Enter ROCHFORT and DU CROY.

SCENE I.-A Street before the Court of Justice.
Enter CHARALOIS with a paper, ROMONT, and CHARMI.
Char. Sir, I may move the court to serve your
will;

But therein shall both wrong you and myself.
Rom. Why think you so, sir?

Char. 'Cause I am familiar

With what will be their answer: they will say, 'Tis against law; and argue me of ignorance, For offering them the motion.

Rom. You know not, sir,

How, in this cause, they may dispense with law; And therefore frame not you their answer for them, But do your parts.

Char. I love the cause so well,

As I could run the hazard of a check for't.
Rom. From whom?

Char. Some of the bench, that watch to give it, More than to do the office that they sit for:

Char. I shall deserve this better yet, in giving

My lord some counsel, if he please to hear it,

Than I shall do with pleading.

Rom. What may it be, sir?

[looks,

Rom. Now, sir, lose not this offer'd means; their Fix'd on you with a pitying earnestness, Invite you to demand their furtherance To your good purpose:-this such a dullness, So foolish and untimely, as

Du Croy. You know him?

Roch. I do; and much lament the sudden fall Of his brave house. It is young Charalois, Son to the marshal, from whom he inherits His fame and virtues only.

Rom. Ha! they name you.

Du Croy. His father died in prison two days

since.

presidents

And counsellors of court come by, to stand
Here, and but shew himself, and to some one
Or two, make his request :-there is a minute,
When a man's presence speaks in his own cause,
More than the tongues of twenty advocates.
Rom. I have urged that.

So noble, and so highly meriting
From this forgetful country, should, for want
Of means to satisfy his creditors

The sums he took up for the general good,
Meet with an end so infamous.

Rom. Dare you ever
Hope for like opportunity?

Du Croy. My good lord!

[They salute him as they pass by. Roch. My wish bring comfort to you! Du Croy. The time calls us. Roch. Good morrow, colonel!

[Exeunt RоCHFORT and DU CROY.

Rom. This obstinate spleen, You think, becomes your sorrow, and sorts well With your black suits; but, grant me wit or judgment,

And, by the freedom of an honest man,

And a true friend to boot, I swear 'tis shameful. And therefore flatter not yourself with hope, Your sable habit, with the hat and cloak,

No, though the ribands help, have power to work them

To what you would: for those that had no eyes
To see the great acts of your father, will not,
From any fashion sorrow can put on,
Be taught to know their duties.

Charal. If they will not,

They are too old to learn, and I too young
To give them counsel; since, if they partake
The understanding and the hearts of men,
They will prevent my words and tears: if not,
What can persuasion, though made eloquent
With grief, work upon such as have changed

natures

With the most savage beast? Blest, blest be ever
The memory of that happy age, when justice
Had no guards to keep off wrong'd innocence
From flying to her succours, and, in that,
Assurance of redress! where now, Romont,
The damn'd with more ease may ascend from hell,
Than we arrive at her. One Cerberus there
Forbids the passage, in our courts a thousand,
As loud and fertile-headed; and the client
That wants the sops to fill their ravenous throats,
Must hope for no access: why should I, then,
Attempt impossibilities; you, friend, being
Too well acquainted with my dearth of means
To make my entrance that way?

Rom. Would I were not!

But, sir, you have a cause, a cause so just,
Of such necessity, not to be deferr'd,
As would compel a maid, whose foot was never
Set o'er her father's threshold, nor within
The house where she was born, ever spake word
Which was not usher'd with pure virgin blushes,
To drown the tempest of a pleader's tongue,
And force corruption to give back the hire
It took against her. Let examples move you.
You see men great in birth, esteem, and fortune,
Rather than lose a scruple of their right,
Fawn basely upon such, whose gowns put off,
They would disdain for servants.

Charal. And to these

Can I become a suitor?

Rom. Without loss :

Would you consider, that, to gain their favours,
Our chastest dames put off their modesties,
Soldiers forget their honours, usurers
Make sacrifice of gold, poets of wit,

And men religious part with fame and goodness.
Be therefore won to use the means that may
Advance your pious ends.

Charal. You shall o'ercome.

Rom. And you receive the glory. Pray you now practise.

Charal. 'Tis well.

