Act 3 — ACT III.

The Scene is a View of Dover, taken from the Sea. A row of Cliffs fill up each Side of the Stage, and the Sea the middle of it, which runs into the Pier; Beyond the Pier, is the town of Dover; On each side of the Town, is seen a very high hill; on one of which is the Castle of Dover; on the other, the great stone which they call the Devil's-Drop. Behind the Town several Hills are seen at a great distance, which finish the View.

Enter Albion bare-headed; Acacia or Innocence with him.

Alb. Behold, ye powers! from whom I own A birth immortal, and a throne; See a sacred king uncrowned, See your offspring, Albion, bound; The gifts, you gave with lavish hand, Are all bestowed in vain; Extended empire on the land, Unbounded o'er the main.

Aca. Empire o'er the land and main, Heaven, that gave, can take again; But a mind, that's truly brave, 255 Stands despising Storms arising, And can ne'er be made a slave.

Alb. Unhelped I am, who pitied the distressed, And, none oppressing, am by all oppressed; Betrayed, forsaken, and of hope bereft.

Aca. Yet still the gods, and Innocence are left.

Alb. Ah! what canst thou avail, Against rebellion armed with zeal, And faced with public good? O monarchs, see Your fate in me! To rule by love, To shed no blood, May be extolled above; But here below, Let princes know, 'Tis fatal to be good.

Chorus of both. To rule by love, &c.

Aca. Your father Neptune, from the seas, Has Nereids and blue Tritons sent, To charm your discontent.

Nereids rise out of the Sea, and sing; Tritons dance.

From the low palace of old father Ocean, Come we in pity your cares to deplore; Sea-racing dolphins are trained for our motion, Moony tides swelling to roll us ashore.

II.

Every nymph of the flood, her tresses rending, Throws off her armlet of pearl in the main; Neptune in anguish his charge unattending, Vessels are foundering, and vows are in vain.

256 Enter Tyranny, Democracy, represented by Men, attended by Asebia and Zelota, Women.

Tyr. Ha, ha! 'tis what so long I wished and vowed: Our plots and delusions Have wrought such confusions, That the monarch's a slave to the crowd.

Dem. A design we fomented,—

Tyr. By hell it was new!

Dem. A false plot invented,—

Tyr. To cover a true.

Dem. First with promised faith we flattered.

Tyr. Then jealousies and fears we scattered.

Aseb. We never valued right and wrong, But as they served our cause.

Zel. Our business was to please the throng, And court their wild applause;

Aseb. For this we bribed the lawyer's tongue. And then destroyed the laws.

Cho. For this, &c.

Tyr. To make him safe, we made his friends our prey;

Dem. To make him great, we scorned his royal sway,—

Tyr. And to confirm his crown, we took his heir away.

Dem. To encrease his store, We kept him poor;

Tyr. And when to wants we had betrayed him, To keep him low, Pronounced a foe, Whoe'er presumed to aid him.

Aseb. But you forget the noblest part, And master piece of all your art,— You told him he was sick at heart.

Zel. And when you could not work belief In Albion of the imagined grief; 257 Your perjured vouchers, in a breath, Made oath, that he was sick to death; And then five hundred quacks of skill Resolved, 'twas fit he should be ill.

Aseb. Now hey for a common-wealth, We merrily drink and sing! 'Tis to the nation's health, For every man's a king.

Zel. Then let the mask begin, The Saints advance, To fill the dance, And the Property Boys come in.

The Boys in white begin a Fantastic Dance[4].

Cho. Let the saints ascend the throne.

Dem. Saints have wives, and wives have preachers, Gifted men, and able teachers; These to get, and those to own.

Cho. Let the saints ascend the throne.

Aseb. Freedom is a bait alluring; Them betraying, us securing, 258 While to sovereign power we soar.

Zel. Old delusions, new repeated, Shews them born but to be cheated, As their fathers were before.

Six Sectaries begin a formal affected Dance; the two gravest whisper the other four, and draw them into the Plot; they pull out and deliver Libels to them, which they receive.

Dem. See friendless Albion there alone, Without defence But innocence; Albanius now is gone.

Tyr. Say then, what must be done?

