Here his Lordship weeps more profusely than ever, and the Regents (who has
been very much agitated during the recital of the Dream) by a movement as
characteristic as that of Charles XII. when he was shot, claps his hands
to his whiskers to feel if all be really safe. A Privy Council is held--
all the Servants, etc. are examined, and it appears that a Tailor, who had
come to measure the Regent for a Dress (which takes three whole pages of
the best superfine _clinquant_ in describing) was the only person who
had been in the Bourbon Chamber during the day. It is, accordingly,
determined to seize the Tailor, and the Council breaks up with a unanimous
resolution to be vigorous.
The commencement of the Second Act turns chiefly upon the Trial and
Imprisonment of two Brothers[4]--but as this forms the _under_ plot
of the Drama, I shall content myself with extracting from it the following
speech, which is addressed to the two Brothers, as they "_exeunt_
severally" to Prison:--
Go to your prisons--tho' the air of Spring
No mountain coolness to your cheeks shall bring;
Tho' Summer flowers shall pass unseen away,
And all your portion of the glorious day
May be some solitary beam that falls
At morn or eve upon your dreary walls--
Some beam that enters, trembling as if awed,
To tell how gay the young world laughs abroad!
Yet go--for thoughts as blessed as the air
Of Spring or Summer flowers await you there;
Thoughts such as He who feasts his courtly crew
In rich conservatories _never_ knew;
Pure self-esteem--the smiles that light within--
The Zeal, whose circling charities begin
With the few loved-ones Heaven has placed it near,
And spread till all Mankind are in its sphere;
The Pride that suffers without vaunt or plea.
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