Part 3
I rise but to subjoin a phrase or two To those of my right honourable friend. I, too, am one who reads the present pinch As passing all our risks heretofore. For why? Our bold and reckless enemy, Relaxing not his plans, has treasured time To mass his monstrous force on all the coigns From which our coast is close assailable. Ay, even afloat his concentrations work: Two vast united squadrons of his sail Move at this moment viewless on the seas.-- Their whereabouts, untraced, unguessable, Will not be known to us till some black blow Be dealt by them in some undreamt-of quarter To knell our rule.
That we are reasonably enfenced therefrom By such an Act is but a madman's dream.... A commonwealth so situate cries aloud For more, far mightier, measures! End an Act In Heaven's name, then, which only can obstruct The fabrication of more trusty tackle For building up an army! [Cheers.]
BATHURST
Sir, the point To any sober mind is bright as noon; Whether the Act should have befitting trial Or be blasphemed at sight. I firmly hold The latter loud iniquity.--One task Is theirs who would inter this corpse-cold Act-- [So said]--to bring to birth a substitute! Sir, they have none; they have given no thought to one, And this their deeds incautiously disclose Their cloaked intention and most secret aim! With them the question is not how to frame A finer trick to trounce intrusive foes, But who shall be the future ministers To whom such trick against intrusive foes, Whatever it may prove, shall be entrusted! They even ask the country gentlemen To join them in this job. But, God be praised, Those gentlemen are sound, and of repute; Their names, their attainments, and their blood, [Ironical Opposition cheers.] Safeguard them from an onslaught on an Act For ends so sinister and palpable! [Cheers and jeerings.]
FULLER
I disapprove of censures of the Act.-- All who would entertain such hostile thought Would swear that black is white, that night is day. No honest man will join a reckless crew Who'd overthrow their country for their gain! [Laughter.]
TIERNEY
It is incumbent on me to declare In the last speaker's face my censure, based On grounds most clear and constitutional.-- An Act it is that studies to create A standing army, large and permanent; Which kind of force has ever been beheld With jealous-eyed disfavour in this House. It makes for sure oppression, binding men To serve for less than service proves it worth Conditioned by no hampering penalty. For these and late-spoke reasons, then, I say, Let not the Act deface the statute-book, But blot it out forthwith. [Hear, hear.]
FOX [rising amid cheers]
At this late hour, After the riddling fire the Act has drawn on't, My words shall hold the House the briefest while. Too obvious to the most unwilling mind It grows that the existence of this law Experience and reflection have condemned. Professing to do much, it makes for nothing; Not only so; while feeble in effect It shows it vicious in its principle. Engaging to raise men for the common weal It sets a harmful and unequal tax Capriciously on our communities.-- The annals of a century fail to show More flagrant cases of oppressiveness Than those this statute works to perpetrate, Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames, And clothes with tapestries of rhetoric Disguising their real web of commonplace] Though held as shaped for English bulwarking, Breathes in its heart perversities of party, And instincts toward oligarchic power, Galling the many to relieve the few! [Cheers.]
Whatever breadth and sense of equity Inform the methods of this minister, Those mitigants nearly always trace their root To measures that his predecessors wrought. And ere his Government can dare assert Superior claim to England's confidence, They owe it to their honour and good name To furnish better proof of such a claim Than is revealed by the abortiveness Of this thing called an Act for our Defence.
To the great gifts of its artificer No member of this House is more disposed To yield full recognition than am I. No man has found more reason so to do Through the long roll of disputatious years Wherein we have stood opposed.... But if one single fact could counsel me To entertain a doubt of those great gifts, And cancel faith in his capacity, That fact would be the vast imprudence shown In staking recklessly repute like his On such an Act as he has offered us-- So false in principle, so poor in fruit. Sir, the achievements and effects thereof Have furnished not one fragile argument Which all the partiality of friendship Can kindle to consider as the mark Of a clear, vigorous, freedom-fostering mind!
[He sits down amid lengthy cheering from the Opposition.]
