FullReads

[NOTES:
33-37 Canst…enginery 1870;
Canst thou not think
Of change in that low scene, in which thou art
Not a spectator but an actor?… 1824.
43-57 Wrap…bold as he 1870; omitted 1824.]

FIRST CITIZEN:
That
Is the Archbishop.

SECOND CITIZEN:
Rather say the Pope:
London will be soon his Rome: he walks
As if he trod upon the heads of men: 60
He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;–
Beside him moves the Babylonian woman
Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,
Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,
Which turns Heaven’s milk of mercy to revenge. 65

THIRD CITIZEN [LIFTING UP HIS EYES]:
Good Lord! rain it down upon him!…
Amid her ladies walks the papist queen,
As if her nice feet scorned our English earth.
The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be
A dog if I might tear her with my teeth! 70
There’s old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,
Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,
And others who make base their English breed
By vile participation of their honours
With papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates. 75
When lawyers masque ’tis time for honest men
To strip the vizor from their purposes.
A seasonable time for masquers this!
When Englishmen and Protestants should sit
dust on their dishonoured heads 80
To avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is felt
For the great sins which have drawn down from Heaven
and foreign overthrow.
The remnant of the martyred saints in Rochefort
Have been abandoned by their faithless allies 85
To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer
Lewis of France,–the Palatinate is lost–
[ENTER LEIGHTON (WHO HAS BEEN BRANDED IN THE FACE)
AND BASTWICK.]
Canst thou be–art thou?

[NOTE:
73 make 1824; made 1839.]

LEIGHTON:
I WAS Leighton: what
I AM thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes,
And with thy memory look on thy friend’s mind, 90
Which is unchanged, and where is written deep
The sentence of my judge.

THIRD CITIZEN:
Are these the marks with which
Laud thinks to improve the image of his Maker
Stamped on the face of man? Curses upon him,
The impious tyrant!

SECOND CITIZEN:
It is said besides 95
That lewd and papist drunkards may profane
The Sabbath with their
And has permitted that most heathenish custom
Of dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths
On May-day. 100
A man who thus twice crucifies his God
May well … his brother.–In my mind, friend,
The root of all this ill is prelacy.
I would cut up the root.