The Printer to The Reader.
"I hope you expect no eloquence from a printer, nor regularity in a preface which hath nothing to say to you, but that Pompey being a translation out of the French of Mr Corneille, the hand that did it, is responsible for nothing but the English, and the songs between the acts, which were added only to lengthen the Play, and make it fitter for the stage, when those that could not be refused, were resolved to have it acted."
After the Third Act, "to Cornelia asleep on a couch," Pompey's ghost sings these stanzas in recitative air.
After this, a military dance as the continuation of her dream, and then Cor nelia starts up as awakened in amazement, saying,
How great the vision! and how quickly done!
Yet if in dreams we future things can see,
There's still some joy laid up in Fate for me.—[Exit.
P. 166. This poem, though exceedingly different from what is here published, is to be found in the first act of Lee's "Theodosius." St Chrisostome was archbishop of Constantinople, in the 4th century. Gibbon has given the following account of the subject of this poem: "From a motive either of prudence or religion, she, (Pulcheria) embraced a life of celibacy; and this resolution, which she communicated to her sisters Arcadia and Marina, was celebrated by the Christian world, as the sublimest effort of heroic piety. In the presence of the clergy and people, the three daughters of Arcadius dedicated their virginity to God; and the obligation of their solemn vow was inscribed on a tablet of gold and gems, which they publickly offered in the great church of Constantinople. Their palace was converted into a monastery; and all males, except the guides of their conscience, were scrupulously excluded from the holy threshold. Pulcheria, her two sisters, and a chosen train of favoured damsels, formed a religious community; they renounced the vanity of dress, interrupted by frequent fasts their simple and frugal diet, allotted a portion of their time to works of embroidery,
