SCENE I._--The Louvre.

_A Chair of State placed; the King appears sitting in it; a Table by him, on which he leans; Attendants on each Side of him; amongst the rest,_ ABBOT, GRILLON, _and_ BELLIEURE. _The_ QUEEN-MOTHER _enters, led by the Duke of_ GUISE, _who makes his Approach with three Reverences to the King's Chair; after the third, the King rises, and coming forward, speaks._

_King._ I sent you word, you should not come.

_Gui._ Sir, that I came--

_King._ Why, that you came, I see. Once more, I sent you word, you should not come.

_Gui._ Not come to throw myself, with all submission, Beneath your royal feet! to put my cause And person in the hands of sovereign justice!

_King._ Now 'tis with all submission,--that's the preface,-- Yet still you came against my strict command; You disobeyed me, duke, with all submission.

_Gui._ Sir, 'twas the last necessity that drove me, To clear myself of calumnies, and slanders, Much urged, but never proved, against my innocence; Yet had I known 'twas your express command, I should not have approached.

_King._ 'Twas as express, as words could signify;-- Stand forth, Bellieure,--it shall be proved you knew it,-- Stand forth, and to this false man's face declare Your message, word for word.

_Bel._ Sir, thus it was. I met him on the way, And plain as I could speak, I gave your orders, Just in these following words:--

_King._ Enough, I know you told him; But he has used me long to be contemned, And I can still be patient, and forgive.

_Gui._ And I can ask forgiveness, when I err; But let my gracious master please to know The true intent of my misconstrued faith. Should I not come to vindicate my fame From wrong constructions? And--

_King._ Come, duke, you were not wronged; your conscience knows You were not wronged; were you not plainly told, That, if you dared to set your foot in Paris, You should be held the cause of all commotions That should from thence ensue? and yet you came.

_Gui._ Sir, will you please with patience but to hear me?

_King._ I will; and would be glad, my lord of Guise, To clear you to myself.

_Gui._ I had been told, There were in agitation here at court, Things of the highest note against religion, Against the common properties of subjects, And lives of honest well-affected men; I therefore judged,--

_King._ Then you, it seems, are judge Betwixt the prince and people? judge for them, And champion against me?

_Gui._ I feared it might be represented so, And came resolved,--

_King._ To head the factious crowd.

_Gui._ To clear my innocence.

_King._ The means for that, Had been your absence from this hot-brained town, Where you, not I, are king!-- I feel my blood kindling within my veins; The genius of the throne knocks at my heart: Come what may come, he dies.

_Qu. M._ [_Stopping the king._] What mean you, sir? You tremble and look pale; for heaven's sake think, 'Tis your own life you venture, if you kill him.

_King._ Had I ten thousand lives, I'll venture all. Give me way, madam!

_Qu. M._ Not to your destruction. The whole Parisian herd is at your gates; A crowd's a name too small, they are a nation, Numberless, armed, enraged, one soul informs them.

_King._ And that one soul's the Guise. I'll rend it out, And damn the rabble all at once in him.

_Gui._ My fate is now in the balance; fool within, I thank thee for thy foresight. [_Aside._

_Qu. M._ Your guards oppose them!

_King._ Why not? a multitude's a bulky coward.

_Qu. M._ By heaven, there are not limbs in all your guards, For every one a morsel.

_King._ Cæsar quelled them, But with a look and word.

_Qu. M._ So Galba thought.

_King._ But Galba was not Cæsar.

_Gui._ I must not give them time for resolution.-- [_Aside._ My journey, sir, has discomposed my health, [_To the king._ I humbly beg your leave, I may retire, Till your commands recall me to your service. [_Exit[14]._

_King._ So, you have counselled well; the traitor's gone, To mock the meekness of an injured king. [_To Qu. M._ Why did not you, who gave me part of life, Infuse my father stronger in my veins? But when you kept me cooped within your womb, You palled his generous blood with the dull mixture Of your Italian food, and milked slow arts Of womanish tameness in my infant mouth. Why stood I stupid else, and missed a blow, Which heaven and daring folly made so fair?

_Qu. M._ I still maintain, 'twas wisely done to spare him.

_Gril._ A pox on this unseasonable wisdom! He was a fool to come; if so, then they, Who let him go, were somewhat.

_King._ The event, the event will shew us what we were; For, like a blazing meteor hence he shot, And drew a sweeping fiery train along.-- O Paris, Paris, once my seat of triumph, But now the scene of all thy king's misfortunes; Ungrateful, perjured, and disloyal town, Which by my royal presence I have warmed So long, that now the serpent hisses out, And shakes his forked tongue at majesty, While I--

_Qu. M._ While you lose time in idle talk, And use no means for safety and prevention.

_King._ What can I do? O mother, Abbot, Grillon! All dumb! nay, then 'tis plain, my cause is desperate. Such an overwhelming ill makes grief a fool, As if redress were past.

_Gril._ I'll go to the next sheriff, And beg the first reversion of a rope: Dispatch is all my business; I'll hang for you.

_Abb._ 'Tis not so bad, as vainly you surmise; Some space there is, some little space, some steps Betwixt our fate and us: our foes are powerful, But yet not armed, nor marshalled into order; Believe it, sir, the Guise will not attempt, Till he have rolled his snow-ball to a heap.

_King._ So then, my lord, we're a day off from death: What shall to-morrow do?

_Abb._ To-morrow, sir, If hours between slide not too idly by, You may be master of their destiny, Who now dispose so loftily of yours. Not far without the suburbs there are quartered Three thousand Swiss, and two French regiments.

