ACT FIRSTSCENE IENGLAND. A RIDGE IN WESSEX[The time is a fine day in March 1805. A highway crosses theridge, which is near the sea, and the south coast is seenbounding the landscape below, the open Channel extending beyond.]SPIRITS OF THE YEARSHark now, and gather how the martial moodStirs England’s humblest hearts. Anon we’ll traceIts heavings in the upper coteries there.SPIRIT SINISTERAy; begin small, and so lead up to the greater. It is a sounddramatic principle. I always aim to follow it in my pestilences,fires, famines, and other comedies. And though, to be sure, I didnot in my Lisbon earthquake, I did in my French Terror, and my St.Domingo burlesque.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSTHY Lisbon earthquake, THY French Terror. Wait.Thinking thou will’st, thou dost but indicate.[A stage-coach enters, with passengers outside. Their voicesafter the foregoing sound small and commonplace, as from anothermedium.]FIRST PASSENGERThere seems to be a deal of traffic over Ridgeway, even at this timeo’ year.SECOND PASSENGERYes. It is because the King and Court are coming down here lateron. They wake up this part rarely!... See, now, how the Channeland coast open out like a chart. That patch of mist below us is thetown we are bound for. There’s the Isle of Slingers beyond, like afloating snail. That wide bay on the right is where the “Abergavenny,”Captain John Wordsworth, was wrecked last month. One can see halfacross to France up here.FIRST PASSENGERHalf across. And then another little half, and then all that’sbehind—the Corsican mischief!SECOND PASSENGERYes. People who live hereabout—I am a native of these parts—feelthe nearness of France more than they do inland.FIRST PASSENGERThat’s why we have seen so many of these marching regiments on theroad. This year his grandest attempt upon us is to be made, I reckon.SECOND PASSENGERMay we be ready!FIRST PASSENGERWell, we ought to be. We’ve had alarms enough, God knows.[Some companies of infantry are seen ahead, and the coach presentlyovertakes them.]SOLDIERS [singing as they walk]We be the King’s men, hale and hearty,Marching to meet one Buonaparty;If he won’t sail, lest the wind should blow,We shall have marched for nothing, O!Right fol-lol!We be the King’s men, hale and hearty,Marching to meet one Buonaparty;If he be sea-sick, says “No, no!”We shall have marched for nothing, O!Right fol-lol![The soldiers draw aside, and the coach passes on.]SECOND PASSENGERIs there truth in it that Bonaparte wrote a letter to the King lastmonth?FIRST PASSENGERYes, sir. A letter in his own hand, in which he expected the Kingto reply to him in the same manner.SOLDIERS [continuing, as they are left behind]We be the King’s men, hale and hearty,Marching to meet one Buonaparty;Never mind, mates; we’ll be merry, thoughWe may have marched for nothing, O!Right fol-lol!THIRD PASSENGERAnd was Boney’s letter friendly?FIRST PASSENGERCertainly, sir. He requested peace with the King.THIRD PASSENGERAnd why shouldn’t the King reply in the same manner?FIRST PASSENGERWhat! Encourage this man in an act of shameless presumption, andgive him the pleasure of considering himself the equal of the Kingof England—whom he actually calls his brother!THIRD PASSENGERHe must be taken for what he is, not for what he was; and if he callsKing George his brother it doesn’t speak badly for his friendliness.FIRST PASSENGERWhether or no, the King, rightly enough, did not reply in person,but through Lord Mulgrave our Foreign Minister, to the effect thathis Britannic Majesty cannot give a specific answer till he hascommunicated with the Continental powers.THIRD PASSENGERBoth the manner and the matter of the reply are British; but a hugemistake.FIRST PASSENGERSir, am I to deem you a friend of Bonaparte, a traitor to yourcountry—-THIRD PASSENGERDamn my wig, sir, if I’ll be called a traitor by you or any Courtsycophant at all at all![He unpacks a case of pistols.]SECOND PASSENGERGentlemen forbear, forbear! Should such differences be suffered toarise on a spot where we may, in less than three months, be fightingfor our very existence? This is foolish, I say. Heaven alone, whoreads the secrets of this man’s heart, can tell what his meaning andintent may be, and if his letter has been answered wisely or no.[The coach is stopped to skid the wheel for the descent of thehill, and before it starts again a dusty horseman overtakes it.]SEVERAL PASSENGERSA London messenger! [To horseman] Any news, sir? We are fromBristol only.HORSEMANYes; much. We have declared war against Spain, an error givingvast delight to France. Bonaparte says he will date his nextdispatches from London, and the landing of his army may be dailyexpected.[Exit horseman.]THIRD PASSENGERSir, I apologize. He’s not to be trusted! War is his name, andaggression is with him![He repacks the pistols. A silence follows. The coach andpassengers move downwards and disappear towards the coast.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESIll chanced it that the English monarch GeorgeDid not respond to the said Emperor!SPIRIT SINISTERI saw good sport therein, and paean’d the WillTo unimpel so stultifying a move!Which would have marred the European broil,And sheathed all swords, and silenced every gunThat riddles human flesh.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESO say no more;If aught could gratify the Absolute’Twould verily be thy censure, not thy praise!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThe ruling was that we should witness thingsAnd not dispute them. To the drama, then.Emprizes over-Channel are the keyTo this land’s stir and ferment.—Thither we.[Clouds gather over the scene, and slowly open elsewhere.]SCENE IIPARIS. OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF MARINE[ADMIRAL DECRÈS seated at a table. A knock without.]DECRÈSCome in! Good news, I hope![An attendant enters.]ATTENDANTA courier, sir.DECRÈSShow him in straightway.[The attendant goes out.]From the EmperorAs I expected!COURIERSir, for your own handAnd yours alone.DECRÈSThanks. Be in waiting near.[The courier withdraws.]DECRÈS reads:“I am resolved that no wild dream of Ind,And what we there might win; or of the West,And bold re-conquest there of SurinamAnd other Dutch retreats along those coasts,Or British islands nigh, shall draw me nowFrom piercing into England through BoulogneAs lined in my first plan. If I do strike,I strike effectively; to forge which featThere’s but one way—planting a mortal woundIn England’s heart—the very English land—Whose insolent and cynical replyTo my well-based complaint on breach of faithConcerning Malta, as at Amiens pledged,Has lighted up anew such flames of ireAs may involve the world.—Now to the case:Our naval forces can be all assembledWithout the foe’s foreknowledge or surmise,By these rules following; to whose text I askYour gravest application; and, when conned,That steadfastly you stand by word and word,Making no question of one jot therein.“First, then, let Villeneuve wait a favouring windFor process westward swift to Martinique,Coaxing the English after. Join him thereGravina, Missiessy, and Ganteaume;Which junction once effected all our keels—While the pursuers linger in the WestAt hopeless fault.—Having hoodwinked them thus,Our boats skim over, disembark the army,And in the twinkling of a patriot’s eyeAll London will be ours.“In strictest secrecy carve this to shape—Let never an admiral or captain scentSave Villeneuve and Ganteaume; and pen each chargeWith your own quill. The surelier to outwit themI start for Italy; and there, as ’twereEngrossed in fetes and Coronation rites,Abide till, at the need, I reach Boulogne,And head the enterprize.—NAPOLÉON.”[DECRÈS reflects, and turns to write.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARSHe buckles to the work. First to Villeneuve,His onetime companion and his boyhood’s friend,Now lingering at Toulon, he jots swift lines,The duly to Ganteaume.—They are sealed forthwith,And superscribed: “Break not till on the main.”[Boisterous singing is heard in the street.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI hear confused and simmering sounds without,Like those which thrill the hives at evenfallWhen swarming pends.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThey but proclaim the crowd,Which sings and shouts its hot enthusiasmsFor this dead-ripe design on England’s shore,Till the persuasion of its own plump words,Acting upon mercurial temperaments,Makes hope as prophecy. “Our EmperorWill show himself [say they] in this exploitUnwavering, keen, and irresistibleAs is the lightning prong. Our vast flotillasHave been embodied as by sorcery;Soldiers made seamen, and the ports transformedTo rocking cities casemented with guns.Against these valiants balance England’s means:Raw merchant-fellows from the counting-house,Raw labourers from the fields, who thumb for armsClumsy untempered pikes forged hurriedly,And cry them full-equipt. Their batteries,Their flying carriages, their catamarans,Shall profit not, and in one summer nightWe’ll find us there!”RECORDING ANGELAnd is this prophecy true?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSOccasion will reveal.SHADE OF EARTHWhat boots it, Sire,To down this dynasty, set that one up,Goad panting peoples to the throes thereof,Make wither here my fruit, maintain it there,And hold me travailling through fineless yearsIn vain and objectless monotony,When all such tedious conjuring could be shunnedBy uncreation? Howsoever wiseThe governance of these massed mortalities,A juster wisdom his who should have ruledThey had not been.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSNay, something hidden urgedThe giving matter motion; and these coilsAre, maybe, good as any.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESBut why any?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSSprite of Compassions, ask the Immanent!I am but an accessory of Its works,Whom the Ages render conscious; and at mostFigure as bounden witness of Its laws.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESHow ask the aim of unrelaxing Will?Tranced in Its purpose to unknowingness?[If thy words, Ancient Phantom, token true.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThou answerest well. But cease to ask of me.Meanwhile the mime proceeds.—We turn herefrom,Change our homuncules, and observe forthwithHow the High Influence sways the English realm,And how the jacks lip out their reasonings there.