The South of Europe was in a state of great political excitement at the beginning of the year 1821. The Spanish Revolution had been a signal to Italy; secrete societies were formed; and, when Naples rose to declare the Constitution, the call was responded to from Brundusium to the foot of the Alps. To crush these attempts to obtain liberty, early in 1821 the Austrians poured their armies into the Peninsula: at first their coming rather seemed to add energy and resolution to a people long enslaved. The Piedmontese asserted their freedom; Genoa threw off the yoke of the King of Sardinia; and, as if in playful imitation, the people of the little state of Massa and Carrara gave the conge to their sovereign, and set up a republic.
Tuscany alone was perfectly tranquil. It was said that the Austrian minister presented a list of sixty Carbonari to the Grand Duke, urging their imprisonment; and the Grand Duke replied, ‘I do not know whether these sixty men are Carbonari, but I know, if I imprison them, I shall directly have sixty thousand start up.’ But, though the Tuscans had no desire to disturb the paternal government beneath whose shelter they slumbered, they regarded the progress of the various Italian revolutions with intense interest, and hatred for the Austrian was warm in every bosom. But they had slender hopes; they knew that the Neapolitans would offer no fit resistance to the regular German troops, and that the overthrow of the constitution in Naples would act as a decisive blow against all struggles for liberty in Italy.
We have seen the rise and progress of reform. But the Holy Alliance was alive and active in those days, and few could dream of the peaceful triumph of liberty. It seemed then that the armed assertion of freedom in the South of Europe was the only hope of the liberals, as, if it prevailed, the nations of the north would imitate the example. Happily the reverse has proved the fact. The countries accustomed to the exercise of the privileges of freemen, to a limited extent, have extended, and are extending, these limits. Freedom and knowledge have now a chance of proceeding hand in hand; and, if it continue thus, we may hope for the durability of both. Then, as I have said—in 1821—Shelley, as well as every other lover of liberty, looked upon the struggles in Spain and Italy as decisive of the destinies of the world, probably for centuries to come. The interest he took in the progress of affairs was intense. When Genoa declared itself free, his hopes were at their highest. Day after day he read the bulletins of the Austrian army, and sought eagerly to gather tokens of its defeat. He heard of the revolt of Genoa with emotions of transport. His whole heart and soul were in the triumph of the cause. We were living at Pisa at that time; and several well-informed Italians, at the head of whom we may place the celebrated Vacca, were accustomed to seek for sympathy in their hopes from Shelley: they did not find such for the despair they too generally experienced, founded on contempt for their southern countrymen.
While the fate of the progress of the Austrian armies then invading Naples was yet in suspense, the news of another revolution filled him with exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several Constantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly Hospodar of Wallachia; who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed finale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his treasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the gentleman to whom the drama of “Hellas” is dedicated. Prince Mavrocordato was warmed by those aspirations for the independence of his country which filled the hearts of many of his countrymen. He often intimated the possibility of an insurrection in Greece; but we had no idea of its being so near at hand, when, on the 1st of April 1821, he called on Shelley, bringing the proclamation of his cousin, Prince Ypsilanti, and, radiant with exultation and delight, declared that henceforth Greece would be free.
Shelley had hymned the dawn of liberty in Spain and Naples, in two odes dictated by the warmest enthusiasm; he felt himself naturally impelled to decorate with poetry the uprise of the descendants of that people whose works he regarded with deep admiration, and to adopt the vaticinatory character in prophesying their success. “Hellas” was written in a moment of enthusiasm. It is curious to remark how well he overcomes the difficulty of forming a drama out of such scant materials. His prophecies, indeed, came true in their general, not their particular, purport. He did not foresee the death of Lord Londonderry, which was to be the epoch of a change in English politics, particularly as regarded foreign affairs; nor that the navy of his country would fight for instead of against the Greeks, and by the battle of Navarino secure their enfranchisement from the Turks. Almost against reason, as it appeared to him, he resolved to believe that Greece would prove triumphant; and in this spirit, auguring ultimate good, yet grieving over the vicissitudes to be endured in the interval, he composed his drama.
“Hellas” was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most beautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in their versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify Shelley’s peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the intellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the country of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:—
‘But Greece and her foundations areBuilt below the tide of war,Based on the crystalline seaOf thought and its eternity.’
And again, that philosophical truth felicitously imaged forth—
‘Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind,The foul cubs like their parents are,Their den is in the guilty mind,And Conscience feeds them with despair.’
The conclusion of the last chorus is among the most beautiful of his lyrics. The imagery is distinct and majestic; the prophecy, such as poets love to dwell upon, the Regeneration of Mankind—and that regeneration reflecting back splendour on the foregone time, from which it inherits so much of intellectual wealth, and memory of past virtuous deeds, as must render the possession of happiness and peace of tenfold value.
***
[Published in part (lines 1-69, 100-120) by Mrs. Shelley, “PosthumousPoems”, 1824; and again, with the notes, in “Poetical Works”, 1839.Lines 127-238 were printed by Dr. Garnett under the title of “TheMagic Plant” in his “Relics of Shelley”, 1862. The whole was edited inits present form from the Boscombe manuscript by Mr. W.M. Rossetti in1870 (“Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Moxon, 2 volumes.).‘Written at Pisa during the late winter or early spring of 1822’(Garnett).]
The following fragments are part of a Drama undertaken for the amusement of the individuals who composed our intimate society, but left unfinished. I have preserved a sketch of the story as far as it had been shadowed in the poet’s mind.
