oat, a
Vision. This, and Mr. Walsh's AEsculapius, or Hospital of Fools, are
perhaps two of the finest dialogues we have in English, as well as the
most lively imitations of Lucian.

Sir Richard Steele, in a paper called The Theatre, No. 15. has paid a
tribute to the memory of Mr. Hughes, with which as it illustrates his
amiable character, we shall conclude his life.

'I last night (says he) saw the Siege of Damascus, and had the
mortification to hear this evening that Mr. Hughes, the author of it,
departed this life within some few hours after his play was acted,
with universal applause. This melancholy circumstance recalled into
my thought a speech in the tragedy, which very much affected the
whole audience, and was attended to with the greatest, and most solemn
instance of approbation, and awful silence.' The incidents of the
play plunge a heroic character into the last extremity; and he is
admonished by a tyrant commander to expect no mercy, unless he changes
the Christian religion for the Mahometan. The words with which the
Turkish general makes his exit from his prisoner are,

Farewel, and think of death.

Upon which the captive breaks into the following soliloquy,

Farewel! and think of death!--was it not so?
Do murtherers then, preach morality?
But how to think of what the living know not,
And the dead cannot, or else may not tell!
What art thou? O thou great mysterious terror!
The way to thee, we know; diseases, famine,
Sword, fire, and all thy ever open gates,
That day and night stand ready to receive us.
But what, beyond them? who will draw that veil?
Yet death's not there.----No, 'tis a point of time;
The verge 'twixt mortal, and immortal Being.
It mocks our thought----On this side all is life;
And when we've reach'd it, in that very instant,
'Tis past the thinking of----O if it be
The pangs, the throes, the agonizing struggle,
When soul and body part, sure I have felt it!
And there's no more to fear.

'The gentleman (continues Sir Richard) to whose memory I devote this
paper, may be the emulation of more persons of different talents,
than any one I have ever known. His head, hand, or heart, was always
employed in something worthy imitation; his pencil, his bow (string)
or his pen, each of which he used in a masterly manner, were always
directed to raise, and entertain his own mind, or that of others, to a
more chearful prosecution of what is noble and virtuous.