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SCENE III.
The fragments of the broken Council appear with trembling servile Gestures, shewing several applications to the General from the Under-Tools in the distant Counties, begging each a guard of myrmidons to protect them from the armed multitudes (which the guilty horrors of their wounded consciences hourly presented to their frighted imaginations) approaching to take speedy vengeance on the Court Parasites, who had fled for refuge to the Camp, by immediate destruction to their Pimps. Panders and Sycophants left behind.—Sylla walking in great Perplexity.
Sylla.
Pray, how will it comport with my pretence
For building walls, and shutting up the Town,
Erecting fortiesses, and strong redoubts,
To keep my troops from any bold inroads
A brave insulted people might attempt,
If I send out my little scatter'd parties,
And the long suff'ring, gen'rous patriot's Care
Prevents a Skirmish.
Though they're the sport of wanton cruel power,
And Hydra headed ills start up around,
Till the last hope of a redress cut off
Their humane feeling, Urge them to forbear,
And wait some milder means to bring relief.
Hateall.
'Tis now the time to try their daring tempers.
Send out a few—and if they are cut off,
What are a thousand souls, sent swiftly down
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Half their compeers shall sit pandimonic,
E're we will suffer Liberty to reign,
Or see her sons triumphant win the day.
I feign would push them to the last extreme,
To draw their swords against their legal King,
Then short's the process to compleat destruction.
Secretary Dupe.
Be not so sanguine—the day is not our own,
And much I fear it never will be won.
Their discipline is equal to our own,
Their valour has been try'd,—and in a field
They're not less brave than are a Fred'ricks troops,
Those members formidable pour along,
While virtue's banners shroud each warrior's head
Stern Justice binds the helmet on his brow,
And liberty sits perch'd on ev'ry shield.
But who's apply'd, and ask'd the General's aid,
Or wish'd his peaceful Villa such a curse,
As posting Troops beside the peasant's cot?
Judge Meagre.
None but the very dregs of all mankind.
The Stains of nature,—The blots of human race,
Yet that's no matter, still they are our friends,
'Twill help our projects if we give them aid.
Simple Sappling.
Though my paternal Acres are eat up,
My patrimony spent, I've yet an house
My lenient creditors let me improve,
Send up the Troops, 'twill serve them well for Barracks.
I some how think 'twould bear a noble sound,
To have my mansion guarded by the King.
Sylla.
Hast thou no sons or blooming daughters there,
To call up all the feelings of a Father,
Least their young minds contaminate by vice,
Caught from such inmates, dangerous and vile,
Devoid of virtue, rectitude, or honour
Save what accords with military fame?
Hast thou no wife who asks thy tender care,
To guard her from Belona's hardy sons?
Who when not toiling in the hostile field,
Are faithful vot'ries to the Cyprian Queen.
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Indelicate, and thoughtless of her fame:
So void of either sentiment or sense,
As makes her a companion fit for thee!
Simple Sappling.
Silvia's good natur'd, and no doubt will yield,
And take the brawny vet'rans to her board,
When she's assur'd 'twill help her husband's fame.
If she complains or murmurs at the plan,
Let her solicit charity abroad;
Let her go out and seek some pitying friend
To give her shelter from the wint'ry blast,
Disperse her children round the neighb'ring cots,
And then—
Publican.
—Then weep thy folly, and her own hard fate!
I pity Silvia, I knew the beauteous maid
E'er she descended to become thy wife:
She silent mourns the weakness of her lord,
For she's too virtuous to approve thy deeds.
Hateall.
Pho—what's a woman's tears,
Or all the whinings of that trifling sex?
I never felt one tender thought towards them.
When young, indeed, I wedded nut brown Kate,
(Blyth buxiom Dowager, the jockey's prey)
But all I wish'd was to secure her dower.
I broke her spirits when I'd won her purse;
For which I'll give a recipe most sure
To ev'ry hen peck'd husband round the board;
If crabbed words or surly looks won't tame
The haughty shrew, nor bend the stubborn mind,
Then the green Hick'ry, or the willow twig,
Will prove a curse for each rebellious dame
Who dare oppose her lord's superior will.
Sylla.
Enough of this, ten thousand harrowing cares
Tear up my peace, and swell my anxious breast.
I see some mighty victim must appease
An injured nation, tott'ring on the verge
Of wide destruction, made the wanton sport
Of hungry Harpies, gaping for their prey;
Which if by misadventures they should miss,
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Will siez the lesser gudgeons of the state,
And sacrifice to mad Alecto's rage;
Lest the tide turning, with a rapid course
The booming torrent rushes o'er their heads,
And sweeps the “cawing cormorants from earth”.
Hateall.
Then strike some sudden blow, and if hereafter
Dangers should rise—then set up for thyself,
And make thy name as famous in Columbia,
As ever Cæsar's was in ancient Gaul.
Who would such distant Provinces subdue,
And then resign them to a foreign lord!
With such an armament at thy command
Why all this cautious prudence?
Sylla.
I only wish to serve my Sov'reign well,
And bring new glory to my master's crown,
Which can't be done by spreading ruin round
This loyal country—
—Wro't up to madness by oppression's hand.
