In giving up the place you hold in court, Will prove, I fear, a trouble in the state, And that no slight one.

Roch. Pray you, sir, no more.

[looks,

Rom. Now, sir, lose not this offer'd means; their Fix'd on you with a pitying earnestness, Invite you to demand their furtherance To your good purpose:- this such a dullness, So foolish and untimely, as

Du Croy. You know him?

Roch. I do; and much lament the sudden fall Of his brave house. It is young Charalois, Son to the marshal, from whom he inherits His fame and virtues only.

Rom. Ha! they name you.

Du Croy. His father died in prison two days

since.

Roch. Yes, to the shame of this ungrateful state; That such a master in the art of war,

So noble, and so highly meriting

From this forgetful country, should, for want
Of means to satisfy his creditors

The sums he took up for the general good,
Meet with an end so infamous.

Rom. Dare you ever
Hope for like opportunity?

Du Croy. My good lord!

[They salute him as they pass by. Roch. My wish bring comfort to you! Du Croy. The time calls us. Roch. Good morrow, colonel!

[Exeunt RоCHFORT and DU CROY.

Rom. This obstinate spleen, You think, becomes your sorrow, and sorts well With your black suits; but, grant me wit or judgment,

And, by the freedom of an honest man,

And a true friend to boot, I swear 'tis shameful. And therefore flatter not yourself with hope, Your sable habit, with the hat and cloak,

No, though the ribands help, have power to work them

To what you would: for those that had no eyes
To see the great acts of your father, will not,
From any fashion sorrow can put on,
Be taught to know their duties.

Charal. If they will not,

They are too old to learn, and I too young
To give them counsel; since, if they partake
The understanding and the hearts of men,
They will prevent my words and tears: if not,
What can persuasion, though made eloquent
With grief, work upon such as have changed
natures

With the most savage beast? Blest, blest be ever
The memory of that happy age, when justice
Had no guards to keep off wrong'd innocence
From flying to her succours, and, in that,
Assurance of redress! where now, Romont,
The damn'd with more ease may ascend from hell,
Than we arrive at her. One Cerberus there
Forbids the passage, in our courts a thousand,
As loud and fertile-headed; and the client
That wants the sops to fill their ravenous throats,
Must hope for no access: why should I, then,
Attempt impossibilities; you, friend, being
Too well acquainted with my dearth of means
To make my entrance that way?

Rom. Would I were not!

But, sir, you have a cause, a cause so just,
Of such necessity, not to be deferr'd,
As would compel a maid, whose foot was never
Set o'er her father's threshold, nor within
The house where she was born, ever spake word
Which was not usher'd with pure virgin blushes,
To drown the tempest of a pleader's tongue,
And force corruption to give back the hire
It took against her. Let examples move you.
You see men great in birth, esteem, and fortune,
Rather than lose a scruple of their right,
Fawn basely upon such, whose gowns put off,
They would disdain for servants.

Charal. And to these

Can I become a suitor?

Rom. Without loss:

Would you consider, that, to gain their favours,
Our chastest dames put off their modesties,
Soldiers forget their honours, usurers
Make sacrifice of gold, poets of wit,

And men religious part with fame and goodness.
Be therefore won to use the means that may

Advance your pious ends.

Charal. You shall o'ercome.

Rom. And you receive the glory. Pray you now practise.

Charal. 'Tis well.

Enter NOVALL, senior, Advocates, LILADAM, and three Creditors.

[Tenders his petition.] Not look on me! Rom. You must have patience-

Offer it again.

Charal. And be again contemn'd! Nov. sen. I know what's to be done. 1 Cred. And, that your lordship

Will please to do your knowledge, we offer first Our thankful hearts here, as a bounteous earnest To what we will add.

Nov. sen. One word more of this, I am your enemy. Am I a man Your bribes can work on? ba?

Lilad. Friends, you mistake

[Aside to Cred.

The way to win my lord; he must not hear this,
But I, as one in favour, in his sight

May hearken to you for my profit.-Sir!
Pray hear them.

Nov. sen. It is well.

Lilad. Observe him now.

Nov. sen. Your cause being good, and your proceedings so,

Without corruption I am your friend;
Speak your desires.

2 Cred. Oh, they are charitable;
The marshal stood engaged unto us three

Two hundred thousand crowns, which, by his death,
We are defeated of: for which great loss
We aim at nothing but his rotten flesh;
Nor is that cruelty.

