HENRY

I will not have my train, Made a retreite for Bankroutes, nor my Court, A hive for Drones: proved Beggars, and true Thieves, That with a forced truth they swear to me, Rob my poor subjects, shall give up their Arts, And henceforth learn to live by their deserts; Though I am grown, by right of Birth and Arms Into a greater kingdom, I will spread With no more shade, then may admit that kingdom Her proper, natural, and wonted fruits, Navarre shall be Navarre, and France still France: If one may be the better for the other By mutual rites, so, neither shall be worse. Thou art in law, in quarrels, and in debt, Which thou wouldst quit with countnaunce; Borrowing With thee is purchase, and thou seekest by me (In my supportance) now our old wars cease To wage worse battles, with the arms of Peace. Thy equity, is to be ever banished From Court, and all society of noblesse, Amongst whom thou throwest balls of all dissension; Thou art at peace with nothing but with war, Hast no heart but to hurt, and eam st thy heart, If it but think of doing any good: Thou witchest with thy smiles, suckest blood with praises, Mockest all humanity; society poisonst; Coosinst with virtue; with religion Betrayst, and massacrest; so vile thy self, That thou suspectest perfection in others: A man must think of all the villainies He knows in all men, to decipher thee, That art the centre to impiety: Away, and tempt me not. I would do best for both, yet shall not be secure, Till in some absolute heirs my Crown be settled, There is so little now betwixt Aspirers And their great object in my only self, That all the strength they gather under me, Tempts combat with mine own: I therefore make Means for some issue by my marriage, Which with the great Dukes niece is now concluded, And she is coming; I have trust in heaven I am not yet so old, but I may spring, And then I hope all traitorous Hope's will fade. Thanks to my princely cozen, this your love And honour hewed me in your personal presence, I wish to welcome to your full content: The peace I now make with your brother Archduke, By Duke Byron our Lord Ambassador, I wish may happily extend to you, And that at his return we may conclude it. Was he so courted? It may be he dissembled, or suppose, He be a little tainted: men whom virtue Forms with the stuff of fortune great, and gracious, Must needs partake with fortune in her humour Of instability: and are Like to shafts Grown crooked with standing, which to rectify, Must twice as much be bowed another way, He that hath born wounds for his worthy parts, Must for his wurst be born with: we must fit Our government to men, as men to it: In old time, they that hunted savage beasts, Are said to cloth themselves in savage skins, They that were Fowlers when they went on fowling, Wore garments made with wings resembling Fowls: To Bulls, we must not show our selves in read, Nor to the warlike Elephant in white, In all things governed, their infirmities Must not be stirred, nor wrought on; Duke Byron Flows with adust, and melancholy choler, And melancholy spirits are venomous: Not to be touched, but as they may be cured: I therefore mean to make him change the air, And send him further from those Spanish vapours, That still bear fighting sulphur in their breasts, To breath a while in temperate English air, Where lips are spyc worser with free and loyal counsels, Where policies are not rumours, but saving; Wisdom is simple, valour righteous Human, and hating facts of brutish forces And whose graven nature's, scorn the scoffs of France, The empty compliments of Italy, The anyway encroaching pride of Spain, And love men modest, hearty, joust and plain. You are a good old horseman I perceive, And still out all the use of that good partly: Your wit is of the true Pierean spring, That can make any thing, of any thing. No question he sets valour in his height, And hath done service to and equal pitch, Fortune attending him with fit events, To all his venturous and well-laid attempts. The heart but now came on, in that strong body, Of twice two thousand horse, led by Du Main Which (if I would be glorious) I could say I first encountered. If you would only give me leave my Lord, I would do right to him, yet must not give. Y are all the field wide. He wone the place? Fie you have been extremely misinformed. We must not give to one, to take from many, For (not to praise our countrymen) here served, The General My Lor. Norris, sent from England: As