play from Photinus, Achillas, or Septimius, would be doing too much honour to these subordinate characters. Besides, the word false, though applied to deceitfulness, inconstancy, and want of truth, is never used to express such atrocious villainies as they were engaged in."-It may be presumed, though not with conclusive decision, that by The False One, Cæsar is intended; and that the scene where he is seduced from the affection of Cleopatra by the riches displayed by her brother, is peculiarly alluded to. Nor, although the objection of Mr M. Mason certainly has weight, is it altogether improbable that the paramount baseness of the wretched Septimius may have exalted him to the "bad eminence" in question. Our authors are far from being felicitous in the titles of their plays; and it is perhaps considering too curiously, to suppose they would argue respecting the title of the False One, with the metaphysical precision inferred by Mr Mason.

PROLOGUE.

NEw titles warrant not a play for new,
The subject being old; and 'tis as true,
Fresh and neat matter may with ease be framed
Out of their stories, that have oft been named
With glory on the stage: What borrows he
From him that wrote old Priam's tragedy,
That writes his love to Hecuba? Sure, to tell
Of Cæsar's amorous heats, and how he fell

I' th' capitol, can never be the same

To the judicious: Nor will such blame

Those who penn'd this, for barrenness, when they find Young Cleopatra here, and her great mind

Express'd to the height, with us a maid, and free,

And how he rated her virginity:

We treat not of what boldness she did die,
Nor of her fatal love to Antony.

What we present and offer to your view,
Upon their faiths, the stage yet never knew:
Let reason then first to your wills give laws,
And after judge of them, and of their cause.

Julius Cæsar.

Ptolemy, king of Egypt.

Achoreus, an old, blind counsellor, priest of Isis. Photinus, an eunuch, politician, and minion to Ptolemy. Achillas, captain of the guard to Ptolemy.

Septimius, a revolted Roman villain.

Labienus, a Roman soldier and nuncio.
Apollodorus, guardian to Cleopatra.
Antony,

Dolabella,} Cæsar's captains.

Sceva, a free speaker, also captain to Cæsar.
Three lame Soldiers.

Guard.

Servants.

THE

FALSE ONE.1

ACT I. SCENE I.

Alexandria. A Hall in the Royal Palace.

Enter ACHILLAS and ACHOREUS.

2

Achor. I love the king, nor do dispute his

power,

For that is not confined, nor to be censured

The False One.] Mr Seward, conceiving that a slur is cast on this play (for so he expresses it) by Dr Warburton's first note on the Tempest, is very copious in his defences of the False One, as "the rival of Antony and Cleopatra." He also gives very large quotations from Lucan; and endeavours to shew the superiority of the False One over the Pompey of Corneille; in all which particulars we think him too prolix and too uninteresting to be entirely copied Nor do we believe that our authors meant (as the Rev. commentator on the Tempest imagines) to break a lance with Shakspeare on this occasion. The prologue utterly disclaims any competition, either with his Julius Cæsar, or his Antony and Cleopatra, truly asserting, that although the personages are the same with those that are celebrated in those plays, the situations of those personages that furnish the subject of the False One are totally different.-Ed. 1778.

Achil. I love the king, &c.] The gross error of making Achillas speak this has run through all the editions.-Seward. We are very sorry Mr Seward should begin a play he seems to