SHERIDAN
My summary shall be brief, and to the point.-- The said right honourable Prime Minister Has thought it proper to declare my speech The jesting of an irresponsible;-- Words from a person who has never read The Act he claims him urgent to repeal. Such quips and qizzings [as he reckons them] He implicates as gathered from long hoards Stored up with cruel care, to be discharged With sudden blaze of pyrotechnic art On the devoted, gentle, shrinking head O' the right incomparable gentleman! [Laughter.] But were my humble, solemn, sad oration [Laughter.] Indeed such rattle as he rated it, Is it not strange, and passing precedent, That the illustrious chief of Government Should have uprisen with such indecent speed And strenuously replied? He, sir, knows well That vast and luminous talents like his own Could not have been demanded to choke off A witcraft marked by nothing more of weight Than ignorant irregularity! _Nec Deus intersit_--and so-and-so-- Is a well-worn citation whose close fit None will perceive more clearly in the Fane Than its presiding Deity opposite. [Laughter.] His thunderous answer thus perforce condemns him!
Moreover, to top all, the while replying, He still thought best to leave intact the reasons On which my blame was founded! Thus, them, stands My motion unimpaired, convicting clearly Of dire perversion that capacity We formerly admired.-- [Cries of “Oh, oh.”] This minister Whose circumventions never circumvent, Whose coalitions fail to coalesce; This dab at secret treaties known to all, This darling of the aristocracy--
[Laughter, “Oh, oh,” cheers, and cries of “Divide.”]
Has brought the millions to the verge of ruin, By pledging them to Continental quarrels Of which we see no end! [Cheers.]
[The members rise to divide.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
It irks me that they thus should Yea and Nay As though a power lay in their oraclings, If each decision work unconsciously, And would be operant though unloosened were A single lip!
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
There may react on things Some influence from these, indefinitely, And even on That, whose outcome we all are.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Hypotheses!--More boots it to remind The younger here of our ethereal band And hierarchy of Intelligences, That this thwart Parliament whose moods we watch-- So insular, empiric, un-ideal-- May figure forth in sharp and salient lines To retrospective eyes of afterdays, And print its legend large on History. For one cause--if I read the signs aright-- To-night's appearance of its Minister In the assembly of his long-time sway Is near his last, and themes to-night launched forth Will take a tincture from that memory, When me recall the scene and circumstance That hung about his pleadings.--But no more; The ritual of each party is rehearsed, Dislodging not one vote or prejudice; The ministers their ministries retain, And Ins as Ins, and Outs as Outs, remain.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Meanwhile what of the Foeman's vast array That wakes these tones?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Abide the event, young Shade: Soon stars will shut and show a spring-eyed dawn, And sunbeams fountain forth, that will arouse Those forming bands to full activity.
[An honourable member reports that he spies strangers.]
A timely token that we dally here! We now cast off these mortal manacles, And speed us seaward.
[The Phantoms vanish from the Gallery. The members file out to the lobbies. The House and Westminster recede into the films of night, and the point of observation shifts rapidly across the Channel.]
## SCENE IV
THE HARBOUR OF BOULOGNE
[The morning breaks, radiant with early sunlight. The French Army of Invasion is disclosed. On the hills on either side of the town and behind appear large military camps formed of timber huts. Lower down are other camps of more or less permanent kind, the whole affording accommodation for one hundred and fifty thousand men.
South of the town is an extensive basin surrounded by quays, the heaps of fresh soil around showing it to be a recent excavation from the banks of the Liane. The basin is crowded with the flotilla, consisting of hundreds of vessels of sundry kinds: flat-bottomed brigs with guns and two masts; boats of one mast, carrying each an artillery waggon, two guns, and a two-stalled horse-box; transports with three low masts; and long narrow pinnaces arranged for many oars.
Timber, saw-mills, and new-cut planks spread in profusion around, and many of the town residences are seen to be adapted for warehouses and infirmaries.]
DUMB SHOW
Moving in this scene are countless companies of soldiery, engaged in a drill practice of embarking and disembarking, and of hoisting horses into the vessels and landing them again. Vehicles bearing provisions of many sorts load and unload before the temporary warehouses. Further off, on the open land, bodies of troops are at field-drill. Other bodies of soldiers, half stripped and encrusted with mud, are labouring as navvies in repairing the excavations.
An English squadron of about twenty sail, comprising a ship or two of the line, frigates, brigs, and luggers, confronts the busy spectacle from the sea.
