THE YOUTH.

'Tis but

The anti-mask, and serves as discords do
In sweetest music. Who would love May
flowers

If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw;
Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself
Without the touch of sorrow?

SECOND CITIZEN.

I and thou...

A MARSHALSMAN.

Place, give place!

Enter

SCENE II. A Chamber in Whitehall. 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
This token of your service: your gay mask
Was performed gallantly. And it shows well
When subjects twine such flowers of observance
With the sharp thorns that deck the English

crown.

A gentle heart enjoys what it confers,
Even as it suffers that which it inflicts,
Though Justice guides the stroke.

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

If

Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do ... 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
The lightest favour of their lawful king
Outweigh a despot's.-We humbly take our
leaves,

Enriched by smiles which France can never buy. [Exeunt ST. JOHN and the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

KING.

My Lord Archbishop,

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,

and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and goodly slit each other's noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to intreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie pinched up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High Commission Court, marshal them.

Enter Secretary LYTTELTON, with papers.

KING (looking over the papers).

These stiff Scots

75

His Grace of Canterbury must take order
To force under the Church's yoke.-You,
Wentworth,

80

Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall add
Your wisdom, gentleness, and energy,
To what in me were wanting.-My Lord

Weston,

Look that those merchants draw not without loss Their bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment

Of ship-money, take fullest compensation
For violation of our royal forests,

Whose limits, from neglect, have been o'ergrown

With cottages and cornfields. The uttermost Farthing exact from those who claim exemption From knighthood: that which once was a reward

89

Shall thus be made a punishment, that subjects
May know how majesty can wear at will
The rugged mood.-My Lord of Coventry,

Lay my command upon the Courts below
That bail be not accepted for the prisoners
Under the warrant of the Star Chamber.
The people shall not find the stubbornness
Of Parliament a cheap or easy method
Of dealing with their rightful sovereign:
And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry,
We will find time and place for fit rebuke-100
My Lord of Canterbury.

ARCHY.

The fool is here.

LAUD.

I crave permission of your Majesty

To order that this insolent fellow be
Chastised he mocks the sacred character,
Scoffs at the state, and-

KING.

What, my Archy? He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears, Yet with a quaint and graceful license.

Prithee

For this once do not as Prynne would, were

108

he Primate of England. With your Grace's leave, He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot Hung in his gilded prison from the window Of a queen's bower over the public way, Blasphemes with a bird's mind:-his words, like arrows

Which know no aim beyond the archer's wit, Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy.(To ARCHY) Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence

Ten minutes in the rain: be it your penance