grant sherbet and coffee, opium and divorces. | illusions of hope and in the transports of ambition, Remember.. thou sometimes givest credence to thine own devices. Hark! the bell rings! Put on thy slippers, come along with me. Curtsey to the Virgin, dip thy finger in the font, and chaunt the litany. Mahomet. I never sang a note in my whole life. Sergius. What matters that? Courage! strike up among us. Mahomet. I hate singing: it is fit only for madmen and drunkards and the weakest and pettiest of the birds. Beside, I tell thee again, I can not. Are there not reasons enough? Sergius. By no means. Didst thou not say, faith is so strong in thee, thou canst do all things? Mahomet. Yes, but I must have the will first: even God must will before he does anything: I am only his Prophet. Why dost thou laugh? why dost thou display thy teeth, lifting and lowering them like unto the dog that biteth off his fleas? No ridicule! I deserve it not. My potency is known to thee, although not in its whole extent. Know then, I have cut the moon asunder with my scimetar. Sergius. Who, in the name of the Prophet (this I think is the way we are to speak), will ever believe such an audacious lie? Mahomet. Universally will the chosen of the Most High believe it, although the grunters and snorers in thy sty eschew it. I have in readiness a miracle so much greater, that every face in Arabia will sink as deep in the sand before it, as the tortoise when she is laying her eggs. Sergius. I do not understand thee. Mahomet. It is something to cut asunder the moon: but I have already done incalculably more, as thou thyself, O Sergius, shalt acknowledge. ! Sergius. Speak, and plainly; for, upon my soul I know not when thou art in earnest and when otherwise; and almost do I suspect that, in the Mahomet. Be thou my judge in this matter. Under an oath to secrecy, I have unfolded to Labid the poet, son of Rabiah, what I intend for the first chapter of my Koran: and he cried before me, and is ready to cry before the people, "0 Mahomet! son of Abdallah, son of Achem, son of Motalib, thou art a greater poet than I am." Sergius. Begone upon thy mission this instant! Miracles like others have been performed everywhere; like this, never upon earth. A poet, good or bad, to acknowledge a superior! Methinks I see the pope already in adoration at thy fees, and hear the patriarchs calling thee father. I myself am half a convert. Hie thee homeward: God speed thee! The story of Sergius the Nestorian monk assisting Mahomet in the compilation of the Koran, is often repeated on the authority of Zonaras: Gibbon has deemed it unworthy of notice. Sergius was only the assistant of Ma homet in the same manner as the rest of the churchmen, The impostor of Rome was the truest ally to the imposter of Mecca; who found more wickedness committed under the garb of christianity, more ambition, more malice, more poisonings and stabbings, than any other religion had experienced among its leaders, not only in the same period of time, but in the whole course of its existence. So, within two centuries, reckoning from his first appearance as a prophet, half the Christians in the world, and nearly all who were not coerced by the armies of princes in submission to the pope, abandoned their religion and adopted Mahomet's. It is much to be doubted whether the change will in the end be beneficial, though perhaps the public mind may never be better prepared for it than at present. If indeed, as many suspect, it is the resolution of the Holy Alliance to exchange the Christian religion for the Mahometan, such resolution must be founded on the positive fact that, while the former leaves no sign whatever of its existence on people in general, the latter goes at least skin-deep in all. Still the affair, being a weighty one, should be reconsidered. KING OF THE SANDWICH ISLES, MR. PEEL, MR. CROKER, King, I receive with satisfaction the royal sons of my brother the king of England, whose noble nature and high exploits have filled the whole space between him and me, and are become familiar to my people as fish and bread-fruit. Peel. Sire, we dispose indeed of his family and of his subjects universally; but we are not the sons of our most gracious king. Croker. Blood and 'ounds! Why tell the fool that we are not his sons? King. You are then the high priest? Peel. Not exactly that neither, Sire; but I make him do and say what I order. I dictate the forms of prayer and appoint the chief priests. King to Croker. And pray, mighty lord, by what Croker. He stares at me like a stuck pig. King to Interpreter. I can not, with my ideas of propriety, fall down before him, but anything short of that. Would he permit me to take his hand? Interpreter. I can not answer for him. Time was, he would have been ready to take mine.. with a dollar