How much deceiv'd my royal master is
By those he trusts!—but more of this anon.
Were it consistent with my former plan,
I'd gladly send my sickly troops abroad
Out from the stench of this infected town,
To breath some air more free from putrefaction;
To brace their nerves against approaching spring,
If my ill stars should destine a campaign,
And call me forth to fight in such a cause.
To quench the gen'rous spark, the innate love
Of glorious freedom, planted in the breast
Of ev'ry man who boasts a Briton's name,
Until some base born lust of foreign growth
Contaminate his soul, till false ambition,
Or the sordid hope of swelling coffers,
Poison the mind, and brutalize the man.
Collateralis.
I almost wish I never had engag'd
To rob my country of her native rights,
Nor strove to mount on justice solemn bench,
By mean submission cringing for a place.
How great the pain, and yet how small the purchase!
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E'er I so servilely had held it up,
Or giv'n my voice abjectly to rescind
The wisest step that mortal man could take
To curb the tallons of tyrannic power,
Out stretch'd rapacious ready to devour
The fair possessions, by our Maker giv'n
Confirm'd by compacts—ratify'd by Heav'n.
Sylla.
Look o'er the annals of our virtuous sires,
And search the story of Britannia's deeds,
From Cæsar's ravages to Hambden's fall;
From the good Hambden down to glorious Wolfe,
Whose soul took wing on Abraham's fatal plain,
Where the young Hero fought Britannia's foes,
And vanquish'd Bourbons dark ferocious hosts,
Till the slaves trembled at a George's name.
'Twas love of freedom drew a Marlborough's sword;
This glorious passion mov'd a Sydney's pen;
And crown'd with Bayes a Harrington and Locke;
'Tis freedom wreathes the Garlands o'er their tombs.
For her how oft have bleeding Heroes fall'n!
With the warm fluid, gushing from their wounds,
Convey'd the purchase to their distant heirs!
And shall I rashly draw my guilty sword,
And dip its hungry hilt in the rich blood
Of the best subjects that a Brunswick boasts,
And for no cause, but that they nobly scorn
To wear the fetters of his venal slaves!
But swift time rolls, and on his rapid wheel
Bears the winged hours, and the circling years.
The cloud cap'd morn, the dark short wintry day,
And the keen blasts of roughned Borea's breath,
Will soon evanish, and approaching spring
Opes with the fate of empires on her wing.
Exit Sylla.
Hazlerod
rises in great agitation.
This ballancing of passions ne'er will do,
And by the scale which virtue holds to reason,
Weighing the business e'er he executes,
Doubting, deliberating, half resolv'd
To be the saviour of a virtuous state,
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The buzzing reptiles that crawl round his court,
And lick his hand for some delicious crumb,
Or painted plume to grace the guilty brow,
Stain'd with ten thousand falsities, trumped up
To injure every good and virtuous name
Who won't strike hands and be his country's foe:
I'll hasten after, and stir up his soul,
To dire revenge and bloody resolutions,
Or the whole fabrick falls, on which we hang,
And down the pit of infamy we plunge,
Without the spoils we long have hop'd to reap.
He crosses the stage hastily and goes out after Sylla.
Meagre and Secretary Dupe at the further part of the stage.
Meagre.
As Sylla pass'd I mark'd his anxious brow;
I fear his soul is with compassion mov'd
For suff'ring virtue, wounded and betray'd;
For freedom hunted down in this fair field,
The only soil, in these degenerate days,
In which the heavenly goddess can exist.
Secretary.
Humanity recoils—his heart re[illeg.]
To execute the black the accurst design.
Such I must call it, though thy guilty friends,
Thy subtle brother, laid the artful plan,
“And like the toad squat at the ear of Eve”
Infusing poisons by his snaky tongue,
Push'd Brundo on to tread the thorny path,
And plunge his country in ten thousand woes;
Then slyly justling him behind the scenes,
Step'd in his place for which he long had sigh'd.
Meagre.
Yes all allow he play'd a master game,
And dealt his cards with such peculiar skill,
That every dangler about the court,
As you and I and all might well suppose,
Thought the chains fix'd which Brundo only clank'd.
But yet unless some speedy method's found
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That bind this mighty continent so firm,
Their Congresses, their Covenants, and leagues,
With their Committees, working in each town
With unremitting vigilance and care,
To baffle ev'ry evil machination
Of all state rooks, who peck about the land,
If not broke up, will ruin all at last.
Amidst the many scriblers of the age,
Can none be found to set their schemes afloat,
To sow dissention—and distrust abroad,
Sap that cement that bears down all before it,
And makes America a match for all
The hostile powers that proud Europa boasts?
Secretary.
Not all the swarms of prostituted pens,
Nor hireling smatterers scribbling for gain,
From the first pension'd on the nothern list
To bigot Priests—who write from southern shores,
With all their phantoms, bugbears, threats or smiles,
Will e'er persuade them to renounce their claim
To freedom, purchas'd with their fathers blood.
How various are the arts already try'd,
What pains unwearied to write men to sleep,
Or rock them in the cradle of despair,
To doze supinely, 'till they should believe
They'd neither eyes, nor tongues, or strength to move
But at the nod of some despotic lord!
