Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1019 page)

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