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      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       And hence unneeded

       In the economy of Vitality,

       Which might have ever kept a sealed cognition

       As doth the Will Itself.

      CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]

       Nay, nay, nay;

       Your hasty judgments stay,

       Until the topmost cyme

       Have crowned the last entablature of Time.

       O heap not blame on that in-brooding Will;

       O pause, till all things all their days fulfil!

      SCENE V

       LONDON. THE GUILDHALL

       [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.

      FIRST CITIZEN

       Well, well! Nelson is the man who ought to have been banqueted

       to-night. But he is coming to Town in a coach different from these.!

      SECOND CITIZEN

       Will they bring his poor splintered body home?

      FIRST CITIZEN

       Yes. They say he's to be tombed in marble, at St. Paul's or

       Westminster. We shall see him if he lays in state. It will

       make a patriotic spectacle for a fine day.

      BOY

       How can you see a dead man, father, after so long?

      FIRST CITIZEN

       They'll embalm him, my boy, as they did all the great Egyptian

       admirals.

      BOY

       His lady will be handy for that, won't she?

      FIRST CITIZEN

       Don't ye ask awkward questions.

      SECOND CITIZEN

       Here's another coming!

      FIRST CITIZEN

       That's my Lord Chancellor Eldon. Wot he'll say, and wot he'll look!

       Mr. Pitt will be here soon.

      BOY

       I don't like Billy. He killed Uncle John's parrot.

      SECOND CITIZEN

       How may ye make that out, youngster?

      BOY

       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.]

      FIRST CITIZEN

       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!

      SECOND CITIZEN

       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.

      SECOND CITIZEN

       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.

      THIRD CITIZEN

       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.]

      FOURTH CITIZEN

       Quite a triumphal entry. Such is power;

       Now worshipped, now accursed! The overthrow

       Of all Pitt's European policy

       When his hired army and his chosen general

       Surrendered them at Ulm a month ago,

       Is now forgotten! Ay; this Trafalgar

       Will botch up many a ragged old repute,

       Make Nelson figure as domestic saint

       No less than country's saviour, Pitt exalt

       As zenith-star of England's firmament,

       And uncurse all the bogglers of her weal

       At this adventurous time.

      THIRD CITIZEN

       Talk of Pitt being ill. He looks hearty as a buck.

      FIRST CITIZEN

       It's the news—no more. His spirits are up like a rocket for the

       moment.

      BOY

       Is it because Trafalgar is near Portugal that he loves Port wine?

      SECOND CITIZEN

       Ah, as I said, friend; this boy must go home and be carefully put

       to bed!

      FIRST CITIZEN

      Well, whatever William's

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