The Show presently dims and becomes broken, till only its flashes and gleams are visible. Anon a curtain of cloud closes over it.
## SCENE V
LONDON. THE HOUSE OF A LADY OF QUALITY
[A fashionable crowd is present at an evening party, which includes the DUKES of BEAUFORT and RUTLAND, LORDS MALMESBURY, HARROWBY, ELDON, GRENVILLE, CASTLEREAGH, SIDMOUTH, and MULGRAVE, with their ladies; also CANNING, PERCEVAL, TOWNSHEND, LADY ANNE HAMILTON, MRS. DAMER, LADY CAROLINE LAMB, and many other notables.]
A GENTLEMAN [offering his snuff-box]
So, then, the Treaty anxiously concerted Between ourselves and frosty Muscovy Is duly signed?
A CABINET MINISTER
Was signed a few days back, And is in force. And we do firmly hope The loud pretensions and the stunning dins Now daily heard, these laudable exertions May keep in curb; that ere our greening land Darken its leaves beneath the Dogday suns, The independence of the Continent May be assured, and all the rumpled flags Of famous dynasties so foully mauled, Extend their honoured hues as heretofore.
GENTLEMAN
So be it. Yet this man is a volcano; And proven 'tis, by God, volcanos choked Have ere now turned to earthquakes!
LADY
What the news?-- The chequerboard of diplomatic moves Is London, all the world knows: here are born All inspirations of the Continent-- So tell!
GENTLEMAN
Ay. Inspirations now abound!
LADY
Nay, but your looks are grave! That measured speech Betokened matter that will waken us.-- Is it some piquant cruelty of his? Or other tickling horror from abroad The packet has brought in?
GENTLEMAN
The treaty's signed!
MINISTER
Whereby the parties mutually agree To knit in union and in general league All outraged Europe.
LADY
So to knit sounds well; But how ensure its not unravelling?
MINISTER
Well; by the terms. There are among them these: Five hundred thousand active men in arms Shall strike [supported by the Britannic aid In vessels, men, and money subsidies] To free North Germany and Hanover From trampling foes; deliver Switzerland, Unbind the galled republic of the Dutch, Rethrone in Piedmont the Sardinian King, Make Naples sword-proof, un-French Italy From shore to shore; and thoroughly guarantee A settled order to the divers states; Thus rearing breachless barriers in each realm Against the thrust of his usurping hand.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
They trow not what is shaping otherwhere The while they talk this stoutly!
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Bid me go And join them, and all blandly kindle them By bringing, ere material transit can, A new surprise!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Yea, for a moment, wouldst.
[The Spirit of Rumour enters the apartment in the form of a personage of fashion, newly arrived. He advances and addresses the group.]
SPIRIT
The Treaty moves all tongues to-night.--Ha, well-- So much on paper!
GENTLEMAN
What on land and sea? You look, old friend, full primed with latest thence.
SPIRIT
Yea, this. The Italy our mighty pact Delivers from the French and Bonaparte Makes haste to crown him!--Turning from Boulogne He speeds toward Milan, there to glory him In second coronation by the Pope, And set upon his irrepressible brow Lombardy's iron crown.
[The Spirit of Rumour mingles with the throng, moves away, and disappears.]
LADY
Fair Italy, Alas, alas!
LORD
Yet thereby English folk Are freed him.--Faith, as ancient people say, It's an ill wind that blows good luck to none!
MINISTER
Who is your friend that drops so airily This precious pinch of salt on our raw skin?
GENTLEMAN
Why, Norton. You know Norton well enough?
MINISTER
Nay, 'twas not he. Norton of course I know. I thought him Stewart for a moment, but---
LADY
But I well scanned him--'twas Lord Abercorn; For, said I to myself, “O quaint old beau, To sleep in black silk sheets so funnily:-- That is, if the town rumour on't be true.”
LORD
My wig, ma'am, no! 'Twas a much younger man.
GENTLEMAN
But let me call him! Monstrous silly this, That don't know my friends!
[They look around. The gentleman goes among the surging and babbling guests, makes inquiries, and returns with a perplexed look.]
GENTLEMAN
They tell me, sure, That he's not here to-night!