An Enchantress, living in one of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, saves the life of a Pirate, a man of savage but noble nature. She becomes enamoured of him; and he, inconstant to his mortal love, for a while returns her passion; but at length, recalling the memory of her whom he left, and who laments his loss, he escapes from the Enchanted Island, and returns to his lady. His mode of life makes him again go to sea, and the Enchantress seizes the opportunity to bring him, by a spirit-brewed tempest, back to her Island. —[MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE, 1839.]
ENCHANTRESS:He came like a dream in the dawn of life,He fled like a shadow before its noon;He is gone, and my peace is turned to strife,And I wander and wane like the weary moon.O, sweet Echo, wake, _5And for my sakeMake answer the while my heart shall break!
But my heart has a music which Echo’s lips,Though tender and true, yet can answer not,And the shadow that moves in the soul’s eclipse _10Can return not the kiss by his now forgot;Sweet lips! he who hathOn my desolate pathCast the darkness of absence, worse than death!
NOTE: _8 my omitted 1824.
SPIRIT:Within the silent centre of the earth _15My mansion is; where I have lived inspheredFrom the beginning, and around my sleepHave woven all the wondrous imageryOf this dim spot, which mortals call the world;Infinite depths of unknown elements _20Massed into one impenetrable mask;Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veinsOf gold and stone, and adamantine iron.And as a veil in which I walk through HeavenI have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, _25And lastly light, whose interfusion dawnsIn the dark space of interstellar air.
NOTES: _15-_27 Within…air. 1839; omitted 1824. See these lines in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, page 209: “Song of a Spirit”. _16 have 1839; omitted 1824, page 209. _25 seas, and waves 1824, page 209; seas, waves 1839.
[A good Spirit, who watches over the Pirate’s fate, leads, in a mysterious manner, the lady of his love to the Enchanted Isle. She is accompanied by a Youth, who loves the lady, but whose passion she returns only with a sisterly affection. The ensuing scene takes place between them on their arrival at the Isle. [MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE, 1839.]]
INDIAN:And, if my grief should still be dearer to meThan all the pleasures in the world beside,Why would you lighten it?—
NOTE: _29 pleasures]pleasure 1824.
LADY:I offer only _30That which I seek, some human sympathyIn this mysterious island.
INDIAN:Oh! my friend,My sister, my beloved!—What do I say?My brain is dizzy, and I scarce know whetherI speak to thee or her.
LADY:Peace, perturbed heart! _35I am to thee only as thou to mine,The passing wind which heals the brow at noon,And may strike cold into the breast at night,Yet cannot linger where it soothes the most,Or long soothe could it linger.
INDIAN:But you said _40You also loved?
NOTE: _32-_41 Assigned to INDIAN, 1824.
LADY:Loved! Oh, I love. MethinksThis word of love is fit for all the world,And that for gentle hearts another nameWould speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns.I have loved.
INDIAN:And thou lovest not? if so, _45Young as thou art thou canst afford to weep.
LADY:Oh! would that I could claim exemptionFrom all the bitterness of that sweet name.I loved, I love, and when I love no moreLet joys and grief perish, and leave despair _50To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,The embodied vision of the brightest dream,Which like a dawn heralds the day of life;The shadow of his presence made my worldA Paradise. All familiar things he touched, _55All common words he spoke, became to meLike forms and sounds of a diviner world.He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,As terrible and lovely as a tempest;He came, and went, and left me what I am. _60Alas! Why must I think how oft we twoHave sate together near the river springs,Under the green pavilion which the willowSpreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain,Strewn, by the nurslings that linger there, _65Over that islet paved with flowers and moss,While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine,Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own?The crane returned to her unfrozen haunt, _70And the false cuckoo bade the spray good morn;And on a wintry bough the widowed bird,Hid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves,Renewed the vigils of a sleepless sorrow.I, left like her, and leaving one like her, _75Alike abandoned and abandoning(Oh! unlike her in this!) the gentlest youth,Whose love had made my sorrows dear to him,Even as my sorrow made his love to me!
NOTE: _71 spray Rossetti 1870, Woodberry; Spring Forman, Dowden.
INDIAN:One curse of Nature stamps in the same mould _80The features of the wretched; and they areAs like as violet to violet,When memory, the ghost, their odours keepsMid the cold relics of abandoned joy.—Proceed.
LADY:He was a simple innocent boy. _85I loved him well, but not as he desired;Yet even thus he was content to be:—A short content, for I was—
INDIAN [ASIDE]:God of Heaven!From such an islet, such a river-spring—!I dare not ask her if there stood upon it _90A pleasure-dome surmounted by a crescent,With steps to the blue water.[ALOUD.]It may beThat Nature masks in life several copiesOf the same lot, so that the sufferersMay feel another’s sorrow as their own, _95And find in friendship what they lost in love.That cannot be: yet it is strange that we,From the same scene, by the same path to thisRealm of abandonment— But speak! your breath—Your breath is like soft music, your words are _100The echoes of a voice which on my heartSleeps like a melody of early days.But as you said—
LADY:He was so awful, yetSo beautiful in mystery and terror,Calming me as the loveliness of heaven _105Soothes the unquiet sea:—and yet not so,For he seemed stormy, and would often seemA quenchless sun masked in portentous clouds;For such his thoughts, and even his actions were;But he was not of them, nor they of him, _110But as they hid his splendour from the earth.Some said he was a man of blood and peril,And steeped in bitter infamy to the lips.More need was there I should be innocent,More need that I should be most true and kind, _115And much more need that there should be found oneTo share remorse and scorn and solitude,And all the ills that wait on those who doThe tasks of ruin in the world of life.He fled, and I have followed him.
