May yet be healed. The king is just and gracious, Though wicked counsels now pervert his will: These once cast off SECOND CITIZEN. As adders cast their skins And keep their venom, so kings often change; Councils and counsellors hang on one another, Hiding the loathsome. . . Like the base patchwork of a leper's rags. 130 THE YOUTH. O, still those dissonant thoughts!-List how the music Grows on the enchanted air! And see, the torches Restlessly flashing, and the crowd divided How glorious! See those thronging chariots Rolling, like painted clouds before the wind, Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped Like curved shells dyed by the azure depths Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon; And some like cars in which the Romans climbed 141 (Canopied by Victory's eagle wings outspread) The Capitolian.-See how gloriously Like shapes of some diviner element Than English air, and beings nobler than SECOND CITIZEN. 150 Aye, there they are- Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart. 160 Back to her cold hard bosom. Here is health Followed by grim disease, glory by shame, Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want, And England's sin by England's punishment. 'Tis but THE YOUTH. The anti-mask, and serves as discords do If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw; the KING, QUEEN, LAUD, LORD STRAFFORD, LORD COTTINGTON, and other Lords; ARCHY; also ST. JOHN, with some Gentlemen of the Inns of Court. KING. Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept crown. A gentle heart enjoys what it confers, Accept my hearty thanks. Rose on me like the figures of past years, Treading their still path back to infancy, More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept To think I was in Paris, where these shows Are well devised-such as I was ere yet My young heart shared a portion of the burthen, The careful weight, of this great monarchy. There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure And that which it regards, no clamour lifts 20 Its proud interposition. In Paris ribald censurers dare not move Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports; And his smile Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do If... 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. 30 Madam, the love of Englishmen can make Enriched by smiles which France can never buy. My Lord Archbishop, KING. Mark you what spirit sits in St. John's eyes? Methinks it is too saucy for this presence. ... ARCHY. Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated 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. STRAFFORD. A rod in pickle for the Fool's back! ARCHY. 54 Aye, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for the Fool sees. . . STRAFFORD. Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped out of the palace for this. 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, |