KING GEORGE’S WATERING-PLACE, SOUTH WESSEX

    [A sunny day in autumn.  A room in the red-brick royal residence
    know as Gloucester Lodge.8
    At a front triple-lighted window stands a telescope on a tripod.
    Through the open middle sash is visible the crescent-curved
    expanse of the Bay as a sheet of brilliant translucent green,
    on which ride vessels of war at anchor.  On the left hand white
    cliffs stretch away till they terminate in St. Aldhelm’s Head,
    and form a background to the level water-line on that side.  In
    the centre are the open sea and blue sky.  A near headland rises
    on the right, surmounted by a battery, over which appears the
    remoter bald grey brow of the Isle of Slingers.

    In the foreground yellow sands spread smoothly, whereon there
    are sundry temporary erections for athletic sports; and closer
    at hand runs an esplanade on which a fashionable crowd is
    promenading.  Immediately outside the Lodge are companies of
    soldiers, groups of officers, and sentries.

    Within the room the KING and PITT are discovered.  The KING’S
    eyes show traces of recent inflammation, and the Minister has
    a wasted look.]

  KING

  Yes, yes; I grasp your reasons, Mr. Pitt,
  And grant you audience gladly.  More than that,
  Your visit to this shore is apt and timely,
  And if it do but yield you needful rest
  From fierce debate, and other strains of office
  Which you and I in common have to bear,
  ’Twill be well earned.  The bathing is unmatched
  Elsewhere in Europe,—see its mark on me!—
  The air like liquid life.—But of this matter:
  What argue these late movements seen abroad?
  What of the country now the session’s past;
  What of the country, eh? and of the war?

  PITT

  The thoughts I have laid before your Majesty
  Would make for this, in sum:—
  That Mr. Fox, Lord Grenville, and their friends,
  Be straightway asked to join.  With Melville gone,
  With Sidmouth, and with Buckinghamshire too,
  The steerage of affairs has stood of late
  Somewhat provisional, as you, sir, know,
  With stop-gap functions thrust on offices
  Which common weal can tolerate but awhile.
  So, for the weighty reasons I have urged,
  I do repeat my most respectful hope
  To win your Majesty’s ungrudged assent
  To what I have proposed.

  KING

            But nothing, sure,
  Has been more plain to all, dear Mr. Pitt,
  Than that your own proved energy and scope
  Is ample, without aid, to carry on
  Our just crusade against the Corsican.
  Why, then, go calling Fox and Grenville in?
  Such helps we need not.  Pray you think upon’t,
  And speak to me again.—We’ve had alarms
  Making us skip like crackers at our heels,
  That Bonaparte had landed close hereby.

  PITT

  Such rumours come as regularly as harvest.

  KING

  And now he has left Boulogne with all his host?
  Was it his object to invade at all,
  Or was his vast assemblage there a blind?

  PITT

  Undoubtedly he meant invasion, sir,
  Had fortune favoured.  He may try it yet.
  And, as I said, could we but close with Fox—-

  KING

  But, but;—I ask, what is his object now?
  Lord Nelson’s Captain—Hardy—whose old home
  Stands in a peaceful vale hard by us here—
  Who came two weeks ago to see his friends,
  I talked to in this room a lengthy while.
  He says our navy still is in thick night
  As to the aims by sea of Bonaparte
  Now the Boulogne attempt has fizzled out,
  And what he schemes afloat with Spain combined.
  The “Victory” lay that fortnight at Spithead,
  And Nelson since has gone aboard and sailed;
  Yes, sailed again.  The “Royal Sovereign” follows,
  And others her.  Nelson was hailed and cheered
  To huskiness while leaving Southsea shore,
  Gentle and simple wildly thronging round.

  PITT

  Ay, sir.  Young women hung upon his arm,
  And old ones blessed, and stroked him with their hands.

  KING

  Ah—you have heard, of course.  God speed him, Pitt.

  PITT

  Amen, amen!

  KING

            I read it as a thing
  Of signal augury, and one which bodes
  Heaven’s confidence in me and in my line,
  That I should rule as King in such an age!...
  Well, well.—So this new march of Bonaparte’s
  Was unexpected, forced perchance on him?

  PITT

  It may be so, your Majesty; it may.
  Last noon the Austrian ambassador,
  Whom I consulted ere I posted down,
  Assured me that his latest papers word
  How General Mack and eighty thousand men
  Have made good speed across Bavaria
  To wait the French and give them check at Ulm,
  That fortress-frontier-town, entrenched and walled,
  A place long chosen as a vantage-point
  Whereon to encounter them as they outwind
  From the blind shades and baffling green defiles
  Of the Black Forest, worn with wayfaring.
  Here Mack will intercept his agile foe
  Hasting to meet the Russians in Bohemia,
  And cripple him, if not annihilate.

