Nov. sen. 'Tis well.
Lilad. Observe him now.

Nov. sen. Your cause being good, and your proceedings so,

Without corruption I am your friend;
Speak your desires.

2 Cred. Oh, they are charitable;

The marshal stood engaged unto us three,

Rom. I know you for

The worst of spirits, that strive to rob the tombs
Of what is their inheritance, the dead:
For usurers bred by a riotous peace,

That hold the charter of your wealth and freedom,

By being knaves and cuckolds; that ne'er prayed, But when you fear the rich heirs will grow wise,

death,

We are defeated of. For which great loss

We aim at nothing but his rotten flesh; Nor is that cruelty.

1 Cred. I have a son

That talks of nothing but of guns and armour,
And swears he'll be a soldier; 'tis an humour
I would divert him from; and I am told,
That if I minister to him, in his drink,
Powder made of this bankrupt marshal's bones,
Provided that the carcase rot above ground,
'Twill cure his foolish frenzy.

Nov. sen. You shew in it

A father's care. I have a son myself,
A fashionable gentleman, and a peaceful:
And, but I am assured he is not so given,
He should take of it too.

Charal. Sir.

Nov. sen. What are you?
Charal. A gentleman.

Nov. sen. So are many that rake dunghills. If you have any suit, move it in court:

I take no papers in corners.

[Exit

Rom. Yes, as the matter may be carried, and
whereby

To manage the conveyance-Follow him.
Lilad. You're rude: I say he shall not pass.
[Exeunt CHARALOIS, and Advocates.
Rom. You say so! On what assurance?
For the well-cutting of his lordship's corns,
Picking his toes, or any office else
Nearer to baseness!

Litad. Look upon me better;

Are these the ensigns of so coarse a fellow?
Be well advised.

Rom. Out, rogue! do not I know These glorious weeds spring from the sordid dunghill

Of thy officious baseness? Wert thou worthy
Of any thing from me, but my contempt,
I would do more than this, Beats him.] more,

you court-spider!

Lilad. But that this man is lawless, he should

find

And then, the devil, your father, is called upon,
To invent some ways of luxury ne'er thought on.
Be gone, and quickly, or I'll leave no room
Upon your foreheads for your horns to sprout on;
Without a murmur, or I will undo you,
For I will beat you honest.

1 Cred. Thrift forbid!

We will bear this rather than hazard that. [Exeunt Creditors.

Re-enter CHARALOIS.

Rom. I am somewhat eased in this yet.
Char. Only friend,

To what vain purpose do I make my sorrow
Wait on the triumph of their cruelty?
Or teach their pride, from my humility,

To think it has o'ercome? They are determined
What they will do; and it may well become me,
To rob them of the glory they expect
From my submiss entreaties.

Rom. Think not so, sir:

The difficulties that you encounter with,
Will crown the undertaking-Heaven! you weep,
And I could do so too; but that I know,
There's more expected from the son and friend
Of him whose fatal loss now shakes our natures,
Than sighs or tears, in which a village nurse,
Or cunning strumpet, when her knave is hanged,
May overcome us. We are men, young lord,
Let us not do like women. To the court,
And there speak like your birth: Wake sleeping
justice,

Or dare the axe. This is a way will sort
With what you are: I call you not to that
I will shrink from myself; I will deserve
Your thanks, or suffer with you-O how bravely
That sudden fire of anger shews in you!
Give fuel to it; since you are on a shelf
Of extreme danger, suffer like yourself. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The Court of Justice.
Enter ROCHFORT, NOVALL, sen. Presidents,
CHARMI, DU Croy, Beaumont, Advocates,
Officers, and three Creditors.

Du Croy. Your lordships seated, may this meeting prove

Prosperous to us, and to the general good of Burgundy!

Nov. sen. Speak to the point.
Du Croy-Which is

With honour to dispose the place and power
Of premier president, which this reverend man,
Grave Rochfort (whom for honour's sake I name),
Is purposed to resign; a place, my lords,
In which he hath with such integrity

Performed the first and best parts of a judge, That, as his life transcends all fair examples Of such as were before him in Dijon,

So it remains to those that shall succeed him, A precedent they may imitate, but not equal. Roch. I may not sit to hear this.

Du Croy. Let the love

It will erect a trophy of your mercy,
Which married to that justice

Nov. sen. Speak to the cause.

Charmi. I will, my lord. To say, the late dead marshal,

ness,

In this o'ercome your modesty.