great a captain as the world affords: One fit to lead, and fight for Christendom; Of more experience; and of stronger brain; As valiant for abiding; In Command, On any sudden; upon any ground And in the form of all occasions As ready, and as profitably, dauntless; And hear was then another; Colonel Williams, A worthy Captain; and more Like the Duke, Because he was less temperate then the General; And being familiar with the man you praise, (Because he knew him haughty and incapable, Of all comparison) would compare with him, And hold his swelling valour to the mark, Justice had set in him, and not his will: And as in open vessels filled with water, And on men's shoulders born, they put treene cups, To keep the wild and slippery element, From washing over: follow all his Sways And tickle aptness to exceed his bounds, And at the Brim contain him: so this knight, Swum in Byron, and held him, but to right. But leave these hight comparisons, he's mine own, And then what I possess, I'll more be known, Why suffer you that ill aboding vermin, To breed so near your bosom? be assure, His hants are ominous, not the throats of Ravens, Spent on infected house ; houles of dogs, When no found stirs, at midnight; apparitions, And strokes of spirits, clad in blackmens shapes: Or ugly women's: the adverse decrees Of constellations, no security, In vicious peace, are surer fatal ushers Of female mischiefs, and mortalities, Then this prodigious fiend is, where he fawns: La fiend, and not Laffin, he should be called. No? not treason? Be circumspect, for to a credulous eye, He comes invisible, veiled with flattery, And flatereis look Like friends, as Wolves, Like Dogs. And as a glorious Poem fronted well With many a goodly Herald of his praise, So far from hate of praises to his face, That he prays men to praise him, and they ride Before, with trumpets in their mouths, proclaiming Life to the holy fury of his lines: All drawn, as if with one eye he had leerd, On his loved hand, and led it by a rule; That his plumes only Imp the Muses wings, He sleeps with them, his head is napt with bays, His lips break out with Nectar, his tunde feet Are of the great last, the perpetual motion, And he puffed with their empty breath believes Full merit, eased those passion of wind, Which yet serve, but to praise, and cannot merit, And so his fury in their air expires: So de Laffin, and such corrupted Herralds, Hirde to encourage, and to glorify May force what breath they will into their cheeks Fitter to blow up bladders, then full men: Yet may puff men to, with persuasions That they a e Gods in worth; and may rise Kings With treading on their noises; yet the worthiest, From only his own worth receives his spirit And right is worthy bound to any merit; Which right, shall you have ever; leave him then, He follows none but marked and wretched men; And now for England you shall go my lord, Our Lord Ambassador to that matchless Queen; You never had a voyage of such pleasure Honour, and worthy objects: Ther's a Queen Where nature keeps her state, and state her Court, Wisdom her study, Conntinence her fort, Where Magnanimity, Humanity: Firmness in counsel and integrity: Grace to her poorest subjects: Majesty To awe the greatest, have respects divine, And in her each partly, all the virtues shine. Exit Hen. & Sau. manet Byron. For what, my Lord, 'tis Like you shall obtain. What is it? Excuse me sir, I must not grant you that. It is not fit I should; You are my governor in Burgundy, And Province governors, that command in chief, Ought not to have the charge of fortresses; Beside, it is the chief key of my kingdom, That opens towards Italy, and must therefore, Be given to one that hath immediately Dependence on us. Would would would, Exit, Byron? Turn I pray, How now? from whence flow these distracted faces? From what attempt return they? as disclaiming, Their late Heroic bearer? what, a pistall? Why, good my Lord, can mirth make you so wrathful? My Lord, your judgement is not competent, In this dissension, I may say of you; As Fame says of the ancient Elea S, That, in the Olimpian contentions, They ever were the justest Arbitrators, If none of them contended, nor were party ; Those that will moderate disputations well, Must not themselves affect the coronet; For as the air, contained within our ears: If it be not in quiet; nor refrains, Troubling our hearing, with offensive sounds; But our affected instrument of hearing, Repl at with noise, and singings