in it. King. The other high lord governs the king's family and people; but this governs the king and the air and the waters and the world. Dog, dost grin? Interpreter. I will tell your majesty another time how mistaken you are. King. No other times for me: tell me now. I must know, as other kings do, the men I deal with. Interpreter. Ah sire! your former mistake was nothing to this. As other kings do! One must cross the widest of the seas to find them: they King to Interpreter. How do they do in their parliament ? Interpreter. The same thing perpetually, unless the orator has something to give them. In that case there is no other interruption than applause. King. Tell your king, O king's-family-and-people-feeder, that I forerun his wishes, and will be present at his court to-morrow. Peel. Dear Croker, do inform him, for upon my soul I have not the face, that he must pull off that odd dress of his, and order a court one. Croker. What have I to do with plucking and trussing the creature? Tell him yourself; it lies within your office. .. Peel. Sire! I am sorry to announce . . King. He says he is sorry: I understand all that. Try to comfort him. Bring out a skinful of delicate whale-oil: or, in the urgency, persuade him to smell this little slip of salt ling, which I always carry about me. Interpreter. Put it up, put it up: do not let them see it. The word 'sorry' means in general quite the contrary: when it does not, it means nothing at all. Among the last letters I received is one beginning "I am sorry to inform you that your father is dead, but am extremely happy to add that he has left to you the whole of his little property, your elder brother having been unexpectedly taken off after twelve days' severe suffering from his unfortunate duel." King. You have taught me a great deal of English in a little time. Well, king's-feeder and high-priest-maker! what dolorous event impedes your enunciation ? To the Interpreter. Surely nobody has told him that his father is dead; for he really looks quite concerned. Peel. Sire, I am sorry to announce to your majesty that your majesty can not be received in any but a court-dress. King. Oh! I know it, I know it well I have brought with me fifty court-dresses. of their recovery, and they mounted the palaceIstairs as briskly as if nothing had happened. Peel. I will send a tailor to your Majesty, with your Majesty's royal permission. King to Interpreter. What is that? Interpreter. One who makes court-dresses. King to Interpreter. In truth no king was ever received with more hospitality, kindness, and distinction, than I am. All the first dignitaries of the state attend me. The court-tailor holds, I suppose, the third rank in the kingdom. Interpreter. There are some between, not many. He however is next to the king himself, or rather his copartner, in conferring distinctions. Without him the greatest and highest man in England would be nothing. Silk gowns swell little men into great ones, and silk ribbons elevate the lightest up to the most conspicuous station. King to Interpreter. Perhaps the silk is a-charm too against anger and thunder. Croker. What a bore! I am out of all patience. Peel. I regret that your Majesty should experience anything like delay or disappointment; but the etiquette of our court, requires a strict compliance with custom, in matters of dress. King. Pray, how many dresses has your king? Croker. Don't answer the rascal. These barbarians are always inquisitive. Peel. Sire, I can not exactly tell your Majesty how many his Majesty possesses, not having the honour to preside over his wardrobe; but of course on gala-days he always wears a new one. King. Gala-days I suppose are the days when he wrestles and tears his clothes. For in this cold climate I can well imagine the richer may wrestle dressed. But your king must have many suits. I am sensible of his affability and liberality, and shall be quite contented with such distinction as it may please his Majesty to confer on me; but among men of equal rank, unequal as is the power, treaties may be formed, compacts settled. Croker. A slice of Sandwich, I trust, may come to us thereby; ay, Bob! King to Interpreter. The great whale, the admiral-feeder, the navy-flint, is prouder and fiercer than the wizard-feeder and prayer-pointer, disposer of the king's family and subjects while dry-shod and upon the dirt. The latter is the civiler, but if features tell me anything, cold, smooth, slippery, and hard to hold as a porpoise. Interpreter. The one looks as if he would pick a quarrel, and the other as if he would pick a but your Majesty does not wear them. King. Pick-a! pick-a! pick-a! What dost mean, word-eater-and-voider ? Interpreter. Your Majesty's fine language does not supply me with the word, and if I made an adequate sign of it I might be