ishments little conceiving how
Scarlet the scroll that the years will unwind!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [to the Spirit of the Years]

Let us put on and suffer for the nonce
The feverish fleshings of Humanity,
And join the pale debaters here convened.
So may thy soul be won to sympathy
By donning their poor mould.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

I'll humour thee,
Though my unpassioned essence could not change
Did I incarn in moulds of all mankind!

SPIRIT IRONIC

'Tis enough to make every little dog in England run to mixen to
hear this Pitt sung so strenuously! I'll be the third of the
incarnate, on the chance of hearing the tune played the other way.

SPIRIT SINISTER

And I the fourth. There's sure to be something in my line toward,
where politicians gathered together!

[The four Phantoms enter the Gallery of the House in the disguise
of ordinary strangers.]

SHERIDAN [rising]

The Bill I would have leave to introduce
Is framed, sir, to repeal last Session's Act,
By party-scribes intituled a Provision
For England's Proper Guard; but elsewhere known
As Mr. Pitt's new Patent Parish Pill. [Laughter.]

The ministerial countenances, I mark,
Congeal to dazed surprise at my straight motion--
Why, passes sane conjecture. It may be
That, with a haughty and unwavering faith
In their own battering-rams of argument,
They deemed our buoyance whelmed, and sapped, and sunk
To our hope's sheer bottom, whence a miracle
Was all could friend and float us; or, maybe,
They are amazed at our rude disrespect
In making mockery of an English Law
Sprung sacred from the King's own Premier's brain!
--I hear them snort; but let them wince at will,
My duty must be done; shall be done quickly
By citing some few facts.

An Act for our defence!
It weakens, not defends; and oversea
Swoln France's despot and his myrmidons
This moment know it, and can scoff thereat.
Our people know it too--those who can peer
Behind the scenes of this poor painted show
Called soldiering!--The Act has failed, must fail,
As my right honourable friend well proved
When speaking t'other night, whose silencing
By his right honourable _vis a vis_
Was of the genuine Governmental sort,
And like the catamarans their sapience shaped
All fizzle and no harm. [Laughter.] The Act, in b