Dem. The gods have put him in our hand[5].

Zel. He must be slain.

Tyr. But who shall then command?

Dem. The people; for the right returns to those. Who did the trust impose.

Tyr. 'Tis fit another sun should rise, To cheer the world, and light the skies.

Dem. But when the sun His race has run, And neither cheers the world, nor lights the skies, 'Tis fit a common-wealth of stars should rise.

Aseb. Each noble vice Shall bear a price, And virtue shall a drug become; An empty name Was all her fame, But now she shall be dumb.

Zel. If open vice be what you drive at, A name so broad we'll ne'er connive at. 259 Saints love vice, but, more refinedly, Keep her close, and use her kindly.

Tyr. Fall on.

Dem. Fall on; e'er Albion's death, we'll try, If one or many shall his room supply.

The White Boys dance about the Saints; the Saints draw out the Association, and offer it to them; they refuse it, and quarrel about it; then the White Boys and Saints fall into a confused dance, imitating fighting. The White Boys, at the end of the dance, being driven out by the Sectaries, with Protestant Flails.[6]

Alb. See the gods my cause defending, When all human help was past!

Acac. Factions mutually contending, By each other fall at last.

Alb. But is not yonder Proteus' cave, Below that steep, Which rising billows brave?

Acac. It is; and in it lies the god asleep; And snorting by, We may descry The monsters of the deep.

Alb. He knows the past, And can resolve the future too.

Acac. 'Tis true! 260 But hold him fast, For he can change his hue.[7]

The Cave of Proteus rises out of the Sea; it consists of several arches of Rock-work adorned with mother-of-pearl, coral, and abundance of shells of various kinds. Through the arches is seen the Sea, and parts of Dover-pier; in the middle of the Cave is Proteus asleep on a rock adorned with shells, &c. like the Cave. Albion and Acacia seize on him; and while a symphony is playing, he sinks as they are bringing him forward, and changes himself into a Lion, a Crocodile, a Dragon, and then to his own shape again; he comes forward to the front of the stage, and sings.

SYMPHONY.

Pro. Albion, loved of gods and men, Prince of peace, too mildly reigning, Cease thy sorrow and complaining; Thou shall be restored again: Albion, loved of gods and men.

II.

Still thou art the care of heaven, In thy youth to exile driven; Heaven thy ruin then prevented, 'Till the guilty land repented. In thy age, when none could aid thee, Foes conspired, and friends betrayed thee; To the brink of danger driven, Still thou art the care of heaven.

261 Alb. To whom shall I my preservation owe?

Pro. Ask me no more; for 'tis by Neptune's foe.[8]

Proteus descends.

Democracy and Zelota return with their faction.

Dem. Our seeming friends, who joined alone, To pull down one, and build another throne, Are all dispersed and gone; We brave republic souls remain.

Zel. And 'tis by us that Albion must be slain; Say, whom shall we employ The tyrant to destroy?

Dem. That Archer is by fate designed, With one eye clear, and t'other blind.

Zel. He comes inspired to do't.

Omnes. Shoot, holy Cyclop, shoot.

The one-eyed Archer advances, the rest follow. A fire arises betwixt them and Albion.[9]

[Ritornel.

Dem. Lo! heaven and earth combine To blast our bold design. What miracles are shewn! 262 Nature's alarmed, And fires are armed, To guard the sacred throne.

Zel. What help, when jarring elements conspire, To punish our audacious crimes? Retreat betimes, To shun the avenging fire.

Chor. To shun the avenging fire.[Ritor.

263 As they are going back, a fire arises from behind; they all sink together.[10]

Alb. Let our tuneful accents upwards move, Till they reach the vaulted arch of those above; Let us adore them; Let us fall before them.

264 Acac. Kings they made, and kings they love. When they protect a rightful monarch's reign, The gods in heaven, the gods on earth maintain.

Both. When they protect, &c.

Alb. But see, what glories gild the main!

Acac. Bright Venus brings Albanius back again, With all the Loves and Graces in her train.

