Which the remunerating Angel draws
From the eternal fountain of delight,
To pour on blessed souls that enter Heaven.
I feel this :-I!-How must my nature, then,
Revolt at him who seeks to stain his hand
In human blood!-and yet, it seems, this day
I sought your life.-Oh! I have suffered madness!
None know my tortures,-pangs!—But I can end them;
End them as far as appertains to thee.-
I have resolved it.-Fearful struggles tear me:
But I have pondered on't,—and I must trust thee.
Wilf. Your confidence shall not be-
Wilf. Swear, sir!—will nothing but an oath, then-
Sir E.
May all the ills that wait on frail humanity
Be doubled on your head, if you disclose
My fatal secret! May your body turn
Most lazar-like and loathsome; and your mind
More loathsome than your body! May those fiends,
Who strangle babes for very wantonness,
Shrink back, and shudder at your monstrous crimes,
And, shrinking, curse you! Palsies strike your youth!
And the sharp terrors of a guilty mind
Poison your aged days! while all your nights,
As on the earth you lay your houseless head,
Out-horror horror! May you quit the world
Abhorred, self-hated, hopeless for the next,
Your life a burden, and your death a fear!
Wilf. For mercy's sake, forbear! you terrify me!
Sir E. Hope this may fall upon thee:-swear thou hopest it, By every attribute which heaven or earth
Can lend, to bind and strengthen conjuration,
Wilf. (After a pause.) I swear, by all the ties that bind a man, Divine or human, -never to divulge!
Sir E. Remember, you have sought this secret :Extorted it. I have not thrust it on you. 'Tis big with danger to you; and to me,
While I prepare to speak, torment unutterable.
Know, Wilford, that- -O torture!
Wilf.
Collect yourself. This shakes you horribly:
You had this treinbling, it is scarce a week,
At Madam Helen's.
Sir E. Him. She knows it not;-none know it
You are the first ordained to hear me say, -his murderer!
Wilf. What! you that-mur-the murderer-I am choked! Sir E. Honour! thou blood-stained god! at whose red altar Sit war and homicide: O! to what madness
Will insult drive thy votaries. In truth,
In the world's range, there does not breathe a man
Whose brutal nature I more strove to soothe
With long forbearance, kindness, courtesy,
Than his who fell by me. But he disgraced me,
Stained me-Oh, death and shame!-the world looked on,
And saw this sinewy savage strike me down,
Rain blows upon me, drag me to and fro,
On the base earth, like carrion. Desperation,
In every fibre of my brain, cried Vengeance!
I left the room which he had quitted. Chance,
(Curse on the chance!) while boiling with my wrongs,
Thrust me against him, darkling, in the street-
I stabbed him to the heart- -and my oppressor
Rolled lifeless at my foot.
How could this deed be covered?
Sir E.
E'en at the moment when I gave the blow,
Butchered a fellow-creature in the dark,
I had all good men's love. But my disgrace,
And my opponent's death thus linked with it,
Demanded notice of the magistracy.
They summoned me, as friend would summon friend,
To act of import and communication.
We met and 'twas resolved, to stifle rumour,
To put me on my trial. No accuser,
No evidence appeared, to urge it on-
'Twas meant to clear my fame.
How cover it? you say.-Why, by a lie—
Guilt's offspring, and its guard. I taught this breast,
Which Truth once made her throne, to forge a lie,
This tongue to utter it;-rounded a tale,
Smooth as a seraph's song from Satan's mouth;
So well compacted, that the o'erthronged court
Disturbed cool Justice in her judgment-scat,
By shouting "Innocence!" Ere I had finished,
The court enlarged me; and the giddy rabble
Bore me, in triumph, home. Ay!-look upon me.
I know thy sight aches at me.
Wilf. Heaven forgive you! It may be wrong-
Indeed I pity you.
I disdain all pity.—
I ask no consolation. Idle boy!
Think'st thou that this compulsive confidence
Was given to move thy pity ?-Love of fame
(For still I cling to it) has urged me, thus
To quash thy curious mischief in its birth.
Hurt honour, in an evil, cursed hour,
Drove me to murder-lying :-'twould again!
My honesty, sweet peace of mind,—all, all,
Are bartered for a name. I will maintain it.-
Should Slander whisper o'er my sepulchre,
And my soul's agency survive in death,
I could embody it with heaven's lightning,
And the hot shaft of my insulted spirit
Should strike the blaster of my memory
Dead, in the churchyard. Boy, I would not kill thee;
Thy rashness and discernment threatened danger!
To check them, there was no way left but this-
Save one-your death:-you shall not be my victim.
Wilf. My death! What, take my life?-My life! to prop
This empty honour?
Empty? Grovelling fool!