That talks of nothing but of guns and armour,
And swears he'll be a soldier; 'tis an humour
I would divert him from; and I am told,
That if I minister to him, in his drink,
Powder made of this bankrupt marshal's bones,
Provided that the carcass rot above ground,
'Twill cure his foolish frenzy.

Nov. sen. You shew in it

A father's care. I have a son myself,
A fashionable gentleman, and a peaceful;
And, but I am assured he's not so given,
He should take of it too.

The worst of spirits, that strive to rob the tombs
Of what is their inheritance, the dead :
For usurers, bred by a riotous peace,

That hold the charter of your wealth and freedom
By being knaves and cuckolds; that ne'er pray,
But when you fear the rich heirs will grow wise,
To keep their lands out of your parchment toils;
And then, the devil your father's call'd upon,
To invent some ways of luxury ne'er thought on.
Be gone, and quickly, or I'll leave no room
Upon your foreheads for your horns to sprout on-
Without a murmur, or I will undo you;
For I will beat you honest.

Rom. Think not so, sir:

The difficulties that you encounter with

Will crown the undertaking-heaven! you weep:
And I could do so too, but that I know
There's more expected from the son and friend
Of him whose fatal loss now shakes our natures,
Than sighs or tears, in which a village nurse,
Or cunning strumpet, when her knave is hang'd,
May overcome us. We are men, young lord,
Let us not do like women. To the court,
And there speak like your birth: wake sleeping
Or dare the axe. This is a way will sort [justice,
With what you are: I call you not to that
I will shrink from myself; I will deserve
Your thanks, or suffer with you-O how bravely
That sudden fire of anger shews in you!
Give fuel to it. Since you are on a shelf
Of extreme danger, suffer like yourself.

SCENE II.-The Court of Justice.

[Exeunt.

Du Croy. Which is With honour to dispose the place and power

Of premier president, which this reverend man,
Grave Rochfort, whom for honour's sake I name,
Is purposed to resign; a place, my lords,
In which he hath with such integrity
Perform'd the first and best parts of a judge,
That, as his life transcends all fair examples
Of such as were before him in Dijon,

So it remains to those that shall succeed him,
A precedent they may imitate, but not equal.
Roch. I may not sit to hear this.

Du Croy. Let the love

And thankfulness we are bound to pay to goodness, In this o'ercome your modesty.

Roch. My thanks

For this great favour shall prevent your trouble.
The honourable trust that was imposed
Upon my weakness, since you witness for me
It was not ill discharged, I will not mention;
Nor now, if age had not deprived me of
The little strength I had to govern well
The province that I undertook, forsake it.
Nov. sen. That we could lend you of our years!
Du Croy. Or strength!

Nov. sen. Or, as you are, persuade you to con-
tinue

The noble exercise of your knowing judgment ! Roch. That may not be; nor can your lordships' goodness,

Since your employments have conferr'd upon me
Sufficient wealth, deny the use of it:

And, though old age, when one foot's in the grave,
In many, when all humours else are spent,
Feeds no affection in them, but desire

To add height to the mountain of their riches,
In me it is not so. I rest content
With the honours and estate I now possess:
And, that I may have liberty to use
What heaven, still blessing my poor industry,
Hath made me master of, I pray the court
To ease me of my burthen, that I may
Employ the small remainder of my life
In living well, and learning how to die so.

Enter ROMONT and CHARALOIS.

Rom. See, sir, our advocate.
Du Croy. The court entreats

Your lordship will be pleased to name the man,
Which you would have your successor, and, in me,
All promise to confirm it.

Roch. I embrace it

Char. The cause

We come to offer to your lordships' censure,

Is in itself so noble, that it needs not

Or rhetoric in me that plead, or favour
From your grave lordships, to determine of it;
Since to the praise of your impartial justice
(Which guilty, nay, condemn'd men, dare not
It will erect a trophy of your mercy, [scandal)
Which married to that justice-

The father of this young lord here, my client,
Hath done his country great and faithful service,
Might task me of impertinence, to repeat
What your grave lordships cannot but remember.
He, in his life, became indebted to

These thrifty men, (I will not wrong their credits,
By giving them the attributes they now merit,)
And failing, by the fortune of the wars,

Of means to free himself from his engagements,
He was arrested, and, for want of bail,
Imprison'd at their suit; and, not long after,
With loss of liberty, ended his life.