[The Cloud-curtain draws.]SCENE IIILONDON. THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS[A long chamber with a gallery on each side supported by thincolumns having gilt Ionic capitals. Three round-headed windowsare at the further end, above the Speaker’s chair, which is backedby a huge pedimented structure in white and gilt, surmounted by thelion and the unicorn. The windows are uncurtained, one being open,through which some boughs are seen waving in the midnight gloomwithout. Wax candles, burnt low, wave and gutter in a brasschandelier which hangs from the middle of the ceiling, and inbranches projecting from the galleries.The House is sitting, the benches, which extend round to theSpeaker’s elbows, being closely packed, and the gallerieslikewise full. Among the members present on the Governmentside are PITT and other ministers with their supporters,including CANNING, CASTLEREAGH, LORD C. SOMERSET, ERSKINE,W. DUNDAS, HUSKISSON, ROSE, BEST, ELLIOT, DALLAS, and thegeneral body of the party. On the opposite side are noticeableFOX, SHERIDAN, WINDHAM, WHITBREAD, GREY, T. GRENVILLE, TIERNEY,EARL TEMPLE, PONSONBY, G. AND H. WALPOLE, DUDLEY NORTH, andTIMOTHY SHELLEY. Speaker ABBOT occupies the Chair.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAs prelude to the scene, as means to aidOur younger comrades in its construing,Pray spread your scripture, and rehearse in briefThe reasonings here of late—to whose effectsWords of to-night form sequence.[The Recording Angels chant from their books, antiphonally, in aminor recitative.]ANGEL I [aerial music]Feeble-framed dull unresolve, unresourcefulness,Sat in the halls of the Kingdom’s high Councillors,Whence the grey glooms of a ghost-eyed despondencyWanned as with winter the national mind.ANGEL IIEngland stands forth to the sword of NapoléonNakedly—not an ally in support of her;Men and munitions dispersed inexpediently;Projects of range and scope poorly defined.ANGEL IOnce more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him.—Frail though and spent, and an-hungered for restfulnessOnce more responds he, dead fervours to energize,Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind.ANGEL IIEre the first fruit thereof grow audible,Holding as hapless his dream of good guardianship,Jestingly, earnestly, shouting it serviceless,Tardy, inept, and uncouthly designed.ANGELS I AND IISo now, to-night, in slashing old sentences,Hear them speak,—gravely these, those with gay-heartedness,—Midst their admonishments little conceiving howScarlet the scroll that the years will unwind!SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [to the Spirit of the Years]Let us put on and suffer for the nonceThe feverish fleshings of Humanity,And join the pale debaters here convened.So may thy soul be won to sympathyBy donning their poor mould.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSI’ll humour thee,Though my unpassioned essence could not changeDid I incarn in moulds of all mankind!SPIRIT IRONIC’Tis enough to make every little dog in England run to mixen tohear this Pitt sung so strenuously! I’ll be the third of theincarnate, on the chance of hearing the tune played the other way.SPIRIT SINISTERAnd I the fourth. There’s sure to be something in my line toward,where politicians gathered together![The four Phantoms enter the Gallery of the House in the disguiseof ordinary strangers.]SHERIDAN [rising]The Bill I would have leave to introduceIs framed, sir, to repeal last Session’s Act,By party-scribes intituled a ProvisionFor England’s Proper Guard; but elsewhere knownAs Mr. Pitt’s new Patent Parish Pill. [Laughter.]The ministerial countenances, I mark,Congeal to dazed surprise at my straight motion—Why, passes sane conjecture. It may beThat, with a haughty and unwavering faithIn their own battering-rams of argument,They deemed our buoyance whelmed, and sapped, and sunkTo our hope’s sheer bottom, whence a miracleWas all could friend and float us; or, maybe,They are amazed at our rude disrespectIn making mockery of an English LawSprung sacred from the King’s own Premier’s brain!—I hear them snort; but let them wince at will,My duty must be done; shall be done quicklyBy citing some few facts.An Act for our defence!It weakens, not defends; and overseaSwoln France’s despot and his myrmidonsThis moment know it, and can scoff thereat.Our people know it too—those who can peerBehind the scenes of this poor painted showCalled soldiering!—The Act has failed, must fail,As my right honourable friend well provedWhen speaking t’other night, whose silencingBy his right honourablevis a visWas of the genuine Governmental sort,And like the catamarans their sapience shapedAll fizzle and no harm. [Laughter.] The Act, in brief,Effects this much: that the whole force of EnglandIs strengthened by—eleven thousand men!So sorted that the British infantryAre now eight hundred less than heretofore!In Ireland, where the glamouring influenceOf the right honourable gentlemanPrevails with magic might, ELEVEN menHave been amassed. And in the Cinque-Port towns,Where he is held in absolute veneration,His method has so quickened martial fireAs to bring in—one man. O would that manMight meet my sight! [Laughter.] A Hercules, no doubt,A god-like emanation from this Act,Who with his single arm will overthrowAll Buonaparte’s legions ere their keelsHave scraped one pebble of our fortless shore!...Such is my motion, sir, and such my mind.[He sits down amid cheers. The candle-snuffers go round, and Pittrises. During the momentary pause before he speaks the House assumesan attentive stillness, in which can be heard the rustling of thetrees without, a horn from an early coach, and the voice of the watchcrying the hour.]PITTNot one on this side but appreciatesThose mental gems and airy pleasantriesFlashed by the honourable gentleman,Who shines in them by birthright. Each deviceOf drollery he has laboured to outshape,[Or treasured up from others who have shaped it,]Displays that are the conjurings of the moment,[Or mellowed and matured by sleeping on]—Dry hoardings in his book of commonplace,Stored without stint of toil through days and months—He heaps into one mass, and light and fansAs fuel for his flaming eloquence,Mouthed and maintained without a thought or careIf germane to the theme, or not at all.Now vain indeed it were should I assayTo match him in such sort. For, sir, alas,To use imagination as the groundOf chronicle, take myth and merry taleAs texts for prophecy, is not my giftBeing but a person primed with simple fact,Unprinked by jewelled art.—But to the thing.The preparations of the enemy,Doggedly bent to desolate our land,Advance with a sustained activity.They are seen, they are known, by you and by us all.But they evince no clear-eyed tentativeIn furtherance of the threat, whose coming off,Ay, years may yet postpone; whereby the ActWill far outstrip him, and the thousands calledDuly to join the ranks by its provisions,In process sure, if slow, will ratch the linesOf English regiments—seasoned, cool, resolved—To glorious length and firm prepotency.And why, then, should we dream of its repealEre profiting by its advantages?Must the House listen to such wilding wordsAs this proposal, at the very hourWhen the Act’s gearing finds its ordered groovesAnd circles into full utility?The motion of the honourable gentlemanReminds me aptly of a publicanWho should, when malting, mixing, mashing’s past,Fermenting, barrelling, and spigoting,Quick taste the brew, and shake his sapient head,And cry in acid voice: The ale is new!Brew old, you varlets; cast this slop away! [Cheers.]But gravely, sir, I would conclude to-night,And, as a serious man on serious things,I now speak here.... I pledge myself to this:Unprecedented and magnificentAs were our strivings in the previous war,Our efforts in the present shall transcend them,As men will learn. Such efforts are not sizedBy this light measuring-rule my critic hereWhips from his pocket like a clerk-o’-works!...Tasking and toilsome war’s details must be,And toilsome, too, must be their criticism,—Not in a moment’s stroke extemporized.The strange fatality that haunts the timesWherein our lot is cast, has no example.Times are they fraught with peril, trouble, gloom;We have to mark their lourings, and to face them.Sir, reading thus the full significanceOf these big days, large though my lackings be,Can any hold of those who know my pastThat I, of all men, slight our safeguarding?No: by all honour no!—Were I convincedThat such could be the mind of members here,My sorrowing thereat would doubly shadeThe shade on England now! So I do trustAll in the House will take my tendered word,And credit my deliverance here to-night,That in this vital point of watch and wardAgainst the threatenings from yonder coastWe stand prepared; and under ProvidenceShall fend whatever hid or open strokeA foe may deal.[He sits down amid loud ministerial cheers, with symptoms ofgreat exhaustion.]WINDHAMThe question that compels the House to-nightIs not of differences in wit and wit,But if for England it be well or noTo null the new-fledged Act, as one ineptFor setting up with speed and hot effectThe red machinery of desperate war.—Whatever it may do, or not, it stands,A statesman’ raw experiment. If ill,Shall more experiments and more be triedIn stress of jeopardy that stirs demandFor sureness of proceeding? Must this HouseExchange safe action based on practised linesFor yet more ventures into risks unknownTo gratify a quaint projector’s whim,While enemies hang grinning round our gatesTo profit by mistake?My friend who spokeFound comedy in the matter. ComicalAs it may be in parentage and feature,Most grave and tragic in its consequenceThis Act may prove. We are moving thoughtlessly,We squander precious, brief, life-saving timeOn idle guess-games. Fail the measure must,Nay, failed it has already; and should rouseResolve in its progenitor himselfTo move for its repeal! [Cheers.]WHITBREADI rise but to subjoin a phrase or twoTo those of my right honourable friend.I, too, am one who reads the present pinchAs passing all our risks heretofore.For why? Our bold and reckless enemy,Relaxing not his plans, has treasured timeTo mass his monstrous force on all the coignsFrom which our coast is close assailable.Ay, even afloat his concentrations work:Two vast united squadrons of his sailMove at this moment viewless on the seas.—Their whereabouts, untraced, unguessable,Will not be known to us till some black blowBe dealt by them in some undreamt-of quarterTo knell our rule.That we are reasonably enfenced therefromBy such an Act is but a madman’s dream....A commonwealth so situate cries aloudFor more, far mightier, measures! End an ActIn Heaven’s name, then, which only can obstructThe fabrication of more trusty tackleFor building up an army! [Cheers.]BATHURSTSir, the pointTo any sober mind is bright as noon;Whether the Act should have befitting trialOr be blasphemed at sight. I firmly holdThe latter loud iniquity.