  Thus now, sir, opens out this Great Alliance
  Of Russia, Austria, England, whereto I
  Have lent my earnest efforts through long months,
  And the realm gives her money, ships, and men.—
  It claps a muffler round the Cock’s steel spurs,
  And leaves me sanguine on his overthrow.
  But, then,—this coalition of resources
  Demands a strong and active Cabinet
  To aid your Majesty’s directive hand;
  And thus I urge again the said additions—
  These brilliant intellects of the other side
  Who stand by Fox.  With us conjoined, they—-

  KING

  What, what, again—in face of my sound reasons!
  Believe me, Pitt, you underrate yourself;
  You do not need such aid.  The splendid feat
  Of banding Europe in a righteous cause
  That you have achieved, so soon to put to shame
  This wicked bombardier of dynasties
  That rule by right Divine, goes straight to prove
  We had best continue as we have begun,
  And call no partners to our management.
  To fear dilemmas horning up ahead
  Is not your wont.  Nay, nay, now, Mr. Pitt,
  I must be firm.  And if you love your King
  You’ll goad him not so rashly to embrace
  This Fox-Grenville faction and its friends.
  Rather than Fox, why, give me civil war!
  Hey, what?  But what besides?

  PITT

  I say besides, sir,... nothing!

    [A silence.]

  KING [cheerfully]

  The Chancellor’s here, and many friends of mine: Lady Winchelsea,
  Lord and Lady Chesterfield, Lady Bulkeley, General Garth, and Mr.
  Phipps the oculist—not the least important to me.  He is a worthy
  and a skilful man.  My eyes, he says, are as marvellously improved
  in durability as I know them to be in power.  I have arranged to go
  to-morrow with the Princesses, and the Dukes of Cumberland, Sussex,
  and Cambridge [who are also here] for a ride on the Ridgeway, and
  through the Camp on the downs.  You’ll accompany us there?

  PITT

  I am honoured by your Majesty’s commands.

    [PITT looks resignedly out of the window.]

  What curious structure do I see outside, sir?

  KING

  It’s but a stage, a type of all the world.  The burgesses have
  arranged it in my honour.  At six o’clock this evening there are
  to be combats at single-stick to amuse the folk; four guineas
  the prize for the man who breaks most heads.  Afterward there
  is to be a grinning match through horse-collars—a very humorous
  sport which I must stay here and witness; for I am interested in
  whatever entertains my subjects.

  PITT

  Not one in all the land but knows it, sir.

  KING

  Now, Mr. Pitt, you must require repose;
  Consult your own convenience then, I beg,
  On when you leave.

  PITT

       I thank your Majesty.

    [He departs as one whose purpose has failed, and the scene shuts.]

  BEFORE THE CITY OF ULM

    [A prospect of the city from the east, showing in the foreground
    a low-lying marshy country bounded in mid-distance by the banks
    of the Danube, which, bordered by poplars and willows, flows
    across the picture from the left to the Elchingen Bridge near
    the right of the scene, and is backed by irregular heights and
    terraces of espaliered vines.  Between these and the river stands
    the city, crowded with old gabled houses and surrounded by walls,
    bastions, and a ditch, all the edifices being dominated by the
    nave and tower of the huge Gothic Munster.

    On the most prominent of the heights at the back—the Michaelsberg
    —to the upper-right of the view, is encamped the mass of the
    Austrian army, amid half-finished entrenchments.  Advanced posts
    of the same are seen south-east of the city, not far from the
    advanced corps of the French Grand-Army under SOULT, MARMONT,
    LANNES, NEY, and DUPONT, which occupy in a semicircle the whole
    breadth of the flat landscape in front, and extend across the
    river to higher ground on the right hand of the panorama.

    Heavy mixed drifts of rain and snow are descending impartially
    on the French and on the Austrians, the downfall nearly blotting
    out the latter on the hills.  A chill October wind wails across
    the country, and the poplars yield slantingly to the gusts.]

  DUMB SHOW

  Drenched peasants are busily at work, fortifying the heights of
  the Austrian position in the face of the enemy.  Vague companies
  of Austrians above, and of the French below, hazy and indistinct
  in the thick atmosphere, come and go without apparent purpose
  near their respective lines.

