Advanc'd his naked rapier 'twixt both sides,
Ript up the quarrel, and compar'd six lives
Then laid in balance with six idle words;
Offer'd remission and contrition too:
Or else that he and D'Ambois might conclude
The others' dangers. D'Ambois lik'd the last:
But Barrisor's friends, (being equally engag'd
In the main quarrel) never would expose
His life alone to that they all deserv❜d.
And (for the other offer of remission)
D'Ambois (that like a laurel put in fire
Sparkled and spit) did much much more than scorn
That his wrong should incense him so like chaff
Το go so soon out, and, like lighted paper,
Approve his spirit at once both fire and ashes:
So drew they lots, and in them fates appointed
That Barrisor should fight with fiery D'Ambois;
Pyrrhot with Melynell; with Brisac L'Anou:
And then like flame and powder they commixt,
So spritely, that I wish'd they had been Spirits;
That the ne'er-shutting wounds, they needs must open,
Might as they open'd shut, and never kill.37
But D'Ambois' sword (that lightned as it flew)
Shot like a pointed comet at the face
Of manly Barrisor; and there it stuck:
Thrice pluck'd he at it, and thrice drew on thrusts
From him, that of himself was free as fire;
Who thrust still, as he pluck'd, yet (past belief)
He with his subtil eye, hand, body, 'scap'd;
At last the deadly bitten point tugg'd off,
On fell his yet undaunted foe so fiercely
That (only made more horrid with his wound)
Great D'Ambois shrunk, and gave a little ground:
But soon return'd, redoubled in his danger,
And at the heart of Barrisor seal'd his anger.
Then, as in Arden I have seen an oak
37 One can hardly believe but that these lines were written after
Milton had described his warring angels,
Long shook with tempests, and his lofty top
Bent to his root, which being at length made loose
(Even groaning with his weight) he 'gan to nod
This way and that, as loth his curled brows
(Which he had oft wrapt in the sky with storms)
Should stoop; and yet, his radical fibres burst,
Storm-like he fell, and hid the fear-cold earth:
So fell stout Barrisor, that had stood the shocks
Of ten set battles in your highness' war
'Gainst the sole soldier of the world Navarre,
Guise. O piteous and horrid murder!
Beaupre. Such a life
Methinks had metal in it to survive
age of men,
Henry. Such often soonest end.
Thy felt report calls on; we long to know
On what events the other have arrived.
Nuntius. Sorrow and fury, like two opposite fumes
Met in the upper region of a cloud,
At the report made by this worthy's fall,
Brake from the earth, and with them rose Revenge,
Ent'ring with fresh pow'rs his two noble friends:
And under that odds fell surcharg❜d Brisac,
The friend of D'Ambois, before fierce L'Anou;
Which D'Ambois seeing as I once did see,
In my young travels through Armenia,
An angry Unicorn in his full career
Charge with too swift a foot a Jeweller
That watcht him for the treasure of his brow;
And, ere he could get shelter of a tree,
Nail him with his rich antler to the earth:
So D'Ambois ran upon reveng'd L'Anou,
Who eyeing th' eager point borne in his face,
And giving back, fell back, and in his fall
His foes uncurbed sword stopt in his heart;
By which time, all the life-strings of th' two other
Were cut, and both fell (as their spirit flew)
Upwards and still hunt honour at the view.
And now, of all the six, sole D'Ambois stood
Untoucht, save only with the others blood.
Henry. All slain outright but he?
Nuntius. All slain outright but he :
Who kneeling in the warm life of his friends
(All freckled with the blood his rapier rain'd)
He kist their pale lips, and bade both farewell.
False Greatness.
As cedars beaten with continual storms,
So great men flourish; and do imitate
Unskilful statuaries, who suppose,
In forming a Colossus, if they make him
Straddle enough, strut, and look big, and gape,
Their work is goodly: so men merely great,
In their affected gravity of voice,
Sowerness of countenance, manners' cruelty,
Authority, wealth, and all the spawn of fortune,
Think they bear all the kingdom's worth before them;
Yet differ not from those Colossick statues,
Which, with heroic forms without o'erspread,
Within are nought but mortar, flint, and lead.
Virtue.-Policy.
as great seamen using all their wealth
And skills in Neptune's deep invisible paths,
In tall ships richly built and ribb'd with brass,
To put a girdle round about the world;
When they have done it, coming near the haven,
Are fain to give a warning piece, and call
poor staid fisherman that never past
His country's sight, to waft and guide them in:
So when we wander furthest through the waves
Of glassy Glory, and the gulfs of State,
Topt with all titles, spreading all our reaches,
As if each private arm would sphere the earth,
We must to Virtue for her guide resort,
Or we shall shipwreck in our safest port.
Nick of Time.
There is a deep nick in Time's restless wheel
For each man's good, when which nick comes, it strikes : As Rhetorick yet works not persuasion,
But only is a mean to make it work:
So no man riseth by his real merit,
But when it cries clink in his Raiser's spirit.
Difference of the English and French Courts.
HENRY. GUISE. MONTSURRY.
Guise. I like not their38 Court fashion, it is too crest-fall'n In all observance, making demigods
Of their great Nobles, and of their old Queen 39
An ever young and most immortal Goddess.
Mont. No question she's the rarest Queen in Europe. Guise. But what's that to her immortality?
Henry. Assure you, cousin Guise; so great a Courtier, So full of majesty and royal parts,
No Queen in Christendom may vaunt herself.
Her Court approves it. That's a Court indeed;
Not mix'd with clowneries us'd in common Houses:
But, as Courts should be, th' abstracts of their kingdoms, In all the beauty, state, and worth they hold.
So is her's amply, and by her inform❜d.
The world is not contracted in a Man,
With more proportion and expression,
Than in her Court her Kingdom. Our French Court
Is a mere mirror of confusion to it.
The King and Subject, Lord and every Slave,
Dance a continual hay. Our rooms of state
Kept like our stables: no place more observ'd
Than a rude market-place; and though our custom
Keep his assur'd confusion from our eyes,
'Tis ne'er the less essentially unsightly.
38 The English. 39 Q. Elizabeth.
Byron described.
he is a man
Of matchless valour, and was ever happy
In all encounters, which were still made good
With an unwearied sense of any toil;
Having continued fourteen days together
Upon his horse: his blood is not voluptuous,
Nor much inclin'd to women; his desires
Are higher than his state; and his deserts
Not much short of the most he can desire,
If they be weigh'd with what France feels by them.
He is past measure glorious: and that humour
Is fit to feed his spirit, whom it possesseth
With faith in any error; chiefly where
Men blow it up with praise of his perfections:
The taste whereof in him so soothes his palate,
And takes up all his appetite, that oft times
He will refuse his meat, and company,
To feast alone with their most strong conceit.
Ambition also cheek by cheek doth march
With that excess of glory, both sustain'd
With an unlimited fancy, that the king,
Nor France itself, without him can subsist.
Men's Glories eclipsed when they turn Traitors.
As when the moon hath comforted the night,
And set the world in silver of her light,
The planets, asterisms, and whole State of Heaven,
In beams of gold descending: all the winds
Bound up in caves, charg'd not to drive abroad
Their cloudy heads: an universal peace
(Proclaim'd in silence) of the quiet earth:
Soon as her hot and dry fumes are let loose,
Storms and clouds mixing suddenly put out
The eyes of all those glories; the creation
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