"The emperor of Barbary shews himself acquainted with the Roman poets as well as either of his prisoners, and answers the foregoing speech in the same classic strain:
Serpent, I will engender poison with thee: Our offspring, like the seed of dragon's teeth, Shall issue armed, and fight themselves to death.
"Ovid seems to have been Muley-Moloch's favourite author; witness the lines that follow:
She, still inexorable, still imperious, And loud, as if, like Bacchus, born in thunder.
"I shall conclude my remarks on his part with that poetical complaint of his being in love; and leave my reader to consider, how prettily it would sound in the mouth of an emperor of Morocco:
The god of love once more has shot his fires Into my soul, and my whole heart receives him.
"Muley Zeydan is as ingenious a man as his brother Muley Moloch; as where he hints at the story of Castor and Pollux:
May we ne'er meet; For, like the twins of Leda, when I mount, He gallops down the skies.
"As for the Mufti, we will suppose that he was bred up a scholar, and not only versed in the law of Mahomet, but acquainted with all kinds of polite learning. For this reason he is not at all surprised when Dorax calls him a Phæton in one place, and in another tells him he is like Archimedes.
"The Mufti afterwards mentions Ximenes, Albornoz, and cardinal Wolsey, by name. The poet seems to think, he may make every person, in his play, know as much as himself, and talk as well as he could have done on the same occasion. At least, I believe, every reader will agree with me, that the above-mentioned sentiments, to which I might have added several others, would have been better suited to the court of Augustus than that of Muley Moloch. I grant they are beautiful in themselves, and much more so in that noble language, which was peculiar to this great poet. I only observe, that they are improper for the persons who make use of them."
The catastrophe of the tragedy may be also censured, not only on the grounds objected to that of "OEdipus," but because it does not naturally flow from the preceding events, and opens, in the fifth act, a new set of persons, and a train of circumstances, unconnected with the preceding action. In the concluding scene, it was remarked, by the critics, that there is a want of pure taste in the lovers dwelling more upon the pleasures than the horrors of their incestuous connection.