A machine rises out of the sea; it opens, and discovers Venus and Albanius sitting in a great scallop-shell, richly adorned. Venus is attended by the Loves and Graces, Albanius by Heroes; the shell is drawn by dolphins; it moves forward, while a symphony of flutes-doux, &c. is playing, till it lands them on the stage, and then it closes and sinks.

Venus sings.

Albion, hail! the gods present thee All the richest of their treasures, Peace and pleasures, To content thee, Dancing their eternal measures. [Graces and Loves dance an entry.

Venus. But, above all human blessing, Take a warlike loyal brother, Never prince had such another; Conduct, courage, truth expressing, All heroic worth possessing. [Here the Heroes' dance is performed.

Chor. of all. But above all, &c.[Ritor.

Whilst a Symphony is playing, a very large, and a very glorious Machine descends; the figure of it oval, all the clouds shining with gold, abundance of Angels and Cherubins flying about them, and playing in them; in the midst of it sits Apollo on a throne of gold; he comes from the machine to Albion.

265 Phœb. From Jove's imperial court, Where all the gods resort, In awful counsel met, Surprising news I bear; Albion the great Must change his seat, For he is adopted there.

Venus. What stars above shall we displace? Where shall he fill a room divine?

Nept. Descended from the sea-gods' race, Let him by my Orion shine.

Phœb. No, not by that tempestuous sign; Betwixt the Balance and the Maid, The just, August, And peaceful shade, Shall shine in heaven with beams displayed, While great Albanius is on earth obeyed.

Venus. Albanius, lord of land and main, Shall with fraternal virtues reign; And add his own, To fill the throne; Adored and feared, and loved no less; In war victorious, mild in peace, The joy of man, and Jove's increase.

Acac. O thou! who mountest the æthereal throne, Be kind and happy to thy own; Now Albion is come, The people of the sky Run gazing, and cry,—Make room, Make room, make room, Make room for our new deity!

Here Albion mounts the machine, which moves upward slowly.

A full chorus of all that Acacia sung.

266 Ven. Behold what triumphs are prepared to grace Thy glorious race, Where love and honour claim an equal place; Already they are fixed by fate, And only ripening ages wait.

The Scene changes to a Walk of very high trees; at the end of the Walk is a view of that part of Windsor, which faces Eton; in the midst of it is a row of small trees, which lead to the Castle-Hill. In the first scene, part of the Town and part of the Hill. In the next, the Terrace Walk, the King's lodgings, and the upper part of St George's chapel, then the keep; and, lastly, that part of the Castle beyond the keep.

In the air is a vision of the Honours of the Garter; the Knights in procession, and the King under a canopy; beyond this, the upper end of St George's hall.

Fame rises out of the middle of the Stage, standing on a Globe, on which is the Arms of England: the Globe rests on a Pedestal; on the front of the Pedestal in drawn a Man with a long, lean, pale face, with fiends' wings, and snakes twisted round his body; he is encompassed by several fanatical rebellious heads, who suck poison from him, which runs out of a tap in his side.[11]

267 Fame. Renown, assume thy trumpet! From pole to pole resounding Great Albion's name; Great Albion's name shall be The theme of Fame, shall be great Albion's name, Great Albion's name, great Albion's name. Record the garter's glory; A badge for heroes, and for kings to bear; For kings to bear! And swell the immortal story, With songs of Gods, and fit for Gods to hear; And swell the immortal story, With songs of Gods, and fit for Gods to hear; For Gods to hear.

A full Chorus of all the Voices and Instruments; trumpets and hautboys make Ritornello's of all Fame sings; and twenty-four Dancers, all the time in a chorus, and dance to the end of the Opera.

Footnotes:

The reader must recollect the orders of the Rump parliament to general Monk, to destroy the gates and portcullises of the city of London; which commission, by the bye, he actually executed, with all the forms of contempt, although, in a day or two after, he took up his quarters in the city, apologized for what had passed, and declared against the parliament.

Dr. Titus Oates, the principal witness to the Popish Plot, was accused of unnatural and infamous crimes. He was certainly a most ineffably impudent, perjured villain.