And, though it be a maxim in our laws,

All suits die with the person, these men's malice In death finds matter for their hate to work on; Denying him the decent rites of burial,

Which the sworn enemies of the Christian faith Grant freely to their slaves. May it therefore please

Your lordships so to fashion your decree,

That, what their cruelty doth forbid, your pity
May give allowance to.

Nov. sen. How long have you, sir,
Practised in court?

Char. Some twenty years, my lord.

Nov. sen. By your gross ignorance, it should Not twenty days.

Char. I hope I have given no cause

In this, my lord.

Nov. sen. How dare you move the court To the dispensing with an act, confirm'd

[appear,

By parliament, to the terror of all bankrupts ?
Go home; and with more care peruse the statutes:
Or the next motion, savouring of this boldness,
May force you, sir, to leap, against your will,
Over the place you plead at.

Char. I foresaw this.

Rom. Why, does your lordship think the moving A cause more honest than this court had ever [of The honour to determine, can deserve

A check like this?

Nov. sen. Strange boldness!

Rom. 'Tis fit freedom:

Or, do you conclude an advocate cannot hold
His credit with the judge, unless he study

His face more than the cause for which he pleads?
Char. Forbear.

Rom. Or cannot you, that have the power

To qualify the rigour of the laws

When you are pleased, take a little from

The strictness of your sour decrees, enacted

In favour of the greedy creditors,

Against the o'erthrown debtor ?

Nov. sen. Sirrah! you that prate Thus saucily, what are you?

Rom. Why, I'll tell thee,

Thou purple-colour'd man! I am one to whom Thou ow'st the means thou hast of sitting there, A corrupt elder.

Char. Forbear.

Nov. sen. Shall such an insolence pass unChar. Hear me.

[punish'd!
Rom. Yet I, that, in my service done my country,
Disdain to be put in the scale with thee,
Confess myself unworthy to be valued
With the least part, nay, hair of the dead marshal;
Of whose so many glorious undertakings,
Make choice of any one, and that the meanest,
Perform'd against the subtle fox of France,
The politic Louis, or the more desperate Swiss,
And 'twill outweigh all the good purposes,
Though put in act, that ever gownman practised.
Nov. sen. Away with him to prison.
Rom. If that curses,

Urged justly, and breath'd forth so, ever fell
On those that did deserve them, let not mine
Be spent in vain now, that thou from this instant
Mayst, in thy fear that they will fall upon thee,
Be sensible of the plagues they shall bring with
And for denying of a little earth
[them.

To cover what remains of our great soldier,
May all your wives prove whores, your factors

thieves,

And, while you live, your riotous heirs undo you!
And thou, the patron of their cruelty,

Of all thy lordships live not to be owner
Of so much dung as will conceal a dog,
Or, what is worse, thyself in ! And thy years,
To th' end thou mayst be wretched, I wish many;
And, as thou hast denied the dead a grave,
May misery in thy life make thee desire one,
Which men and all the elements keep from thee!
-I have begun well; imitate, exceed.

[Aside to CHARALOIS. Roch. Good counsel, were it a praiseworthy [Exeunt Officers with ROMONT. Du Croy. Remember what we are. Charal. Thus low my duty

deed.

Answers your lordship's counsel. I will use,
In the few words with which I am to trouble
Your lordship's ears, the temper that you wish me;
Not that I fear to speak my thoughts as loud,
And with a liberty beyond Romont;
But that I know, for me, that am made up
Of all that's wretched, so to haste my end,
Would seem to most rather a willingness
To quit the burthen of a hopeless life,
Than scorn of death, or duty to the dead.
I, therefore, bring the tribute of my praise
To your severity, and commend the justice
That will not, for the many services
That any man hath done the commonwealth,
Wink at his least of ills. What though my father
Writ man before he was so, and confirm'd it,
By numbering that day no part of his life,
In which he did not service to his country;
Was he to be free, therefore, from the laws
And ceremonious form in your decrees!
Or else, because he did as much as man,
In those three memorable overthrows
At Granson, Morat, Nancy, where his master,
The warlike Charalois, (with whose misfortunes
I bear his name,) lost treasure, men, and life,
To be excused from payment of those sums
Which (his own patrimony spent) his zeal
To serve his country forced him to take up!
Nov. sen. The precedent were ill.
Charal. And yet, my lord, this much,

I know, you'll grant; after those great defeatures,
Which in their dreadful ruins buried quick

Re-enter Officers.

