University of Virginia Library

DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

Scene.—Holland. Time, during the Government of the Duke of Alva.
ELLIS.
Not complain!
Endure in silence! suffer with beast patience
Oppressions such as these!

KLAUS.
Nay—an it please you,
Rail on, rail on! and when the rod of power
Falls heavy, why, no doubt 'twill comfort you
Amid your dungeon miseries, to reflect
How valiantly you talk'd! you know Count Roderick;—
He would be railing, too!

ELLIS.
And what has followed?

KLAUS.
I saw him in his dungeon: 'tis a place
Where the hell-haunted Murderer might almost
Rejoice to hear the hangman summon him.
By day he may divert his solitude
With watching through the grate the snow-flakes fall,
Or counting the long icicles above him;
Or he may trace upon the ice-glazed wall
Lines of most brave sedition! and at night
The frosty moon-beam for his meditation
Lends light enough. He told me that his feet
Were ulcered with the biting cold.—I would
Thou hadst been with me, Ellis.

ELLIS.
But does Philip
Command these things, or knowingly permit
The punishment to go before the judgment?

KLAUS.
Knowest thou not with what confidence the King
Reposes upon Alva? we believe
That 'tis with Philip a twin act to know
Injustice, and redress; this article
Of our state-creed, 'twere heresy to doubt.
But the dead echo of the dungeon groan,
How should it pierce the palace? how intrude
Upon the delicate ear of royalty?

ELLIS.
But sure Count Roderick's service—

KLAUS.
Powerful plea!
He served his country, and his country paid him
The wages of his service. Why but late
A man that in ten several fields had fought
His country's battles, by the hangman's hand
Died like a dog; and for a venial crime—
A deed that could not trouble with one doubt
A dying man! At Lepanto he had shared
The danger of that day whose triumph broke
The Ottoman's power, and this was pleaded for him:
Six months they stretch'd him on the rack of hope,
Then took his life.

ELLIS.
I would I were in England!

KLAUS.
Aye, get thee home again! you islanders
Live uhder such good laws, so mild a sway,
That you are no more fit to dwell abroad
Than a doting mother's favourite to endure
His first school hardships. We in Holland here
Know 'tis as idle to exclaim against
These state oppressions, as with childish tears
To weep in the stone, or any other curse
Wherewith God's wrath afflicts us. And for struggling,
Why 'twould be like an idiot in the gout
Stamping for pain!