The Chacon is supposed by Sir John Hawkins to be of Moorish or Saracenic origin. "The characteristic of the Chacone is a bass, or ground, consisting of four measures, wherein three crotchets make the bar, and the repetition thereof with variations in the several parts, from the beginning to the end of the air, which in respect of its length, has no limit but the discretion of the composer. The whole of the twelfth sonata of the second opera of Corelli is a Chacone." Hist. of Music, vol. iv. p. 388. There is also, I am informed, a very celebrated Chacon composed by Jomelli.

By the White Boys or Property Boys, are meant the adherents of the Duke of Monmouth, who affected great zeal for liberty and property, and assumed white badges, as marks of the innocence of their intentions. When the Duke came to the famous Parliament held at Oxford, "he was met by about 100 Batchellors all in white, except black velvet caps, with white wands in their hands, who divided themselves, and marched as a guard to his person." Account of the Life of the Duke of Monmouth, p. 107. In the Duke's tour through the west of England, he was met at Exeter, by "a brave company of brisk stout young men, all cloathed in linen waistcoats and drawers, white and harmless, having not so much as a stick in their hands; they were in number about 900 or 1000." ibid. p. 103. See the notes on Absalom and Achitophel. The saints, on the other hand, mean the ancient republican zealots and fanatics, who, though they would willingly have joined in the destruction of Charles, did not wish that Monmouth should succeed him, but aimed at the restoration of the commonwealth. Hence the following dispute betwixt Tyranny and Democracy.

The atrocious and blasphemous sentiment in the text was actually used by the fanatics who murdered Sharpe, the archbishop of St Andrews. When they unexpectedly met him during their search for another person, they exclaimed, that "the Lord had delivered him into their hands."

It is easy to believe, that, whatever was the, nature of the schemes nourished by Monmouth, Russel, and Essex, they could have no concern with the low and sanguinary cabal of Ramsay, Walcot, and Rumbold, who were all of them old republican officers and commonwealth's men. The flight of Shaftesbury, whose bustling and politic brain had rendered him the sole channel of communication betwixt these parties, as well as the means of uniting them in one common design, threw loose all connection between them; so that each, after his retreat, seems to have acted independantly of, and often in contradiction to the other.

The reader may judge, whether some distant and obscure allusion to the trimming politics of Halifax, to whom the Duke of York, our author's patron, was hostile, may not be here insinuated. During the stormy session of his two last parliaments, Charles was much guided by his temporising and camelion-like policy.

That is by fire. See next note.

The allegory of the one-eyed Archer, and the fire arising betwixt him and Albion, will be made evident by the following extracts from Sprat's history of the Conspiracy. In enumerating the persons engaged in the Rye-house plot, he mentions "Richard Rumbold, maltster, an old army officer, a desperate and bloody Ravaillac." After agitating several schemes for assassinating Charles, the Rye-house was fixed upon as a spot which the king must necessarily pass in his journey trom Newmarket, and which, being a solitary moated house, in the actual occupation of Rumbold, afforded the conspirators facility of previous concealment and subsequent defence. "All other propositions, as subject to far more casualties and hazards, soon gave place to that of the Rye, in Herefordshire, a house then inhabited by the foresaid Richard Rumbold, who proposed that to be the seat of the action, offering himself to command the party, that was to do the work. Him, therefore, as the most daring captain, and by reason of a blemish in one of his eyes, they were afterwards wont, in common discourse, to call Hannibal; often drinking healths to Hannibal and his boys, meaning Rumbold and his hellish crew. "Immediately upon the coaches coming within the gates and hedges about the house, the conspirators were to divide into several parties; some before, in the habit of labourers, were to overthrow a cart in the narrowest passage, so as to prevent all possibility of escape: others were to fight the guards, Walcot chusing that part upon a punctilio of honour; others were to shoot at the coachman, postillion, and horses; others to aim only at his Majesty's coach, which party was to be under the particular direction of Rumbold himself; the villain declaring beforehand, that, upon that occasion, he would make use of a very good blunderbuss, which was in West's possession, and blasphemously adding, that Ferguson should first consecrate it." ... "But whilst they were thus wholly intent on this barbarous work, and proceeded securely in its contrivance without any the least doubt of a prosperous success, behold! on a sudden, God miraculously disappointed all their hopes and designs, by the terrible conflagration unexpectedly breaking out at Newmarket. In which extraordinary event there was one remarkable passage, that is not so generally taken notice of, as, for the glory of God, and the confusion of his Majesty's enemies, it ought to be. "For, after that the approaching fury of the flames had driven the king out of his own palace, his Majesty, at first, removed into another quarter of the town, remote from the fire, and, as yet, free from any annoyance of smoke and ashes. There his Majesty, finding he might be tolerably well accommodated, had resolved to stay, and continue his recreations as before, till the day first named for his journey back to London. But his Majesty had no sooner made that resolution, when the wind, as conducted by an invisible power from above, presently changed about, and blew the smoke and cinders directly on his new lodging, making them in a moment as untenable as the other. Upon this, his Majesty being put to a new shift, and not finding the like conveniency elsewhere, immediately declared, he would speedily return to Whitehall, as he did; which happening to be several days before the assassins expected him, or their preparations for the Rye were in readiness, it may justly give occasion to all the world to acknowledge, what one of the very conspirators could not but do, that it was a providential fire."—Pages 51 et seq. The proprietor of the Rye-house (for Rumbold was but a tenant) shocked at the intended purpose, for which it was to have been used, is said to have fired it with his own hand. This is the subject of a poem, called the Loyal Incendiary, or the generous Boute-feu.