INDIAN:Such a one _120Is he who was the winter of my peace.But, fairest stranger, when didst thou departFrom the far hills where rise the springs of India?How didst thou pass the intervening sea?
LADY:If I be sure I am not dreaming now, _125I should not doubt to say it was a dream.Methought a star came down from heaven,And rested mid the plants of India,Which I had given a shelter from the frostWithin my chamber. There the meteor lay, _130Panting forth light among the leaves and flowers,As if it lived, and was outworn with speed;Or that it loved, and passion made the pulseOf its bright life throb like an anxious heart,Till it diffused itself; and all the chamber _135And walls seemed melted into emerald fireThat burned not; in the midst of which appearedA spirit like a child, and laughed aloudA thrilling peal of such sweet merrimentAs made the blood tingle in my warm feet: _140Then bent over a vase, and murmuringLow, unintelligible melodies,Placed something in the mould like melon-seeds,And slowly faded, and in place of itA soft hand issued from the veil of fire, _145Holding a cup like a magnolia flower,And poured upon the earth within the vaseThe element with which it overflowed,Brighter than morning light, and purer thanThe water of the springs of Himalah. _150
NOTE: _120-_126 Such…dream 1839; omitted 1824.
INDIAN:You waked not?
LADY:Not until my dream becameLike a child’s legend on the tideless sand.Which the first foam erases half, and halfLeaves legible. At length I rose, and went,Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought _155To set new cuttings in the empty urns,And when I came to that beside the lattice,I saw two little dark-green leavesLifting the light mould at their birth, and thenI half-remembered my forgotten dream. _160And day by day, green as a gourd in June,The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knewWhat plant it was; its stem and tendrils seemedLike emerald snakes, mottled and diamondedWith azure mail and streaks of woven silver; _165And all the sheaths that folded the dark budsRose like the crest of cobra-di-capel,Until the golden eye of the bright flower,Through the dark lashes of those veined lids,…disencumbered of their silent sleep, _170Gazed like a star into the morning light.Its leaves were delicate, you almost sawThe pulsesWith which the purple velvet flower was fedTo overflow, and like a poet’s heart _175Changing bright fancy to sweet sentiment,Changed half the light to fragrance. It soon fell,And to a green and dewy embryo-fruitLeft all its treasured beauty. Day by dayI nursed the plant, and on the double flute _180Played to it on the sunny winter daysSoft melodies, as sweet as April rainOn silent leaves, and sang those words in whichPassion makes Echo taunt the sleeping strings;And I would send tales of forgotten love _185Late into the lone night, and sing wild songsOf maids deserted in the olden time,And weep like a soft cloud in April’s bosomUpon the sleeping eyelids of the plant,So that perhaps it dreamed that Spring was come, _190And crept abroad into the moonlight air,And loosened all its limbs, as, noon by noon,The sun averted less his oblique beam.
INDIAN:And the plant died not in the frost?
LADY:It grew;And went out of the lattice which I left _195Half open for it, trailing its quaint spiresAlong the garden and across the lawn,And down the slope of moss and through the tuftsOf wild-flower roots, and stumps of trees o’ergrownWith simple lichens, and old hoary stones, _200On to the margin of the glassy pool,Even to a nook of unblown violetsAnd lilies-of-the-valley yet unborn,Under a pine with ivy overgrown.And there its fruit lay like a sleeping lizard _205Under the shadows; but when Spring indeedCame to unswathe her infants, and the liliesPeeped from their bright green masks to wonder atThis shape of autumn couched in their recess,Then it dilated, and it grew until _210One half lay floating on the fountain wave,Whose pulse, elapsed in unlike sympathies,Kept timeAmong the snowy water-lily buds.Its shape was such as summer melody _215Of the south wind in spicy vales might giveTo some light cloud bound from the golden dawnTo fairy isles of evening, and it seemedIn hue and form that it had been a mirrorOf all the hues and forms around it and _220Upon it pictured by the sunny beamsWhich, from the bright vibrations of the pool,Were thrown upon the rafters and the roofOf boughs and leaves, and on the pillared stemsOf the dark sylvan temple, and reflections _225Of every infant flower and star of mossAnd veined leaf in the azure odorous air.And thus it lay in the Elysian calmOf its own beauty, floating on the lineWhich, like a film in purest space, divided _230The heaven beneath the water from the heavenAbove the clouds; and every day I wentWatching its growth and wondering;And as the day grew hot, methought I sawA glassy vapour dancing on the pool, _235And on it little quaint and filmy shapes.With dizzy motion, wheel and rise and fall,Like clouds of gnats with perfect lineaments.
…
O friend, sleep was a veil uplift from Heaven—As if Heaven dawned upon the world of dream— _240When darkness rose on the extinguished dayOut of the eastern wilderness.
INDIAN:I tooHave found a moment’s paradise in sleepHalf compensate a hell of waking sorrow.
***
[“Charles the First” was designed in 1818, begun towards the close of 1819 [Medwin, “Life”, 2 page 62], resumed in January, and finally laid aside by June, 1822. It was published in part in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and printed, in its present form (with the addition of some 530 lines), by Mr. W.M. Rossetti, 1870. Further particulars are given in the Editor’s Notes at the end of Volume 3.]
A PURSUIVANT:Place, for the Marshal of the Masque!
FIRST CITIZEN:What thinkest thou of this quaint masque which turns,Like morning from the shadow of the night,The night to day, and London to a placeOf peace and joy?
