he were sick,
Tottering upon the very verge of life,
And old, and blind--

LACY Blind, say you?

OSWALD (coming forward)
Are we Men,
Or own we baby Spirits? Genuine courage
Is not an accidental quality,
A thing dependent for its casual birth
On opposition and impediment.
Wisdom, if Justice speak the word, beats down
The giant's strength; and, at the voice of Justice,
Spares not the worm. The giant and the worm--
She weighs them in one scale. The wiles of woman,
And craft of age, seducing reason, first
Made weakness a protection, and obscured
The moral shapes of things. His tender cries
And helpless innocence--do they protect
The infant lamb? and shall the infirmities,
Which have enabled this enormous Culprit
To perpetrate his crimes, serve as a Sanctuary
To cover him from punishment? Shame!--Justice,
Admitting no resistance, bends alike
The feeble and the strong. She needs not here
Her bonds and chains, which make the mighty feeble.
--We recognise in this old Man a victim
Prepared already for the sacrifice.

LACY By heaven, his words are reason!

OSWALD Yes, my Friends,
His countenance is meek and venerable;
And, by the Mass, to see him at his prayers!--
I am of flesh and blood, and may I perish
When my heart does not ache to think of it!--
Poor Victim! not a virtue under heaven
But what was made an engine to ensnare thee;
But yet I trust, Idonea, thou art safe.

LACY Idonea!

WALLACE How! What? your Idonea?
[To MARMADUKE.]

MARMADUKE _Mine;_
But now no longer mine. You know Lord Clifford;
He is the Man to whom the Maiden--pure
As beautiful, and gentle and benign,
And in her ample heart loving even me--
Was to be yielded up.

LACY Now, by the head
Of my own child, t