vidence that guards the good.

DEMETRIUS.
O providence! extend thy care to me;
For courage droops, unequal to the combat;
And weak philosophy denies her succours.
Sure, some kind sabre in the heat of battle,
Ere yet the foe found leisure to be cruel,
Dismiss'd her to the sky.

LEONTIUS.
Some virgin martyr,
Perhaps, enamour'd of resembling virtue,
With gentle hand, restrain'd the streams of life,
And snatch'd her timely from her country's fate.

DEMETRIUS.
From those bright regions of eternal day,
Where now thou shin'st among thy fellow-saints,
Array'd in purer light, look down on me:
In pleasing visions and assuasive dreams,
O! sooth my soul, and teach me how to lose thee.

LEONTIUS.
Enough of unavailing tears, Demetrius:
I come obedient to thy friendly summons,
And hop'd to share thy counsels, not thy sorrows:
While thus we mourn the fortune of Aspasia,
To what are we reserv'd?

DEMETRIUS.
To what I know not:
But hope, yet hope, to happiness and honour;
If happiness can be, without Aspasia.

LEONTIUS.
But whence this new-sprung hope?

DEMETRIUS.
From Cali bassa,
The chief, whose wisdom guides the Turkish counsels.
He, tir'd of slav'ry, though the highest slave,
Projects, at once, our freedom and his own;
And bids us, thus disguis'd, await him here.

LEONTIUS.
Can he restore the state he could not save?
In vain, when Turkey's troops assail'd our walls,
His kind intelligence betray'd their measures;
Their arms prevail'd, though Cali was our friend.

DEMETRIUS.
When the tenth sun had set upon our sorrows,
At midnight's private hour, a voice unknown
Sounds in my sleeping ear, 'Awake, Demetrius,
Awake, and follow me to better fortunes.'
Surpris'd I start, and bless the happy dream;
Then, rousing, know the fiery chief Abdalla,
Whose quick impatience seiz'd my doubtful hand,
And led me to the shore where Cali stood,
Pensive, and list'ning to the beating surge.
There, in soft hints, and in ambiguous phrase,
With all the diffidence of long experience,
That oft had practis'd fraud, and oft detected,
The vet'ran courtier half reveal'd his project.
By his command, equipp'd for speedy flight,
Deep in a winding creek a galley lies,
Mann'd with the bravest of our fellow-captives,
Selected by my care, a hardy band,
That long to hail thee chief.

LEONTIUS.
But what avails
So smal