The torch of discord with its fiery hair; | If separate it would please me better,
This is thy work, thou patron saint of
hither
Of Queen Iona.
Laoctonos.

The very name of wife had conjugal | And made a charge with those battalions rights; Her cursed image ate, drank, slept with Called, from their dress and grin, the

Have given the ape-guards apples, nuts, and gin,

Purganax. Or fattening some few And they all whisk their tails aloft, and

And giving them clean straw, tying "Long live Iona! down with Swell

And their young boars white and red Went to the garret of the swineherd's

Of cows, and jay feathers, and sticking Which overlooks the stye, and made a cauliflowers

Between the ears of the old ones; and Harangue (all words) to the assembled

That you, Lord General, bring the head A slough of blood and brains upon the

Greased with the pounded bacon; round To savage, foul, and fierce deformity. Let all baptized by thy infernal dew

and round

The mill-stones rolled, ploughing the Be called adulterer, drunkard, liar,

Like you should be so beardless in their
schemes;

It had been but a point of policy
To keep Iona and the swine apart.
Divide and rule! but ye have made a
junction

wretch !

No name left out which orthodoxy loves,
Court Journal or legitimate Review !—
Be they called tyrant, beast, fool,
glutton, lover

Of other wives and husbands than their

own

The heaviest sin on this side of the Alps!
Wither they to a ghastly caricature
Of what was human !-let not man or

beast

Behold their face with unaverted eyes! Between two parties who will govern Or hear their names with ears that tingle

you

But for my art.-Behold this BAG! it is

The poison BAG of that Green Spider huge,

On which our spies skulked in ovation

through

not

With blood of indignation, rage, and shame!"

This is a perilous liquor;-good my

Lords.

[SWELLFOOT approaches to touch the GREEN BAG.

The streets of Thebes, when they were Beware! for God's sake, beware!—if

paved with dead:

A bane so much the deadlier fills it now,
As calumny is worse than death,-for
here

The Gadfly's venom, fifty times distilled,
Is mingled with the vomit of the Leech,
In due proportion, and black ratsbane,
which

That very Rat, who, like the Pontic
tyrant,

you should break

The seal, and touch the fatal liquor——
Purganax.
There,
Give it to me. I have been used to

handle

All sorts of poisons. His dread Majesty
Only desires to see the colour of it.

Mammon. Now, with a little com-
mon sense, my Lords,
Only undoing all that has been done

Nurtures himself on poison, dare not (Yet so as it may seem we but confirm

All is sealed up with the broad seal of Our victory is assured. We must entice Her Majesty from the stye, and make the pigs

Turn innocence to guilt, and gentlest And they will see her flying through the

So bright that she will dim the noonday The glorious constitution of these styes Subsists, and shall subsist. The lean

sun;

Showering down blessings in the shape

of comfits.

This, trust a priest, is just the sort of thing

Swine will believe. see them

pig rates

Grow with the growing populace of swine,

The taxes, that true source of piggishness I'll wager you will (How can I find a more appropriate

term

Climbing upon the thatch of their low To include religion, morals, peace, and

With pieces of smoked glass, to watch And all that fit Boeotia as a nation her sail To teach the other nations how to live?) Among the clouds, and some will hold Increase with piggishness itself; and the flaps still

Of one another's ears between their Does the revenue, that great spring of all The patronage, and pensions, and by

teeth,

To catch the coming hail of comfits in. → You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab,

Make them a solemn speech to this effect:

I go to put in readiness the feast

payments,

Which free-born pigs regard with jealous eyes,

Diminish, till at length, by glorious steps, All the land's produce will be merged in taxes,

Kept to the honour of our goddess And the revenue will amount to

Purganax. That is the very thing that
I was saying,
Gentlemen Swine; the Queen Iona
being

Most innocent, no doubt, returns to
Thebes,

And the lean sows and boars collect
about her,

Wishing to make her think that WE believe

(I mean those more substantial pigs, who swill

Of the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh dews

Of lotus-grass and blossoming asphodel, Sleeking their silken hair, and with sweet breath

Loading the morning winds until they faint

With living fragrance, are so beautiful!

Well, I say nothing; but Europa

rode

--

On such a one from Asia into Crete,

Rich hog-wash, while the others mouth And the enamoured sea grew calm

That she is guilty; thus, the lean-pig His gliding beauty.

faction Seeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has been

Your immemorial right, and which I
will

Maintain you in to the last drop of-
A Boar (interrupting him).
Does any one accuse her of?

What

Purganax.
Why, no one
Makes any positive accusation;—but
There were hints dropt, and so the privy

wizards

Conceived that it became them to advise
His Majesty to investigate their truth;—
Not for his own sake; he could be con-

tent

To let his wife play any pranks she

Iona's grandmother,

cent!

And Pasiphae, -but she is inno

And that both you and I, and all assert.
First Boar. Most innocent!

Purganax.

BAG; a bag

Behold this

If, by that sufferance, he could please (Which is not green, but only bacon

pleased,

the pigs;

colour)

o'er

But then he fears the morals of the swine, Is filled with liquor, which if sprinkled
The sows especially, and what effect
It might produce upon the purity and
Religion of the rising generation

Of sucking pigs, if it could be suspected
That Queen Iona-
[A pause.
First Boar. Well, go on; we long
To hear what she can possibly have
done.

Purganax. Why, it is hinted, that a

certain bull

A woman guilty of-we all know what-
Makes her so hideous, till she finds one
blind

She never can commit the like again.
If innocent, she will turn into an angel,
And rain down blessings in the shape of
comfits

As she flies up to heaven. Now, my
proposal

Thus much is known:-the milk-white Is to convert her sacred Majesty

bulls that feed

Beside Clitumnus and the crystal lakes

Into an angel (as I am sure we shall

do),

Dews of Apotheosis from this BAG. [A great confusion is heard of the PIGS OUT OF DOORS, which communicates itself to those within. During the first Strophe, the doors of the Stye are On staved in, and a number of exceedingly lean PIGS and Sows and BOARS rush in.