presenting them bitter physic the last Lucifer was the first republican. three posts "In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full, Shall sail round the world, and come back again: Shall sail round the world in a brain less skull, And come back again when the moon is at full:" When, in spite of the Church, They will hear homilies of whatever length Or form they please. Queen. Is the rain over, sirrah? And the sun shines, 'twill rain again to morrow: And therefore never smile till you've done crying. Archy. But 'tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene. Queen. What news abroad? how looks the world this morning? Archy. Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There's a rainbow So please your Majesty in the sky. Let your Majesty look at to sign this order Cottington. For their detention. Archy. If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? it, for A rainbow in the morning Is the shepherd's warning;" and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast. King. The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; King. If fear were made for kings, and the shepherd, the wolves for their the Fool mocks wisely; But in this case-- (writing). my lord, take the warrant, Here, And see it duly executed forthwith.That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. watchdogs. Queen. But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more. Archy. Ay, the salt-water one: but [Exeunt all but KING, QUEEN, that of tears and blood must yet come and ARCHY. Archy. Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfthnight Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud-who would reduce a verdict of "guilty, death," by famine, if it were impregnable by compositionall impannelled against poor Archy for down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.-The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops, . . . and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven—like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet. Queen. Who taught you this trash, sirrah? Archy. A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.-But for the rainbow. It moved as the sun moved, and . . . until the top of the Tower... of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and Lambeth Palace look as dark as a rock before the other. Methought I saw a crown figured upon one tip, and a mitre on the other. So, as I had heard treasures were found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set off, and at the Tower- But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found close to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered. King. Speak: I will make my Fool As in the imagery of summer clouds, my conscience. Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts: Archy. Then conscience is a fool.I saw there a cat caught in a rat-trap. I heard the rats squeak behind the wainscots: it seemed to me that the very mice were consulting on the manner of her death. Queen. Archy is shrewd and bitter. Archy. Like the season, so blow the winds.-But at the other end of the rainbow, where the gray rain was tempered along the grass and leaves by a tender interfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what think you that I found instead of a mitre ? King. Vane's wits perhaps. Archy. Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch over the carcass of a dead ass, some rotten rags, and broken dishes-the wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and the ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to enter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of this ass. Queen. Enough, enough! Go desire She place my lute, together with the music Mari received last week from Italy, And partly, that the terrors of the time Are sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits; And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind. Shall hang—the Virgin Mother Whose reign is men's salvation. And you shall see A cradled miniature of yourself asleep, Stamped on the heart by never-erring love; Liker than any Vandyke ever made, A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow, Did I not think that after we were dead Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that In my boudoir, and—— [Exit ARCHY. The cares we waste upon our heavy Would make it light and glorious as a Or I think worth acceptance at your hands, wreath brow. Of Heaven's beams for his dear innocent Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment. Even as my Master did, Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth, King. Dear Henrietta! Speak. Bastwick. Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I If, Could suffer what I would inflict. Thus, my lords. like the prelates, I Were an invader of the royal power, A public scorner of the word of God, Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious, Impious in heart and in tyrannic act, Void of wit, honesty, and temperance; If Satan were my lord, as theirs, - —our God Pattern of all I should avoid to do; Were I an enemy of my God and King And of good men, as ye are;—I should merit Your fearful state and gilt prosperity, Which, when ye wake from the last But of the office which should make it sleep, shall turn To cowls and robes of everlasting fire. But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not The only earthly favour ye can yield, holy, Were it as vile as it was ever spotless. Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes Who owed your first promotion to his Beyond the webs of that swoln spider.. Beyond the curses, calumnies, and lies And thou Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm, glimmer All sense of all distinction of all persons, Like floating Edens cradled in the Williams. Peace, proud hierarch! I know my sentence, and I own it just. Thou wilt repay me less than I deserve, In stretching to the utmost SCENE IV. HAMPDEN, PYM, CROM- Hampden. England, farewell! thou Of sunset, through the distant mist of years Touched by departing hope, they gleam! lone regions, Where power's poor dupes and victims yet have never Propitiated the savage fear of kings With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew Is yet unstained with tears of those who wake To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns; Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites Wrest man's free worship, from the God who loves, How can I call thee England, or my To the poor worm who envies us his Of the evening star, spite of the city's This glorious clime, this firmament, smoke, whose lights Tell that the north wind reigns in the Dart mitigated influence through their veil upper air. Mark too that flock of fleecy-wingèd Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green clouds |