_Muf._ He'll tell you more.

_Dor._ I have heard enough already,
To make me loath thy morals.

_Bend._ [_To_ DOR.] You seem warm;
The good man's zeal perhaps has gone too far.

_Dor._ Not very far; not farther than zeal goes;
Of course a small day's journey short of treason.

_Muf._ By all that's holy, treason was not named:
I spared the emperor's broken vows, to save
The slaves from death, though it was cheating heaven;
But I forgave him that.

_Dor._ And slighted o'er
The wrongs himself sustained in property;
When his bought slaves were seized by force, no loss
Of his considered, and no cost repaid. [_Scornfully._

_Muf._ Not wholly slighted o'er, not absolutely.--
Some modest hints of private wrongs I urged.

_Dor._ Two-thirds of all he said: there he began
To shew the fulness of his heart; there ended.
Some short excursions of a broken vow
He made indeed, but flat insipid stuff;
But, when he made his loss the theme, he flourished,
Relieved his fainting rhetoric with new figures,
And thundered at oppressing tyranny.

_Muf._ Why not, when sacrilegious power would seize
My property? 'tis an affront to heaven,
Whose person, though unworthy, I sustain.

_Dor._ You've made such strong alliances above,
That 'twere profaneness in us laity
To offer earthly aid.
I tell thee, Mufti, if the world were wise,
They would not wag one finger in your quarrels.
Your heaven you promise, but our earth you covet;
The Phaetons of mankind, who fire that world,
Which you were sent by preaching but to warm.

_Bend._ This goes beyond the mark.

_Muf._ No, let him rail;
His prophet works within him;
He's a rare convert.

_Dor._ Now his zeal yearns
To see me burned; he damns me from his church,
Because I would restrain him to his duty.--
Is not the care of souls a load sufficient?
Are not your holy stipends paid for this?
Were you not bred apart from worldly noise,
To study souls, their cures and their diseases?
If this be so, we ask you but our own:
Give us your whole employment, all your care.
The province of the soul is large enough
To fill up every cranny of your time,
And leave you much to answer, if one wretch
Be damned by your neglect.

_Bend._ [_To the_ MUFTI.] He speaks but reason.

_Dor._ Why, then, these foreign thoughts of state-employments,
Abhorrent to your function and your breedings?
Poor droning truants of unpractised cells,
Bred in the fellowship of bearded boys,
What wonder