Roch. My thanks

For this great favour shall prevent your trouble.
The honourable trust that was imposed

Upon my weakness, since you witness for me
It was not ill discharged, I will not mention;
Nor now, if age had not deprived me of
The little strength I had to govern well
The province that I undertook, forsake it.
Nov. sen. That we could lend you of our years!
Du Croy. Or strength!

Nov. sen. Or, as you are, persuade you to con-
tinue

The noble exercise of your knowing judgment! Roch. That may not be; nor can your lordships' goodness,

Since your employments have conferred upon

me

Sufficient wealth, deny the use of it;

And though old age, when one foot's in the

grave,

In many, when all humours else are spent,
Feeds no affection in them, but desire
To add height to the mountain of their riches,
In me it is not so. I rest content
With the honours and estate I now possess:
And, that I may have liberty to use,
What Heaven, still blessing my poor industry,
Hath made me master of, I pray the court
To ease me of my burthen, that I may
Employ the small remainder of my life
In living well, and learning how to die so.

Enter ROMONT and CHARALOIS.

Rom. See, sir, our advocate.
Du Croy. The court entreats

Your lordship will be pleased to name the man,
Which you would have your successor, and in me
All promise to confirm it.

Koch. I embrace it

As an assurance of their favour to me,

And name my lord Novall.

Du Croy. The court allows it.

Roch. But there are suitors wait here, and

Hath done his country great and faithful service,
Might tax me of impertinence, to repeat
What your grave lordships cannot but remem-
ber:

He, in his life, became indebted to
These thrifty men, (I will not wrong their credits,
By giving them the attributes they now merit,)
And failing, by the fortune of the wars,
Of means to free himself from his engagements,
He was arrested, and, for want of bail,
Imprisoned at their suit; and, not long after,
With loss of liberty ended his life.

And, though it became a maxim in our laws,
All suits die with the person, these men's malice
In death finds matter for their hate to work on,
Denying him the decent rites of burial,
Which the sworn enemies of the christian faith
Grant freely to their slaves. May it therefore
please

Your lordships so to fashion your decree,
That, what their cruelty doth forbid, your pity
May give allowance to.

Nov. sen. How long have you, sir, practised in court?

Charmi. Some twenty years, my lord,
Nov. sen. By your gross ignorance, it should

Rom. Yet I, that, in my service done my country,

Disdain to be put in the scale with thee,
Confess myself unworthy to be valued
With the least part, nay, hair of the dead mar-
shal;

Of whose so many glorious undertakings,
Make choice of any one, and that the meanest,
Performed against the subtle fox of France,
The politic Lewis, or the more desperate Swiss,
And 'twill outweigh all the good purposes,
Though put in act, that ever gownman practised.
Nov. sen. Away with him to prison!
Rom. If that curses,

Urged justly, and breathed forth so, ever fell
On those that did deserve them, let not mine
Be spent in vain now, that thou, from this in-

stant,

Mayest, in thy fear that they will fall upon thee, Be sensible of the plagues they shall bring with them.

And for denying of a little earth,

To cover what remains of our great soldier,
May all your wives prove whores, your factors
thieves,

And, while you live, your riotous heirs undo you!
And thou, the patron of their cruelty,
Of all thy lordships live not to be owner
Of so much dung as will conceal a dog,
Or, what is worse, thyself in! And thy years,
To th' end thou mayst be wretched, I wish
many;
And, as thou hast denied the dead a grave,
May misery in thy life make thee desire one,
Which men, and all the elements, keep from
thee!-

I have begun well; imitate, exceed. [To CHAR.
Roch. Good counsel, were it a praise-worthy
deed. [Exeunt officers with ROMONT.
Du Croy. Remember what we are.
Char. Thus low my duty
Answers your lordship's counsel. I will use,
In the few words with which I am to trouble
Your lordship's ears, the temper that you wish

me:

Not that I fear to speak my thoughts as loud,
And with a liberty beyond Romont;
But that I know, for me, that am made up
Of all that's wretched, so to haste my end,
Would seem to most rather a willingness

To quit the burden of a hopeless life,
Than scorn of death, or duty to the dead.
I, therefore, bring the tribute of my praise
To your severity, and commend the justice,
That will not, for the many services

That any man hath done the commonwealth, Wink at his least of ills. What though my father

Writ man before he was so, and confirmed it,
By numbering that day no part of his life,
In which he did not service to his country;
Was he to be free therefore from the laws,
And ceremonious form in your decrees?
Or else, because he did as much as man,
In those three memorable overthrows,
At Granson, Morat, Nancy, where his master,
The warlike Charalois (with whose misfortunes
I bear his name) lost treasure, men, and life,
To be excused from payment of those sums
Which (his own patrimony spent) his zeal
To serve his country forced him to take up?
Nov. sen. The precedent were ill.
Char. And yet, my lord, this much

I know you'll grant: after those great defeatures,
Which in their dreadful ruins buried quick

Re-enter Officers.