—One taskIs theirs who would inter this corpse-cold Act—[So said]—to bring to birth a substitute!Sir, they have none; they have given no thought to one,And this their deeds incautiously discloseTheir cloaked intention and most secret aim!With them the question is not how to frameA finer trick to trounce intrusive foes,But who shall be the future ministersTo whom such trick against intrusive foes,Whatever it may prove, shall be entrusted!They even ask the country gentlemenTo join them in this job. But, God be praised,Those gentlemen are sound, and of repute;Their names, their attainments, and their blood,[Ironical Opposition cheers.]Safeguard them from an onslaught on an ActFor ends so sinister and palpable! [Cheers and jeerings.]FULLERI disapprove of censures of the Act.—All who would entertain such hostile thoughtWould swear that black is white, that night is day.No honest man will join a reckless crewWho’d overthrow their country for their gain! [Laughter.]TIERNEYIt is incumbent on me to declareIn the last speaker’s face my censure, basedOn grounds most clear and constitutional.—An Act it is that studies to createA standing army, large and permanent;Which kind of force has ever been beheldWith jealous-eyed disfavour in this House.It makes for sure oppression, binding menTo serve for less than service proves it worthConditioned by no hampering penalty.For these and late-spoke reasons, then, I say,Let not the Act deface the statute-book,But blot it out forthwith. [Hear, hear.]FOX [rising amid cheers]At this late hour,After the riddling fire the Act has drawn on’t,My words shall hold the House the briefest while.Too obvious to the most unwilling mindIt grows that the existence of this lawExperience and reflection have condemned.Professing to do much, it makes for nothing;Not only so; while feeble in effectIt shows it vicious in its principle.Engaging to raise men for the common wealIt sets a harmful and unequal taxCapriciously on our communities.—The annals of a century fail to showMore flagrant cases of oppressivenessThan those this statute works to perpetrate,Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames,And clothes with tapestries of rhetoricDisguising their real web of commonplace]Though held as shaped for English bulwarking,Breathes in its heart perversities of party,And instincts toward oligarchic power,Galling the many to relieve the few! [Cheers.]Whatever breadth and sense of equityInform the methods of this minister,Those mitigants nearly always trace their rootTo measures that his predecessors wrought.And ere his Government can dare assertSuperior claim to England’s confidence,They owe it to their honour and good nameTo furnish better proof of such a claimThan is revealed by the abortivenessOf this thing called an Act for our Defence.To the great gifts of its artificerNo member of this House is more disposedTo yield full recognition than am I.No man has found more reason so to doThrough the long roll of disputatious yearsWherein we have stood opposed....But if one single fact could counsel meTo entertain a doubt of those great gifts,And cancel faith in his capacity,That fact would be the vast imprudence shownIn staking recklessly repute like hisOn such an Act as he has offered us—So false in principle, so poor in fruit.Sir, the achievements and effects thereofHave furnished not one fragile argumentWhich all the partiality of friendshipCan kindle to consider as the markOf a clear, vigorous, freedom-fostering mind![He sits down amid lengthy cheering from the Opposition.]SHERIDANMy summary shall be brief, and to the point.—The said right honourable Prime MinisterHas thought it proper to declare my speechThe jesting of an irresponsible;—Words from a person who has never readThe Act he claims him urgent to repeal.Such quips and qizzings [as he reckons them]He implicates as gathered from long hoardsStored up with cruel care, to be dischargedWith sudden blaze of pyrotechnic artOn the devoted, gentle, shrinking headO’ the right incomparable gentleman! [Laughter.]But were my humble, solemn, sad oration [Laughter.]Indeed such rattle as he rated it,Is it not strange, and passing precedent,That the illustrious chief of GovernmentShould have uprisen with such indecent speedAnd strenuously replied? He, sir, knows wellThat vast and luminous talents like his ownCould not have been demanded to choke offA witcraft marked by nothing more of weightThan ignorant irregularity!Nec Deus intersit—and so-and-so—Is a well-worn citation whose close fitNone will perceive more clearly in the FaneThan its presiding Deity opposite. [Laughter.]His thunderous answer thus perforce condemns him!Moreover, to top all, the while replying,He still thought best to leave intact the reasonsOn which my blame was founded!Thus, them, standsMy motion unimpaired, convicting clearlyOf dire perversion that capacityWe formerly admired.— [Cries of “Oh, oh.”]This ministerWhose circumventions never circumvent,Whose coalitions fail to coalesce;This dab at secret treaties known to all,This darling of the aristocracy—[Laughter, “Oh, oh,” cheers, and cries of “Divide.”]Has brought the millions to the verge of ruin,By pledging them to Continental quarrelsOf which we see no end! [Cheers.][The members rise to divide.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESIt irks me that they thus should Yea and NayAs though a power lay in their oraclings,If each decision work unconsciously,And would be operant though unloosened wereA single lip!SPIRIT OF RUMOURThere may react on thingsSome influence from these, indefinitely,And even on That, whose outcome we all are.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSHypotheses!—More boots it to remindThe younger here of our ethereal bandAnd hierarchy of Intelligences,That this thwart Parliament whose moods we watch—So insular, empiric, un-ideal—May figure forth in sharp and salient linesTo retrospective eyes of afterdays,And print its legend large on History.For one cause—if I read the signs aright—To-night’s appearance of its MinisterIn the assembly of his long-time swayIs near his last, and themes to-night launched forthWill take a tincture from that memory,When me recall the scene and circumstanceThat hung about his pleadings.—But no more;The ritual of each party is rehearsed,Dislodging not one vote or prejudice;The ministers their ministries retain,And Ins as Ins, and Outs as Outs, remain.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESMeanwhile what of the Foeman’s vast arrayThat wakes these tones?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAbide the event, young Shade:Soon stars will shut and show a spring-eyed dawn,And sunbeams fountain forth, that will arouseThose forming bands to full activity.[An honourable member reports that he spies strangers.]A timely token that we dally here!We now cast off these mortal manacles,And speed us seaward.[The Phantoms vanish from the Gallery. The members file outto the lobbies. The House and Westminster recede into thefilms of night, and the point of observation shifts rapidlyacross the Channel.]SCENE IVTHE HARBOUR OF BOULOGNE[The morning breaks, radiant with early sunlight. The FrenchArmy of Invasion is disclosed. On the hills on either sideof the town and behind appear large military camps formed oftimber huts. Lower down are other camps of more or lesspermanent kind, the whole affording accommodation for onehundred and fifty thousand men.South of the town is an extensive basin surrounded by quays,the heaps of fresh soil around showing it to be a recentexcavation from the banks of the Liane. The basin is crowdedwith the flotilla, consisting of hundreds of vessels of sundrykinds: flat-bottomed brigs with guns and two masts; boats ofone mast, carrying each an artillery waggon, two guns, and atwo-stalled horse-box; transports with three low masts; andlong narrow pinnaces arranged for many oars.Timber, saw-mills, and new-cut planks spread in profusionaround, and many of the town residences are seen to be adaptedfor warehouses and infirmaries.]DUMB SHOWMoving in this scene are countless companies of soldiery, engagedin a drill practice of embarking and disembarking, and of hoistinghorses into the vessels and landing them again. Vehicles bearingprovisions of many sorts load and unload before the temporarywarehouses. Further off, on the open land, bodies of troops are atfield-drill. Other bodies of soldiers, half stripped and encrustedwith mud, are labouring as navvies in repairing the excavations.An English squadron of about twenty sail, comprising a ship or two ofthe line, frigates, brigs, and luggers, confronts the busy spectaclefrom the sea.The Show presently dims and becomes broken, till only its flashes andgleams are visible. Anon a curtain of cloud closes over it.SCENE VLONDON. THE HOUSE OF A LADY OF QUALITY[A fashionable crowd is present at an evening party, whichincludes the DUKES of BEAUFORT and RUTLAND, LORDS MALMESBURY,HARROWBY, ELDON, GRENVILLE, CASTLEREAGH, SIDMOUTH, and MULGRAVE,with their ladies; also CANNING, PERCEVAL, TOWNSHEND, LADYANNE HAMILTON, MRS. DAMER, LADY CAROLINE LAMB, and many othernotables.]A GENTLEMAN [offering his snuff-box]So, then, the Treaty anxiously concertedBetween ourselves and frosty MuscovyIs duly signed?A CABINET MINISTERWas signed a few days back,And is in force. And we do firmly hopeThe loud pretensions and the stunning dinsNow daily heard, these laudable exertionsMay keep in curb; that ere our greening landDarken its leaves beneath the Dogday suns,The independence of the ContinentMay be assured, and all the rumpled flagsOf famous dynasties so foully mauled,Extend their honoured hues as heretofore.GENTLEMANSo be it. Yet this man is a volcano;And proven ’tis, by God, volcanos chokedHave ere now turned to earthquakes!LADYWhat the news?—The chequerboard of diplomatic movesIs London, all the world knows: here are bornAll inspirations of the Continent—So tell!GENTLEMANAy. Inspirations now abound!LADYNay, but your looks are grave! That measured speechBetokened matter that will waken us.—Is it some piquant cruelty of his?Or other tickling horror from abroadThe packet has brought in?GENTLEMANThe treaty’s signed!MINISTERWhereby the parties mutually agreeTo knit in union and in general leagueAll outraged Europe.LADYSo to knit sounds well;But how ensure its not unravelling?MINISTERWell; by the terms. There are among them these:Five hundred thousand active men in armsShall strike [supported by the Britannic aidIn vessels, men, and money subsidies]To free North Germany and HanoverFrom trampling foes; deliver Switzerland,Unbind the galled republic of the Dutch,Rethrone in Piedmont the Sardinian King,Make Naples sword-proof, un-French ItalyFrom shore to shore; and thoroughly guaranteeA settled order to the divers states;Thus rearing breachless barriers in each realmAgainst the thrust of his usurping hand.