Ques. To supplicate? Nay, noble General! So far extended neither my commission

(At least to my own knowledge) nor my zeal

Illo. Well, well then-to compel him, if you choose.
I can remember me right well, Count Tilly
Had suffered total rout upon the Lech.
Bavaria lay all open to the enemy,

Whom there was nothing to delay from pressing
Onwards into the very heart of Austria.
At that time you and Werdenberg appear'd
Before our General, storming him with prayers.
And menacing the Emperor's displeasure,
Unless he took compassion or this wretchedness.

Iso. (steps up to them.) Yes, yes, 'tis comprehensible enough,

Wherefore with your commission of to-day

You were not all too willing to remember
Your former one.

Ques.

Why not, Count Isolan?

No contradiction sure exists between them.
It was the urgent business of that time
To snatch Bavaria from her enemy's hand;
And
my commission of to-day instructs me
To free her from her good friends and protectors.
Illo. A worthy office! After with our blood
We have wrested this Bohemia from the Saxon,
To be swept out of it is all our thanks,

The sole reward of all our hard-won victories.

Ques. Unless that wretched land be doom'd to suffer

Only a change of evils, it must be

Freed from the scourge alike of friend and foe.

Illo. What? 'Twas a favourable year; the Boors Can answer fresh demands already.

Ques.

Nay,

If you discourse of herds and meadow-grounds

Iso. The war maintains the war. Are the Boors

ruin'd,

The Emperor gains so many more new soldiers.

Ques. And is the poorer by even so many subjects.

Iso. Poh! We are all his subjects.

Ques. Yet with a difference, General! The one fill With profitable industry the purse,

The others are well skill'd to empty it.

The sword has made the Emperor poor; the plough Must reinvigorate his resources.

Iso.

Sure!

Times are not yet so bad. Methinks I see

(examining with his eye the dress and ornament of Questenberg)

Good store of gold that still remains uncoin'd. Ques. Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to hide

Some little from the fingers of the Croats.

Illo. There! The Stawata and the Martinitz, On whom the Emperor heaps his gifts and graces, To the heart-burning of all good BohemiansThose minions of court favour, those court harpies, Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens

Driven from their house and home-who reap no har

vests

Save in the general calamity

Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock

The desolation of their country-these

Let these, and such as these, support the war,

The fatal war, which they alone enkindled !

But. And those state-parasites, who have their feet So constantly beneath the Emperor's table,

Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they

Snap at it with dog's hunger-they, forsooth,

Would pare the soldier's bread, and cross his reckoning!

Iso. My life long will it anger me to think,
How when I went to court seven years ago,
To see about new horses for our regiments,
How from one antechamber to another
They dragg'd me on, and left me by the hour
To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering
Feast-fatten'd slaves, as if I had come thither
A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favour
That fall beneath their tables. And, at last,
Whom should they send me but a Capuchin !
Straight I began to muster up my sins
For absolution-but no such luck for me!
This was the man, this Capuchin, with whom
I was to treat concerning the army horses:
And I was forced at last to quit the field,
The business unaccomplish'd. Afterwards
The Duke procured me, in three days, what I
Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna.

Ques. Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their way to us :

Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.

Illo. War is a violent trade; one cannot always
Finish one's work by soft means; every trifle
Must not be blacken'd into sacrilege.

If we should wait till you, in solemn council,
With due deliberation had selected

The smallest out of four-and-twenty evils,

I'faith we should wait long.

"Dash! and through with it!"-That's the better

watchword.

Then after come what may come.

ture

'Tis man's na

To make the best of a bad thing once past.
A bitter and perplexed "What shall I do?”
Is worst to man than worst necessity.

Ques. Ay, doubtless, it is true; the Duke does

spare us

The troublesome task of choosing.

But.
Yes, the Duke
Cares with a father's feelings, for his troops;

But how the Emperor feels for us, we see.

Ques. His cares and feelings all ranks share alike,

Nor will he offer one up to another.

Iso. And therefore thursts he us into the deserts, As beasts of prey, that so he may preserve

His dear sheep fattening in his fields at home.

Ques. (with a sneer) Count, this comparison you make, not I.

But. Why, were we all the Court supposes us,

"Twere dangerous, sure, to give us liberty.

Ques. You have taken liberty-it was not given

you.

And therefore it becomes an urgent duty

To rein it in with curbs.

Oct.

(interposing and addressing Questenberg). My noble friend,

This is no more than a remembrancing

That you are now in camp, and among warriors.
The soldier's boldness constitutes his freedom.

Could he act daringly, unless he dar'd

Talk even so? One runs into the other.

The boldness of this worthy officer, (pointing to Butler.)

Which now has but mistaken in its mark,

Preserv'd when nought but boldness could preserve it,

To the Emperor his capital city, Prague,

In a most formidable mutiny

Of the whole garrison. (Military music at a distance.) Hah! here they come !

L

Illo. The sentries are saluting them: this signal Announces the arrival of the Duchess.

Oct. (to Questenberg.) Then my son Max. too has return'd. 'Twas he

Fetch'd and attended them from Carnthen hither. Iso. (to Illo). Shall we not go in company to greet them?

Illo. Well, let us go.-Ho! Colonel Butler come. (To Octavio). You'll not forget, that yet ere noon we meet

The noble Envoy at the General's palace.

[Exeunt all but Questenberg and Octavio.

SCENE III.

QUESTENBERG and OCTAVIO.

Ques. (with signs of aversion and astonishment). What have I not been forc'd to hear Octavio! What sentiments! what fierce, uncurb'd defiance! And where this spirit universal—

Oct.

Hm !

You are now acquainted with three-fourths of the

army.

Ques. Where must we seek then for a second host

To have the custody of this? That Illo

Thinks worse, I fear me, than he speaks. And then
This Butler too-he cannot even conceal

The passionate workings of his ill intentions.
Oct. Quickness of temper-irritated pride;
'Twas nothing more. I cannot give up Butler.
I know a spell that will soon dispossess

The evil spirit in him.

Ques. (walking up and down in evident disquiet.)
Friend, friend!

O! this is worse, far worse, than we had suffer'd