1 Cred. I have a son

That talks of nothing but of guns and armour,
And swears he'll be a soldier; 'tis an humour
I would divert him from; and I am told,
That if I minister to him, in his drink,
Powder made of this bankrupt marshal's bones,
Provided that the carcass rot above ground,
'Twill cure his foolish frenzy.

Nov. sen. You shew in it

A father's care. I have a son myself,
A fashionable gentleman, and a peaceful;
And, but I am assured he's not so given,
He should take of it too.

The worst of spirits, that strive to rob the tombs
Of what is their inheritance, the dead :
For usurers, bred by a riotous peace,

That hold the charter of your wealth and freedom
By being knaves and cuckolds; that ne'er pray,
But when you fear the rich heirs will grow wise,
To keep their lands out of your parchment toils;
And then, the devil your father's call'd upon,
To invent some ways of luxury ne'er thought on.
Be gone, and quickly, or I'll leave no room
Upon your foreheads for your horns to sprout on-
Without a murmur, or I will undo you;
For I will beat you honest.

To what vain purpose do I make my sorrow
Wait on the triumph of their cruelty?

Or teach their pride, from my humility,

To think it has o'ercome? They are determined

What they will do; and it may well become me,
To rob them of the glory they expect
From my submiss entreaties.

Rom. Think not so, sir:

The difficulties that you encounter with

Will crown the undertaking-heaven! you weep:
And I could do so too, but that I know
There's more expected from the son and friend
Of him whose fatal loss now shakes our natures,
Than sighs or tears, in which a village nurse,
Or cunning strumpet, when her knave is hang'd,
May overcome us. We are men, young lord,
Let us not do like women. To the court,
And there speak like your birth: wake sleeping
Or dare the axe. This is a way will sort [justice,
With what you are: I call you not to that
I will shrink from myself; I will deserve
Your thanks, or suffer with you-O how bravely
That sudden fire of anger shews in you!
Give fuel to it. Since you are on a shelf
Of extreme danger, suffer like yourself.

SCENE II-The Court of Justice.

[Exeunt.

Enter RocuFORT, NOVALL senior, Presidents, CHARMI, DU CROY, BEAUMONT, Advocates, three Creditors, and Officers.

Du Croy. Your lordships seated, may this meeting prove

Prosperous to us, and to the general good
Of Burgundy!

Nov. sen. Speak to the point.

Du Croy. Which is

With honour to dispose the place and power
Of premier president, which this reverend man,
Grave Rochfort, whom for honour's sake I name,
Is purposed to resign; a place, my lords,
In which he hath with such integrity
Perform'd the first and best parts of a judge,
That, as his life transcends all fair examples
Of such as were before him in Dijon,

So it remains to those that shall succeed him,
A precedent they may imitate, but not equal.
Roch. I may not sit to hear this.

Du Croy. Let the love

And thankfulness we are bound to pay to goodness, In this o'ercome your modesty.

Roch. My thanks

For this great favour shall prevent your trouble.
The honourable trust that was imposed
Upon my weakness, since you witness for me
It was not ill discharged, I will not mention;
Nor now, if age had not deprived me of
The little strength I had to govern well
The province that I undertook, forsake it.
Nov. sen. That we could lend you of our years!
Du Croy. Or strength!

Nov. sen. Or, as you are, persuade you to con-
tinue

The noble exercise of your knowing judgment ! Roch. That may not be ; nor can your lordships' goodness,

Since your employments have conferr'd upon me
Sufficient wealth, deny the use of it:

And, though old age, when one foot's in the grave,
In many, when all humours else are spent,
Feeds no affection in them, but desire

To add height to the mountain of their riches,
In me it is not so. I rest content
With the honours and estate I now possess:
And, that I may have liberty to use
What heaven, still blessing my poor industry,
Hath made me master of, I pray the court
To ease me of my burthen, that I may
Employ the small remainder of my life
In living well, and learning how to die so.

Enter ROMONT and CHARALOIS.

Rom. See, sir, our advocate.
Du Croy. The court entreats

Your lordship will be pleased to name the man,
Which you would have your successor, and, in me,
All promise to confirm it.