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThey trow not what is shaping otherwhereThe while they talk this stoutly!SPIRIT OF RUMOURBid me goAnd join them, and all blandly kindle themBy bringing, ere material transit can,A new surprise!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSYea, for a moment, wouldst.[The Spirit of Rumour enters the apartment in the form of apersonage of fashion, newly arrived. He advances and addressesthe group.]SPIRITThe Treaty moves all tongues to-night.—Ha, well—So much on paper!GENTLEMANWhat on land and sea?You look, old friend, full primed with latest thence.SPIRITYea, this. The Italy our mighty pactDelivers from the French and BonaparteMakes haste to crown him!—Turning from BoulogneHe speeds toward Milan, there to glory himIn second coronation by the Pope,And set upon his irrepressible browLombardy’s iron crown.[The Spirit of Rumour mingles with the throng, moves away, anddisappears.]LADYFair Italy,Alas, alas!LORDYet thereby English folkAre freed him.—Faith, as ancient people say,It’s an ill wind that blows good luck to none!MINISTERWho is your friend that drops so airilyThis precious pinch of salt on our raw skin?GENTLEMANWhy, Norton. You know Norton well enough?MINISTERNay, ’twas not he. Norton of course I know.I thought him Stewart for a moment, but—-LADYBut I well scanned him—’twas Lord Abercorn;For, said I to myself, “O quaint old beau,To sleep in black silk sheets so funnily:—That is, if the town rumour on’t be true.”LORDMy wig, ma’am, no! ’Twas a much younger man.GENTLEMANBut let me call him! Monstrous silly this,That don’t know my friends![They look around. The gentleman goes among the surging andbabbling guests, makes inquiries, and returns with a perplexedlook.]GENTLEMANThey tell me, sure,That he’s not here to-night!MINISTERI can well swearIt was not Norton.—’Twas some lively buck,Who chose to put himself in masqueradeAnd enter for a whim. I’ll tell our host.—Meantime the absurdity of his reportIs more than manifested. How knows heThe plans of Bonaparte by lightning-flight,Before another man in England knows?LADYSomething uncanny’s in it all, if true.Good Lord, the thought gives me a sudden sweat,That fairly makes my linen stick to me!MINISTERHa-ha! ’Tis excellent. But we’ll find outWho this impostor was.[They disperse, look furtively for the stranger, and speak ofthe incident to others of the crowded company.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARSNow let us vision onward, till we sightFamed Milan’s aisles of marble, sun-alight,And there behold, unbid, the Coronation-rite.[The confused tongues of the assembly waste away into distance,till they are heard but as the babblings of the sea from ahigh cliff, the scene becoming small and indistinct therewith.This passes into silence, and the whole disappears.]SCENE VIMILAN. THE CATHEDRAL[The interior of the building on a sunny May day.The walls, arched, and columns are draped in silk fringed withgold. A gilded throne stand in front of the High Altar. Aclosely packed assemblage, attired in every variety of richfabric and fashion, waits in breathless expectation.]DUMB SHOWFrom a private corridor leading to a door in the aisle the EMPRESSJOSÉPHINE enters, in a shining costume, and diamonds that collectrainbow-colours from the sunlight piercing the clerestory windows.She is preceded by PRINCESS ELIZA, and surrounded by her ladies.A pause follows, and then comes the procession of the EMPEROR,consisting of hussars, heralds, pages, aides-de-camp, presidentsof institutions, officers of the state bearing the insignia of theEmpire and of Italy, and seven ladies with offerings. The Emperorhimself in royal robes, wearing the Imperial crown, and carrying thesceptre. He is followed my ministers and officials of the household.His gait is rather defiant than dignified, and a bluish palloroverspreads his face.He is met by the Cardinal Archbishop of CAPRARA and the clergy, whoburn incense before him as he proceeds towards the throne. Rollingnotes of music burn forth, and loud applause from the congregation.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhat is the creed that these rich rites disclose?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSA local cult, called Christianity,Which the wild dramas of the wheeling spheresInclude, with divers other such, in dimPathetical and brief parentheses,Beyond whose span, uninfluenced, unconcerned,The systems of the suns go sweeping onWith all their many-mortaled planet trainIn mathematic roll unceasingly.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI did not recognize it here, forsooth;Though in its early, lovingkindly daysOf gracious purpose it was much to me.ARCHBISHOP [addressing Bonaparte]Sire, with that clemency and right goodwillWhich beautify Imperial Majesty,You deigned acceptance of the homagesThat we the clergy and the MilaneseWere proud to offer when your entrance hereStreamed radiance on our ancient capital.Please, then, to consummate the boon to-dayBeneath this holy roof, so soon to thrillWith solemn strains and lifting harmoniesBefitting such a coronation hour;And bend a tender fatherly regardOn this assembly, now at one with meTo supplicate the Author of All GoodThat He endow your most Imperial personWith every Heavenly gift.[The procession advances, and the EMPEROR seats himself on thethrone, with the banners and regalia of the Empire on his right,and those of Italy on his left hand. Shouts and triumphal musicaccompany the proceedings, after which Divine service commences.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThus are the self-styled servants of the HighestConstrained by earthly duress to embraceMighty imperiousness as it were choice,And hand the Italian sceptre unto oneWho, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin,Professed at first to flout antiquity,Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones,And level dynasts down to journeymen!—Yet he, advancing swiftly on that trackWhereby his active soul, fair Freedom’s childMakes strange decline, now labours to achieveThe thing it overthrew.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThou reasonest ever thuswise—even ifA self-formed force had urged his loud career.SPIRIT SINISTERDo not the prelate’s accents falter thin,His lips with inheld laughter grow deformed,While blessing one whose aim is but to winThe golden seats that other b—-s have warmed?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSSoft, jester; scorn not puppetry so skilled,Even made to feel by one men call the Dame.SHADE OF THE EARTHYea; that they feel, and puppetry remain,Is an owned flaw in her consistencyMen love to dub Dame Nature—that lay-shapeThey use to hang phenomena upon—Whose deftest mothering in fairest sphereIs girt about by terms inexorable!SPIRIT SINISTERThe lady’s remark is apposite, and reminds me that I may as wellhold my tongue as desired. For if my casual scorn, Father Years,should set thee trying to prove that there is any right or reasonin the Universe, thou wilt not accomplish it by Doomsday! Smallblame to her, however; she must cut her coat according to hercloth, as they would say below there.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSO would that I could move It to enchain thee,And shut thee up a thousand years!—[to citeA grim terrestrial tale of one thy like]Thou Iago of the Incorporeal World,“As they would say below there.”SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWould thou couldst!But move That scoped above percipience, Sire,It cannot be!SHADE OF THE EARTHThe spectacle proceeds.SPIRIT SINISTERAnd we may as well give all attention thereto, for the evils atwork in other continents are not worth eyesight by comparison.[The ceremonial in the Cathedral continues. NAPOLÉON goes tothe front of the altar, ascends the steps, and, taking up thecrown of Lombardy, places it on his head.]NAPOLÉON’Tis God has given it to me. So be it.Let any who shall touch it now beware! [Reverberations of applause.][The Sacrament of the Mass. NAPOLÉON reads the Coronation Oath ina loud voice.]HERALDSGive ear! Napoléon, Emperor of the FrenchAnd King of Italy, is crowned and throned!CONGREGATIONLong live the Emperor and King. Huzza![Music. The Te Deum.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThat vulgar stroke of vauntery he displayedIn planting on his brow the Lombard crown,Means sheer erasure of the Luneville pacts,And lets confusion loose on Europe’s peaceFor many an undawned year! From this rash hourAustria but waits her opportunityBy secret swellings of her armamentsTo link her to his foes.—I’ll speak to him.[He throws a whisper into NAPOLÉON’S ear.]Lieutenant Bonaparte,Would it not seemlier be to shut thy heartTo these unhealthy splendours?—helmet theeFor her thou swar’st-to first, fair Liberty?NAPOLÉONWho spoke to me?ARCHBISHOPNot I, Sire. Not a soul.NAPOLÉONDear Joséphine, my queen, didst call my name?JOSÉPHINEI spoke not, Sire.NAPOLÉONThou didst not, tender spouse;I know it. Such harsh utterance was not thine.It was aggressive Fancy, working spellsUpon a mind o’erwrought![The service closes. The clergy advance with the canopy to thefoot of the throne, and the procession forms to return to thePalace.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARSOfficious sprite,Thou art young, and dost not heed the Cause of thingsWhich some of us have inkled to thee here;Else wouldst thou not have hailed the Emperor,Whose acts do but outshape Its governing.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI feel, Sire, as I must! This tale of WillAnd Life’s impulsion by IncognizanceI cannot take!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSLet me then once againShow to thy sceptic eye the very streamsAnd currents of this all-inhering Power,And bring conclusion to thy unbelief.[The scene assumes the preternatural transparency before mentioned,and there is again beheld as it were the interior of a brain whichseems to manifest the volitions of a Universal Will, of whosetissues the personages of the action form portion.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESEnough. And yet for very sorrinessI cannot own the weird phantasma real!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAffection ever was illogical.SPIRIT IRONIC [aside]How should the Sprite own to such logic—a mere juvenile— who onlycame into being in what the earthlings call their Tertiary Age![The scene changes. The exterior of the Cathedral takes the placeof the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabricsmalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carvedalabaster ornament. The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alpsshow afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf ofGenoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them,till clouds cover the panorama.]