  Closer at hand NAPOLÉON, in his familiar blue-grey overcoat, rides
  hither and thither with his marshals, haranguing familiarly the
  bodies of soldiery as he passes them, and observing and pointing
  out the disposition of the Austrians to his companions.

  Thicker sheets of rain fly across as the murk of evening increases,
  which at length entirely obscures the prospect, and cloaks its
  bleared lights and fires.

  ULM.  WITHIN THE CITY

    [The interior of the Austrian headquarters on the following
    morning.  A tempest raging without.

    GENERAL MACK, haggard and anxious, the ARCHDUKE FERDINAND, PRINCE
    SCHWARZENBERG, GENERAL JELLACHICH, GENERALS RIESC, BIBERBACH, and
    other field officers discovered, seated at a table with a map
    spread out before them.  A wood fire blazes between tall andirons
    in a yawning fireplace.  At every more than usually boisterous
    gust of wind the smoke flaps into the room.]

  MACK

  The accursed cunning of our adversary
  Confounds all codes of honourable war,
  Which ever have held as granted that the track
  Of armies bearing hither from the Rhine—
  Whether in peace or strenuous invasion—
  Should pierce the Schwarzwald, and through Memmingen,
  And meet us in our front.  But he must wind
  And corkscrew meanly round, where foot of man
  Can scarce find pathway, stealing up to us
  Thiefwise, by out back door!  Nevertheless,
  If English war-fleets be abreast Boulogne,
  As these deserters tell, and ripe to land there,
  It destines Bonaparte to pack him back
  Across the Rhine again.  We’ve but to wait,
  And see him go.

  ARCHDUKE

  But who shall say if these bright tales be true?

  MACK

  Even then, small matter, your Imperial Highness;
  The Russians near us daily, and must soon—
  Ay, far within the eight days I have named—
  Be operating to untie this knot,
  If we hold on.

  ARCHDUKE

            Conjectures these—no more;
  I stomach not such waiting.  Neither hope
  Has kernel in it.  I and my cavalry
  With caution, when the shadow fall to-night,
  Can bore some hole in this engirdlement;
  Outpass the gate north-east; join General Werneck,
  And somehow cut our way Bohemia-wards:
  Well worth the hazard, in our straitened case!

  MACK [firmly]

  The body of our force stays here with me.
  And I am much surprised, your Highness, much,
  You mark not how destructive ’tis to part!
  If we wait on, for certain we should wait
  In our full strength, compacted, undispersed
  By such partition as your Highness plans.

  SCHWARZENBERG

  There’s truth in urging we should not divide,
  But weld more closely.—Yet why stay at all?
  Methinks there’s but one sure salvation left,
  To wit, that we conjunctly march herefrom,
  And with much circumspection, towards the Tyrol.
  The subtle often rack their wits in vain—
  Assay whole magazines of strategy—
  To shun ill loomings deemed insuperable,
  When simple souls by stumbling up to them
  Find the grim shapes but air.  But let use grant
  That the investing French so ring us in
  As to leave not a span for such exploit;
  Then go we—throw ourselves upon their steel,
  And batter through, or die!—
  What say you, Generals?  Speak your minds, I pray.

  JELLACHICH

  I favour marching out—the Tyrol way.

  RIESC

  Bohemia best!  The route thereto is open.

  ARCHDUKE

  My course is chosen.  O this black campaign,
  Which Pitt’s alarmed dispatches pricked us to,
  All unforseeing!  Any risk for me
  Rather than court humiliation here!

    [MACK has risen during the latter remarks, walked to the
    window, and looked out at the rain.  He returns with an air
    of embarrassment.]

  MACK [to Archduke]

  It is my privilege firmly to submit
  That your Imperial Highness undertake
  No venturous vaulting into risks unknown.—
  Assume that you, Sire, as you have proposed,
  With your light regiments and the cavalry,
  Detach yourself from us, to scoop a way
  By circuits northwards through the Rauhe Alps
  And Herdenheim, into Bohemia:
  Reports all point that you will be attacked,
  Enveloped, borne on to capitulate.
  What worse can happen here?—
  Remember, Sire, the Emperor deputes me,
  Should such a clash arise as has arisen,
  To exercise supreme authority.
  The honour of our arms, our race, demands
  That none of your Imperial Highness’ line
  Be pounded prisoner by this vulgar foe,
  Who is not France, but an adventurer,
  Imposing on that country for his gain.

