reed.

_Enter the Duke of_ GUISE, _Cardinal of_ GUISE, AUMALE: _Torches
before them. The Duke takes the Chair._

_Buss._ Your highness enters in a lucky hour;
The unanimous vote you heard, confirms your choice.
As head of Paris and the Holy League.

_Card._ I say amen to that.

_Pol._ You are our champion, buckler of our faith.

_Card._ The king, like Saul, is heaven's repented choice;
You his anointed one, on better thought.

_Gui._ I'm what you please to call me; any thing,
Lieutenant-general, chief, or constable,
Good decent names, that only mean--your slave.

_Buss._ You chased the Germans hence, exiled Navarre,
And rescued France from heretics and strangers.

_Aum._ What he, and all of us have done, is known.
What's our reward? Our offices are lost,
Turned out, like laboured oxen after harvest,
To the bare commons of the withered field.

_Buss._ Our charters will go next; because we sheriffs
Permit no justice to be done on those
The court calls rebels, but we call them saints.

_Gui._ Yes; we are all involved, as heads, or parties;
Dipt in the noisy crime of state, called treason;
And traitors we must be, to king, or country.

_Buss._ Why then my choice is made.

_Pol._ And mine.

_Omn._ And all.

_Card._ Heaven is itself head of the Holy League;
And all the saints are cov'nanters and Guisards.

_Gui._ What say you, curate?

_Cur._ I hope well, my lord.

_Card._ That is, he hopes you mean to make him abbot,
And he deserves your care of his preferment;
For all his prayers are curses on the government,
And all his sermons libels on the king;
In short, a pious, hearty, factious priest.

_Gui._ All that are here, my friends, shall share my fortunes:
There's spoil, preferments, wealth enough in France;
'Tis but deserve, and have. The Spanish king
Consigns me fifty thousand crowns a-week
To raise, and to foment a civil war.
'Tis true, a pension, from a foreign prince,
Sounds treason in the letter of the law,
But good intentions justify the deed.

_Cur._ Heaven's good; the cause is good; the money's good;
No matter whence it comes.

_Buss._ Our city-bands are twenty thousand strong,
Well-disciplined, well-armed, well-seasoned traitors,
Thick-rinded heads, that leave no room for kernel;
Shop-consciences, of proof against an oath,
Preached up, and ready tined for a rebellion[1].

_Gui._ Why then the noble plot is fit for birth;
And labouring France cries out for midwife hands.
We mi