te--from four side shutting round--
Capitulated, and with all his force
Laid down his arms before his conqueror!

[PITT's face changes. A silence.]

MULGRAVE

Outrageous! Ignominy unparalleled!

PITT

By God, my lord, these statement must be false!
These foreign prints are trustless as Cheap Jack
Dumfounding yokels at a country fair.
I heed no word of it.--Impossible.
What! Eighty thousand Austrians, nigh in touch
With Russia's levies that Kutuzof leads,
To lay down arms before the war's begun?
'Tis too much!

MALMESBURY

But I fear it is too true!
Note the assevered source of the report--
One beyond thought of minters of mock tales.
The writer adds that military wits
Cry that the little Corporal now makes war
In a new way, using his soldiers' legs
And not their arms, to bring him victory.
Ha-ha! The quip must sting the Corporal's foes.

PITT [after a pause]

O vacillating Prussia! Had she moved,
Had she but planted one foot firmly down,
All this had been averted.--I must go.
'Tis sure, 'tis sure, I labour but in vain!

[MALMESBURY accompanies him to the door, and PITT walks away
disquietedly towards Whitehall, the other two regarding him
as he goes.]

MULGRAVE

Too swiftly he declines to feebleness,
And these things well might shake a stouter frame!

MALMESBURY

Of late the burden of all Europe's cares,
Of hiring and maintaining half her troops,
His single pair of shoulders has upborne,
Thanks to the obstinacy of the King.--
His thin, strained face, his ready irritation,
Are ominous signs. He may not be for long.

MULGRAVE

He alters fast, indeed,--as do events.

MALMESBURY

His labour's lost; and all our money gone!
It looks as if this doughty coalition
On which we have lavished so much pay and pains
Would end in wreck.

MULGRAVE

All is not over yet;
The gathering Russian forces are unbroke.

MALMESBURY

Well; we shall see. Should Boney vanquish these,
And silence all resistance on that side,
His move will then be backward to Boulogne,
And so upon us.

MULGRAVE

Nelson to our defence!

MALMESBURY

Ay; where is Nelson? Faith, by this time
He may be sodden; churned in Biscay swirls;
Or blown to polar bears by boreal gales;
Or sleeping amorously in some calm cave
On the Canaries'