SECOND CITIZEN:And Hell to Heaven. _5Eight years are gone,And they seem hours, since in this populous streetI trod on grass made green by summer’s rain,For the red plague kept state within that palaceWhere now that vanity reigns. In nine years more _10The roots will be refreshed with civil blood;And thank the mercy of insulted HeavenThat sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan’s cry,The patience of the great Avenger’s ear.
NOTE: _10 now that vanity reigns 1870; now reigns vanity 1824.
A YOUTH:Yet, father, ’tis a happy sight to see, _15Beautiful, innocent, and unforbiddenBy God or man;—’tis like the bright processionOf skiey visions in a solemn dreamFrom which men wake as from a Paradise,And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. _20If God be good, wherefore should this be evil?And if this be not evil, dost thou not drawUnseasonable poison from the flowersWhich bloom so rarely in this barren world?Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present _25Dark as the future!—
…
When Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear,And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleepingAs on Hell’s threshold; and all gentle thoughtsWaken to worship Him who giveth joys _30With His own gift.
SECOND CITIZEN:How young art thou in this old age of time!How green in this gray world? Canst thou discernThe signs of seasons, yet perceive no hintOf change in that stage-scene in which thou art _35Not a spectator but an actor? orArt thou a puppet moved by [enginery]?The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,Even though the noon be calm. My travel’s done,—Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found _40My inn of lasting rest; but thou must stillBe journeying on in this inclement air.Wrap thy old cloak about thy back;Nor leave the broad and plain and beaten road,Although no flowers smile on the trodden dust, _45For the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the FirstRose like the equinoctial sun,…By vapours, through whose threatening ominous veilDarting his altered influence he has gainedThis height of noon—from which he must decline _50Amid the darkness of conflicting storms,To dank extinction and to latest night…There goesThe apostate Strafford; he whose titleswhispered aphorisms _55From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if JudasHad been as brazen and as bold as he—
NOTES:_33-_37 Canst…enginery 1870;Canst thou not thinkOf change in that low scene, in which thou artNot a spectator but an actor?… 1824._43-_57 Wrap…bold as he 1870; omitted 1824.
FIRST CITIZEN:ThatIs the Archbishop.
SECOND CITIZEN:Rather say the Pope:London will be soon his Rome: he walksAs if he trod upon the heads of men: _60He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;—Beside him moves the Babylonian womanInvisibly, and with her as with his shadow,Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,Which turns Heaven’s milk of mercy to revenge. _65
THIRD CITIZEN [LIFTING UP HIS EYES]:Good Lord! rain it down upon him!…Amid her ladies walks the papist queen,As if her nice feet scorned our English earth.The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would beA dog if I might tear her with my teeth! _70There’s old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,And others who make base their English breedBy vile participation of their honoursWith papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates. _75When lawyers masque ’tis time for honest menTo strip the vizor from their purposes.A seasonable time for masquers this!When Englishmen and Protestants should sitdust on their dishonoured heads _80To avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is feltFor the great sins which have drawn down from Heavenand foreign overthrow.The remnant of the martyred saints in RochefortHave been abandoned by their faithless allies _85To that idolatrous and adulterous torturerLewis of France,—the Palatinate is lost—[ENTER LEIGHTON (WHO HAS BEEN BRANDED IN THE FACE) AND BASTWICK.]Canst thou be—art thou?
NOTE: _73 make 1824; made 1839.
LEIGHTON:I WAS Leighton: whatI AM thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes,And with thy memory look on thy friend’s mind, _90Which is unchanged, and where is written deepThe sentence of my judge.
THIRD CITIZEN:Are these the marks with whichLaud thinks to improve the image of his MakerStamped on the face of man? Curses upon him,The impious tyrant!
SECOND CITIZEN:It is said besides _95That lewd and papist drunkards may profaneThe Sabbath with theirAnd has permitted that most heathenish customOf dancing round a pole dressed up with wreathsOn May-day. _100A man who thus twice crucifies his GodMay well … his brother.—In my mind, friend,The root of all this ill is prelacy.I would cut up the root.
THIRD CITIZEN:And by what means?
SECOND CITIZEN:Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib. _105
THIRD CITIZEN:You seem to know the vulnerable placeOf these same crocodiles.
SECOND CITIZEN:I learnt it inEgyptian bondage, sir. Your worm of NileBetrays not with its flattering tears like they;For, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep. _110Nor is it half so greedy of men’s bodiesAs they of soul and all; nor does it wallowIn slime as they in simony and liesAnd close lusts of the flesh.
NOTE: _78-_114 A seasonable…of the flesh 1870; omitted 1824. _108 bondage cj. Forman; bondages 1870.
A MARSHALSMAN:Give place, give place!You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate, _115And then attend the Marshal of the MasqueInto the Royal presence.
A LAW STUDENT:What thinkest thouOf this quaint show of ours, my aged friend?Even now we see the redness of the torchesInflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions _120[Gasp?] to us on the wind’s wave. It comes!And their sounds, floating hither round the pageant,Rouse up the astonished air.
NOTE: _119-_123 Even now…air 1870; omitted 1824.
FIRST CITIZEN:I will not think but that our country’s woundsMay yet be healed. The king is just and gracious, _125Though wicked counsels now pervert his will:These once cast off—
SECOND CITIZEN:As adders cast their skinsAnd keep their venom, so kings often change;Councils and counsellors hang on one another,Hiding the loathsome _130Like the base patchwork of a leper’s rags.
THE YOUTH:Oh, still those dissonant thoughts!—List how the musicGrows on the enchanted air! And see, the torchesRestlessly flashing, and the crowd dividedLike waves before an admiral’s prow!
NOTE: _132 how the 1870; loud 1824.