MINISTER
I can well swear It was not Norton.--'Twas some lively buck, Who chose to put himself in masquerade And enter for a whim. I'll tell our host. --Meantime the absurdity of his report Is more than manifested. How knows he The plans of Bonaparte by lightning-flight, Before another man in England knows?
LADY
Something uncanny's in it all, if true. Good Lord, the thought gives me a sudden sweat, That fairly makes my linen stick to me!
MINISTER
Ha-ha! 'Tis excellent. But we'll find out Who this impostor was.
[They disperse, look furtively for the stranger, and speak of the incident to others of the crowded company.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Now let us vision onward, till we sight Famed Milan's aisles of marble, sun-alight, And there behold, unbid, the Coronation-rite.
[The confused tongues of the assembly waste away into distance, till they are heard but as the babblings of the sea from a high cliff, the scene becoming small and indistinct therewith. This passes into silence, and the whole disappears.]
## SCENE VI
MILAN. THE CATHEDRAL
[The interior of the building on a sunny May day.
The walls, arched, and columns are draped in silk fringed with gold. A gilded throne stand in front of the High Altar. A closely packed assemblage, attired in every variety of rich fabric and fashion, waits in breathless expectation.]
DUMB SHOW
From a private corridor leading to a door in the aisle the EMPRESS JOSEPHINE enters, in a shining costume, and diamonds that collect rainbow-colours from the sunlight piercing the clerestory windows. She is preceded by PRINCESS ELIZA, and surrounded by her ladies. A pause follows, and then comes the procession of the EMPEROR, consisting of hussars, heralds, pages, aides-de-camp, presidents of institutions, officers of the state bearing the insignia of the Empire and of Italy, and seven ladies with offerings. The Emperor himself in royal robes, wearing the Imperial crown, and carrying the sceptre. He is followed my ministers and officials of the household. His gait is rather defiant than dignified, and a bluish pallor overspreads his face.
He is met by the Cardinal Archbishop of CAPRARA and the clergy, who burn incense before him as he proceeds towards the throne. Rolling notes of music burn forth, and loud applause from the congregation.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
What is the creed that these rich rites disclose?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
A local cult, called Christianity, Which the wild dramas of the wheeling spheres Include, with divers other such, in dim Pathetical and brief parentheses, Beyond whose span, uninfluenced, unconcerned, The systems of the suns go sweeping on With all their many-mortaled planet train In mathematic roll unceasingly.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I did not recognize it here, forsooth; Though in its early, lovingkindly days Of gracious purpose it was much to me.
ARCHBISHOP [addressing Bonaparte]
Sire, with that clemency and right goodwill Which beautify Imperial Majesty, You deigned acceptance of the homages That we the clergy and the Milanese Were proud to offer when your entrance here Streamed radiance on our ancient capital. Please, then, to consummate the boon to-day Beneath this holy roof, so soon to thrill With solemn strains and lifting harmonies Befitting such a coronation hour; And bend a tender fatherly regard On this assembly, now at one with me To supplicate the Author of All Good That He endow your most Imperial person With every Heavenly gift.
[The procession advances, and the EMPEROR seats himself on the throne, with the banners and regalia of the Empire on his right, and those of Italy on his left hand. Shouts and triumphal music accompany the proceedings, after which Divine service commences.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Thus are the self-styled servants of the Highest Constrained by earthly duress to embrace Mighty imperiousness as it were choice, And hand the Italian sceptre unto one Who, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin, Professed at first to flout antiquity, Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones, And level dynasts down to journeymen!-- Yet he, advancing swiftly on that track Whereby his active soul, fair Freedom's child Makes strange decline, now labours to achieve The thing it overthrew.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thou reasonest ever thuswise--even if A self-formed force had urged his loud career.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Do not the prelate's accents falter thin, His lips with inheld laughter grow deformed, While blessing one whose aim is but to win The golden seats that other b---s have warmed?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Soft, jester; scorn not puppetry so skilled, Even made to feel by one men call the Dame.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
Yea; that they feel, and puppetry remain, Is an owned flaw in her consistency Men love to dub Dame Nature--that lay-shape They use to hang phenomena upon-- Whose deftest mothering in fairest sphere Is girt about by terms inexorable!