ENGLAND. A RIDGE IN WESSEX[The time is a fine day in March 1805. A highway crosses theridge, which is near the sea, and the south coast is seenbounding the landscape below, the open Channel extending beyond.]
SPIRITS OF THE YEARSHark now, and gather how the martial moodStirs England’s humblest hearts. Anon we’ll traceIts heavings in the upper coteries there.
SPIRIT SINISTERAy; begin small, and so lead up to the greater. It is a sounddramatic principle. I always aim to follow it in my pestilences,fires, famines, and other comedies. And though, to be sure, I didnot in my Lisbon earthquake, I did in my French Terror, and my St.Domingo burlesque.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSTHY Lisbon earthquake, THY French Terror. Wait.Thinking thou will’st, thou dost but indicate.[A stage-coach enters, with passengers outside. Their voicesafter the foregoing sound small and commonplace, as from anothermedium.]
FIRST PASSENGERThere seems to be a deal of traffic over Ridgeway, even at this timeo’ year.
SECOND PASSENGERYes. It is because the King and Court are coming down here lateron. They wake up this part rarely!... See, now, how the Channeland coast open out like a chart. That patch of mist below us is thetown we are bound for. There’s the Isle of Slingers beyond, like afloating snail. That wide bay on the right is where the “Abergavenny,”Captain John Wordsworth, was wrecked last month. One can see halfacross to France up here.
FIRST PASSENGERHalf across. And then another little half, and then all that’sbehind—the Corsican mischief!
SECOND PASSENGERYes. People who live hereabout—I am a native of these parts—feelthe nearness of France more than they do inland.
FIRST PASSENGERThat’s why we have seen so many of these marching regiments on theroad. This year his grandest attempt upon us is to be made, I reckon.
SECOND PASSENGERMay we be ready!
FIRST PASSENGERWell, we ought to be. We’ve had alarms enough, God knows.[Some companies of infantry are seen ahead, and the coach presentlyovertakes them.]
SOLDIERS [singing as they walk]We be the King’s men, hale and hearty,Marching to meet one Buonaparty;If he won’t sail, lest the wind should blow,We shall have marched for nothing, O!Right fol-lol!We be the King’s men, hale and hearty,Marching to meet one Buonaparty;If he be sea-sick, says “No, no!”We shall have marched for nothing, O!Right fol-lol![The soldiers draw aside, and the coach passes on.]
SECOND PASSENGERIs there truth in it that Bonaparte wrote a letter to the King lastmonth?
FIRST PASSENGERYes, sir. A letter in his own hand, in which he expected the Kingto reply to him in the same manner.
SOLDIERS [continuing, as they are left behind]We be the King’s men, hale and hearty,Marching to meet one Buonaparty;Never mind, mates; we’ll be merry, thoughWe may have marched for nothing, O!Right fol-lol!
THIRD PASSENGERAnd was Boney’s letter friendly?
FIRST PASSENGERCertainly, sir. He requested peace with the King.
THIRD PASSENGERAnd why shouldn’t the King reply in the same manner?
FIRST PASSENGERWhat! Encourage this man in an act of shameless presumption, andgive him the pleasure of considering himself the equal of the Kingof England—whom he actually calls his brother!
THIRD PASSENGERHe must be taken for what he is, not for what he was; and if he callsKing George his brother it doesn’t speak badly for his friendliness.
FIRST PASSENGERWhether or no, the King, rightly enough, did not reply in person,but through Lord Mulgrave our Foreign Minister, to the effect thathis Britannic Majesty cannot give a specific answer till he hascommunicated with the Continental powers.
THIRD PASSENGERBoth the manner and the matter of the reply are British; but a hugemistake.
FIRST PASSENGERSir, am I to deem you a friend of Bonaparte, a traitor to yourcountry—-
THIRD PASSENGERDamn my wig, sir, if I’ll be called a traitor by you or any Courtsycophant at all at all![He unpacks a case of pistols.]
SECOND PASSENGERGentlemen forbear, forbear! Should such differences be suffered toarise on a spot where we may, in less than three months, be fightingfor our very existence? This is foolish, I say. Heaven alone, whoreads the secrets of this man’s heart, can tell what his meaning andintent may be, and if his letter has been answered wisely or no.[The coach is stopped to skid the wheel for the descent of thehill, and before it starts again a dusty horseman overtakes it.]
SEVERAL PASSENGERSA London messenger! [To horseman] Any news, sir? We are fromBristol only.
HORSEMANYes; much. We have declared war against Spain, an error givingvast delight to France. Bonaparte says he will date his nextdispatches from London, and the landing of his army may be dailyexpected.[Exit horseman.]
THIRD PASSENGERSir, I apologize. He’s not to be trusted! War is his name, andaggression is with him![He repacks the pistols. A silence follows. The coach andpassengers move downwards and disappear towards the coast.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESIll chanced it that the English monarch GeorgeDid not respond to the said Emperor!
SPIRIT SINISTERI saw good sport therein, and paean’d the WillTo unimpel so stultifying a move!Which would have marred the European broil,And sheathed all swords, and silenced every gunThat riddles human flesh.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESO say no more;If aught could gratify the Absolute’Twould verily be thy censure, not thy praise!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThe ruling was that we should witness thingsAnd not dispute them. To the drama, then.Emprizes over-Channel are the keyTo this land’s stir and ferment.—Thither we.[Clouds gather over the scene, and slowly open elsewhere.]
PARIS. OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF MARINE[ADMIRAL DECRÈS seated at a table. A knock without.]
DECRÈSCome in! Good news, I hope![An attendant enters.]
ATTENDANTA courier, sir.
DECRÈSShow him in straightway.[The attendant goes out.]From the EmperorAs I expected!
COURIERSir, for your own handAnd yours alone.
DECRÈSThanks. Be in waiting near.[The courier withdraws.]
DECRÈS reads:“I am resolved that no wild dream of Ind,And what we there might win; or of the West,And bold re-conquest there of SurinamAnd other Dutch retreats along those coasts,Or British islands nigh, shall draw me nowFrom piercing into England through BoulogneAs lined in my first plan. If I do strike,I strike effectively; to forge which featThere’s but one way—planting a mortal woundIn England’s heart—the very English land—Whose insolent and cynical replyTo my well-based complaint on breach of faithConcerning Malta, as at Amiens pledged,Has lighted up anew such flames of ireAs may involve the world.—Now to the case:Our naval forces can be all assembledWithout the foe’s foreknowledge or surmise,By these rules following; to whose text I askYour gravest application; and, when conned,That steadfastly you stand by word and word,Making no question of one jot therein.“First, then, let Villeneuve wait a favouring windFor process westward swift to Martinique,Coaxing the English after. Join him thereGravina, Missiessy, and Ganteaume;Which junction once effected all our keels—While the pursuers linger in the WestAt hopeless fault.—Having hoodwinked them thus,Our boats skim over, disembark the army,And in the twinkling of a patriot’s eyeAll London will be ours.“In strictest secrecy carve this to shape—Let never an admiral or captain scentSave Villeneuve and Ganteaume; and pen each chargeWith your own quill. The surelier to outwit themI start for Italy; and there, as ’twereEngrossed in fetes and Coronation rites,Abide till, at the need, I reach Boulogne,And head the enterprize.—NAPOLÉON.”[DECRÈS reflects, and turns to write.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSHe buckles to the work. First to Villeneuve,His onetime companion and his boyhood’s friend,Now lingering at Toulon, he jots swift lines,The duly to Ganteaume.—They are sealed forthwith,And superscribed: “Break not till on the main.”[Boisterous singing is heard in the street.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI hear confused and simmering sounds without,Like those which thrill the hives at evenfallWhen swarming pends.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThey but proclaim the crowd,Which sings and shouts its hot enthusiasmsFor this dead-ripe design on England’s shore,Till the persuasion of its own plump words,Acting upon mercurial temperaments,Makes hope as prophecy. “Our EmperorWill show himself [say they] in this exploitUnwavering, keen, and irresistibleAs is the lightning prong. Our vast flotillasHave been embodied as by sorcery;Soldiers made seamen, and the ports transformedTo rocking cities casemented with guns.Against these valiants balance England’s means:Raw merchant-fellows from the counting-house,Raw labourers from the fields, who thumb for armsClumsy untempered pikes forged hurriedly,And cry them full-equipt. Their batteries,Their flying carriages, their catamarans,Shall profit not, and in one summer nightWe’ll find us there!”
RECORDING ANGELAnd is this prophecy true?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSOccasion will reveal.
SHADE OF EARTHWhat boots it, Sire,To down this dynasty, set that one up,Goad panting peoples to the throes thereof,Make wither here my fruit, maintain it there,And hold me travailling through fineless yearsIn vain and objectless monotony,When all such tedious conjuring could be shunnedBy uncreation? Howsoever wiseThe governance of these massed mortalities,A juster wisdom his who should have ruledThey had not been.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSNay, something hidden urgedThe giving matter motion; and these coilsAre, maybe, good as any.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESBut why any?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSSprite of Compassions, ask the Immanent!I am but an accessory of Its works,Whom the Ages render conscious; and at mostFigure as bounden witness of Its laws.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESHow ask the aim of unrelaxing Will?Tranced in Its purpose to unknowingness?[If thy words, Ancient Phantom, token true.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThou answerest well. But cease to ask of me.Meanwhile the mime proceeds.—We turn herefrom,Change our homuncules, and observe forthwithHow the High Influence sways the English realm,And how the jacks lip out their reasonings there.[The Cloud-curtain draws.]