_King._ Would they were here, and I were at their head!

_Qu. M._ Send Mareschal Byron to lead them up.

_King._ It shall be so: by heaven there's life in this! The wrack of clouds is driving on the winds, And shews a break of sunshine-- Go Grillon, give my orders to Byron, And see your soldiers well disposed within, For safeguard of the Louvre.

_Qu. M._ One thing more: The Guise (his business yet not fully ripe,) Will treat, at least, for shew of loyalty; Let him be met with the same arts he brings.

_King._ I know, he'll make exorbitant demands, But here your part of me will come in play; The Italian soul shall teach me how to sooth: Even Jove must flatter with an empty hand, 'Tis time to thunder, when he gripes the brand. [_Exeunt._

SCENE _II.--A Night Scene._

_Enter_ MALICORN _solus._

_Mal._ Thus far the cause of God; but God's or devil's,-- I mean my master's cause, and mine,--succeed, What shall the Guise do next? [_A flash of lightning._

_Enter the spirit_ MELANAX.

_Mel._ First seize the king, and after murder him.

_Mal._ Officious fiend, thou comest uncalled to-night.

_Mel._ Always uncalled, and still at hand for mischief.

_Mal._ But why in this fanatic habit, devil? Thou look'st like one that preaches to the crowd; Gospel is in thy face, and outward garb, And treason on thy tongue.

_Mel._ Thou hast me right: Ten thousand devils more are in this habit; Saintship and zeal are still our best disguise: We mix unknown with the hot thoughtless crowd, And quoting scriptures, (which too well we know,) With impious glosses ban the holy text, And make it speak rebellion, schism, and murder; So turn the arms of heaven against itself.

_Mal._ What makes the curate of St. Eustace here?

_Mel._ Thou art mistaken, master; 'tis not he, But 'tis a zealous, godly, canting devil, Who has assumed the churchman's lucky shape, To talk the crowd to madness and rebellion.

_Mal._ O true enthusiastic devil, true,-- (For lying is thy nature, even to me,) Did'st thou not tell me, if my lord, the Guise, Entered the court, his head should then lie low? That was a lie; he went, and is returned.

_Mel._ 'Tis false; I said, _perhaps_ it should lie low; And, but I chilled the blood in Henry's veins, And crammed a thousand ghastly, frightful thoughts, Nay, thrust them foremost in his labouring brain, Even so it would have been.

_Mal._ Thou hast deserved me, And I am thine, dear devil: what do we next?

_Mel._ I said, first seize the king.

_Mal._ Suppose it done: He's clapt within a convent, shorn a saint, My master mounts the throne.

_Mel._ Not so fast, Malicorn; Thy master mounts not, till the king be slain.

_Mal._ Not when deposed?

_Mel._ He cannot be deposed: He may be killed, a violent fate attends him; But at his birth there shone a regal star.

_Mal._ My master had a stronger.

_Mel._ No, not a stronger, but more popular. Their births were full opposed, the Guise now strongest But if the ill influence pass o'er Harry's head, As in a year it will, France ne'er shall boast A greater king than he; now cut him off, While yet his stars are weak.

_Mal._ Thou talk'st of stars: Can'st thou not see more deep into events, And by a surer way?

_Mel._ No, Malicorn; The ways of heaven are broken since our fall, Gulph beyond gulph, and never to be shot. Once we could read our mighty Maker's mind, As in a crystal mirror, see the ideas Of things that always are, as he is always; Now, shut below in this dark sphere, By second causes dimly we may guess, And peep far off on heaven's revolving orbs, Which cast obscure reflections from the throne.

_Mal._ Then tell me thy surmises of the future.

_Mel._ I took the revolution of the year, Just when the Sun was entering in the Ham: The ascending Scorpion poisoned all the sky, A sign of deep deceit and treachery. Full on his cusp his angry master sate, Conjoined with Saturn, baleful both to man: Of secret slaughters, empires overturned, Strife, blood, and massacres, expect to hear, And all the events of an ill-omened year.

_Mal._ Then flourish hell, and mighty mischief reign! Mischief, to some, to others must be good. But hark! for now, though 'tis the dead of night, When silence broods upon our darkened world, Methinks I hear a murmuring hollow sound, Like the deaf chimes of bells in steeples touched.

_Mel._ It is truly guessed; But know, 'tis from no nightly sexton's hand. There's not a damned ghost, nor hell-born fiend, That can from limbo 'scape, but hither flies; With leathern wings they beat the dusky skies, To sacred churches all in swarms repair; Some crowd the spires, but most the hallowed bells, } And softly toll for souls departing knells: } Each chime, thou hear'st, a future death foretells, } Now there they perch to have them in their eyes, 'Till all go loaded to the nether skies[15].

_Mal._ To-morrow then.

_Mel._ To-morrow let it be; Or thou deceiv'st those hungry, gaping fiends, And Beelzebub will rage.

_Mal._ Why Beelzebub? hast thou not often said, That Lucifer's your king?

_Mel._ I told thee true; But Lucifer, as he who foremost fell, So now lies lowest in the abyss of hell, Chained till the dreadful doom; in place of whom Sits Beelzebub, vicegerent of the damned, Who, listening downward, hears his roaring lord, And executes his purpose.--But no more[16]. The morning creeps behind yon eastern hill, And now the guard is mine, to drive the elves, And foolish fairies, from their moonlight play, And lash the laggers from the sight of day. [_Descends._ [_Exit_ MAL.