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.

457

Speak: I will make my Fool my conscience.

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.

Like the season, 464 so blow the winds.-But at the other end of the rainbow, where the grey 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

470

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 Lady Jane
She place my lute, together with the music
Mari received last week from Italy,

480

[Exit ARCHY.

KING.

I'll go in.

QUEEN.

My beloved lord,

Have you not noted that the Fool of late
Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words
Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears?
What can it mean? I should be loth to think
Some factious slave had tutored him.

KING.

Oh no!

490

He is but Occasion's pupil. Partly 'tis
That our minds piece the vacant intervals
Of his wild words with their own fashioning;
As in the imagery of summer clouds,
Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find
The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts:
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.

QUEEN.

Your brain is overwrought with these deep

thoughts.

500

Come, I will sing to you; let us go try
These airs from Italy; and, as we pass
The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio
Shall hang the Virgin Mother

With her child, born the King of heaven and earth,

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 pattern to the unborn age of thee,
Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy
A thousand times, and now should weep for

sorrow,

509

Did I not think that after we were dead
Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that
The cares we waste upon our heavy crown
Would make it light and glorious as a wreath
Of heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow.

Dear Henrietta!

KING.

SCENE III. The Star Chamber. LAUD, Juxon, STRAFFORD, and others, as Judges. PRYNNE as a Prisoner and then BASTWICK.

LAUD.

Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerk Recite his sentence.

Pounds to the branded

66

CLERK.

That he pay five thousand king, lose both his ears, be

With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead, And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle During the pleasure of the Court."

LAUD.

Prisoner,

If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence Should not be put into effect, now speak.

JUXON.

If you have aught to plead in mitigation,
Speak.

BASTWICK.

Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I 10 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,

20

Which, when ye wake from the last 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,
Or I think worth acceptance at your hands,-
Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment.

Even as my Master did,

Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth, Or earth be like a shadow in the light

Of heaven absorbed-some few tumultuous

years

30

Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes His will whose will is power.

LAUD.

Officer, take the prisoner from the bar,
And be his tongue slit for his insolence.

BASTWICK.

While this hand holds a pen

LAUD.

Be his hands...

JUXON.

Stop!

Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can

speak

No terror, would interpret, being dumb,
Heaven's thunder to our harm;

And hands, which now write only their own shame,

With bleeding stumps might sign our blood

away.

LAUD.

40

Much more such " 'mercy" among men would

be,

Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge
Flinch thus from earthly retribution.

Could suffer what I would inflict.

I

[Exit BASTWICK guarded. Bring up

The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.

(TO STRAFFORD) Know you not

That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds

Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln,