First Citizen:, That, Is the Archbishop

Rather say the Pope:London will be soon his Rome: he walksAs if he trod upon the heads of men:He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;--Beside him moves the Babylonian womanInvisibly, and with her as with his shadow,Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge.

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 beA dog if I might tear her with my teeth!There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,And others who make base their English breedBy vile participation of their honoursWith papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates.When lawyers masque 'tis time for honest menTo strip the vizor from their purposes.A seasonable time for masquers this!When Englishmen and Protestants should sitdust on their dishonoured headsTo avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is feltFor the great sins which have drawn down from Heavenand foreign overthrow.The remnant of the martyred saints in RochefortHave been abandoned by their faithless alliesTo that idolatrous and adulterous torturerLewis of France,--the Palatinate is lost--Canst thou be--art thou?

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

Are these the marks with whichLaud thinks to improve the image of his MakerStamped on the face of man? Curses upon him,The impious tyrant!

It is said besidesThat lewd and papist drunkards may profaneThe Sabbath with theirAnd has permitted that most heathenish customOf dancing round a pole dressed up with wreathsOn May-day.A man who thus twice crucifies his GodMay well ... his brother.--In my mind, friend,The root of all this ill is prelacy.I would cut up the root.

And by what means?

Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib.

You seem to know the vulnerable placeOf these same crocodiles.

I learnt it inEgyptian bondage, sir. Your worm of NileBetrays not with its flattering tears like they;For, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep.Nor is it half so greedy of men's bodiesAs they of soul and all; nor does it wallowIn slime as they in simony and liesAnd close lusts of the flesh.

Give place, give place!You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate,And then attend the Marshal of the MasqueInto the Royal presence.

What thinkest thouOf this quaint show of ours, my aged friend?Even now we see the redness of the torchesInflame the night to the eastward, and the clarionsAnd their sounds, floating hither round the pageant,Rouse up the astonished air.

I will not think but that our country's woundsMay yet be healed. The king is just and gracious,Though wicked counsels now pervert his will:These once cast off--

As adders cast their skinsAnd keep their venom, so kings often change;Councils and counsellors hang on one another,Hiding the loathsomeLike the base patchwork of a leper's rags.

THE YOUTH:Oh, still those dissonant thoughts!--List how the musicGrows on the enchanted air! And see, the torchesRestlessly flashing, and the crowd dividedLike waves before an admiral's prow!

Give placeTo the Marshal of the Masque!