What shifts, evasions, what delusive tales,
What poor prevarication for rash oaths,
What nightly watchings, and what daily cares
To dress up falshood in some fair disguise,
Or wrap the bantling of their midnight dreams
In the soft vest of friendship, to betray,
Then send it forth in every fairy form,
To stalk at noon tide, giddy with fond hope
That some new gambols might deceive again
Men broad awake, who see through all the cheat.
Meagre.
There still is hope—why need we yet despair?
The doughty champion of our sinking cause,
The deep “arcana” of whose winding brain
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By the long labours of his vet'ran quill,
By scattering scraps from ev'ry musty code
Of canon, civil, or draconian laws,
Quoting old statutes or defining new,
Treasons, misprissions, riots, routs, cabals,
And insurrections of these stubborn times,
He'll sure prevail and terrify at last,
By bringing precedents from those blest days
When royal Stewarts, Britain's sceptre sway'd,
And taught her sons the right divine of Kings
When pains and forfeitures an hundred fold
Were dealt to traitors, puny when compared
To the bold rebels of this continent,
From Merrimack to Messisipi's—Banks
Who dare resist a ministerial frown.
In spite of all the truths Nov. anglus tells,
And his cool reas'ning argumentive stile,
Or master strokes of his unrival'd pen,
They will divide, and wav'ring will submit
And take the word of Massachusettensis
That men were born all ready bitted, curb'd,
And on their backs the saddles prominent,
For every upstart sycophant to mount.
Secretary.
Not Massachusettensis oily tongue,
Or retail'd nonsense of a Philarene
Not Senex rant, nor yet dull Grotius' pen,
Or the whole Group of selfish venal men,
If gather'd from cold Zembla's frozen shore,
To the warm zone where rapid rivers roar,
Can either coax them, or the least controul
The val'rous purpose of their roman souls.
Meagre.
Let not thy soft temidity of heart
Urge thee to terms, till the last stake is thrown.
Tis not my temper ever to forgive,
When once resentment's kindled in my breast.
I hated Brutus for his noble stand
Against the oppressors of his injur'd country.
I hate the leaders of these restless factions,
For all their gen'rous efforts to be free.
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Who Hazlerod impeach'd for the same crime.
I hate the people, who, no longer gull'd,
See through the schemes of our aspiring clan,
And from the rancour of my venom'd mind,
I look askance on all the human race,
And if they'r not to be appall'd by fear,
I wish the earth might drink that vital stream
That warms the heart, and feeds the manly glow,
The love inherent, planted in the breast,
To equal liberty, confer'd on man,
By him who form'd the peasant and the King!
Could we erase these notions from their minds,
Then (paramount to these ideal whims,
Utopian dreams, of patriotic virtue,
Which long has danc'd in their distemper'd brains)
We'd smoothly glide on midst a race of slaves,
Nor heave one sigh tho' all the human race
Were plung'd in darkness, slavery and vice.
If we could keep our foot-hold in the stirrup,
And, like the noble Claudia of old,
Ride o'er the people, if they don't give way;
Or wish their fates were all involv'd in one;
For iv'e a Brother, as the roman dame,
Who would strike off the rebel neck at once.
Secretary.
No all is o'er unless the sword decides,
Which cuts down Kings, and kingdoms oft divides.
By that appeal I think we can't prevail,
Their valour's great, and justice holds the scale.
They fight for freedom, while we stab the breast
Of every man, who is her friend profest.
They fight in virtue's ever sacred cause,
While we tread on divine and human laws.
Glory and victory, and lasting fame,
Will crown their arms and bless each Hero's name!
Meagre.
Away with all thy foolish, trifling cares;
And to the winds give all thy empty fears;
Let us repair and urge brave Sylla on,
I long to see the sweet revenge begun.
As fortune is a fickle, sportive dame,
She may for us the victory proclaim,
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Though injured justice stern and solemn frown.
Then they shall smart for ev'ry bold offence,
Estates confiscated will pay th' expence;
On their lost fortunes we a while will plume
And strive to think there is no after doom.
Ex. Om—s
As they pass off the stage the curtain draws up, and discovers to the audience a Lady nearly connected with one of the principal actors in the group, reclined in an adjoining alcove, who in mournful accents accosts them—thus—
What painful scenes are hov'ring o'er the morn,
When spring again invigorates the lawn!
Instead of the gay landscape's beautious dies,
Must the stain'd field salute our weeping eyes,
Must the green turf, and all the mournful glades,
Drench'd in the stream, absorb their dewy heads,
Whilst the tall oak, and quiv'ring willow bends
To make a covert for their country's friends,
Deny'd a grave!—amid the hurrying scene
Of routed armies scouring o'er the plain.
Till British troops shall to Columbia yield,
And freedom's sons are Masters of the field;
Then o'er the purpl'd plain the victors tread
Among the slain to seek each patriot dead,
(While Freedom weeps that merit could not save
But conq'ring Hero's must enrich the Grave)
An adamantine monument they rear
With this inscription—Virtue's sons lie here!
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