Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
_Talleyrand._ We must do all we have to do, while the nation is
feasting and unsober. It will awaken with sore eyes and stiff limbs.
_Louis._ Profuse as the English are, they will never cut the bottom of
their purses.
_Talleyrand._ They have already done it. Whenever I look toward the
shores of England, I fancy I descry the Danaids there, toiling at the
replenishment of their perforated vases, and all the Nereids leering
and laughing at them in the mischievous fullness of their hearts.
_Louis._ Certainly she can do me little harm at present, and for
several years to come: but we must always have an eye upon her, and be
ready to assert our superiority.
_Talleyrand._ We feel it. In fifty years, by abstaining from war, we
may discharge our debt and replenish our arsenals. England will never
shake off the heavy old man from her shoulders. Overladen and morose,
she will be palsied in the hand she unremittingly holds up against
Ireland. Proud and perverse, she runs into domestic warfare as blindly
as France runs into foreign: and she refuses to her subject what she
surrenders to her enemy.
_Louis._ Her whole policy tends to my security.
_Talleyrand._ We must now consider how your majesty may enjoy it at
home, all the remainder of your reign.
_Louis._ Indeed you must, M. Talleyrand! Between you and me be it
spoken, I trust but little my loyal people; their loyalty being so
ebullient, that it often overflows the vessel which should contain it,
and is a perquisite of scouts and scullions. I do not wish to offend
you.
_Talleyrand._ Really I can see no other sure method of containing and
controlling them, than by bastions and redoubts, the whole circuit of
the city.
_Louis._ M. Talleyrand! I will not doubt your sincerity: I am
confident you have reserved the whole of it for my service; and there
are large arrears. But M. Talleyrand! such an attempt would be
resisted by any people which had ever heard of liberty, and much more
by a people which had ever dreamt of enjoying it.
_Talleyrand._ Forts are built in all directions above Genoa.
_Louis._ Yes; by her conqueror, not by her king.
_Talleyrand._ Your majesty comes with both titles, and rules, like
your great progenitor,
Et par droit de conquete et par droit de naissance.
_Louis._ True; my arms have subdued the rebellious; but not without
great firmness and great valour on my part, and some assistance
(however tardy) on the part of my allies. Conquerors must conciliate:
fatherly kings must offer digestible spoon-meat to their
ill-conditioned children. There would be sad screaming and kicking
were I to swaddle mine in stone-work. No, M. Talleyrand; if ever Paris
is surrounded by fortifications to coerce the populace, it must be the
work of some democrat, some aspirant to supreme power, who resolves to
maintain it, exercising a domination too hazardous for legitimacy. I
will only scrape from the chambers the effervescence of superficial
letters and corrosive law.
_Talleyrand._ Sire! under all their governments the good people of
Paris have submitted to the _octroi_. Now, all complaints, physical or
political, arise from the stomach. Were it decorous in a subject to
ask a question (however humbly) of his king, I would beg permission to
inquire of your majesty, in your wisdom, whether a bar across the
shoulders is less endurable than a bar across the palate. Sire! the
French can bear anything now they have the honour of bowing before
your majesty.
_Louis._ The compliment is in a slight degree (a _very_ slight degree)
ambiguous, and (accept in good part my criticism, M. Talleyrand) not
turned with your usual grace.
Announce it as my will and pleasure that the Duc de Blacas do
superintend the debarkation of the pheasants; and I pray God, M. de
Talleyrand, to have you in His holy keeping.
OLIVER CROMWELL AND SIR OLIVER CROMWELL
_Sir Oliver._ How many saints and Sions dost carry under thy cloak,
lad? Ay, what dost groan at? What art about to be delivered of? Troth,
it must be a vast and oddly-shapen piece of roguery which findeth no
issue at such capacious quarters. I never thought to see thy face
again. Prithee what, in God's name, hath brought thee to Ramsey, fair
Master Oliver?
_Oliver._ In His name verily I come, and upon His errand; and the love
and duty I bear unto my godfather and uncle have added wings, in a
sort, unto my zeal.
_Sir Oliver._ Take 'em off thy zeal and dust thy conscience with 'em.
I have heard an account of a saint, one Phil Neri, who in the midst of
his devotions was lifted up several yards from the ground. Now I do
suspect, Nol, thou wilt finish by being a saint of his order; and
nobody will promise or wish thee the luck to come down on thy feet
again, as he did. So! because a rabble of fanatics at Huntingdon have
equipped thee as their representative in Parliament, thou art free of
all men's houses, forsooth! I would have thee to understand, sirrah,
that thou art fitter for the House they have chaired thee unto than
for mine. Yet I do not question but thou wilt be as troublesome and
unruly there as here. Did I not turn thee out of Hinchinbrook when
thou wert scarcely half the rogue thou art latterly grown up to? And
yet wert thou immeasurably too big a one for it to hold.
_Oliver._ It repenteth me, O mine uncle! that in my boyhood and youth
the Lord had not touched me.
_Sir Oliver._ Touch thee! thou wast too dirty a dog by half.
_Oliver._ Yes, sorely doth it vex and harrow me that I was then of ill
conditions, and that my name ... even your godson's ... stank in your
nostrils.
_Sir Oliver._ Ha! polecat! it was not thy name, although bad enough,
that stank first; in my house, at least. But perhaps there are worse
maggots in stauncher mummeries.
_Oliver._ Whereas in the bowels of your charity you then vouchsafed me
forgiveness, so the more confidently may I crave it now in this my
urgency.