LONDON. THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS[A long chamber with a gallery on each side supported by thincolumns having gilt Ionic capitals. Three round-headed windowsare at the further end, above the Speaker’s chair, which is backedby a huge pedimented structure in white and gilt, surmounted by thelion and the unicorn. The windows are uncurtained, one being open,through which some boughs are seen waving in the midnight gloomwithout. Wax candles, burnt low, wave and gutter in a brasschandelier which hangs from the middle of the ceiling, and inbranches projecting from the galleries.The House is sitting, the benches, which extend round to theSpeaker’s elbows, being closely packed, and the gallerieslikewise full. Among the members present on the Governmentside are PITT and other ministers with their supporters,including CANNING, CASTLEREAGH, LORD C. SOMERSET, ERSKINE,W. DUNDAS, HUSKISSON, ROSE, BEST, ELLIOT, DALLAS, and thegeneral body of the party. On the opposite side are noticeableFOX, SHERIDAN, WINDHAM, WHITBREAD, GREY, T. GRENVILLE, TIERNEY,EARL TEMPLE, PONSONBY, G. AND H. WALPOLE, DUDLEY NORTH, andTIMOTHY SHELLEY. Speaker ABBOT occupies the Chair.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAs prelude to the scene, as means to aidOur younger comrades in its construing,Pray spread your scripture, and rehearse in briefThe reasonings here of late—to whose effectsWords of to-night form sequence.[The Recording Angels chant from their books, antiphonally, in aminor recitative.]
ANGEL I [aerial music]Feeble-framed dull unresolve, unresourcefulness,Sat in the halls of the Kingdom’s high Councillors,Whence the grey glooms of a ghost-eyed despondencyWanned as with winter the national mind.
ANGEL IIEngland stands forth to the sword of NapoléonNakedly—not an ally in support of her;Men and munitions dispersed inexpediently;Projects of range and scope poorly defined.
ANGEL IOnce more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him.—Frail though and spent, and an-hungered for restfulnessOnce more responds he, dead fervours to energize,Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind.
ANGEL IIEre the first fruit thereof grow audible,Holding as hapless his dream of good guardianship,Jestingly, earnestly, shouting it serviceless,Tardy, inept, and uncouthly designed.
ANGELS I AND IISo now, to-night, in slashing old sentences,Hear them speak,—gravely these, those with gay-heartedness,—Midst their admonishments little conceiving howScarlet the scroll that the years will unwind!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [to the Spirit of the Years]Let us put on and suffer for the nonceThe feverish fleshings of Humanity,And join the pale debaters here convened.So may thy soul be won to sympathyBy donning their poor mould.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSI’ll humour thee,Though my unpassioned essence could not changeDid I incarn in moulds of all mankind!
SPIRIT IRONIC’Tis enough to make every little dog in England run to mixen tohear this Pitt sung so strenuously! I’ll be the third of theincarnate, on the chance of hearing the tune played the other way.
SPIRIT SINISTERAnd I the fourth. There’s sure to be something in my line toward,where politicians gathered together![The four Phantoms enter the Gallery of the House in the disguiseof ordinary strangers.]
SHERIDAN [rising]The Bill I would have leave to introduceIs framed, sir, to repeal last Session’s Act,By party-scribes intituled a ProvisionFor England’s Proper Guard; but elsewhere knownAs Mr. Pitt’s new Patent Parish Pill. [Laughter.]The ministerial countenances, I mark,Congeal to dazed surprise at my straight motion—Why, passes sane conjecture. It may beThat, with a haughty and unwavering faithIn their own battering-rams of argument,They deemed our buoyance whelmed, and sapped, and sunkTo our hope’s sheer bottom, whence a miracleWas all could friend and float us; or, maybe,They are amazed at our rude disrespectIn making mockery of an English LawSprung sacred from the King’s own Premier’s brain!—I hear them snort; but let them wince at will,My duty must be done; shall be done quicklyBy citing some few facts.An Act for our defence!It weakens, not defends; and overseaSwoln France’s despot and his myrmidonsThis moment know it, and can scoff thereat.Our people know it too—those who can peerBehind the scenes of this poor painted showCalled soldiering!—The Act has failed, must fail,As my right honourable friend well provedWhen speaking t’other night, whose silencingBy his right honourablevis a visWas of the genuine Governmental sort,And like the catamarans their sapience shapedAll fizzle and no harm. [Laughter.] The Act, in brief,Effects this much: that the whole force of EnglandIs strengthened by—eleven thousand men!So sorted that the British infantryAre now eight hundred less than heretofore!In Ireland, where the glamouring influenceOf the right honourable gentlemanPrevails with magic might, ELEVEN menHave been amassed. And in the Cinque-Port towns,Where he is held in absolute veneration,His method has so quickened martial fireAs to bring in—one man. O would that manMight meet my sight! [Laughter.] A Hercules, no doubt,A god-like emanation from this Act,Who with his single arm will overthrowAll Buonaparte’s legions ere their keelsHave scraped one pebble of our fortless shore!...Such is my motion, sir, and such my mind.[He sits down amid cheers. The candle-snuffers go round, and Pittrises. During the momentary pause before he speaks the House assumesan attentive stillness, in which can be heard the rustling of thetrees without, a horn from an early coach, and the voice of the watchcrying the hour.]
PITTNot one on this side but appreciatesThose mental gems and airy pleasantriesFlashed by the honourable gentleman,Who shines in them by birthright. Each deviceOf drollery he has laboured to outshape,[Or treasured up from others who have shaped it,]Displays that are the conjurings of the moment,[Or mellowed and matured by sleeping on]—Dry hoardings in his book of commonplace,Stored without stint of toil through days and months—He heaps into one mass, and light and fansAs fuel for his flaming eloquence,Mouthed and maintained without a thought or careIf germane to the theme, or not at all.Now vain indeed it were should I assayTo match him in such sort. For, sir, alas,To use imagination as the groundOf chronicle, take myth and merry taleAs texts for prophecy, is not my giftBeing but a person primed with simple fact,Unprinked by jewelled art.—But to the thing.The preparations of the enemy,Doggedly bent to desolate our land,Advance with a sustained activity.They are seen, they are known, by you and by us all.But they evince no clear-eyed tentativeIn furtherance of the threat, whose coming off,Ay, years may yet postpone; whereby the ActWill far outstrip him, and the thousands calledDuly to join the ranks by its provisions,In process sure, if slow, will ratch the linesOf English regiments—seasoned, cool, resolved—To glorious length and firm prepotency.And why, then, should we dream of its repealEre profiting by its advantages?Must the House listen to such wilding wordsAs this proposal, at the very hourWhen the Act’s gearing finds its ordered groovesAnd circles into full utility?The motion of the honourable gentlemanReminds me aptly of a publicanWho should, when malting, mixing, mashing’s past,Fermenting, barrelling, and spigoting,Quick taste the brew, and shake his sapient head,And cry in acid voice: The ale is new!Brew old, you varlets; cast this slop away! [Cheers.]But gravely, sir, I would conclude to-night,And, as a serious man on serious things,I now speak here.... I pledge myself to this:Unprecedented and magnificentAs were our strivings in the previous war,Our efforts in the present shall transcend them,As men will learn. Such efforts are not sizedBy this light measuring-rule my critic hereWhips from his pocket like a clerk-o’-works!...Tasking and toilsome war’s details must be,And toilsome, too, must be their criticism,—Not in a moment’s stroke extemporized.The strange fatality that haunts the timesWherein our lot is cast, has no example.Times are they fraught with peril, trouble, gloom;We have to mark their lourings, and to face them.Sir, reading thus the full significanceOf these big days, large though my lackings be,Can any hold of those who know my pastThat I, of all men, slight our safeguarding?No: by all honour no!—Were I convincedThat such could be the mind of members here,My sorrowing thereat would doubly shadeThe shade on England now! So I do trustAll in the House will take my tendered word,And credit my deliverance here to-night,That in this vital point of watch and wardAgainst the threatenings from yonder coastWe stand prepared; and under ProvidenceShall fend whatever hid or open strokeA foe may deal.[He sits down amid loud ministerial cheers, with symptoms ofgreat exhaustion.]
WINDHAMThe question that compels the House to-nightIs not of differences in wit and wit,But if for England it be well or noTo null the new-fledged Act, as one ineptFor setting up with speed and hot effectThe red machinery of desperate war.—Whatever it may do, or not, it stands,A statesman’ raw experiment. If ill,Shall more experiments and more be triedIn stress of jeopardy that stirs demandFor sureness of proceeding? Must this HouseExchange safe action based on practised linesFor yet more ventures into risks unknownTo gratify a quaint projector’s whim,While enemies hang grinning round our gatesTo profit by mistake?My friend who spokeFound comedy in the matter. ComicalAs it may be in parentage and feature,Most grave and tragic in its consequenceThis Act may prove. We are moving thoughtlessly,We squander precious, brief, life-saving timeOn idle guess-games. Fail the measure must,Nay, failed it has already; and should rouseResolve in its progenitor himselfTo move for its repeal! [Cheers.]
WHITBREADI rise but to subjoin a phrase or twoTo those of my right honourable friend.I, too, am one who reads the present pinchAs passing all our risks heretofore.For why? Our bold and reckless enemy,Relaxing not his plans, has treasured timeTo mass his monstrous force on all the coignsFrom which our coast is close assailable.Ay, even afloat his concentrations work:Two vast united squadrons of his sailMove at this moment viewless on the seas.—Their whereabouts, untraced, unguessable,Will not be known to us till some black blowBe dealt by them in some undreamt-of quarterTo knell our rule.That we are reasonably enfenced therefromBy such an Act is but a madman’s dream....A commonwealth so situate cries aloudFor more, far mightier, measures! End an ActIn Heaven’s name, then, which only can obstructThe fabrication of more trusty tackleFor building up an army! [Cheers.]