A MARSHALSMAN:Give place _135To the Marshal of the Masque!
A PURSUIVANT:Room for the King!
NOTE: _136 A Pursuivant: Room for the King! 1870; omitted 1824.
THE YOUTH:How glorious! See those thronging chariotsRolling, like painted clouds before the wind,Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shapedLike curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths _140Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon;And some like cars in which the Romans climbed(Canopied by Victory’s eagle-wings outspread)The Capitolian—See how gloriouslyThe mettled horses in the torchlight stir _145Their gallant riders, while they check their pride,Like shapes of some diviner elementThan English air, and beings nobler thanThe envious and admiring multitude.
NOTE:_138-40 Rolling…depths 1870;Rolling like painted clouds before the windSome areLike curved shells, dyed by the azure depths 1824.
SECOND CITIZEN:Ay, there they are— _150Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows,Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart. _155These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,Who toil not, neither do they spin,—unlessIt be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.Here is the surfeit which to them who earnThe niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves _160The tithe that will support them till they crawlBack to her cold hard bosom. Here is healthFollowed by grim disease, glory by shame,Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,And England’s sin by England’s punishment. _165And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,Lo, giving substance to my words, beholdAt once the sign and the thing signified—A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,Horsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung, _170Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabinsAnd rotten hiding-holes, to point the moralOf this presentment, and bring up the rearOf painted pomp with misery!
NOTES: _162 her 1870; its 1824. _170 jades 1870; shapes 1824. _173 presentment 1870; presentiment 1824.
THE YOUTH:’Tis butThe anti-masque, and serves as discords do _175In sweetest music. Who would love May flowersIf they succeeded not to Winter’s flaw;Or day unchanged by night; or joy itselfWithout the touch of sorrow?
SECOND CITIZEN:I and thou-
A MARSHALSMAN:Place, give place! _180
NOTE: _179, _180 I…place! 1870; omitted 1824.
KING:Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily acceptThis token of your service: your gay masqueWas performed gallantly. And it shows wellWhen subjects twine such flowers of [observance?]With the sharp thorns that deck the English crown. _5A gentle heart enjoys what it confers,Even as it suffers that which it inflicts,Though Justice guides the stroke.Accept my hearty thanks.
NOTE: _3-9 And…thanks 1870; omitted 1824.
QUEEN:And gentlemen,Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant _10Rose on me like the figures of past years,Treading their still path back to infancy,More beautiful and mild as they draw nearerThe quiet cradle. I could have almost weptTo think I was in Paris, where these shows _15Are well devised—such as I was ere yetMy young heart shared a portion of the burthen,The careful weight, of this great monarchy.There, gentlemen, between the sovereign’s pleasureAnd that which it regards, no clamour lifts _20Its proud interposition.In Paris ribald censurers dare not moveTheir poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;And HIS smileWarms those who bask in it, as ours would do _25If … Take my heart’s thanks: add them, gentlemen,To those good words which, were he King of France,My royal lord would turn to golden deeds.
ST. JOHN:Madam, the love of Englishmen can makeThe lightest favour of their lawful king _30Outweigh a despot’s.—We humbly take our leaves,Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.
KING:My Lord Archbishop,Mark you what spirit sits in St. John’s eyes?Methinks it is too saucy for this presence. _35
ARCHY: Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer’s brain, and takes the bandage from the other’s eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex’s there. _48
STRAFFORD:A rod in pickle for the Fool’s back!
ARCHY:Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for theFool sees—
STRAFFORD: Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped out of the palace for this. _53
ARCHY: When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other’s noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them. _65
NOTE: _64 pinched marked as doubtful by Rossetti. 1870; Forman, Dowden; penned Woodberry.
KING [LOOKING OVER THE PAPERS]:These stiff ScotsHis Grace of Canterbury must take orderTo force under the Church’s yoke.—You, Wentworth,Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall addYour wisdom, gentleness, and energy, _70To what in me were wanting.—My Lord Weston,Look that those merchants draw not without lossTheir bullion from the Tower; and, on the paymentOf shipmoney, take fullest compensationFor violation of our royal forests, _75Whose limits, from neglect, have been o’ergrownWith cottages and cornfields. The uttermostFarthing exact from those who claim exemptionFrom knighthood: that which once was a rewardShall thus be made a punishment, that subjects _80May know how majesty can wear at willThe rugged mood.—My Lord of Coventry,Lay my command upon the Courts belowThat bail be not accepted for the prisonersUnder the warrant of the Star Chamber. _85The people shall not find the stubbornnessOf Parliament a cheap or easy methodOf dealing with their rightful sovereign:And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry,We will find time and place for fit rebuke.— _90My Lord of Canterbury.
NOTE: _22-90 In Paris…rebuke 1870; omitted 1824.
ARCHY:The fool is here.
LAUD:I crave permission of your MajestyTo order that this insolent fellow beChastised: he mocks the sacred character,Scoffs at the state, and—
NOTE: _95 state 1870; stake 1824.
KING:What, my Archy? _95He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears,Yet with a quaint and graceful licence—PritheeFor this once do not as Prynne would, were hePrimate of England. With your Grace’s leave,He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot _100Hung in his gilded prison from the windowOf a queen’s bower over the public way,Blasphemes with a bird’s mind:—his words, like arrowsWhich know no aim beyond the archer’s wit,Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy.— _105[TO ARCHY.]Go, sirrah, and repent of your offenceTen minutes in the rain; be it your penanceTo bring news how the world goes there.[EXIT ARCHY.]Poor Archy!He weaves about himself a world of mirthOut of the wreck of ours. _110
NOTES: _99 With your Grace’s leave 1870; omitted 1824. _106-_110 Go…ours spoken by THE QUEEN, 1824.