  ARCHDUKE

  But it seems clear to me that loitering here
  Is full as like to compass our surrender
  As moving hence.  And ill it therefore suits
  The mood of one of my high temperature
  To pause inactive while await me means
  Of desperate cure for these so desperate ills!

    [The ARCHDUKE FERDINAND goes out.   A troubled, silence follows,
    during which the gusts call into the chimney, and raindrops spit
    on the fire.]

  SCHWARZENBERG

  The Archduke bears him shrewdly in this course.
  We may as well look matters in the face,
  And that we are cooped and cornered is most clear;
  Clear it is, too, that but a miracle
  Can work to loose us!  I have stoutly held
  That this man’s three years’ ostentatious scheme
  To fling his army on the tempting shores
  Of our Allies the English was a—well—
  Scarce other than a trick of thimble-rig
  To still us into false security.

  JELLACHICH

  Well, I know nothing.  None needs list to me,
  But, on the whole, to southward seems the course
  For lunging, all in force, immediately.

    [Another pause.]

  SPIRIT SINISTER

       The Will throws Mack again into agitation:
       Ho-ho—what he’ll do now!

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

                 Nay, hard one, nay;
       The clouds weep for him!

  SPIRIT SINISTER

                 If he must;
       And it’s good antic at a vacant time!

    [MACK goes restlessly to the door, and is heard pacing about
    the vestibule, and questioning the aides and other officers
    gathered there.]

  A GENERAL

  He wavers like this smoke-wreath that inclines
  Or north, or south, as the storm-currents rule!

  MACK [returning]

  Bring that deserter hither once again.

    [A French soldier is brought in, blindfolded and guarded.  The
    bandage is removed.]

  Well, tell us what he says.

  AN OFFICER [after speaking to the prisoner in French]

            He still repeats
  That the whole body of the British strength
  Is even now descending on Boulogne,
  And that self-preservation must, if need,
  Clear us from Bonaparte ere many days,
  Who momently is moving.

  MACK

       Still retain him.

    [He walks to the fire, and stands looking into it.  The soldier
    is taken out.]

  JELLACHICH [bending over the map in argument with RIESC]

  I much prefer our self-won information;
  And if we have Marshal Soult at Landsberg here,
  [Which seems to be truth, despite this man,]
  And Dupont hard upon us at Albeck,
  With Ney not far from Gunzburg; somewhere here,
  Or further down the river, lurking Lannes,
  Our game’s to draw off southward—if we can!

  MACK [turning]

  I have it.  This we’ll do.  You Jellachich,
  Unite with Spangen’s troops at Memmingen,
  To fend off mischief there.  And you, Riesc,
  Will make your utmost haste to occupy
  The bridge and upper ground at Elchingen,
  And all along the left bank of the stream,
  Till you observe whereon to concentrate
  And sever their connections.  I couch here,
  And hold the city till the Russians come.

  A GENERAL [in a low voice]

  Disjunction seems of all expedients worst:
  If any stay, then stay should every man,
  Gather, inlace, and close up hip to hip,
  And perk and bristle hedgehog-like with spines!

  MACK

  The conference is ended, friends, I say,
  And orders will be issued here forthwith.

    [Guns heard.]

  AN OFFICER

  Surely that’s from the Michaelsberg above us?

  MACK

  Never care.  Here we stay.  In five more days
  The Russians hail, and we regain our bays.

    [Exeunt severally.]

  BEFORE ULM.  THE SAME DAY

    [A high wind prevails, and rain falls in torrents.  An elevated
    terrace near Elchingen forms the foreground.]

  DUMB SHOW

  From the terrace BONAPARTE surveys and dictates operations against
  the entrenched heights of the Michaelsberg that rise in the middle
  distance on the right above the city.  Through the gauze of
  descending waters the French soldiery can be discerned climbing
  to the attack under NEY.

  They slowly advance, recede, re-advance, halt.  A time of suspense
  follows.  Then they are seen in a state of irregular movement, even
  confusion; but in the end they carry the heights with the bayonet.

  Below the spot whereon NAPOLÉON and his staff are gathered,
  glistening wet and plastered with mud, obtrudes on the left the
  village of Elchingen, now in the hands of the French.  Its white-
  walled monastery, its bridge over the Danube, recently broken by
  the irresistible NEY, wear a desolated look, and the stream, which
  is swollen by the rainfall and rasped by the storm, seems wanly to
  sympathize.

  Anon shells are dropped by the French from the summits they have
  gained into the city below.  A bomb from an Austrian battery falls
  near NAPOLÉON, and in bursting raises a fountain of mud.  The
  Emperor retreats with his officers to a less conspicuous station.