BATHURSTSir, the pointTo any sober mind is bright as noon;Whether the Act should have befitting trialOr be blasphemed at sight. I firmly holdThe latter loud iniquity.—One taskIs theirs who would inter this corpse-cold Act—[So said]—to bring to birth a substitute!Sir, they have none; they have given no thought to one,And this their deeds incautiously discloseTheir cloaked intention and most secret aim!With them the question is not how to frameA finer trick to trounce intrusive foes,But who shall be the future ministersTo whom such trick against intrusive foes,Whatever it may prove, shall be entrusted!They even ask the country gentlemenTo join them in this job. But, God be praised,Those gentlemen are sound, and of repute;Their names, their attainments, and their blood,[Ironical Opposition cheers.]Safeguard them from an onslaught on an ActFor ends so sinister and palpable! [Cheers and jeerings.]
FULLERI disapprove of censures of the Act.—All who would entertain such hostile thoughtWould swear that black is white, that night is day.No honest man will join a reckless crewWho’d overthrow their country for their gain! [Laughter.]
TIERNEYIt is incumbent on me to declareIn the last speaker’s face my censure, basedOn grounds most clear and constitutional.—An Act it is that studies to createA standing army, large and permanent;Which kind of force has ever been beheldWith jealous-eyed disfavour in this House.It makes for sure oppression, binding menTo serve for less than service proves it worthConditioned by no hampering penalty.For these and late-spoke reasons, then, I say,Let not the Act deface the statute-book,But blot it out forthwith. [Hear, hear.]
FOX [rising amid cheers]At this late hour,After the riddling fire the Act has drawn on’t,My words shall hold the House the briefest while.Too obvious to the most unwilling mindIt grows that the existence of this lawExperience and reflection have condemned.Professing to do much, it makes for nothing;Not only so; while feeble in effectIt shows it vicious in its principle.Engaging to raise men for the common wealIt sets a harmful and unequal taxCapriciously on our communities.—The annals of a century fail to showMore flagrant cases of oppressivenessThan those this statute works to perpetrate,Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames,And clothes with tapestries of rhetoricDisguising their real web of commonplace]Though held as shaped for English bulwarking,Breathes in its heart perversities of party,And instincts toward oligarchic power,Galling the many to relieve the few! [Cheers.]Whatever breadth and sense of equityInform the methods of this minister,Those mitigants nearly always trace their rootTo measures that his predecessors wrought.And ere his Government can dare assertSuperior claim to England’s confidence,They owe it to their honour and good nameTo furnish better proof of such a claimThan is revealed by the abortivenessOf this thing called an Act for our Defence.To the great gifts of its artificerNo member of this House is more disposedTo yield full recognition than am I.No man has found more reason so to doThrough the long roll of disputatious yearsWherein we have stood opposed....But if one single fact could counsel meTo entertain a doubt of those great gifts,And cancel faith in his capacity,That fact would be the vast imprudence shownIn staking recklessly repute like hisOn such an Act as he has offered us—So false in principle, so poor in fruit.Sir, the achievements and effects thereofHave furnished not one fragile argumentWhich all the partiality of friendshipCan kindle to consider as the markOf a clear, vigorous, freedom-fostering mind![He sits down amid lengthy cheering from the Opposition.]
SHERIDANMy summary shall be brief, and to the point.—The said right honourable Prime MinisterHas thought it proper to declare my speechThe jesting of an irresponsible;—Words from a person who has never readThe Act he claims him urgent to repeal.Such quips and qizzings [as he reckons them]He implicates as gathered from long hoardsStored up with cruel care, to be dischargedWith sudden blaze of pyrotechnic artOn the devoted, gentle, shrinking headO’ the right incomparable gentleman! [Laughter.]But were my humble, solemn, sad oration [Laughter.]Indeed such rattle as he rated it,Is it not strange, and passing precedent,That the illustrious chief of GovernmentShould have uprisen with such indecent speedAnd strenuously replied? He, sir, knows wellThat vast and luminous talents like his ownCould not have been demanded to choke offA witcraft marked by nothing more of weightThan ignorant irregularity!Nec Deus intersit—and so-and-so—Is a well-worn citation whose close fitNone will perceive more clearly in the FaneThan its presiding Deity opposite. [Laughter.]His thunderous answer thus perforce condemns him!Moreover, to top all, the while replying,He still thought best to leave intact the reasonsOn which my blame was founded!Thus, them, standsMy motion unimpaired, convicting clearlyOf dire perversion that capacityWe formerly admired.— [Cries of “Oh, oh.”]This ministerWhose circumventions never circumvent,Whose coalitions fail to coalesce;This dab at secret treaties known to all,This darling of the aristocracy—[Laughter, “Oh, oh,” cheers, and cries of “Divide.”]Has brought the millions to the verge of ruin,By pledging them to Continental quarrelsOf which we see no end! [Cheers.][The members rise to divide.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESIt irks me that they thus should Yea and NayAs though a power lay in their oraclings,If each decision work unconsciously,And would be operant though unloosened wereA single lip!
SPIRIT OF RUMOURThere may react on thingsSome influence from these, indefinitely,And even on That, whose outcome we all are.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSHypotheses!—More boots it to remindThe younger here of our ethereal bandAnd hierarchy of Intelligences,That this thwart Parliament whose moods we watch—So insular, empiric, un-ideal—May figure forth in sharp and salient linesTo retrospective eyes of afterdays,And print its legend large on History.For one cause—if I read the signs aright—To-night’s appearance of its MinisterIn the assembly of his long-time swayIs near his last, and themes to-night launched forthWill take a tincture from that memory,When me recall the scene and circumstanceThat hung about his pleadings.—But no more;The ritual of each party is rehearsed,Dislodging not one vote or prejudice;The ministers their ministries retain,And Ins as Ins, and Outs as Outs, remain.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESMeanwhile what of the Foeman’s vast arrayThat wakes these tones?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAbide the event, young Shade:Soon stars will shut and show a spring-eyed dawn,And sunbeams fountain forth, that will arouseThose forming bands to full activity.[An honourable member reports that he spies strangers.]A timely token that we dally here!We now cast off these mortal manacles,And speed us seaward.[The Phantoms vanish from the Gallery. The members file outto the lobbies. The House and Westminster recede into thefilms of night, and the point of observation shifts rapidlyacross the Channel.]
THE HARBOUR OF BOULOGNE[The morning breaks, radiant with early sunlight. The FrenchArmy of Invasion is disclosed. On the hills on either sideof the town and behind appear large military camps formed oftimber huts. Lower down are other camps of more or lesspermanent kind, the whole affording accommodation for onehundred and fifty thousand men.South of the town is an extensive basin surrounded by quays,the heaps of fresh soil around showing it to be a recentexcavation from the banks of the Liane. The basin is crowdedwith the flotilla, consisting of hundreds of vessels of sundrykinds: flat-bottomed brigs with guns and two masts; boats ofone mast, carrying each an artillery waggon, two guns, and atwo-stalled horse-box; transports with three low masts; andlong narrow pinnaces arranged for many oars.Timber, saw-mills, and new-cut planks spread in profusionaround, and many of the town residences are seen to be adaptedfor warehouses and infirmaries.]
DUMB SHOWMoving in this scene are countless companies of soldiery, engagedin a drill practice of embarking and disembarking, and of hoistinghorses into the vessels and landing them again. Vehicles bearingprovisions of many sorts load and unload before the temporarywarehouses. Further off, on the open land, bodies of troops are atfield-drill. Other bodies of soldiers, half stripped and encrustedwith mud, are labouring as navvies in repairing the excavations.An English squadron of about twenty sail, comprising a ship or two ofthe line, frigates, brigs, and luggers, confronts the busy spectaclefrom the sea.The Show presently dims and becomes broken, till only its flashes andgleams are visible. Anon a curtain of cloud closes over it.
LONDON. THE HOUSE OF A LADY OF QUALITY[A fashionable crowd is present at an evening party, whichincludes the DUKES of BEAUFORT and RUTLAND, LORDS MALMESBURY,HARROWBY, ELDON, GRENVILLE, CASTLEREAGH, SIDMOUTH, and MULGRAVE,with their ladies; also CANNING, PERCEVAL, TOWNSHEND, LADYANNE HAMILTON, MRS. DAMER, LADY CAROLINE LAMB, and many othernotables.]
A GENTLEMAN [offering his snuff-box]So, then, the Treaty anxiously concertedBetween ourselves and frosty MuscovyIs duly signed?
A CABINET MINISTERWas signed a few days back,And is in force. And we do firmly hopeThe loud pretensions and the stunning dinsNow daily heard, these laudable exertionsMay keep in curb; that ere our greening landDarken its leaves beneath the Dogday suns,The independence of the ContinentMay be assured, and all the rumpled flagsOf famous dynasties so foully mauled,Extend their honoured hues as heretofore.
GENTLEMANSo be it. Yet this man is a volcano;And proven ’tis, by God, volcanos chokedHave ere now turned to earthquakes!
LADYWhat the news?—The chequerboard of diplomatic movesIs London, all the world knows: here are bornAll inspirations of the Continent—So tell!GENTLEMANAy. Inspirations now abound!
LADYNay, but your looks are grave! That measured speechBetokened matter that will waken us.—Is it some piquant cruelty of his?Or other tickling horror from abroadThe packet has brought in?
GENTLEMANThe treaty’s signed!
MINISTERWhereby the parties mutually agreeTo knit in union and in general leagueAll outraged Europe.
LADYSo to knit sounds well;But how ensure its not unravelling?