LAUD:I take with patience, as my Master did,All scoffs permitted from above.
KING:My lord,Pray overlook these papers. Archy’s wordsHad wings, but these have talons.
QUEEN:And the lionThat wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord, _115I see the new-born courage in your eyeArmed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time,Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast.Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,And it were better thou hadst still remained _120The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like cursThe fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;And Opportunity, that empty wolf,Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actionsEven to the disposition of thy purpose, _125And be that tempered as the Ebro’s steel;And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peaceAnd not betray thee with a traitor’s kiss,As when she keeps the company of rebels, _130Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest weShould fall as from a glorious pinnacleIn a bright dream, and wake as from a dreamOut of our worshipped state.
NOTES: _116 your 1824; thine 1870. _118 Which…beast 1870; omitted 1824.
KING:Beloved friend,God is my witness that this weight of power, _135Which He sets me my earthly task to wieldUnder His law, is my delight and prideOnly because thou lovest that and me.For a king bears the office of a GodTo all the under world; and to his God _140Alone he must deliver up his trust,Unshorn of its permitted attributes.[It seems] now as the baser elementsHad mutinied against the golden sunThat kindles them to harmony, and quells _145Their self-destroying rapine. The wild millionStrike at the eye that guides them; like as humoursOf the distempered body that conspireAgainst the spirit of life throned in the heart,—And thus become the prey of one another, _150And last of death—
STRAFFORD:That which would be ambition in a subjectIs duty in a sovereign; for on him,As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life,Whose safety is its strength. Degree and form, _155And all that makes the age of reasoning manMore memorable than a beast’s, depend on this—That Right should fence itself inviolablyWith Power; in which respect the state of EnglandFrom usurpation by the insolent commons _160Cries for reform.Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coinThe loudest murmurers; feed with jealousiesOpposing factions,—be thyself of none;And borrow gold of many, for those who lend _165Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thusKeep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay,Till time, and its coming generationsOf nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,
…
Or war or pestilence or Nature’s self,— _170By some distemperature or terrible sign,Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves.Nor let your MajestyDoubt here the peril of the unseen event.How did your brother Kings, coheritors _175In your high interest in the subject earth,Rise past such troubles to that height of powerWhere now they sit, and awfully sereneSmile on the trembling world? Such popular stormsPhilip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France, _180And late the German head of many bodies,And every petty lord of Italy,Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorerOr feebler? or art thou who wield’st her powerTamer than they? or shall this island be— _185[Girdled] by its inviolable waters—To the world present and the world to comeSole pattern of extinguished monarchy?Not if thou dost as I would have thee do.
KING:Your words shall be my deeds: _190You speak the image of my thought. My friend(If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so),Beyond the large commission which [belongs]Under the great seal of the realm, take this:And, for some obvious reasons, let there be _195No seal on it, except my kingly wordAnd honour as I am a gentleman.Be—as thou art within my heart and mind—Another self, here and in Ireland:Do what thou judgest well, take amplest licence, _200And stick not even at questionable means.Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wallBetween thee and this world thine enemy—That hates thee, for thou lovest me.
STRAFFORD:I ownNo friend but thee, no enemies but thine: _205Thy lightest thought is my eternal law.How weak, how short, is life to pay—
KING:Peace, peace.Thou ow’st me nothing yet.[TO LAUD.]My lord, what sayThose papers?
LAUD:Your Majesty has ever interposed, _210In lenity towards your native soil,Between the heavy vengeance of the ChurchAnd Scotland. Mark the consequence of warmingThis brood of northern vipers in your bosom.The rabble, instructed no doubt _215By London, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll(For the waves never menace heaven untilScourged by the wind’s invisible tyranny),Have in the very temple of the LordDone outrage to His chosen ministers. _220They scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church,Refuse to obey her canons, and denyThe apostolic power with which the SpiritHas filled its elect vessels, even from himWho held the keys with power to loose and bind, _225To him who now pleads in this royal presence.—Let ample powers and new instructions beSent to the High Commissioners in Scotland.To death, imprisonment, and confiscation,Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred _230Of the offender, add the brand of infamy,Add mutilation: and if this suffice not,Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirstThey may lick up that scum of schismatics.I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring _235What we possess, still prate of Christian peace,As if those dreadful arbitrating messengersWhich play the part of God ’twixt right and wrong,Should be let loose against the innocent sleepOf templed cities and the smiling fields, _240For some poor argument of policyWhich touches our own profit or our pride(Where it indeed were Christian charityTo turn the cheek even to the smiter’s hand):And, when our great Redeemer, when our God, _245When He who gave, accepted, and retainedHimself in propitiation of our sins,Is scorned in His immediate ministry,With hazard of the inestimable lossOf all the truth and discipline which is _250Salvation to the extremest generationOf men innumerable, they talk of peace!Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now:For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword,Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command _255To His disciples at the PassoverThat each should sell his robe and buy a sword,-Once strip that minister of naked wrath,And it shall never sleep in peace againTill Scotland bend or break.
NOTES: _134-_232 Beloved…mutilation 1870; omitted 1824. _237 arbitrating messengers 1870; messengers of wrath 1824. _239 the 1870; omitted 1524. _243-_244 Parentheses inserted 1870. _246, _247 When He…sins 1870; omitted 1824. _248 ministry 1870; ministers 1824. _249-52 With…innumerable 1870; omitted 1824.
KING:My Lord Archbishop, _260Do what thou wilt and what thou canst in this.Thy earthly even as thy heavenly KingGives thee large power in his unquiet realm.But we want money, and my mind misgives meThat for so great an enterprise, as yet, _265We are unfurnished.
STRAFFORD:Yet it may not longRest on our wills.
COTTINGTON:The expensesOf gathering shipmoney, and of distrainingFor every petty rate (for we encounterA desperate opposition inch by inch _270In every warehouse and on every farm),Have swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts;So that, though felt as a most grievous scourgeUpon the land, they stand us in small steadAs touches the receipt.
STRAFFORD:’Tis a conclusion _275Most arithmetical: and thence you inferPerhaps the assembling of a parliament.Now, if a man should call his dearest enemiesTo sit in licensed judgement on his life,His Majesty might wisely take that course. _280[ASIDE TO COTTINGTON.]It is enough to expect from these lean impostsThat they perform the office of a scourge,Without more profit.[ALOUD.]Fines and confiscations,And a forced loan from the refractory city,Will fill our coffers: and the golden love _285Of loyal gentlemen and noble friendsFor the worshipped father of our common country,With contributions from the catholics,Will make Rebellion pale in our excess.Be these the expedients until time and wisdom _290Shall frame a settled state of government.
LAUD:And weak expedients they! Have we not drainedAll, till the … which seemedA mine exhaustless?
STRAFFORD:And the love which IS,If loyal hearts could turn their blood to gold. _295
LAUD:Both now grow barren: and I speak it notAs loving parliaments, which, as they have beenIn the right hand of bold bad mighty kingsThe scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate.Methinks they scarcely can deserve our fear. _300
STRAFFORD:Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest:With that, take all I held, but as in trustFor thee, of mine inheritance: leave me butThis unprovided body for thy service,And a mind dedicated to no care _305Except thy safety:—but assemble notA parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me,Their fortunes, as they would their blood, before—
KING:No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas!We should be too much out of love with Heaven, _310Did this vile world show many such as thee,Thou perfect, just, and honourable man!Never shall it be said that Charles of EnglandStripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns;Nor will he so much misbecome his throne _315As to impoverish those who most adornAnd best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford,Inclines me rather—
QUEEN:To a parliament?Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt presideOver a knot of … censurers, _320To the unswearing of thy best resolves,And choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon?Plight not the worst before the worst must come.Oh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes,Dressed in their own usurped authority, _325Sharpen their tongues on Henrietta’s fame?It is enough! Thou lovest me no more![WEEPS.]
KING:Oh, Henrietta!
COTTINGTON [TO LAUD]:Money we have none:And all the expedients of my Lord of StraffordWill scarcely meet the arrears.
LAUD:Without delay _330An army must be sent into the north;Followed by a Commission of the Church,With amplest power to quench in fire and blood,And tears and terror, and the pity of hell,The intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give _335Victory; and victory over Scotland giveThe lion England tamed into our hands.That will lend power, and power bring gold.
COTTINGTON:MeanwhileWe must begin first where your Grace leaves off.Gold must give power, or—
LAUD:I am not averse _340From the assembling of a parliament.Strong actions and smooth words might teach them soonThe lesson to obey. And are they notA bubble fashioned by the monarch’s mouth,The birth of one light breath? If they serve no purpose, _345A word dissolves them.
STRAFFORD:The engine of parliamentsMight be deferred until I can bring overThe Irish regiments: they will serve to assureThe issue of the war against the Scots.And, this game won—which if lost, all is lost— _350Gather these chosen leaders of the rebels,And call them, if you will, a parliament.
KING:Oh, be our feet still tardy to shed blood.Guilty though it may be! I would still spareThe stubborn country of my birth, and ward _355From countenances which I loved in youthThe wrathful Church’s lacerating hand.[TO LAUD.]Have you o’erlooked the other articles?
LAUD:Hazlerig, Hampden, Pym, young Harry Vane,Cromwell, and other rebels of less note, _360Intend to sail with the next favouring windFor the Plantations.
ARCHY:Where they think to foundA commonwealth like Gonzalo’s in the play,Gynaecocoenic and pantisocratic.
NOTE: _363 Gonzalo’s 1870; Gonzaga Boscombe manuscript.
KING:What’s that, sirrah?
ARCHY:New devil’s politics. _365Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths:Lucifer was the first republican.Will you hear Merlin’s prophecy, how three [posts?]‘In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full,Shall sail round the world, and come back again: _370Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull,And come back again when the moon is at full:’—When, in spite of the Church,They will hear homilies of whatever lengthOr form they please. _375
[COTTINGTON?]:So please your Majesty to sign this orderFor their detention.
ARCHY: If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? _383
KING:If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely;But in this case—[WRITING]. Here, my lord, take the warrant,And see it duly executed forthwith.—That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. _387
ARCHY: Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud—who would reduce a verdict of ‘guilty, death,’ by famine, if it were impregnable by composition—all impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays. _397
QUEEN:Is the rain over, sirrah?
KING:When it rainsAnd the sun shines, ‘twill rain again to-morrow:And therefore never smile till you’ve done crying. _400
ARCHY: But ’tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene.
QUEEN:What news abroad? how looks the world this morning?
ARCHY: Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There’s a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for
‘A rainbow in the morning _407Is the shepherd’s warning;’
and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast. _411
KING: The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their watchdogs.
QUEEN: But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more.
ARCHY: Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.—The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops,…and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven—like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet. _424
QUEEN:Who taught you this trash, sirrah?