Roch. I embrace it

To say, the late dead

Nov. sen. Speak to the cause. Char. I will, my lord. marshal, The father of this young lord here, my client, Hath done his country great and faithful service, Might task me of impertinence, to repeat What your grave lordships cannot but remember. He, in his life, became indebted to

These thrifty men, (I will not wrong their credits,
By giving them the attributes they now merit,)
And failing, by the fortune of the wars,

Of means to free himself from his engagements,
He was arrested, and, for want of bail,
Imprison'd at their suit; and, not long after,
With loss of liberty, ended his life.

And, though it be a maxim in our laws,

All suits die with the person, these men's malice In death finds matter for their hate to work on; Denying him the decent rites of burial,

Which the sworn enemies of the Christian faith Grant freely to their slaves. May it therefore

please

A check like this?

Nov. sen. Strange boldness!

Rom. 'Tis fit freedom:

Or, do you conclude an advocate cannot hold
His credit with the judge, unless he study

His face more than the cause for which he pleads?
Char. Forbear.

Rom. Or cannot you, that have the power

To qualify the rigour of the laws

When you are pleased, take a little from

The strictness of your sour decrees, enacted

In favour of the greedy creditors,

Against the o'erthrown debtor?

Nov. sen. Sirrah! you that prate Thus saucily, what are you?

Rom. Why, I'll tell thee,

Thou purple-colour'd man! I am one to whom Thou ow'st the means thou hast of sitting there, A corrupt elder.

Char. Forbear.

Rom. The nose thou wear'st is my gift; and those eyes,

That meet no object so base as their master, Had been long since torn from that guilty head, And thou thyself slave to some needy Swiss, Had I not worn a sword, and used it better Than, in thy prayers, thou ever didst thy tongue.

Nov. sen. Shall such an insolence pass un-
Char. Hear me.
[punish'd!
Rom. Yet I, that, in my service done my country,
Disdain to be put in the scale with thee,
Confess myself unworthy to be valued
With the least part, nay, hair of the dead marshal;
Of whose so many glorious undertakings,
Make choice of any one, and that the meanest,
Perform'd against the subtle fox of France,
The politic Louis, or the more desperate Swiss,
And 'twill outweigh all the good purposes,
Though put in act, that ever gownman practised.
Nov. sen. Away with him to prison.
Rom. If that curses,

Urged justly, and breath'd forth so, ever fell
On those that did deserve them, let not mine

Be spent in vain now, that thou from this instant
Mayst, in thy fear that they will fall upon thee,
Be sensible of the plagues they shall bring with
And for denying of a little earth
[them.

To cover what remains of our great soldier,
May all your wives prove whores, your factors
thieves,

And, while you live, your riotous heirs undo you!
And thou, the patron of their cruelty,

Of all thy lordships live not to be owner
Of so much dung as will conceal a dog,
Or, what is worse, thyself in! And thy years,
To th' end thou mayst be wretched, I wish many;
And, as thou hast denied the dead a grave,
May misery in thy life make thee desire one,
Which men and all the elements keep from thee!
-I have begun well; imitate, exceed.

deed.

[Aside to CHARALOIS. Roch. Good counsel, were it a praiseworthy [Exeunt Officers with ROMONT. Du Croy. Remember what we are. Charal. Thus low my duty

Answers your lordship's counsel. I will use, In the few words with which I am to trouble Your lordship's ears, the temper that you wish me; Not that I fear to speak my thoughts as loud, And with a liberty beyond Romont; But that I know, for me, that am made up Of all that's wretched, so to haste my end, Would seem to most rather a willingness To quit the burthen of a hopeless life, Than scorn of death, or duty to the dead. | I, therefore, bring the tribute of my praise To your severity, and commend the justice That will not, for the many services That any man hath done the commonwealth, Wink at his least of ills. What though my father Writ man before he was so, and confirm'd it, By numbering that day no part of his life, In which he did not service to his country; Was he to be free, therefore, from the laws And ceremonious form in your decrees! Or else, because he did as much as man, In those three memorable overthrows At Granson, Morat, Nancy, where his master, The warlike Charalois, (with whose misfortunes I bear his name,) lost treasure, men, and life, To be excused from payment of those sums Which (his own patrimony spent) his zeal To serve his country forced him to take up! Nov, sen. The precedent were ill. Charal. And yet, my lord, this much,

I know, you'll grant; after those great defeatures, Which in their dreadful ruins buried quick