ACT I.

SCENE I.--_The Palace_. DOODLE, NOODLE.


_Doodle_. Sure such a [1]day as this was never seen!
The sun himself, on this auspicious day,
Shines like a beau in a new birth-day suit:
This down the seams embroidered, that the beams.
All nature wears one universal grin.

[Footnote 1: Corneille recommends some very remarkable day wherein to
fix the action of a tragedy. This the best of our tragical writers
have understood to mean a day remarkable for the serenity of the sky,
or what we generally call a fine summer's day; so that, according to
this their exposition, the same months are proper for tragedy which
are proper for pastoral. Most of our celebrated English tragedies, as
Cato, Mariamne, Tamerlane, &c., begin with their observations on the
morning. Lee seems to have come the nearest to this beautiful
description of our author's:

The morning dawns with an unwonted crimson,
The flowers all odorous seem, the garden birds
Sing louder, and the laughing sun ascends
The gaudy earth with an unusual brightness;
All nature smiles.--_Caes. Borg_.

Massinissa, in the New Sophonisba, is also a favourite of the sun: