ecede into the
films of night, and the point of observation shifts rapidly
across the Channel.]

SCENE IV

THE HARBOUR OF BOULOGNE

[The morning breaks, radiant with early sunlight. The French
Army of Invasion is disclosed. On the hills on either side
of the town and behind appear large military camps formed of
timber huts. Lower down are other camps of more or less
permanent kind, the whole affording accommodation for one
hundred and fifty thousand men.

South of the town is an extensive basin surrounded by quays,
the heaps of fresh soil around showing it to be a recent
excavation from the banks of the Liane. The basin is crowded
with the flotilla, consisting of hundreds of vessels of sundry
kinds: flat-bottomed brigs with guns and two masts; boats of
one mast, carrying each an artillery waggon, two guns, and a
two-stalled horse-box; transports with three low masts; and
long narrow pinnaces arranged for many oars.

Timber, saw-mills, and new-cut planks spread in profusion
around, and many of the town residences are seen to be adapted
for warehouses and infirmaries.]

DUMB SHOW

Moving in this scene are countless companies of soldiery, engaged
in a drill practice of embarking and disembarking, and of hoisting
horses into the vessels and landing them again. Vehicles bearing
provisions of many sorts load and unload before the temporary
warehouses. Further off, on the open land, bodies of troops are at
field-drill. Other bodies of soldiers, half stripped and encrusted
with mud, are labouring as navvies in repairing the excavations.

An English squadron of about twenty sail, comprising a ship or two of
the line, frigates, brigs, and luggers, confronts the busy spectacle
from the sea.

The Show presently dims and becomes broken, till only its flashes and
gleams are visible. Anon a curtain of cloud closes over it.

SCENE V

LONDON. THE HOUSE OF A LADY OF QUALITY

[A fashionable crowd is present at an evening party, which
includes the DUKES of BEAUFORT and RUTLAND, LORDS MALMESBURY,
HARROWBY, ELDON, GRENVILLE, CASTLEREAGH, SIDMOUTH, and MULGRAVE,
with their ladies; also CANNING, PERCEVAL, TOWNSHEND, LADY
ANNE HAMILTON, MRS. DAMER, LADY CAROLINE LAMB, and many other
notables.]

A GENTLEMAN [offering his snuff-box]

So, then, the Treaty anxiously conce