SPIRIT SINISTER
The lady's remark is apposite, and reminds me that I may as well hold my tongue as desired. For if my casual scorn, Father Years, should set thee trying to prove that there is any right or reason in the Universe, thou wilt not accomplish it by Doomsday! Small blame to her, however; she must cut her coat according to her cloth, as they would say below there.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
O would that I could move It to enchain thee, And shut thee up a thousand years!--[to cite A grim terrestrial tale of one thy like] Thou Iago of the Incorporeal World, “As they would say below there.”
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Would thou couldst! But move That scoped above percipience, Sire, It cannot be!
SHADE OF THE EARTH
The spectacle proceeds.
SPIRIT SINISTER
And we may as well give all attention thereto, for the evils at work in other continents are not worth eyesight by comparison.
[The ceremonial in the Cathedral continues. NAPOLEON goes to the front of the altar, ascends the steps, and, taking up the crown of Lombardy, places it on his head.]
NAPOLEON
'Tis God has given it to me. So be it. Let any who shall touch it now beware! [Reverberations of applause.]
[The Sacrament of the Mass. NAPOLEON reads the Coronation Oath in a loud voice.]
HERALDS
Give ear! Napoleon, Emperor of the French And King of Italy, is crowned and throned!
CONGREGATION
Long live the Emperor and King. Huzza!
[Music. The Te Deum.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
That vulgar stroke of vauntery he displayed In planting on his brow the Lombard crown, Means sheer erasure of the Luneville pacts, And lets confusion loose on Europe's peace For many an undawned year! From this rash hour Austria but waits her opportunity By secret swellings of her armaments To link her to his foes.--I'll speak to him.
[He throws a whisper into NAPOLEON'S ear.]
Lieutenant Bonaparte, Would it not seemlier be to shut thy heart To these unhealthy splendours?--helmet thee For her thou swar'st-to first, fair Liberty?
NAPOLEON
Who spoke to me?
ARCHBISHOP
Not I, Sire. Not a soul.
NAPOLEON
Dear Josephine, my queen, didst call my name?
JOSEPHINE
I spoke not, Sire.
NAPOLEON
Thou didst not, tender spouse; I know it. Such harsh utterance was not thine. It was aggressive Fancy, working spells Upon a mind o'erwrought!
[The service closes. The clergy advance with the canopy to the foot of the throne, and the procession forms to return to the Palace.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Officious sprite, Thou art young, and dost not heed the Cause of things Which some of us have inkled to thee here; Else wouldst thou not have hailed the Emperor, Whose acts do but outshape Its governing.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I feel, Sire, as I must! This tale of Will And Life's impulsion by Incognizance I cannot take!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Let me then once again Show to thy sceptic eye the very streams And currents of this all-inhering Power, And bring conclusion to thy unbelief.
[The scene assumes the preternatural transparency before mentioned, and there is again beheld as it were the interior of a brain which seems to manifest the volitions of a Universal Will, of whose tissues the personages of the action form portion.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Enough. And yet for very sorriness I cannot own the weird phantasma real!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Affection ever was illogical.
SPIRIT IRONIC [aside]
How should the Sprite own to such logic--a mere juvenile-- who only came into being in what the earthlings call their Tertiary Age!
[The scene changes. The exterior of the Cathedral takes the place of the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabric smalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carved alabaster ornament. The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alps show afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf of Genoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them, till clouds cover the panorama.]
ACT SECOND
## SCENE I
THE DOCKYARD, GIBRALTAR
[The Rock is seen rising behind the town and the Alameda Gardens, and the English fleet rides at anchor in the Bay, across which the Spanish shore from Algeciras to Carnero Point shuts in the West. Southward over the Strait is the African coast.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Our migratory Proskenion now presents An outlook on the storied Kalpe Rock, As preface to the vision of the Fleets Spanish and French, linked for fell purposings.
RECORDING ANGEL [reciting]
Their motions and manoeuvres, since the fame Of Bonaparte's enthronment at Milan Swept swift through Europe's dumbed communities, Have stretched the English mind to wide surmise. Many well-based alarms [which strange report Much aggravates] as to the pondered blow, Flutter the public pulse; all points in turn-- Malta, Brazil, Wales, Ireland, British Ind-- Being held as feasible for force like theirs, Of lavish numbers and unrecking aim.