FIRST CITIZEN.

What thinkest thou of this quaint mask which turns,

Like morning from the shadow of the night,
The night to day, and London to a place
Of peace and joy?

SECOND CITIZEN.

And Hell to Heaven.

Eight years are gone,

And they seem hours, since in this populous

street

I trod on grass made green by summer's rain,
For the red plague kept state within that palace
Where now reigns vanity-in nine years more
The roots will be refreshed with civil blood; 11
And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven
That sin and wrongs wound as an orphan's cry
The patience of the great avenger's ear.

A YOUTH.

Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see,
Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden

By God or man ;-'tis like the bright procession
Of skiey visions in a solemn dream

From which men wake as from a paradise,
And draw new strength to tread the thorns of

life.

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If God be good, wherefore should this be evil?
And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw
Unseasonable poison from the flowers
Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?
O, kill these bitter thoughts which make the

And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping

As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts
Waken to worship him who giveth joys
With his own gift.

SECOND CITIZEN.

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How young art thou in this old age of time! How green in this grey world! Canst thou discern

The signs of seasons, yet perceive no hint
Of change in that stage-scene in which thou art
Not a spectator but an actor? or

Art thou a puppet moved by [enginery]?
The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,
Even though the noon be calm. My travel's
done,―

Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found
My inn of lasting rest; but thou must still 41
Be journeying on in this inclement air.

Wrap thy old cloke about thy back;

Nor leave the broad and plain and beaten road, Although no flowers smile on the trodden dust, For the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the First

Rose like the equinoctial sun,

By vapours, through whose threatening omi

nous veil

Darting his altered influence he has gained This height of noon-from which he must

decline

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Amid the darkness of conflicting storms,
To dank extinction and to latest night..
There goes the apostate Strafford; he whose
titles...

whispered aphorisms

From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas
Had been as brazen and as bold as he...

FIRST CITIZEN.

That is the Archbishop.

SECOND CITIZEN.

Rather say the Pope:

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London will be soon his Rome: he walks
As if he trod upon the heads of men.
He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold ;-
Beside him moves the Babylonian woman
Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,
Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,
Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge.

THIRD CITIZEN (lifting up his eyes). Good Lord! rain it down upon him!.. Amid her ladies walks the papist queen, As if her nice feet scorned our English earth. The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be

A dog if I might tear her with my teeth! There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,

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Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,
And others who make base their English breed
By vile participation of their honours
With papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates.
When lawyers mask 'tis time for honest men
To strip the vizor from their purposes.
A seasonable time for maskers this!
When Englishmen and Protestants should sit
dust on their dishonoured heads,
To avert the wrath of him whose scourge is felt
For the great sins which have drawn down from
Heaven

and foreign overthrow.

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The remnant of the martyred saints in Roche

fort

Have been abandoned by their faithless allies

To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer
Lewis of France, the Palatinate is lost. .

Enter LEIGHTON (who has been branded in the face) and BASTWICK.

Canst thou be-art thou... ?

LEIGHTON.

I was Leighton: what I am thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes, And with thy memory look on thy friend's

mind,

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Which is unchanged, and where is written deep The sentence of my judge.

THIRD CITIZEN.

Are these the marks with which Laud thinks to improve the image of his Maker Stamped on the face of man? Curses upon him,

The impious tyrant!

SECOND CITIZEN.

It is said besides

That lewd and papist drunkards may profane The Sabbath with their. . .

And has permitted that most heathenish custom Of dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths On May-day.

A man who thus twice crucifies his God

May well

friend,

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his brother.-In my mind,

The root of all this ill is prelacy.

I would cut up the root.

THIRD CITIZEN.

And by what means?

SECOND CITIZEN.

Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib.

THIRD CITIZEN.

You seem to know the vulnerable place
Of these same crocodiles.

SECOND CITIZEN.

I learnt it in

Egyptian bondages, sir. Your worm of Nile Betrays not with its flattering tears like they; For, when they cannot kill, they whine and

weep.

Nor is it half so greedy of men's bodies

As they of soul and all; nor does it wallow
In slime as they in simony and lies

And close lusts of the flesh.

A MARSHALSMAN.

Give place, give place!

You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate, And then attend the Marshal of the Mask Into the Royal presence.

A LAW STUDENT.

What thinkest thou

Of this quaint show of ours, my agèd friend? Even now we see the redness of the torches Inflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions

Gasp to us on the wind's wave.

It comes! 120