hanged. Peel. Permit me to explain, sire: I mean to say, the court-dress of the court of Saint James. King. I have not one. Apparently Saint James requires as much buckling as a coach-horse; and one would fancy his votaries have broken knees. I saw several well-looking men bound in that joint; and doubtless by the ablest surgeon. They were Interpreter. Sire, we have twenty. Roguery going to thank the Saint for the commencement for instance. We box the compass and come quite King. My language is the richest in the world, and the very best. I have two or three words for, one thing. round to honesty and honour; but some writers (not many indeed) make a distinction, and put an s to the latter. King. We kings are very nice upon higher points, but not upon these. There are in my islands some men who understand all sorts of words, native or imported: I take them as they come. If people are good, let them be easy in speech and free in action: let every one roast his fish as he likes, and catch it as he can. Croker. Your Majesty was saying something of treaties and compacts. If I can serve your Majesty in the interpretation of your royal wishes, you may command me. King. I have an interpreter here I can trust better. Croker to Interpreter. He never said that, sirrah. He has good manners. Interpreter. Then, Mr. Croker, do not omit such an opportunity of acquiring them. Do not wait for Lieutenant White to propose to you again an excursion through the window, for telling him to "moderate his impertinent vulgar Irish," when the gentleman had spoken most respectfully, under a sense of injury, and when in his father's house yours would not have had the assurance to be seated. Croker. Sir, I remember no such occurrence. Interpreter. Wonderful indeed! Such occur rences are the only ones that usually make a deep impression on such people. The lieutenant held up a fist, not made to crack a Croker, or anything of the kind, but able to split a cocoa-nut on a pincushion. Not remember it indeed! Croker. Peel, have you no prison, no treadmill, for such fellows? We are here upon the king's service. Peel. In England, though. and between their cheeks, such a quantity of flame and heat. Peel. Was that for us? Interpreter. No, sir. Peel. If your Sandwichian Majesty is graciously disposed to enter into any treaty with his Britannic Majesty, my royal master, I am empowered by his aforesaid, to wit, his Britannic Majesty, to receive, consider, and lay it before his said Majesty, for his Majesty's further consideration, by and with the advice of his prirg Council. King. The very thing for his privy Council. His Majesty sticks a new and brighter and loftier plume in my hair at every word of your discourse with me. On the court-day, in presence of all his nobility, male and female, I would decorate his Majesty with a noble dress, suitable to his dignity, with my own hands, declaring upon my royal word that I have worn the same dress twenty times on the greatest ceremonies of religion and state, and that I slept in the lower part of it the night of my nuptials. Now I request from his Majesty, I being a less powerful king, a dress which his Majesty shall have worn only twice or thrice on public festivities, and once only in dalliance with some favourite; and that his royal hands shall invest me with nothing more of it, than that part which the most active man in the world could not leap into by himself, and which no other nations than the most civilized and ingenious have discovered the means of putting on: this being the principal, if not the only distinction between the polished and the rude. After the surmounting of such a difficulty in science, I do not wonder that you can count the stars, and measure their sizes and distances, which I think I could do myself, if I had leisure and they would wait for me. Croker. Does the beast quiz us? He looks in earnest. Peel. He really is serious, and expects an Sire, I will communicate to his Majesty the King. I request of that minister's celestiality that he will not light his match where there is no gun. What faces these Europeans have! they can fire them when they please. The Great Spirit | answer. has in his wisdom appointed all things for the countries in which they exist. What a blessing heads of your Majesty's communication, and I in these cold climates, where water is turned into dust and rock, and the feathers that fall from heaven's birds and winged genii are colder than sea-shells, that the higher and nobler part at least of the inhabitants can conjure up into their eyes, entertain no doubt that his Majesty will most graciously pay that attention which is due to so ancient and faithful an ally, and which is conservative of the harmony that happily exists between the two nations. Thou hast rebelled against me: thou hast pre- | would flay him alive for half of them, and make sumed even to carry arms against both of those him swallow back the other half without his nobles, Bruce and Cummin, who contended for skin. the Scottish throne, and with somewhat indeed of lawyers' likelihood. Wallace. They placed the Scottish throne under the English. Edward. Audacious churl! is it not meet? Wallace. In Scotland we think otherwise. Edward. Rebels do, subverters of order, low ignorant knaves, without any stake in the country. It hath pleased God to bless my arms: what further manifestation of our just claims demandest thou? Silence becomes thee. Wallace. Where God is named. What is now to the right bank of a river, is to the left when we have crossed it and look round. Edward. Thou wouldst be witty truly! Who was wittiest, thou or I, when thy companion Menteith delivered thee into my hands? Wallace. Unworthy companions are not the peculiar curse of private men. I chose not Menteith for his treachery, nor rewarded him for it. Sir, I have contended with you face to face; but would not here: your glory eclipses mine, if this be glory. Edward. So, thou wouldst place thyself on a level with princes! Wallace. Few have a right to punish, all to pardon. Edward. I perceive thou hast at last some glimmering of shame; and adversity makes thee Christian-like. Wallace. Adversity then, in exercising her power, loses her name and features. King Edward! thou hast raised me among men. Without thy banners and bows in array against me, I had sunk into utter forgetfulness. Thanks to thee for placing me, eternally, where no strength of mine could otherwise have borne me! Thanks to thee for bathing my spirit in deep thoughts, in refreshing calm, in sacred stillness! This, O king, is the bath for knighthood: after this it may feast, and hear bold and sweet voices, and mount to its repose. I thought it hard to be seized and bound and betrayed, by those in whom I trusted. I grieved that a valiant soldier (such is Menteith) should act so. Unhappy he must now avoid all men's discourses. "Twill pierce his heart to hear censures on the disloyal; and praises on the loyal will dry up its innermost drop. Two friends can never more embrace in his presence, but he shall curse Wallace. Willingly, if they attacked my coun- them in the bitterness of his soul, and his sword try; and above them. Edward. Dost thou remember the Carron-side, when your army was beaten and dispersed ? Wallace. By the defection of Cummin and the arrogance of Stuart. Edward. Recollectest thou the colloquy that Bruce condescended to hold with thee across the river? Wallace. I do, sir. Why would not he, being your soldier, and fighting loyally against his native land, pass the water, and exterminate an army so beaten and dispersed? The saddle-skirts had been rather the stiffer on the morrow, but he might have never felt them. Why not finish the business at once? shall spring up to cleave them. "Alas!" will he say to himself, "is it thus! was it thus when I drew it for my country!" Edward. Think now of other matters: think, what I suggested, of thy reproaches. Wallace. I have none to make myself. Edward. Be it so I did not talk about that any longer. Wallace. What others then can touch or reach me? Edward. Such as Bruce's. Wallace. Reproaches they were not for none were ever cast against me: but taunts they were, not unmingled with invitations. Edward. The same invitations, and much Edward. He wished to persuade thee, loose greater, I now repeat. Thou shalt govern Scotreviler, that thy resistance was useless. Wallace. He might have made himself heard better if he had come across. Edward. No trifling; no arguing with me; no remarks here, caitiff! Thou canst not any longer be ignorant that he hath slain his competitor, Cummin; that my troops surround him; and that he perhaps may now repent the levity of his reproaches against thee. I may myself have said a hasty word or two.. but thou hast nettled me. My anger soon passes. I never punish in an enemy anything else than obstinacy. I did not counsel the accusations and malignant taunts of Bruce. Wallace. Sir, I do not bear them in mind. Wallace. Indeed I neither do nor would. Edward. Dull wretch! I should never forget such. I can make allowances; I am a king. I land for me. Wallace. Scotland, sir, shall be governed for none she is old enough to stand by herself, and to stand upright: the blows she hath received have not broken her loins. Edward. Come, come, Wallace! thou hast sense and spirit: confess to me fairly that, if thou wert at liberty, thou wouldst gladly make Bruce regret his ill-treatment of thee. Wallace. Well then, I do confess it. Edward. Something would I myself hazard; not too much; but prudently and handsomely. Tell me now plainly, for I love plain-speaking and everything free and open, in what manner thou wouldst set about it; and perhaps, God willing, I may provide the means. Wallace. Sir, you certainly would not it little suits your temper and disposition. Edward. Faith! not so little as thou supposest. GG Magnanimity and long-suffering have grown upon me, and well become me; but they have not produced all the good I might have expected from them. Joyfully as I would try them again, at any proper opportunity, there is nothing I am not bound to do, in dearness to my people, to rid myself of an enemy. In my mind, no expressions could be more insulting than Bruce's, when he accused thee, a low and vulgar man (how canst thou help that?), of wishing to possess the crown. Wallace. He was right. Edward. How! astonishment! Thou wouldst then have usurped the sovranty! Wallace. I possessed a greater power by war than peace could ever give me; yet I invited and exhorted the legitimate heir of the throne to fight for it and receive it. If there is any satisfaction or gratification in being the envy of men, I had enough and greatly more than enough of it, when even those I love envied me: what would have been my portion of it, had I possessed that which never should have been mine! Edward. Why then sayest thou that Bruce was right? Wallace. He judged, as most men do, from his own feelings. Many have worn crowns; some have deserved them: I have done neither. Edward. Return to Scotland; bring me Bruce's head back; and rule the kingdom as viceroy. Wallace. I would rather make him rue his words against me, and hear him. Edward. Weak wavering man! hath imprisonment in one day or two wrought such a change in thee? Wallace. Slavery soon does it, but I am, and will ever be, unchanged. Edward. It was not well, nor by my order, that thou wert dragged along the road, barefooted and bareheaded, while it snowed throughout all the journey. Wallace. Certainly, sir, you did not order it to snow from the latter days of December till the middle of January; but whatever else was done, if my guard spake the truth . . shiver under the pent-house from which the wind had blown the thatch, while the blazing fire within made the snow upon the opposite roof redden like the dawn; to wax faint, ahungered and athirst, when, within arm's length of me, men pushed the full cup away, and would drink no more; to that I had never been accustomed in my country. The dogs, honester and kinder folks than most, but rather dull in the love of hospitality, unless in the beginning some pains are taken with them by their masters, tore my scant gear; and then your soldiers felt their contempt more natural and easy. The poor curs had done for them what their betters could not do; and the bolder of the company looked hard in my face, to see if I were really the same man. Edward. O the rude rogues! that was too bad. Wallace. The worst was this. Children and women, fathers and sons, came running down the hills, some sinking knee-deep in the incrusted | snow, others tripping lightly over it, to celebrate the nativity of our blessed Lord. They intreated, and the good priest likewise, that I might be led forth into the church, and might kneel down amid them. "Off," cried the guard; "would ye plead for Wallace the traitor?" I saw them tremble, for it was treason in them, and then came my grief upon me, and bore hard. They lifted up their eyes to heaven; and it gave me strength. Edward. Thou shalt not, I swear to thee, march back in such plight. Wallace. I will not, I swear to thee, march a traitor. Edward. Right! right! I can trust thee .. more than half already. Bruce is the traitor; the worst of the two; he raises the country against me. Go; encompass him, entrap him, quell him. Sweetheart! thou hast a rare fancy, a youth's love at first sight, for thy chains: unwilling to barter them for liberty, for country, for revenge, for honour. Wallace. Honour and revenge, such as I have carried in my bosom, are very dear to me! For liberty and country I have often shed my blood, and, if more is wanting, take it. My heart is no better than a wooden cup, whereof the homely liquor a royal hand would cast away indifferently. There once were those who pledged it! where are they? Forgive my repining, O God! Enough, if they are not here. Edward. Nay, nay, Wallace! thou wrongest me. Thou art a brave man. I do not like to see those irons about thy wrists: they are too broad and tight: they have bruised thee cruelly. Wallace. Methinks there was no necessity to have hammered the rivets on quite so hard and the fellow who did it, needed not to look over his shoulder so often while he was about it, telling the people, "This is Wallace." Wrist or iron he and his hammer cared not. Edward. I am mightily taken with the fancy of seeing thee mortify Bruce. Thou shalt do it: let me have thy plan. |