Followed by grim disease, glory by shame,
Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,
And England's sin by England's punishment.
And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,
Lo, giving substance to my words, behold
At once the sign and the thing signified-
A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,
Horsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung,
Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins
And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral
Of this presentment, and bring up the rear
Of, painted pomp with misery!

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?

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SECOND CITIZEN.

I and thou...

A MARSHALSMAN.

Place, give place!

SCENE II.

A CHAMBER IN WHITEHALL. ENTER 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.

Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant
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
Its proud interposition.

In Paris ribald censurers dare not move

Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;
And his smile

Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do
If... 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.

Madam, the love of Englishmen can make.
The lightest favour of their lawful king.

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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.

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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.

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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 entreat 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

His Grace of Canterbury must take order

To force under the Church's yoke.-You, Wentworth,
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 shipmoney, take fullest compensation

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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
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.-
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 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,

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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

To bring news how the world goes there. [Exit ARCHY.

Poor Archy! 110

He weaves about himself a world of mirth
Out of the wreck of ours.

LAUD.

I take with patience, as my Master did,
All scoffs permitted from above.

KING.

My lord,

Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words.
Had wings, but these have talons.

QUEEN.

And the lion

That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord,
I see the new-born courage in your eye
Armed to strike dead the spirit of the time,
Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast.
Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,
And it were better thou hadst still remained
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;

And Opportunity, that empty wolf,

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Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions.
Even to the disposition of thy purpose,

And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel;
And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,
Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace,
And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss,
As when she keeps the company of rebels,
Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we
Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle

In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream.
Out of our worshipped state.

KING.

Beloved friend,

God is my witness that this weight of power,
Which he sets me my earthly task to wield
Under his law, is my delight and pride
Only because thou lovest that and me.
For a king bears the office of a God
To all the under world; and to his God
Alone he must deliver up his trust,

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