The total ruin of those, who were directly involved in the Rye-house, was little to be regretted, had it not involved the fate of those who were pursuing reform, by means more manly and constitutional,—the fate of Russel, Essex, and Sidney. Rumbold, "the one-eyed archer," fled to Holland, and came to Scotland with Argyle, on his ill-concerted expedition. He was singled out and pursued, after the dispersion of his companions in a skirmish. He defended himself with desperate resolution against two armed peasants, till a third, coming behind him with a pitch-fork, turned off his head-piece, when he was cut down and made prisoner, exclaiming, "Cruel countryman, to use me thus, while my face was to mine enemy." He suffered the doom of a traitor at Edinburgh, and maintained on the scaffold, with inflexible firmness, the principles in which he had lived. He could never believe, he said, that the many of human kind came into the world bridled and saddled, and the few with whips and spurs to ride them. "His rooted ingrained opinion, says Fountainhall, was for a republic against monarchy, to pull down which he thought a duty, and no sin." At his death, he declared, that were every hair of his head a man, he would venture them all in the good old cause.

"I must not," says Langbaine, "take the pains to acquaint my reader, that by the man on the pedestal, &c. is meant the late Lord Shaftesbury. I shall not pretend to pass my censure, whether he deserved this usage from our author or no, but leave it to the judgments of statesmen and politicians." Shaftesbury having been overturned in a carriage, received some internal injury which required a constant discharge by an issue in his side. Hence he was ridiculed under the name of Tapski. In a mock account of an apparition, stated to have appeared to Lady Gray, it says, "Bid Lord Shaftesbury have a care to his spigot—if he is tapt, all the plot will run out." Ralph's History, vol. i. p. 562. from a pamphlet in Lord Somers' collection. There are various allusions to this circumstance in the lampoons of the time. A satire called "The Hypocrite," written by Carryl, concludes thus: His body thus and soul together vie. In vice's empire for the sovereignty; In ulcers shut this does abound in sin, Lazar without and Lucifer within. The silver pipe is no sufficient drain For the corruption of this little man; Who, though he ulcers have in every part, Is no where so corrupt as in his heart. At length, in prosecution of this coarse and unhandsome jest, a sort of vessel with a turn-cock was constructed for holding wine, which was called a Shaftesbury, and used in the taverns of the royal party.

268

EPILOGUE

Footnote:

From this Epilogue we learn, what is confirmed by many proofs elsewhere, that the attribute for which James desired to be distinguished and praised, was that of openness of purpose, and stern undeviating inflexibility of conduct. He scorned to disguise his designs, either upon the religion or the constitution of his country. He forgot that it was only the temporising concessions of his brother which secured his way to the throne, when his exclusion, or a civil war, seemed the only alternatives. His brother was the reed, which bent before the whirlwind, and recovered its erect posture when it had passed away; and James, the inflexible oak, which the first tempest rooted up for ever.

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