Courage and hope in all men but himself,
He forced the proud foe, in his height of con-
quest,

To yield unto an honourable peace,
And in it saved an hundred thousand lives,
To end his own, that was sure proof against
The scalding summer's heat, and winter's frost,
Ill airs, the cannon, and the enemy's sword,
In a most loathsome prison.

Du Croy. 'Twas his fault
To be so prodigal.

Nov. sen. He had from the state Sufficient entertainment for the army.

Char. Sufficient, my lords? You sit at home, And, though your fees are boundless at the bar, Are thrifty in the charges of the warBut your wills be obeyed. To these I turn, To these soft-hearted men, that wisely know They're only good men that pay what they owe. 2 Cred. And so they are.

1 Cred. 'Tis the city doctrine; We stand bound to maintain it.

Char. Be constant in it;

And, since you are as merciless in your natures,
As base and mercenary in your means,
By which you get your wealth, I will not urge
The court to take away one scruple from
The right of their laws, or [wish] one good thought
In you to mend your disposition with.
I know there is no music to your ears
So pleasing as the groans of men in prison,
And that the tears of widows, and the cries
Of famished orphans, are the feasts that take

you.

That to be in your danger, with more care Should be avoided than infectious air, The loathed embraces of diseased women, A flatterer's poison, or the loss of honour.—

Yet, rather than my father's reverend dust
Shall want a place in that fair monument,
In which our noble ancestors lie entombed,
Before the court I offer up myself

A prisoner for it. Load me with those irons
That have worn out his life: in my best strength
I'll run to the encounter of cold hunger,
And chuse my dwelling where no sun dares enter,
So he may be released.

1 Cred. What mean you, sir?

2 Advo. Only your fee again: There's so
much said

Already in this cause, and said so well,
That, should I only offer to speak in it,
I should be or not heard, or laughed at for it.

1 Cred. 'Tis the first money advocate e'er gave
back,

Though he said nothing.

Roch. Be advised, young lord,
And well consider it; you throw away
Your liberty and joys of life together:
Your bounty is employed upon a subject

That is not sensible of it, with which wise man
Never abused his goodness. The great virtues
Of your dead father vindicate themselves

From these men's malice, and break ope the prison,

Though it contain his body.

Nov. sen. Let him alone:

If he love cords, in God's name, let him wear

them,

Provided these consent.

Char. I hope they are not

So ignorant in any way of profit,
As to neglect a possibility

To get their own, by seeking it from that
Which can return them nothing but ill fame,
And curses for their barbarous cruelties.

3 Cred. What think you of the offer?
2 Cred. Very well.

1 Cred. Accept it by all means: Let's shut

him up;

He is well shaped, and has a villainous tongue,
And, should he study that way of revenge,
As I dare almost swear he loves a wench,
We have no wives, nor ever shall get daughters,
That will hold out against him.

Du Croy. What's your answer?
2 Cred. Speak you for all.

1 Cred. Why, let our executions, That lie upon the father, be returned Upon the son, and we release the body.

Nov. sen. The court must grant you that.
Char. I thank your lordships.

They have in it confirmed on me such glory,
As no time can take from me. I am ready:
Come, lead me where you please: Captivity,
That comes with honour, is true liberty.

[Exeunt CHARALOIS, CHARMI, Creditors,
and Officers.

Nov. sen. Strange rashness!
Roch. A brave resolution rather,
Worthy a better fortune: but, however,
It is not now to be disputed; therefore

To my own cause. Already I have found
Your lordships bountiful in your favours to me;
And that should teach my modesty to end here,
And press your loves no farther.

Du Croy. There is nothing

The court can grant, but with assurance you
May ask it, and obtain it.

Roch. You encourage a bold petitioner, and 'tis not fit

Your favours should be lost: Besides, it has been
A custom many years, at the surrendering
The place I now give up, to grant the president
One boon, that parted with it. And, to confirm
Your grace towards me, against all such as may
Detract my actions and life hereafter,

I now prefer it to you,

Du Croy. Speak it freely.

Roch. I then desire the liberty of Romont, And that my lord Novall, whose private wrong Was equal to the injury that was done

To the dignity of the court, will pardon it,
And now sign his enlargement.

Nov. sen. Pray you demand

The moiety of my estate, or any thing
Within my power but this.

Roch. Am I denied then my first and last request?

Du Croy. It must not be.