Courage and hope in all men but himself,
He forced the proud foe, in his height of conquest,
To yield unto an honourable peace;
And in it saved an hundred thousand lives,
To end his own, that was sure proof against
The scalding summer's heat, and winter's frost,
Ill airs, the cannon, and the enemy's sword,
In a most loathsome prison.

Du Croy. 'Twas his fault

To be so prodigal.

Nov. sen. He had from the state Sufficient entertainment for the army.

Charal. Sufficient, my lords! You sit at home, And, though your fees are boundless at the bar, Are thrifty in the charges of the war

But your wills be obey'd.

To these I turn,

To these soft-hearted men, that wisely know They're only good men that pay what they owe. 2 Cred. And so they are.

1 Cred. It is the city doctrine: We stand bound to maintain it.

Charal. Be constant in it;

And since you are as merciless in your natures,
As base and mercenary in your means

By which you get your wealth, I will not urge
The court to take away one scruple from

The right of their laws, or [wish] one good thought
In you, to mend your disposition with.

I know there is no music to your ears
So pleasing as the groans of men in prison;
And that the tears of widows, and the cries
Of famish'd orphans, are the feasts that take you.
That to be in your danger, with more care
Should be avoided than infectious air,
The loath'd embraces of diseased women,
A flatterer's poison, or the loss of honour.-
Yet rather than my father's reverend dust
Shall want a place in that fair monument,
In which our noble ancestors lie intomb'd,
Before the court I offer up myself

A prisoner for it. Load me with those irons
That have worn out his life; in my best strength
I'll run to the encounter of cold, hunger,

And choose my dwelling where no sun dares enter, So he may be released.

1 Cred. What mean you, sir?

2 Advo. Only your fee again: there's so much said

Already in this cause, and said so well,

That, should I only offer to speak in it,

I should be or not heard, or laugh'd at for it.

1 Cred. 'Tis the first money advocate e'er gave

Though he said nothing.

Roch. Be advised, young lord,

And well considerate; you throw away
Your liberty and joys of life together:
Your bounty is employ'd upon a subject

[back,

That is not sensible of it, with which wise man Never abused his goodness. The great virtues Of your dead father vindicate themselves

From these men's malice, and break ope the prison, Though it contain his body.

Nov. sen. Let him alone:

If he love cords, in God's name let him wear them; Provided these consent.

Charal. I hope they are not

So ignorant in any way of profit,

As to neglect a possibility

To get their own, by seeking it from that

Which can return them nothing but ill fame, And curses, for their barbarous cruelties.

3 Cred. What think you of the offer?

2 Cred. Very well.

1 Cred. Accept it by all means. Let's shut him up:

He is well shaped, and has a villainous tongue,
And, should he study that way of revenge,
As I dare almost swear he loves a wench,

We have no wives, nor never shall get daughters,
That will hold out against him.
Du Croy. What's your answer?
2 Cred. Speak you for all.

1 Cred. Why, let our executions
That lie upon the father, be returned
Upon the son, and we release the body.
Nov. sen. The court must grant you that.
Charal. I thank your lordships.

They have in it confirm'd on me such glory
As no time can take from me: I am ready,
Come, lead me where you please. Captivity,
That comes with honour, is true liberty.

[Exeunt CHARALOIS, CHARMI, Officers, and Creditors. Nov. sen. Strange rashness !

Roch. A brave resolution rather, Worthy a better fortune: but, however, It is not now to be disputed; therefore To my own cause. Already I have found Your lordships bountiful in your favours to me, And that should teach my modesty to end here, And press your loves no further.

Du Croy. There is nothing

The court can grant, but with assurance you
May ask it, and obtain it.

Roch. You encourage

A bold petitioner, and 'tis not fit

Your favours should be lost: besides, 't'as been
A custom many years, at the surrendering
The place I now give up, to grant the president
One boon, that parted with it: and, to confirm
Your grace towards me, against all such as may
Detract my actions and life hereafter,
I now prefer it to you.

Du Croy. Speak it freely.

Roch. I then desire the liberty of Romont, And that my lord Novall, whose private wrong Was equal to the injury that was done

To the dignity of the court, will pardon it,
And now sign his enlargement.

Nov. sen. Pray you demand

The moiety of my estate, or any thing
Within my power, but this.

Roch. Am I denied then

My first and last request?

Du Croy. It must not be.

2 Pre. I have a voice to give in it.

3 Pre. And I.