great men of the nation beheld you without envy, enjoying the favour of their sovereign. You shared that sovereign’s cares; but you also shared his joys, his wealth;—you were no longer considered as a foreigner, and even the priests themselves murmured not when they saw you appear at the worship of their gods.—Oh fatal forbearance!—On one of these solemn days, my noble friend beheld in the temple one of the priestesses of the sun, as she presented the bread of sacrifice to the king.—She was young—she was lovely—Alonzo’s heart was instantly lost—and at the same moment all the grand designs he had formed, were sunk in the ocean of forgetfulness.—The champion for the rights of humanity slumbered upon his post, while the charming device upon his shield, the united hands beneath a cross surrounded with sun-beams, gave way to a burning heart, pierced through with arrows.—And now, if I wish to speak with Alonzo, where must I seek him?—Among the counsellors of the king—the judges of the people—or the instructors of youth?—It was among these, or such as these, that I should once have expected to find him:—but now, now he is only to be found stealing nightly about these walls, or behind these walls, with his face deeply buried in his cloak, hiding himself from his own conscience—while all his glorious projects are crushed in the embryo, as the future brood is destroyed by a mischievous boy who breaks the eggs of the setting hen.

[18]

[18]

Alonzo. (Indignantly) Velasquez!

Juan. Away with that menacing countenance, it ill accords with your situation. A man should not dare to assume the privilege of growing angry, unless his conscience be pure.—You will perhaps wonder at the jocund Velasquez becoming on a sudden a preacher of morality—but Velasquez was only jocund and light-hearted, because he was an honest man—let him therefore preach on, since he has entered upon the subject. You, by whom formerly every article of popular faith, even to the most minute, was held inviolate, because you considered that to every one was attached, in a considerable degree, the peace of mind of some weak, but honest man—you now rashly bid defiance to one of the most sacred tenets of a whole nation that has received you hospitably into their bosom, and seduce a chaste virgin devoted to their gods.—The conflicts of nature herself, are made subservient to your desires; and while a dreadful earthquake shakes these inaccessible walls even to their foundation, the bold intruder takes advantage of the passage thus opened to him to rush into Cora’s arms, and amidst this elemental warfare to murder 

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