MINISTERWell; by the terms. There are among them these:Five hundred thousand active men in armsShall strike [supported by the Britannic aidIn vessels, men, and money subsidies]To free North Germany and HanoverFrom trampling foes; deliver Switzerland,Unbind the galled republic of the Dutch,Rethrone in Piedmont the Sardinian King,Make Naples sword-proof, un-French ItalyFrom shore to shore; and thoroughly guaranteeA settled order to the divers states;Thus rearing breachless barriers in each realmAgainst the thrust of his usurping hand.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThey trow not what is shaping otherwhereThe while they talk this stoutly!
SPIRIT OF RUMOURBid me goAnd join them, and all blandly kindle themBy bringing, ere material transit can,A new surprise!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSYea, for a moment, wouldst.[The Spirit of Rumour enters the apartment in the form of apersonage of fashion, newly arrived. He advances and addressesthe group.]
SPIRITThe Treaty moves all tongues to-night.—Ha, well—So much on paper!
GENTLEMANWhat on land and sea?You look, old friend, full primed with latest thence.
SPIRITYea, this. The Italy our mighty pactDelivers from the French and BonaparteMakes haste to crown him!—Turning from BoulogneHe speeds toward Milan, there to glory himIn second coronation by the Pope,And set upon his irrepressible browLombardy’s iron crown.[The Spirit of Rumour mingles with the throng, moves away, anddisappears.]
LADYFair Italy,Alas, alas!
LORDYet thereby English folkAre freed him.—Faith, as ancient people say,It’s an ill wind that blows good luck to none!
MINISTERWho is your friend that drops so airilyThis precious pinch of salt on our raw skin?
GENTLEMANWhy, Norton. You know Norton well enough?
MINISTERNay, ’twas not he. Norton of course I know.I thought him Stewart for a moment, but—-
LADYBut I well scanned him—’twas Lord Abercorn;For, said I to myself, “O quaint old beau,To sleep in black silk sheets so funnily:—That is, if the town rumour on’t be true.”
LORDMy wig, ma’am, no! ’Twas a much younger man.
GENTLEMANBut let me call him! Monstrous silly this,That don’t know my friends![They look around. The gentleman goes among the surging andbabbling guests, makes inquiries, and returns with a perplexedlook.]
GENTLEMANThey tell me, sure,That he’s not here to-night!
MINISTERI can well swearIt was not Norton.—’Twas some lively buck,Who chose to put himself in masqueradeAnd enter for a whim. I’ll tell our host.—Meantime the absurdity of his reportIs more than manifested. How knows heThe plans of Bonaparte by lightning-flight,Before another man in England knows?
LADYSomething uncanny’s in it all, if true.Good Lord, the thought gives me a sudden sweat,That fairly makes my linen stick to me!
MINISTERHa-ha! ’Tis excellent. But we’ll find outWho this impostor was.[They disperse, look furtively for the stranger, and speak ofthe incident to others of the crowded company.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSNow let us vision onward, till we sightFamed Milan’s aisles of marble, sun-alight,And there behold, unbid, the Coronation-rite.[The confused tongues of the assembly waste away into distance,till they are heard but as the babblings of the sea from ahigh cliff, the scene becoming small and indistinct therewith.This passes into silence, and the whole disappears.]
MILAN. THE CATHEDRAL[The interior of the building on a sunny May day.The walls, arched, and columns are draped in silk fringed withgold. A gilded throne stand in front of the High Altar. Aclosely packed assemblage, attired in every variety of richfabric and fashion, waits in breathless expectation.]
DUMB SHOWFrom a private corridor leading to a door in the aisle the EMPRESSJOSÉPHINE enters, in a shining costume, and diamonds that collectrainbow-colours from the sunlight piercing the clerestory windows.She is preceded by PRINCESS ELIZA, and surrounded by her ladies.A pause follows, and then comes the procession of the EMPEROR,consisting of hussars, heralds, pages, aides-de-camp, presidentsof institutions, officers of the state bearing the insignia of theEmpire and of Italy, and seven ladies with offerings. The Emperorhimself in royal robes, wearing the Imperial crown, and carrying thesceptre. He is followed my ministers and officials of the household.His gait is rather defiant than dignified, and a bluish palloroverspreads his face.He is met by the Cardinal Archbishop of CAPRARA and the clergy, whoburn incense before him as he proceeds towards the throne. Rollingnotes of music burn forth, and loud applause from the congregation.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhat is the creed that these rich rites disclose?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSA local cult, called Christianity,Which the wild dramas of the wheeling spheresInclude, with divers other such, in dimPathetical and brief parentheses,Beyond whose span, uninfluenced, unconcerned,The systems of the suns go sweeping onWith all their many-mortaled planet trainIn mathematic roll unceasingly.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI did not recognize it here, forsooth;Though in its early, lovingkindly daysOf gracious purpose it was much to me.
ARCHBISHOP [addressing Bonaparte]Sire, with that clemency and right goodwillWhich beautify Imperial Majesty,You deigned acceptance of the homagesThat we the clergy and the MilaneseWere proud to offer when your entrance hereStreamed radiance on our ancient capital.Please, then, to consummate the boon to-dayBeneath this holy roof, so soon to thrillWith solemn strains and lifting harmoniesBefitting such a coronation hour;And bend a tender fatherly regardOn this assembly, now at one with meTo supplicate the Author of All GoodThat He endow your most Imperial personWith every Heavenly gift.
[The procession advances, and the EMPEROR seats himself on thethrone, with the banners and regalia of the Empire on his right,and those of Italy on his left hand. Shouts and triumphal musicaccompany the proceedings, after which Divine service commences.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThus are the self-styled servants of the HighestConstrained by earthly duress to embraceMighty imperiousness as it were choice,And hand the Italian sceptre unto oneWho, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin,Professed at first to flout antiquity,Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones,And level dynasts down to journeymen!—Yet he, advancing swiftly on that trackWhereby his active soul, fair Freedom’s childMakes strange decline, now labours to achieveThe thing it overthrew.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThou reasonest ever thuswise—even ifA self-formed force had urged his loud career.
SPIRIT SINISTERDo not the prelate’s accents falter thin,His lips with inheld laughter grow deformed,While blessing one whose aim is but to winThe golden seats that other b—-s have warmed?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSSoft, jester; scorn not puppetry so skilled,Even made to feel by one men call the Dame.
SHADE OF THE EARTHYea; that they feel, and puppetry remain,Is an owned flaw in her consistencyMen love to dub Dame Nature—that lay-shapeThey use to hang phenomena upon—Whose deftest mothering in fairest sphereIs girt about by terms inexorable!
SPIRIT SINISTERThe lady’s remark is apposite, and reminds me that I may as wellhold my tongue as desired. For if my casual scorn, Father Years,should set thee trying to prove that there is any right or reasonin the Universe, thou wilt not accomplish it by Doomsday! Smallblame to her, however; she must cut her coat according to hercloth, as they would say below there.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSO would that I could move It to enchain thee,And shut thee up a thousand years!—[to citeA grim terrestrial tale of one thy like]Thou Iago of the Incorporeal World,“As they would say below there.”
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWould thou couldst!But move That scoped above percipience, Sire,It cannot be!
SHADE OF THE EARTHThe spectacle proceeds.
SPIRIT SINISTERAnd we may as well give all attention thereto, for the evils atwork in other continents are not worth eyesight by comparison.[The ceremonial in the Cathedral continues. NAPOLÉON goes tothe front of the altar, ascends the steps, and, taking up thecrown of Lombardy, places it on his head.]
NAPOLÉON’Tis God has given it to me. So be it.Let any who shall touch it now beware! [Reverberations of applause.][The Sacrament of the Mass. NAPOLÉON reads the Coronation Oath ina loud voice.]
HERALDSGive ear! Napoléon, Emperor of the FrenchAnd King of Italy, is crowned and throned!
CONGREGATIONLong live the Emperor and King. Huzza![Music. The Te Deum.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThat vulgar stroke of vauntery he displayedIn planting on his brow the Lombard crown,Means sheer erasure of the Luneville pacts,And lets confusion loose on Europe’s peaceFor many an undawned year! From this rash hourAustria but waits her opportunityBy secret swellings of her armamentsTo link her to his foes.—I’ll speak to him.[He throws a whisper into NAPOLÉON’S ear.]Lieutenant Bonaparte,Would it not seemlier be to shut thy heartTo these unhealthy splendours?—helmet theeFor her thou swar’st-to first, fair Liberty?
NAPOLÉONWho spoke to me?
ARCHBISHOPNot I, Sire. Not a soul.
NAPOLÉONDear Joséphine, my queen, didst call my name?
JOSÉPHINEI spoke not, Sire.
NAPOLÉONThou didst not, tender spouse;I know it. Such harsh utterance was not thine.It was aggressive Fancy, working spellsUpon a mind o’erwrought![The service closes. The clergy advance with the canopy to thefoot of the throne, and the procession forms to return to thePalace.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSOfficious sprite,Thou art young, and dost not heed the Cause of thingsWhich some of us have inkled to thee here;Else wouldst thou not have hailed the Emperor,Whose acts do but outshape Its governing.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI feel, Sire, as I must! This tale of WillAnd Life’s impulsion by IncognizanceI cannot take!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSLet me then once againShow to thy sceptic eye the very streamsAnd currents of this all-inhering Power,And bring conclusion to thy unbelief.[The scene assumes the preternatural transparency before mentioned,and there is again beheld as it were the interior of a brain whichseems to manifest the volitions of a Universal Will, of whosetissues the personages of the action form portion.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESEnough. And yet for very sorrinessI cannot own the weird phantasma real!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAffection ever was illogical.
SPIRIT IRONIC [aside]How should the Sprite own to such logic—a mere juvenile— who onlycame into being in what the earthlings call their Tertiary Age![The scene changes. The exterior of the Cathedral takes the placeof the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabricsmalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carvedalabaster ornament. The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alpsshow afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf ofGenoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them,till clouds cover the panorama.]