"Pray, what are 'those his guards?' I thought, at present, that Juba's guards had been Sempronius's tools, and had been dangling after his heels.
"But now let us sum up all these absurdities together. Sempronius goes at noonday, in Juba's clothes, and with Juba's guards, to Cato's palace, in order to pass for Juba, in a place where they were both so very well known: he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he threatens them:
'Hah! dastards, do you tremble!
Or act like men; or, by yon azure heav'n!'—
But the guards still remaining restive, Sempronius himself attacks Juba, while each of the guards is representing Mr. Spectator's sign of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Sempronius's threats. Juba kills Sempronius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries them in triumph away to Cato. Now, I would fain know, if any part of Mr. Bayes's tragedy is so full of absurdity as this?
"Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in. The question is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of swords in the governor's hall? Where was the governor himself? Where were his guards? Where were his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the person of a governor of a place of war, was enough to alarm the whole garrison: and yet, for almost half an hour after Sempronius was killed, we find none of those appear, who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise of swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman:
'Luc. Sure 'twas the clash of swords! my troubl'd heart Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows, It throbs with fear, and aches at ev'ry sound!'
And immediately her old whimsey returns upon her:
'O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake— die away with horrour at the thought.'
She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats, but it must be for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well! upon this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it seems, takes him for Juba; for says she,
'The face is muffl'd up within the garment.'