ΑΝΤΟΝΥ AND CLEOPATRA. INTRODUCTION. WHETHER this play, tho' excellently wrote, bas any chance for long existence on the ftage, is very doubtful. Twenty years fince, that very able and successful Dramatic Modeller, Mr. Garrick, produced it unde, the most probable state of reformation; yet, tho' elegantly decorated, and finely performed, it too foon languished. Antony and Cleopatra are the chief marked characters in it: he is a flighty infatuated slave to an excess of love and luxury; be a tinfel pattern of vanity and female cunning, which work the downfal of both. A double moral may be inferred, namely, That indolence and diffipation may undo the greatest of men; and that beauty, under the direction of vanity, will not only ruin the poffeffor, but admirer alfo. SEXTUS POMPEIUS. MECENAS, AGRIPPA, TAURUS, Cafarians! THYREUS, DOLABELLA, [GALLUS,] and Cæfarians: PROCULEIUS, Meffengers, three; Soldiers, fix; the fame. DEMETRIUS, PHILO, ENOBARBUS, VENTIDIUS, SILIUS, CANIDIUS, Antonians: SCARUS, EUPHRONIUS, EROS, and DERCETAS, Attendants, five; Messengers, fix; Soldiers, VARRIUS, MENAS, and } Friends to Pompey MENECRATES, A Soothsayer. Servants of the fame, two. ALEXAS, MARDIAN an Eunuch, CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt. IRAS, } Attendants on Cleopatra. Other Attendants, Officers, Soldiers, &c. SCENE, difpers'd; in feveral Parts of the ΑΝΤΟΝΥ AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. SCENE I. Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. Enter Demetrias, and Philo. PHILO. AY, but this dotage of our general's O'er-flows the measure: thofe his goodly eyes, That o'er the files and mufters of the war Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn, The office and devotion of their view Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart, Which in the fcuffles of great fights hath burst When we meet two fuch celebrated names, and confider our author's great abilities, we are naturally led to expect a very capital piece. Thofe characters are accordingly very greatly fupported; but the whole piece, as it ftands here, feems rather too incorrect and confused for action. To cool a gipfy's luft.-Look, where they come : Take but good note, and you fhall fee in him Cle. If it be love indeed, tell me how much. Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd. Cle. I'll fet a bourn how far to be belov'd. *Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth. Enter an Attendant. Att. News, my good lord, from Rome. Cle. Nay, hear them Antony: Fulvia, perchance, is angry; or, who knows Ant. How, my love! Cle. Perchance? Nay, and moft like:- Call in the messengers.-As I am Egypt's queen, Is, to do thus; when fuch a mutual pair, Antony and Cleopatra fhould both poffefs a compleat elegance of figure, and an emphatic, yet eafy flow of expreffion: the former fhould appear all openness; the latter ought to show great art, covered with much infinuative plaufibility. And |