in it self, It faithfully receives no other voices; So, of all judgements, if within themselves They suffer spleen, and are tumultuous; They can not equal differences without them; And this wind, that does sing so in your ears, I know, is no disease bred in your self; But whispered in by others; who in swelling Your veins with empty hope of much, yet able, To perform nothing; are Like shallow streams, That make themselves so many heavens; to sighed; Since you may see in them, the Moon, and Stars, The blue space of the air; as far from us, (To our weak senses) in those shallow streams As if they were as deep, as heaven is high; Yet with your middle finger only, found them, And you shall pierce them to the very earth; And therefore leave them, and be true to me Or yow'le be left by all; or be Like one That in cold nights will needs have all the fire, And there is held by others, and embraced Only to burn him: your fire will be inward, Which not another deluge can put out: Oh Inocence the sacred amulet, Gainst all the poisons of infirmity: Of all misfortune, injury, and death, That makes a man, in tune still in himself; Free from the hell to be his own accuser, Ever in quiet, endle, joy enjoying; No strife, nor no sedition I his powers: No motion in his will, against his reason, No thought gainst thought, Nor (as it in the confines Of wishing, and repenting) does possess Only a way ward, and tumultuos peace, But (all parts in him, friendly and secure, Fruitful of all best things in all worst Seasons) He can with every wish, be in their plenty, When, the infectious gilded of one foul crime, Destroys the free content of all our time. They will talk him into Savoy ; he begins to hunt down. Pouvre Amy Merciè. Would I were sure of that, I should then have a long gae, and a merry. Well cosine, I with all thanks, welcome that; And the rich arguments with which you prove it, Wishing I could, to your wish welcome you; Draw, for your marquisate, the articles; Agreed on in our composition, And it is yours, but where you have porpos'd, (In your advices) my design for Milan, I will have no war with the king of Spain, Unless his Hope's prove weary of our peace; And (Princely cosine) it is far from me, To think your wisdom, needful of my counsel, Yet love, ofttimes must offer things unneedful; And therefore I would counsel you to hold All good terms, with his Majesty of Spain : If any troubles should be stirred betwixt you, I would not stir therein, but to appease them; I have too much care of my royal word, To break a Peace so joust and consequent, Without force of precedent injure e: Endless desires are worthless of joust Princes, And only proper to the swinge of tyrants. Is this he Espernon, that you would needs Persuade us courted so absurdly. In what one point seemed he so ridiculous as you would present him? Well sir, we grant your resemblance. Why is not that well it came in with the organ hose. I think he stole it from D'Avuergne indeed. Wherein? or how? Marry God dild him. Well, (to be serious) you know him well To be a gallant Courtier: his great wit Can turn him into any form he lists, More fit to be avoided, then deluded. For my Lord Duke of Byron here, well knows, That it infecteth, where it does affect: And where it seems to counsel, it conspires. With him go all our faults, and from us fly, (With all his counsel) all conspiracy. It is a truth, must make me ever thankful. But not performed by him, was not I there? Commanded him, and in the main assault, Made him but second? Do not enforce your merits so your self; It takes away their luster, and reward. I swear I cannot Keeping the credit of my brain and place. I am infor st; I have no power, more then your self in things That are beyond my reason. How can I help it? would you have a King That hath a white beard; have so green a brain? Swear; what do you swear? You have been recompensed, from head to foot. Yet it your honour; which if you respect not, Why seek you this Addition? Since you expostulate the matter so; I tell you plain; Another reason is Why I am moved to make you this denial That I suspect you to have had in elligence With my vowed enemies. 'Tis music to mine ears: rise then for ever, Quit of what gilded soever, till this hour, And nothing touched in honour or in spirit, Rise without flattery, rise by absolute merit. For the time he hath been here, he hath talked a Vo lume greater then the Turks A caron; stand up close; his lips go still