ARCHY: A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.—But for the rainbow. It moved as the sun moved, and…until the top of the Tower…of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and Lambeth Palace look as dark as a rock before the other. Methought I saw a crown figured upon one tip, and a mitre on the other. So, as I had heard treasures were found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set off, and at the Tower— But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found close to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered.
KING:Speak: I will make my Fool my conscience. _435
ARCHY: Then conscience is a fool.—I saw there a cat caught in a rat-trap. I heard the rats squeak behind the wainscots: it seemed to me that the very mice were consulting on the manner of her death.
QUEEN:Archy is shrewd and bitter.
ARCHY: Like the season, _440 So blow the winds.—But at the other end of the rainbow, where the gray rain was tempered along the grass and leaves by a tender interfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what think you that I found instead of a mitre?
KING:Vane’s wits perhaps. _445
ARCHY: Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch over the carcass of a dead ass, some rotten rags, and broken dishes—the wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and the ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to enter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of this ass. _451
QUEEN:Enough, enough! Go desire Lady JaneShe place my lute, together with the musicMari received last week from Italy,In my boudoir, and—
KING:I’ll go in.
NOTE: _254-_455 For by…I’ll go in 1870; omitted 1824.
QUEEN:MY beloved lord, _455Have you not noted that the Fool of lateHas lost his careless mirth, and that his wordsSound like the echoes of our saddest fears?What can it mean? I should be loth to thinkSome factious slave had tutored him.
KING:Oh, no! _460He is but Occasion’s pupil. Partly ’tisThat our minds piece the vacant intervalsOf his wild words with their own fashioning,—As in the imagery of summer clouds,Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find _465The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts:And partly, that the terrors of the timeAre sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits;And in the lightest and the least, may bestBe seen the current of the coming wind. _470
NOTES: _460, _461 Oh…pupil 1870; omitted 1824. _461 Partly ’tis 1870; It partly is 1824. _465 of 1870; in 1824.
QUEEN:Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts.Come, I will sing to you; let us go tryThese airs from Italy; and, as we passThe gallery, we’ll decide where that CorreggioShall hang—the Virgin Mother _475With her child, born the King of heaven and earth,Whose reign is men’s salvation. And you shall seeA cradled miniature of yourself asleep,Stamped on the heart by never-erring love;Liker than any Vandyke ever made, _480A pattern to the unborn age of thee,Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joyA thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow,Did I not think that after we were deadOur fortunes would spring high in him, and that _485The cares we waste upon our heavy crownWould make it light and glorious as a wreathOf Heaven’s beams for his dear innocent brow.
NOTE: _473-_477 and, as…salvation 1870; omitted 1824.
KING:Dear Henrietta!
LAUD:Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerkRecite his sentence.
CLERK:‘That he pay five thousandPounds to the king, lose both his ears, be brandedWith red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead,And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle _5During the pleasure of the Court.’
LAUD:Prisoner,If you have aught to say wherefore this sentenceShould not be put into effect, now speak.
JUXON:If you have aught to plead in mitigation,Speak.
BASTWICK:Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I _10Were an invader of the royal powerA public scorner of the word of God,Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious,Impious in heart and in tyrannic act,Void of wit, honesty, and temperance; _15If Satan were my lord, as theirs,—our GodPattern of all I should avoid to do;Were I an enemy of my God and KingAnd of good men, as ye are;—I should meritYour fearful state and gilt prosperity, _20Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turnTo cowls and robes of everlasting fire.But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me notThe only earthly favour ye can yield,Or I think worth acceptance at your hands,— _25Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment.even as my Master did,Until Heaven’s kingdom shall descend on earth,Or earth be like a shadow in the lightOf Heaven absorbed—some few tumultuous years _30Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposesHis will whose will is power.
NOTE: _27-_32 even…power printed as a fragment, Garnett, 1862; inserted here conjecturally, Rossetti, 1870.
LAUD:Officer, take the prisoner from the bar,And be his tongue slit for his insolence.
BASTWICK:While this hand holds a pen—
LAUD:Be his hands—
JUXON:Stop! _35Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speakNo terror, would interpret, being dumb,Heaven’s thunder to our harm;…And hands, which now write only their own shame,With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away. _40
LAUD:Much more such ‘mercy’ among men would be,Did all the ministers of Heaven’s revengeFlinch thus from earthly retribution. ICould suffer what I would inflict.[EXIT BASTWICK GUARDED.]Bring upThe Lord Bishop of Lincoln.—[TO STRAFFORD.]Know you not _45That, in distraining for ten thousand poundsUpon his books and furniture at Lincoln,Were found these scandalous and seditious lettersSent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled?I speak it not as touching this poor person; _50But of the office which should make it holy,Were it as vile as it was ever spotless.Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikesHis Majesty, if I misinterpret not.
STRAFFORD:’Twere politic and just that Williams taste _55The bitter fruit of his connection withThe schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop,Who owed your first promotion to his favour,Who grew beneath his smile—
LAUD:Would therefore begThe office of his judge from this High Court,— _60That it shall seem, even as it is, that I,In my assumption of this sacred robe,Have put aside all worldly preference,All sense of all distinction of all persons,All thoughts but of the service of the Church.— _65Bishop of Lincoln!
WILLIAMS:Peace, proud hierarch!I know my sentence, and I own it just.Thou wilt repay me less than I deserve,In stretching to the utmost
…
NOTE:Scene 3. _1-_69 Bring…utmost 1870; omitted 1824.
HAMPDEN:England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle,Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave!I held what I inherited in theeAs pawn for that inheritance of freedomWhich thou hast sold for thy despoiler’s smile: _5How can I call thee England, or my country?—Does the wind hold?