2 Pre. I have a voice to give in it.

3 Pre. And I.

And, if persuasion will not work him to it,
We will make known our power.

Nov. sen. You are too violent;
You shall have my consent.
But would you had
Made trial of my love in any thing

But this, you should have found then-But it skills not.

You have what you desire.

Roch. I thank your lordships.

Du Croy. The court is up-Make way.
[Exeunt all but ROCHFORT and BEAUMONT.
Roch. I follow you. Beaumont!
Beaum. My lord?

Roch. You are a scholar, Beaumont,

And can search deeper into the intents of men, Than those that are less knowing. How appeared

The piety and brave behaviour of
Young Charalois to you?

Beaum. It is my wonder,

Since I want language to express it fully;
And sure the colonel-

Roch. Fie! he was faulty. What present mo

ney have I?

Beaum. There is no want

Of any sum a private man has use for.

Roch. 'Tis well:

I am strangely taken with this Charalois. Methinks, from his example, the whole age Should learn to be good, and continue so. Virtue works strangely with us; and his good

ness,

Rising above his fortune, seems to me,
Prince-like, to will, not ask a courtesy. [Exeunt.

SCENE I.-A Street before the Prison.

Enter PONTALIER, MALOTIN, and BEAUMONT,
Malot. 'Tis strange.
Beaum. Methinks so.

Pont. In a man but young,

Yet old in judgment; theorick and practick,
In all humanity, and (to increase the wonder)
Religious, yet a soldier, that he should
Yield his free-living youth a captive, for
The freedom of his aged father's corpse,
And rather chuse to want life's necessaries,
Liberty, hope of fortune, than it should
In death be kept from christian ceremony.
Malat. Come, 'tis a golden precedent in a son
To let strong Nature have the better hand,
(In such a case) of all affected reason.
What years sit on this Charalois ?

Beaum. Twenty-eight;

For since the clock did strike him seventeen old,
Under his father's wing this son hath fought,
Served and commanded, and so aptly both,
That sometimes he appeared his father's father,
And never less than his son; the old man's virtues
So recent in him, as the world may swear,
Nought but a fair tree could such fair fruit bear.
Pont. But wherefore lets he such a barbarous
law,

And men more barbarous to execute it,
Prevail on his soft disposition,
That he had rather die alive for debt

Of the old man in prison, than they should
Rob him of sepulture, considering
These monies borrowed bought the lenders peace,
And all their means they enjoy, nor were diffused
In any impious or licentious path?

Beaum. True! for my part, were it my father's trunk,

The tyrannous ram-heads with their horns should gore it,

Or cast it to their curs, than they less currish,
Ere prey on me so with their lion-law,
Being in my free will (as in his) to shun it.
Pont. Alas! he knows himself in poverty lost:
For in this partial avaricious age

What price bears honour? virtue? Long ago
It was but praised and freezed; but now-a days
'Tis colder far, and has nor love nor praise :
The very praise now freezeth too; for nature
Did make the heathen far more christian then,
Than knowledge us, less heathenish, christian.
Malot. This morning is the funeral?
Pont. Certainly,

And from this prison,-'twas the son's request.
That his dear father might interment have.
See, the young son enter'd a lively grave!

Beaum. They come observe their order.

Enter funeral. The body borne by four. Captains and soldiers, mourners, 'scutcheons, &c. in very good order. CHARALOIS and ROMONT meet it. CHARALOIS speaks. ROMONT weeping. Solemn musick. Three Creditors.

Char. How like a silent stream shaded with night,

And gliding softly with our windy sighs,
Moves the whole frame of this solemnity!
Tears, sighs and blacks filling the simile;
Whilst I, the only murmur in this grove
Of death, thus hollowly break forth.-Vouchsafe
To stay awhile.-Rest, rest in peace, dear earth!
Thou that brought'st rest to their unthankful lives,
Whose cruelty denied thee rest in death!
Here stands thy poor executor, thy son,
That makes his life prisoner to bail thy death;
Who gladlier puts on this captivity,
Than virgins, long in love, their wedding weeds.
Of all that ever thou hast done good to,
These only have good memories; for they
Remember best, forget not gratitude.
I thank you for this last and friendly love;

[To SOLD.
And though this country, like a viperous mother,
Not only hath eat up ungratefully
All means of thee, her son, but last thyself,
Leaving thy heir so bare and indigent,
He cannot raise thee a poor monument,
Such as a flatterer or an usurer hath;
Thy worth, in every honest breast, builds one,
Making their friendly hearts thy funeral stone.
Pont, Sir.

Char. Peace! O peace! This scene is wholly mine.

What! Weep ye, soldiers? Blanch not.-Ro