_Sir Oliver._ More confidently! What! hast got more confidence? Where
didst find it? I never thought the wide circle of the world had within
it another jot for thee. Well, Nol, I see no reason why shouldst stand
before me with thy hat off, in the courtyard and in the sun, counting
the stones in the pavement. Thou hast some knavery in thy head, I
warrant thee. Come, put on thy beaver.
_Oliver._ Uncle Sir Oliver! I know my duty too well to stand covered
in the presence of so worshipful a kinsman, who, moreover, hath
answered at baptism for my good behaviour.
_Sir Oliver._ God forgive me for playing the fool before Him so
presumptuously and unprofitably! Nobody shall ever take me in again to
do such an absurd and wicked thing. But thou hast some left-handed
business in the neighbourhood, no doubt, or thou wouldst never more
have come under my archway.
_Oliver._ These are hard times for them that seek peace. We are clay
in the hands of the potter.
_Sir Oliver._ I wish your potters sought nothing costlier, and dug in
their own grounds for it. Most of us, as thou sayest, have been upon
the wheel of these artificers; and little was left but rags when we
got off. Sanctified folks are the cleverest skinners in all
Christendom, and their Jordan tans and constringes us to the
avoirdupois of mummies.
_Oliver._ The Lord hath chosen His own vessels.
_Sir Oliver._ I wish heartily He would pack them off, and send them
anywhere on ass-back or cart (cart preferably), to rid our country of
'em. But now again to the point: for if we fall among the potsherds we
shall hobble on but lamely. Since thou art raised unto a high command
in the army, and hast a dragoon to hold thy solid and stately piece of
horse-flesh, I cannot but take it into my fancy that thou hast some
commission of array or disarray to execute hereabout.
_Oliver._ With a sad sinking of spirit, to the pitch well-nigh of
swounding, and with a sight of bitter tears, which will not be put
back nor stayed in any wise, as you bear testimony unto me, Uncle
Oliver!
_Sir Oliver._ No tears, Master Nol, I beseech thee! Wet days, among
those of thy kidney, portend the letting of blood. What dost whimper
at?
_Oliver._ That I, that I, of all men living, should be put upon this
work!
_Sir Oliver._ What work, prithee?
_Oliver._ I am sent hither by them who (the Lord in His loving
kindness having pity, and mercy upon these poor realms) do, under His
right hand, administer unto our necessities, and righteously command
us, _by the aforesaid as aforesaid_ (thus runs the commission), hither
am I deputed (woe is me!) to levy certain fines in this county, or
shire, on such as the Parliament in its wisdom doth style malignants.
_Sir Oliver._ If there is anything left about the house, never be
over-nice: dismiss thy modesty and lay hands upon it. In this county
or shire, we let go the civet-bag to save the weazon.
_Oliver._ O mine uncle and godfather! be witness for me.
_Sir Oliver._ Witness for thee! not I indeed. But I would rather be
witness than surety, lad, where thou art docketed.
_Oliver._ From the most despised doth the Lord ever choose His
servants.
_Sir Oliver._ Then, faith! thou art His first butler.
_Oliver._ Serving Him with humility, I may peradventure be found
worthy of advancement.
_Sir Oliver._ Ha! now if any devil speaks from within thee, it is thy
own: he does not snuffle: to my ears he speaks plain English. Worthy
or unworthy of advancement, thou wilt attain it. Come in; at least for
an hour's rest. Formerly thou knewest the means of setting the
heaviest heart afloat, let it be sticking in what mud-bank it might:
and my wet dock at Ramsey is pretty near as commodious as that over
yonder at Hinchinbrook was erewhile. Times are changed, and places
too! yet the cellar holds good.
_Oliver._ Many and great thanks! But there are certain men on the
other side of the gate, who might take it ill if I turn away and
neglect them.
_Sir Oliver._ Let them enter also, or eat their victuals where they
are.
_Oliver._ They have proud stomachs: they are recusants.
_Sir Oliver._ Recusants of what? of beef and ale? We have claret, I
trust, for the squeamish, if they are above the condition of
tradespeople. But of course you leave no person of higher quality in
the outer court.
_Oliver._ Vain are they and worldly, although such wickedness is the
most abominable in their cases. Idle folks are fond of sitting in the
sun: I would not forbid them this indulgence.
_Sir Oliver._ But who are they?
_Oliver._ The Lord knows. Maybe priests, deacons, and such-like.
_Sir Oliver._ Then, sir, they are gentlemen. And the commission you
bear from the parliamentary thieves, to sack and pillage my
mansion-house, is far less vexatious and insulting to me, than your
behaviour in keeping them so long at my stable-door. With your
permission, or without it, I shall take the liberty to invite them to
partake of my poor hospitality.
_Oliver._ But, Uncle Sir Oliver! there are rules and ordinances
whereby it must be manifested that they lie under displeasure ... not
mine ... not mine ... but my milk must not flow for them.
_Sir Oliver._ You may enter the house or remain where you are, at your
option; I make my visit to these gentlemen immediately, for I am tired
of standing. If thou ever reachest my age,[12] Oliver! (but God will
not surely let this be) thou wilt know that the legs become at last of
doubtful fidelity in the service of the body.
_Oliver._ Uncle Sir Oliver! now that, as it seemeth, you have been
taking a survey of the courtyard and its contents, am I indiscreet in
asking your worship whether I acted not prudently in keeping the
_men-at-belly_ under the custody of the _men-at-arms_? This
pestilence, like unto one I remember to have read about in some poetry