Pol. Endure, endure, beloved! Say you not

That he's your Father? All's so incident

To novel sway! Beside, our life must change:
Or you'll acquire his kingcraft, or he'll find
Harshness a sorry way of teaching it.

I bear this-not that there's so much to bear

Cha. You bear it? don't I know that you, tho' bound To silence for my sake, are perishing

Piecemeal beside me? and how otherwise?

-When every creephole from the hideous Court
Is stopt; the Minister to dog me, here—
The Mistress posted to entrap you, there!
And thus shall we grow old in such a life—

Not careless,-never estranged, but old: to alter
Our life, there is so much to alter !

Pol.

Come

Is it agreed that we forego complaints
Even at Turin, yet complain we here
At Rivoli? 'Twere wiser you announced
Our presence to the king. What's now a-foot,
I wonder?—Not that any more's to dread
Than every day's embarrassment-but guess,
For me, why train so fast succeeded train
On the high-road, each gayer still than each;
I noticed your Archbishop's pursuivant,
The sable cloak and silver cross; such pomp

Bodes.. what now, Charles? Can you conceive?
Cha.

Pol. A matter of some moment

Not I

Cha.

There's our life!

Which of the group of loiterers that stared
From the lime-avenue, divines that I-
About to figure presently, he thinks,
In face of all assembled-am the one
Who knows precisely least about it?
Pol.

D'Ormea's contrivance !

Cha.

Tush!

Ay-how otherwise

Should the young Prince serve for the old King's foil? -So that the simplest courtier may remark,

'Twere idle raising parties for a Prince

Content to linger D'Ormea's laughing-stock!
Something, 'tis like, about that weary business

[Pointing to papers he has laid down, and which POLYXENA
examines.]

-Not that I comprehend three words, of course,
After all last night's study.

Pol.

The faint heart!

Why, as we rode and you rehearsed just now

Its substance.. (that's the folded speech I mean,
Concerning the Reduction of the Fiefs. .)

-What would you have?—I fancied while you spoke,
Some tones were just your father's.

Cha.

Flattery!

Pol. I fancied so:-and here lurks, sure enough, My note upon the Spanish Claims ! You've mastered The fief-speech thoroughly-this other, mind,

Is an opinion you deliver, stay,

Best read it slowly over once to me;

Read-there's bare time; you read it firmly-loud
-Rather loud-looking in his face,-don't sink

Your eye once-ay, thus!

-Just as you look at me!

"If Spain claims . . ." begin

Cha.
At you! Oh, truly,
You have I seen, say, marshalling your troops-
Dismissing councils-or, through doors ajar,
Head sunk on hand, devoured by slow chagrins
—Then radiant, for a crown had all at once
Seemed possible again! I can behold

Him, whose least whisper ties my spirit fast,
In this sweet brow, nought could divert me from,
Save objects like Sebastian's shameless lip,
Or, worse, the clipt gray hair and dead white face,
And dwindling eye as if it ached with guile,
Which D'Ormea wears...

[As he kisses her, enter from the KING's apartment D'ORMEA.]
.. I said he would divert

My kisses from your brow!

D'O. [Aside.] Here! So King Victor

Spoke truth for once; and who's ordained, but I,
To make that memorable? Both in call,

As he declared! Were't better gnash the teeth,
Or laugh outright now?

Cha. [to Pol.]

What's his visit for?

D'O. [Aside.] I question if they'll even speak to me. Pol. [to Cha.] Face D'Ormea, he'll suppose you fear him, else.

[Aloud.] The Marquis bears the King's command, no doubt.

D'O. [Aside.] Precisely!-If I threatened him, per

haps?

Well, this at least is punishment enough!
Men used to promise punishment would come.
Cha. Deliver the King's message, Marquis!
D'O. [Aside.]

Ah

So anxious for his fate? [Aloud.] A word, my Prince, Before you see your father-just one word

As much as I?-preceded me, most like,

In knowledge? So! ('Tis in his eye, beside-
His voice he knows it and his heart's on flame
Already!) You surmise why you, myself,
Del Borgo, Spava, fifty nobles more,

Are summoned thus ?

Cha.

Is the Prince used to know,

At any time, the pleasure of the King,

Before his minister?-Polyxena,

Stay here till I conclude my task—I feel

Your presence (smile not)—thro' the walls, and take Fresh heart. The King's within that chamber?

D'O. [Passing the table whereon a paper lies, exclaims, as he

glances at it,]

"Spain ! "

Pol. [Aside to Cha.] Tarry awhile: what ails the

minister?

D'O. Madam, I do not often trouble you.

The Prince loathes, and you loathe me-let that pass; But since it touches him and you, not me,

Bid the Prince listen!

Pol. [to CHA.]

Surely you will listen!

-Deceit ?—Those fingers crumpling up his vest?

Cha. Deceitful to the very fingers' ends!

D'O. [who has approached them, overlooks the other paper CHARLES continues to hold]

My project for the Fiefs! As I supposed!

Sir, I must give you light upon those measures
-For this is mine, and that I spied of Spain,
Mine too!

Cha. Release me! Do you gloze on me
Who bear in the world's face (that is, the world
You've made for me at Turin) your contempt?
-Your measures?—When was any hateful task
Not D'Ormea's imposition? Leave my robe!
What post can I bestow, what grant concede?
Or do you take me for the King?

Not I!

D'O.
Not yet for King,-not for, as yet, thank God,
One, who in . . shall I say a year—a month?
Ay!-shall be wretcheder than e'er was slave
In his Sardinia,-Europe's spectacle,

And the world's byword! What? The Prince aggrieved
That I've excluded him our counsels?

Here

[Touching the paper in CHARLES's hand.

Accept a method of extorting gold

VOL. I.

16