THIS Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays, (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their Dramatic representations,) elucidating the wonderful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some learned Theban, and from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of Attic salt had been repealed by the Bootarchs. The tenderness with which he beats the PIGS proves him to have been a sus Baotia; possibly Epicuri de grege porcus; for, as the poet observes,

"A fellow feeling makes us wond'rous kind."

No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last act. The word Hoydipouse, (or more properly Edipus,) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated.

SCENE I.

A magnificent Temple, built of thigh-bones and death'sheads, and tiled with scalps. Over the Altar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of boars, sows, and suckingpigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock, and oak, sitting on the steps, and clinging round the Altar of the Temple. Enter SWELLFOOT, in his royal robes, without perceiving the Pigs. SWELLFOOT..

THOU Supreme Goddess! by whose power divine
These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array
[He contemplates himself with satisfaction.

Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch
Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze,
And these most sacred nether promontories
Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these
Baotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid,
(Nor with less toil were their foundations laid,*)
Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain,
That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing!
Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors,
Radical-butchers, Paper-money-millers,
Bishops and deacons, and the entire army
Of those fat martyrs to the persecution
Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils,
Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres
Of their Eleusis, hail !

THE SWINE.

SEMICHORUS I

The same, alas! the same; Though only now the name Of pig remains to me.

SEMICHORUS II.

If 'twere your kingly will
Us wretched swine to kill,

What should we yield to thee?

SWELLFOOT.

Why skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar.

CHORUS OF SWINE.

I have heard your Laureate sing,

That pity was a royal thing;

Under your mighty ancestors, we pigs

Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs,

Or grasshoppers that live on noon-day dew,
And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too:
But now our sties are fallen in, we catch

The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch;
Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch,
And then we seek the shelter of a ditch;
Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none
Has yet been ours since your reign begun.

FIRST SOW.

My pigs, 'tis in vain to tug!

SECOND SOW.

I could almost eat my litter!

FIRST PIG.

I suck, but no milk will come from the dug.

SECOND PIG.

Our skin and our bones would be bitter.

THE BOARS.

We fight for this rag of greasy rug, Though a trough of wash would be fitter.

SEMICHORUS.

Happier swine were they than we,
Drowned in the Gadarean sea-

I wish that pity would drive out the devils
Which in your royal bosom hold their revels,
And sink us in the waves of your compassion!
Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation!
Now if your Majesty would have our bristles

To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons
With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,
In policy-ask else your royal Solons-
You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw,
And sties well thatched; besides, it is the law!

SWELLFOOT.

This is sedition, and rank blasphemy! Ho! there, my guards!

Enter a GUARD.

GUARD.

Your sacred Majesty ?

Has a loud trumpet like the Scarabee; His crooked tail is barbed with many stings, Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each Immedicable; from his convex eyes He sees fair things in many hideous shapes, And trumpets all his falsehood to the world. Like other beetles he is fed on dungHe has eleven feet with which he crawls, Trailing a blistering slime; and this foul beast Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits, From isle to isle, from city unto city, Urging her flight from the far Chersonese To fabulous Solyma, and the Etnean Isle, Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock, And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez, Eolia and Elysium, and thy shores, Parthenope, which now, alas! are free! And through the fortunate Saturnian land, Into the darkness of the West.

MAMMON.

A high connexion, Purganax. The bridegroom
Is of a very ancient family

Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop,
And has great influence in both Houses;-Oh!
He makes the fondest husband; nay too fond :-
New-married people should not kiss in public ;-
But the poor souls love one another so!
And then my little grandchildren, the Gibbets,
Promising children as you ever saw,—
The young playing at hanging, the elder learning
How to hold radicals. They are well taught too,
For every Gibbet says its catechism,
And reads a select chapter in the Bible
Before it goes to play.

[A most tremendous humming is heard.

PURGANAX.

Ha! what do I hear?

Enter GADFLY.

MAMMON.

Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding.

GADFLY.

Hum! hum! hum!

From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold grey scalps Of the mountains, I come!

Hum! hum! hum!

To crawl through such chinks

Of golden Byzantium;

From the temples divine of old Palestine,

From Athens and Rome,

With a ha! and a hum!

I come! I come!

All inn-doors and windows
Were open to me!

I saw all that sin does,

Which lamps hardly see

That burn in the night by the curtained bed,—

The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red. Dinging and singing,

From slumber I rung her,

Loud as the clank of an ironmonger!

Hum! hum! hum!

Far, far, far,

With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips, I drove her-afar!

She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes
When Swellfoot wishes that she were in hell!
Oh, Hymen! clothed in yellow jealousy,
And waving o'er the couch of wedded kings
The torch of Discord with its fiery hair;
This is thy work, thou patron saint of queens!
Swellfoot is wived! though parted by the sea,
The very name of wife had conjugal rights;
Her cursed image ate, drank, slept with me,
And in the arms of Adiposa oft
Her memory has received a husband's-

[A loud tumult, and cries of "Iona for ever!-No
Swellfoot!"

That pleasure I well knew,
And made a charge with those battalions bold,
Called, from their dress and grin, the royal apes,
Upon the swine, who in a hollow square
Enclosed her, and received the first attack

Like so many rhinoceroses, and then
Retreating in good order, with bare tusks
And wrinkled snouts presented to the foe,
Bore her in triumph to the public sty.
What is still worse, some sows upon the ground
Have given the ape-guards apples, nuts, and gin,
And they all whisk their tails aloft, and cry,
"Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!"

Went to the garret of the swineherd's tower,
Which overlooks the sty, and made a long
Harangue (all words) to the assembled swine,
Of delicacy, mercy, judgment, law,
Morals, and precedents, and purity,
Adultery, destitution, and divorce,
Piety, faith, and state necessity,

And how I loved the queen !-and then I wept,
With the pathos of my own eloquence,
And every tear turned to a mill-stone, which
Brained many a gaping pig, and there was made
A slough of blood and brains upon the place,
Greased with the pounded bacon; round and round
The millstones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,
And hurling sucking pigs into the air,
With dust and stones.-

Enter MAMMON.

MAMMON.

I wonder that grey wizards

Like you should be so beardless in their schemes; It had been but a point of policy

To keep Iona and the swine apart.

Divide and rule! but ye have made a junction
Between two parties who will govern you,

But for my art.-Behold this BAG! it is

The poison BAG of that Green Spider huge,

On which our spies skulked in ovation through The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with

dead: