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The Dynasts: An Epic Drama Of The War With Napoleon, a play by Thomas Hardy |
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Part 1 - Act 5 - Scene 5. London. The Guildhall |
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_ PART FIRST. ACT FIFTH. SCENE V. [A crowd of citizens has gathered outside to watch the carriages as they drive up and deposit guests invited to the Lord Mayor's banquet, for which event the hall is brilliantly lit within. A cheer rises when the equipage of any popular personage arrives at the door.]
Well, well! Nelson is the man who ought to have been banqueted
Will they bring his poor splintered body home?
Yes. They say he's to be tombed in marble, at St. Paul's or
How can you see a dead man, father, after so long?
They'll embalm him, my boy, as they did all the great Egyptian
His lady will be handy for that, won't she?
Don't ye ask awkward questions.
Here's another coming!
That's my Lord Chancellor Eldon. Wot he'll say, and wot he'll look!
I don't like Billy. He killed Uncle John's parrot.
How may ye make that out, youngster?
Mr. Pitt made the war, and the war made us want sailors; and Uncle John went for a walk down Wapping High Street to talk to the pretty ladies one evening; and there was a press all along the river that night--a regular hot one--and Uncle John was carried on board a man-of-war to fight under Nelson; and nobody minded Uncle John's parrot, and it talked itself to death. So Mr. Pitt killed Uncle John's parrot; see it, sir? SECOND CITIZEN You had better have a care of this boy, friend. His brain is too precious for the common risks of Cheapside. Not but what he might as well have said Boney killed the parrot when he was about it. And as for Nelson--who's now sailing shinier seas than ours, if they've rubbed Her off his slate where he's gone to,--the French papers say that our loss in him is greater than our gain in ships; so that logically the victory is theirs. Gad, sir, it's almost true! [A hurrahing is heard from Cheapside, and the crowd in that direction begins to hustle and show excitement.]
He's coming, he's coming! Here, let me lift you up, my boy.-- Why, they have taken out the horses, as I am man alive!
Pitt for ever!--Why, here's a blade opening and shutting his mouth like the rest, but never a sound does he raise! THIRD CITIZEN I've not too much breath to carry me through my day's work, so I can't afford to waste it in such luxuries as crying Hurrah to aristocrats. If ye was ten yards off y'd think I was shouting as loud as any.
It's a very mean practice of ye to husband yourself at such a time, and gape in dumbshow like a frog in Plaistow Marshes.
No, sir; it's economy; a very necessary instinct in these days of ghastly taxations to pay half the armies in Europe! In short, in the word of the Ancients, it is scarcely compass-mentas to do otherwise! Somebody must save something, or the country will be as bankrupt as Mr. Pitt himself is, by all account; though he don't look it just now. [PITT's coach passes, drawn by a troop of running men and boy. The Prime Minister is seen within, a thin, erect, up-nosed figure, with a flush of excitement on his usually pale face. The vehicle reached the doorway to the Guildhall and halts with a jolt. PITT gets out shakily, and amid cheers enters the building.]
Quite a triumphal entry. Such is power;
Talk of Pitt being ill. He looks hearty as a buck.
It's the news--no more. His spirits are up like a rocket for the moment.
Is it because Trafalgar is near Portugal that he loves Port wine?
Ah, as I said, friend; this boy must go home and be carefully put to bed!
[PITT having disappeared, the Guildhall doors are closed, and the crowd slowly disperses, till in the course of an hour the street shows itself empty and dark, only a few oil lamps burning. The SCENE OPENS, revealing the interior of the Guildhall, and the brilliant assembly of City magnates, Lords, and Ministers seated there, Mr. PITT occupying a chair of honour by the Lord Mayor. His health has been proposed as that of the Saviour of England, and drunk with acclamations.]
My lords and gentlemen:--You have toasted me [Loud applause, during which he sits down, rises, and sits down again. The scene then shuts, and the night without has place.]
Those words of this man Pitt--his last large words, |
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