Dru. jun. And what of that?

Sil. I'm glad I gave it not.

Nero. But there is somewhat else?

Sil. Yes, private meetings,

With a great lady [sir], at a physician's,

And a wife turn'd away.

Nero. Ha!

Sil. Toys, mere toys:

What wisdom's now in th' streets, in the common mouth?

Dru. jun. Fears, whisperings, tumults, noise, I know not what :

They say the Senate sit."

• Tac. Ann. Lib. iv. pp. 74, 75, 76, 77.

b Vid. Tac. Ann. Lib. iv.

p. 76.

Sil. I'll thither straight; And see what's in the forge. Agr. Good Silius do; Sosia and I will in.

Sil. Haste you, my lords,

To visit the sick prince; tender your loves,
And sorrows to the people. This Sejanus,
Trust my divining soul, hath plots on all:
No tree, that stops his prospect, but must fall.
[Exeunt.

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Enter Præcones, Lictores, SEJANUS, VARRO, LaTIARIS, COTTA, and AFER.

с

Sej. "Tis only you must urge against him, Varro;

Nor I, nor Cæsar may appear therein,

Except in your defence, who are the consul;
And, under colour of late enmity

Between your father and his, may better do it,
As free from all suspicion of a practice.

Here be your notes, what points to touch at; read:

Be cunning in them. Afer has them too.

Var. But is he summon'd?

Sej. No. It was debated

By Cæsar, and concluded as most fit

To take him unprepared.

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Afer. And prosecute

All under name of treason."

Var. I conceive.

Enter SABINUS, GALLUS, LEPIDUS, and ARRUN

TIUS.

Sab. Drusus being dead, Cæsar will not be here.

Gal. What should the business of this senate

be?

Arr. That can my subtle whisperers tell you:

we

That are the good-dull-noble lookers on,

Are only call'd to keep the marble warm.

What should we do with those deep mysteries,

Proper to these fine heads? let them alone.

Our ignorance may, perchance, help us be saved From whips and furies.

Gall. See, see, see their action!

Arr. Ay, now their heads do travail, now they work;

Their faces run like shittles; they are weaving Some curious cobweb to catch flies.

Sab. Observe,

They take their places.

Arr. What, so low!

Gal. O yes,

They must be seen to flatter Cæsar's grief,

Though but in sitting.

Var. Bid us silence.

Præ. Silence!

Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 79. Sed cuncta quæstione majestatis

exercita.

e Tacit. eod. Lib. iv. p. 76. Consulesque sede vulgari per speciem mastitiæ sedentes.

f

Var. Fathers conscript, may this our present

meeting

Turn fair, and fortunate to the common-wealth!

Enter SILIUS, and other Senators.

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Præ. Silius stand forth,

The consul hath to charge thee.

Lic. Room for Cæsar.

Arr. Is he come too! nay then expect a trick. Sab. Silius accused! sure he will answer nobly.

Enter TIBERIUS attended.

Tib. We stand amazed, fathers, to behold This general dejection. Wherefore sit Rome's consuls thus dissolved, as they had lost All the remembrance both of style and place? It not becomes. No woes are of fit weight, To make the honour of the empire stoop: Though I, in my peculiar self may meet Just reprehension, that so suddenly,

And, in so fresh a grief, would greet the senate, When private tongues, of kinsmen and allies, Inspired with comforts, lothly are endured,

Præfatio solennis Consulum Rom. vid Bar. Briss. de for. Lib. ii.

8 Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 76. JONS.

Gallus had just before taken notice of the consuls descending from their proper places to an inferior seat, in complaisance to Cæsar's grief for the death of Drusus. Tiberius, on his entrance, reproves them for this dispiritedness. WHAL.

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