f this Trafalgar--
Utter defeat, ay, France's naval death--
Your Emperor bade be hid?

WOMAN

The seer's gift
Has never plenteously endowed me, sir,
As in appearance you. But to plain sense
Thing's seem as stated.

SPIRIT

We'll let seemings be.--
But know, these English take to liquid life
Right patly--nursed therefor in infancy
By rimes and rains which creep into their blood,
Till like seeks like. The sea is their dry land,
And, as on cobbles you, they wayfare there.

WOMAN

Heaven prosper, then, their watery wayfarings
If they'll leave us the land!--[The Imperial carriage appears.]
The Emperor!--
Long live the Emperor!--He's the best by land.

[BONAPARTE'S carriage arrives, without an escort. The street
lamps shine in, and reveal the EMPRESS JOSEPHINE seated beside
him. The plaudits of the people grow boisterous as they hail
him Victor of Austerlitz. The more active run after the carriage,
which turns in from the Rue St. Honore to the Carrousel, and
thence vanishes into the Court of the Tuileries.]

WOMAN

May all success attend his next exploit!

SPIRIT

Namely: to put the knife in England's trade,
And teach her treaty-manners--if he can!

WOMAN

I like not your queer knowledge, creepy man.
There's weirdness in your air. I'd call you ghost
Had not the Goddess Reason laid all such
Past Mother Church's cunning to restore.
--Adieu. I'll not be yours to-night. I'd starve first!

[She withdraws. The crowd wastes away, and the Spirit vanishes.]

SCENE VIII

PUTNEY. BOWLING GREEN HOUSE

[PITT'S bedchamber, from the landing without. It is afternoon.
At the back of the room as seen through the doorway is a curtained
bed, beside which a woman sits, the LADY HESTER STANHOPE. Bending
over a table at the front of the room is SIR WALTER FARQUHAR, the
physician. PARSLOW the footman and another servant are near the
door. TOMLINE, the Bishop of Lincoln, enters.]

FARQUHAR [in a subdued voice]

I grieve to call your lordship up again,
But symptoms lately have disclosed themselves
That mean the knell to the frail life in him.
And whatsoever thing of gravity
It may be needful to communicate,
Let them be spoken now. Time may not serve
If they be much delayed.

TOMLI