CXLIII. – RICHELIEU'S VINDICATION.

BULWER.

[SIR EDWARD GEORGE EARLE BULWER-LYTTON, (generally known by his original name of Bulwer,) one of the most popular and distinguished of the living writers of England, was born at Haydon Hall, in the county of Norfolk, in 1805, and educated at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of a large number of novels, as well as of plays, poems, and miscellanies. He is a writer of various and versatile power, and his novels are remarkable for brilliant description, startling adventures, sharp delineation of character, and -especially the later ones-a vein of philosophical reflection. The moral tone of his earlier works is not always to be commended, but in this respect, as well as in substantial literary merit, there is a marked improvement in those of later date.

The following scene is from "Richelieu," a play founded upon certain incidents in the life of the great French statesman of that name.]

5

RICHELIEU. Room, my Lords, room!

France

Can need no intercession with the King.

The minister of

[They fall back. LOUIS. What means this false report of death, Lord

Cardinal?

RICHELIEU. Are you then angered, sire, that I live still?
LOUIS. No; but such artifice —

RICHELIEU. Not mine: look elsewhere!

Louis

my castle swarmed with the assassins. BARADAS [advancing]. We have punished them already. Huguet is now

In the Bastile. Oh! my Lord, we were prompt

10 To avenge you

15

RICHELIEU. WE? Ha! ha! you hear,

My liege! What page, man, in the last court grammar
Made you a plural? Count, you have seized the hireling :
Sire, shall I name the master?

Service to France? I have none! Lives the man
Whom Europe, paled before your glory, deems
Rival to Armand Richelieu ?

LOUIS. What! so haughty!

5 Remember, he who made can unmake.

RICHELIEU. Never!

trust,

Never! Your anger can recall your
Annul my office, spoil me of my lands,
Rifle coffers, — but my name
my
- my deeds,
10 Are royal in a land beyond your sceptre !
Pass sentence on me, if you will; from Kings,
Lo, I appeal to Time! Be just, my liege-
I found your kingdom rent with heresies
And bristling with rebellion; lawless nobles
15 And breadless serfs; England fomenting discord:
Austria her clutch on your dominion; Spain
Forging the prodigal gold of either Ind

To arméd thunder-bolts. The Arts lay dead,
Trade rotted in your marts, your Armies mutinous,
20 Your Treasury bankrupt. Would you now revoke
Your trust, so be it! and I leave you, sole,
Supremest monarch of the mightiest realm,
From Ganges to the Icebergs: - Look without;
No foe not humbled! Look within; the Arts
25 Quit for your schools their old Hesperides -
The golden Italy! while through the veins
Of your vast empire flows in strengthening tides,
Trade, the calm health of nations!

Sire, I know

nor measure

30 Your smoother courtiers please you best
Myself with them, yet sometimes I would doubt
If statesmen, rocked and dandled into power?
Could leave such legacies to kings!

[Louis appears irresolute.

BARADAS [passing him, whispers]. But Julie,

Shall I not summon her to court?

5

LOUIS [motions to Baradas, and turns haughtily to the

Cardinal]. Enough!

Your Eminence must excuse a longer audience.

To your own palace:
Nor place-nor season.

- For our conference, this

RICHELIEU. Good my liege! for Justice
All place a temple, and all season, summer!
Do you deny me justice? Saints of heaven,
He turns from me! Do you deny me justice?
For fifteen years, while in these hands dwelt empire,
10 The humblest craftsman the obscurest vassal·
The very leper shrinking from the sun,

Though loathed by Charity, might ask for justice!
Not with the fawning tone and crawling mien
Of some I see around you- Counts and Princes-
15 Kneeling for favors; but, erect and loud,

As men who ask man's rights! my liege, my Lord,
Do you refuse me justice. audience even —

In the pale presence of the baffled Murther?
LOUIS. Lord Cardinal

from me

20 The bonds of human love.

Marked out for vengeance

one by one you have severed

All near and dear

exile, or the scaffold.

You find me now amidst my trustiest friends,

My closest kindred; you would tear them from me;
They murder you, forsooth, since me they love.

25 Enough of plots and treasons for one reign!
Home Home! and sleep away these phantoms!
RICHELIEU. Sire!

I

patience, heaven! sweet heaven! Sire, from the foot Of that Great Throne, these hands have raised aloft

30 On an Olympus, looking down on mortals

And worshipped by their awe - before the foot

Of that high throne - spurn you the gray-haired man,
Who gave you empire- and now sues for safety!
LOUIS. No:- when we see your Eminence in truth
At the foot of the throne we'll listen to you.

1

CXLIV.

2

ANTONY'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS.

SHAKSPEARE.

FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interréd with their bones:
So let it be with Cæsar! The noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men ;)
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse.

Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke;
But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

3

4

And men have lost their reason! Bear with me:

My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

O Masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.

I will not do them wrong—I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.
But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar;
I found it in his closet: 't is his will.
Let but the commons hear this testament,
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,)
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood -
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy,

Unto their issue.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember

The first time ever Cæsar put it on;

'T was on a summer's evening in his tent;

That day he overcame the Nervii :

Look! In this place ran Cassius's dagger through:-
See, what a rent the envious Casca made-

Through this, the well-belovéd Brutus stabbed;

And, as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it!

This was the most unkindest cut of all!