was residing at the court of Lycia at this time a young maiden, the daughter of Bacha by her first husband, who had hitherto been brought up in the obscurity of a poor country abode with an uncle, but whom Bacha now publicly owned, and had prevailed upon the easy Duke to adopt as successor to the throne in wrong of the true heir, his suspected son Leucippus.
This young creature, Urania by name, was as artless and harmless as her mother was crafty and wicked. To the unnatural Bacha she had been an object of neglect and aversion; and for the project of supplanting Leucippus only had she fetched her out of retirement. The bringing-up of Urania had been among country hinds and lasses; to tend her flocks or superintend her neat dairy had been the extent of her breeding. From her calling she had contracted a pretty rusticity of dialect, which, among the fine folks of the court, passed for simplicity and folly. She was the unfittest instrument for an ambitious design that could be chosen, for her manners in a palace had a tinge still of her old occupation, and to her mind the lowly shepherdess's life was best.
Simplicity is oft a match for prudence; and Urania was not so simple but she understood that she had been sent for to court only in the Prince's wrong, and in her heart she was determined to defeat any designs that might be contriving against her brother-in-law. The melancholy bearing of Leucippus had touched her with pity. This wrought in her a kind of love, which, for its object, had no further end than the well-being of the beloved. She looked for no return of it, nor did the possibility of such a blessing in the remotest way occur to her—so vast a distance she had imaged between her lowly bringing up and the courtly breeding and graces of Leucippus. Hers was no raging flame, such as had burned destructive in the bosom of poor Hidaspes. Either the vindictive God in mercy had spared this young maiden, or the wrath of the confounding Cupid was restrained by a Higher Power from discharging the most malignant of his arrows against the peace of so much innocence. Of the extent of her mother's malice she was too guileless to have entertained conjecture; but from hints and whispers, and, above all, from that tender watchfulness with which a true affection, like Urania's, tends the safety of its object—fearing even where no cause for fear subsists—she gathered that some danger was impending over the Prince, and with simple heroism resolved to countermine the treason.
It chanced upon a day that Leucippus had been indulging his sad meditations, in forests far from human converse, when he was struck with the appearance of a human being, so unusual in that solitude. There stood before him a seeming youth, of delicate appearance, clad in coarse and peasantly attire. "He was come," he said, "to seek out the Prince, and to be his poor boy and servant, if he would let him." "Alas! poor youth," replied Leucippus, "why do you follow me, who am as poor as you are?" "In good faith," was his pretty answer, "I shall be well and rich enough if you will but love me." And saying so, he wept. The Prince, admiring this strange attachment in a boy, was moved with compassion; and seeing him exhausted, as if with long travel and hunger, invited him into his poor habitation, setting such refreshments before him as that barren spot afforded. But by no entreaties could he be prevailed upon to take any sustenance; and all that day, and for the two following, he seemed supported only by some gentle flame of love that was within him. He fed only upon the sweet looks and courteous entertainment which he received from Leucippus. Seemingly he wished to die under the loving eyes of his master. "I can not eat," he prettily said, "but I shall eat to-morrow." "You will be dead by that time," said Leucippus. "I shall be well then," said he, "since you will not love me." Then the prince asked him why he sighed so: "To think," was his innocent reply, "that such a fine man as you should die, and no gay lady love him." "But you will love me," said Leucippus. "Yes, sure," said he, "till I die; and when I am in heaven I shall wish for you."—"This is a love," thought the other, "that I never yet heard tell of: but come, thou art sleepy, child; go in, and I will sit with thee." Then, from some words which the poor youth dropped, Leucippus, suspecting that his wits were beginning to ramble, said, "What portends this?"—"I am not sleepy," said the youth, "but you are sad. I would that I could do anything to make you merry. Shall I sing?" But soon, as if recovering strength, "There is one approaching," he wildly cried out. "Master, look to yourself—"
His words were true; for now entered, with provided weapon, the wicked emissary of Bacha that we told of; and, directing a mortal thrust at the Prince, the supposed boy, with a last effort, interposing his weak body, received it in his bosom, thanking the Heavens in death that he had saved "so good a master."
Leucippus, having slain the villain, was at leisure to discover, in the features of his poor servant, the countenance of his devoted sister-in-law! Through solitary and dangerous ways she had sought him in that disguise; and, finding him, seems to have resolved upon a voluntary death by fasting: partly, that she might die in the presence of her beloved; and partly, that she might make known to him in death the love which she wanted boldness to disclose to him while living; but chiefly, because she knew that by her demise all obstacles would be removed that stood between her Prince and his succession to the throne of Lycia.
Leucippus had hardly time to comprehend the strength of love in his Urania when a trampling of horses resounded through his solitude. It was a party of Lycian horsemen, that had come to seek him, dragging the detested Bacha in their train, who was now to receive the full penalty of her misdeeds. Amidst her frantic fury upon the missing of her daughter the old Duke had suddenly died, not without suspicion of her having administered poison to him. Her punishment was submitted to Leucippus, who was now, with joyful acclaims, saluted as the rightful Duke of Lycia. He, as no way moved with his great wrongs, but considering her simply as the parent of Urania, saluting her only by the title of "Wicked Mother," bade her to live. "That Reverend title," he said, and pointed to the bleeding remains of her child, "must be her pardon. He would use no extremity against her, but leave her to Heaven." The hardened mother, not at all relenting at the sad spectacle that lay before her, but making show of dutiful submission to the young Duke, and with bended knees, approaching him, suddenly, with a dagger, inflicted a mortal stab upon him; and, with a second stroke stabbing herself, ended both their wretched lives.
Now was the tragedy of Cupid's wrath awfully completed; and, the race of Leontius failing in the deaths of both his children, the chronicle relates that, under their new Duke, Ismenus, the offense to the angry Power was expiated; his statues and altars were, with more magnificence than ever, re-edified; and he ceased thenceforth from plaguing the land.
Thus far the Pagan historians relate erring. But from this vain Idol story a not unprofitable moral may be gathered against the abuse of the natural, but dangerous, passion of love. In the story of Hidaspes we see the preposterous linking of beauty with deformity; of princely expectancies with mean and low conditions, in the case of the Prince, her brother; and of decrepit age with youth in the ill end of their doting father, Leontius. By their examples we are warned to decline all unequal and ill-assorted unions.
APPENDIX
ESSAYS AND NOTES NOT CERTAIN TO BE LAMB'S, BUT PROBABLY HIS
SCRAPS OF CRITICISM
(1822)
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.
Gray's Elegy.
There has always appeared to me a vicious mixture