Wilf. I am your servant, sir, child of your bounty,
And know my obligation. I have been
Too curious, haply: 'tis the fault of youth-
I ne'er meant injury: if it would serve you,
I would lay down my life; I'd give it freely:
Could you then have the heart to rob me of it?
You could not-should not.
Wilf. Some hours ago, you durst not.
Reflection interposed, and held your arm.
But, should reflection prompt you to attempt it,
My innocence would give me strength to struggle,
And wrest the murderous weapon from your hand.
How would you look to find a peasant boy
Return the knife you levelled at his heart;
And ask you which in heaven would show the best,
A rich man's honour, or a poor man's honesty ?
[Mary Russell Mitford was a native of Alresford, Hants, where she was born in 1789. Her first prose sketches appeared in the annuals. The rural sketches afterwards published (1832) in two volumes, under the title of "Our Village," originally appeared in "The Ladies' Magazine." Her tragedies, "Julian,"
"Foscari," "Charles I.," and "Rienzi," evince the highest intellectual power. She died 1855, in her 77th year.]
Methinks this high solemnity might well
Have claimed thy presence. A great ruler's heir
Should be familiar in the people's eyes;
Live on their tongues; take root within their hearts:
Win woman's smiles by honest courtesy,
And force man's tardier praise by bold desert;
So, when the chief shall die, the general love
May hail his successor.
Ang. I have not seen her.-Tribune!—
Thou wav'st away the word with such a scorn
As I poured poison in thine ear.-Already
Dost weary of the title?
Rie. Wherefore should I?
Ang. Thou art ambitious.
Rie. Granted.
Ang. And wouldst be
Rie. There thou mistak'st.-A king!-Fair son,
Power dwelleth not in sound, and fame hath garlands
Brighter than diadems. I might have been
Anointed, sceptered, crowned-have cast a blaze
Of glory round the old imperial wreath,
The laurel of the Cæsars: but I chose
To master kings, not be one: to direct
The royal puppets at my sovereign will,
And Rome-my Rome, decree!-Tribune! the Gracchi
Were called so.-Tribune! I will make that name
A word of fear to kings.
Ang. Rienzi- -Tribune!
Hast thou forgotten, on this very spot
How thou didst shake the slumbering soul of Rome
With the brave sound of Freedom, till she rose,
And from her giant-limbs the shackles dropped,
Burst by one mighty throe? Hadst thou died then,
History had crowned thee with a glorious title-
Deliverer of thy country.
When now thou fall'st, as fall thou must, 'twill be
The common tale of low ambition :-Tyrants
O'erthrown to form a wider tyranny;
Princes cast down, that thy obscurer house
May rise on nobler ruins.
Rie. Hast thou ended?
I fain would have mistaken thee-Hast done?
Ang. No: for despite thy smothered wrath, the voice
Of warning truth shall reach thee. Thou to-day
Hast, by thy frantic sacrilege, drawn on thee
The thunders of the church, the mortal feud
Of either emperor. Here, at home, the barons
Hate thee, and the people shun thee. See'st thou not,
Even in this noon of pride, thy waning power
Fade, flicker, and wax dim? Thou art as one
Perched on some lofty steeple's dizzy height,
Dazzled by the sun, inebriate by long draughts
Of thinner air; too giddy to look down
Where all his safety lies; too proud to dare
The long descent, to the low depths from whence
The desperate climber rose.
Rie. Ay, there's the sting.
That I, an insect of to-day, outsoar
The reverend worm, nobility! Wouldst shame me
With my poor parentage?—Sir, I'm the son
Of him who kept a sordid hostelry
In the Jews' quarter; my good mother cleansed
Linen for honest hire.-Canst thou say worse?
Ang. Can worse be said?
Rie. Add, that my boasted school-craft
Was gained from such base toil;—gained with such pain, That the nice nurture of the mind was oft
Stolen at the body's cost. I have gone dinnerless
And supperless (the scoff of our poor street,
For tattered vestments and lean hungry looks,)
To pay the pedagogue.—Add what thou wilt
Of injury. Say that, grown into man,
I've known the pittance of the hospital,
And more degrading still, the patronage
Of the Colonna. Of the tallest trees
The roots delve deepest. Yes, I've trod thy halls
Scorned and derided 'midst their ribald crew-
A licensed jester. save the cap and bells :
I have borne this—and I have borne the death,
The unavenged death, of a poor brother;
I seemed, I was a base ignoble slave.
What am I?-peace, I say!—what am I now ?
Head of this great republic, chief of Rome-
In all but name, her sovereign; last of all,
Thy father.
Ang. In an evil hour
Rie. Darest thou
Say that? An evil hour for thee, my
Thou shouldst have been an emperor's bride, my fairest.
In evil hour thy woman's heart was caught,
By the form moulded as an antique god:
The gallant bearing, the feigned tale of love-
All false, all outward, simulated all.
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