  Meanwhile LANNES advances from a position near NAPOLÉON till his
  columns reach the top of the Frauenberg hard by.  The united corps
  of LANNES and NEY descend on the inner slope of the heights towards
  the city walls, in the rear of the retreating Austrians.  One
  of the French columns scales a bastion, but NAPOLÉON orders the
  assault to be discontinued, and with the wane of day the spectacle
  disappears.

  THE SAME.  THE MICHAELSBERG

    [A chilly but rainless noon three days later.  At the back of the
    scene, northward, rise the Michaelsberg heights; below stretches
    the panorama of the city and the Danube.  On a secondary eminence
    forming a spur of the upper hill, a fire of logs is burning, the
    foremost group beside it being NAPOLÉON and his staff, the former
    in his shabby greatcoat and plain turned-up hat, walking to and
    fro with his hands behind him, and occasionally stopping to warm
    himself.  The French infantry are drawn up in a dense array at
    the back of these.

    The whole Austrian garrison of Ulm marches out of the city gate
    opposite NAPOLÉON.  GENERAL MACK is at the head, followed by
    GIULAY, GOTTESHEIM, KLINAU, LICHTENSTEIN, and many other officers,
    who advance to BONAPARTE and deliver their swords.]

  MACK

  Behold me, Sire.  Mack the unfortunate!

  NAPOLÉON

  War, General, ever has its ups and downs,
  And you must take the better and the worse
  As impish chance or destiny ordains.
  Come near and warm you here.  A glowing fire
  Is life on the depressing, mired, moist days
  Of smitten leaves down-dropping clammily,
  And toadstools like the putrid lungs of men.
  [To his Lieutenants.]  Cause them so stand to right and left of me.

    [The Austrian officers arrange themselves as directed, and the
    body of the Austrians now file past their Conqueror, laying down
    their arms as they approach; some with angry gestures and words,
    others in moody silence.]

  Listen, I pray you, Generals gathered her.
  I tell you frankly that I know not why
  Your master wages this wild war with me.
  I know not what he seeks by such injustice,
  Unless to give me practice in my trade—
  That of a soldier—whereto I was bred:
  Deemed he my craft might slip from me, unplied?
  Let him now own me still a dab therein!

  MACK

  Permit me, your Imperial Majesty,
  To speak one word in answer; which is this,
  No war was wished for by my Emperor:
  Russia constrained him to it!

  NAPOLÉON

            If that be,
  You are no more a European power.—
  I would point out to him that my resources
  Are not confined to these my musters here;
  My prisoners of war, in route for France,
  Will see some marks of my resources there!
  Two hundred thousand volunteers, right fit,
  Will join my standards at a single nod,
  And in six weeks prove soldiers to the bone,
  Whilst you recruits, compulsion’s scavengings,
  Scarce weld to warriors after toilsome years.

  But I want nothing on this Continent:
  The English only are my enemies.
  Ships, colonies, and commerce I desire,
  Yea, therewith to advantage you as me.
  Let me then charge your Emperor, my brother,
  To turn his feet the shortest way to peace.—
  All states must have an end, the weak, the strong;
  Ay; even may fall the dynasty of Lorraine!

    [The filing past and laying down of arms by the Austrian army
    continues with monotonous regularity, as if it would never end.]

  NAPOLÉON [in a murmur, after a while]

  Well, what cares England!  She has won her game;
  I have unlearnt to threaten her from Boulogne....

  Her gold it is that forms the weft of this
  Fair tapestry of armies marshalled here!
  Likewise of Russia’s drawing steadily nigh.
  But they may see what these see, by and by.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       So let him speak, the while we clearly sight him
       Moved like a figure on a lantern-slide.
       Which, much amazing uninitiate eyes,
       The all-compelling crystal pane but drags
       Wither the showman wills.

  SPIRIT IRONIC

            And yet, my friend,
       The Will itself might smile at this collapse
       Of Austria’s men-at-arms, so drolly done;
       Even as, in your phantasmagoric show,
       The deft manipulator of the slide
       Might smile at his own art.

  CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]

            Ah, no: ah, no!
       It is impassible as glacial snow.—
            Within the Great Unshaken
            These painted shapes awaken
       A lesser thrill than doth the gentle lave
       Of yonder bank by Danube’s wandering wave
       Within the Schwarzwald heights that give it flow!

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       But O, the intolerable antilogy
       Of making figments feel!

  SPIRIT IRONIC

            Logic’s in that.
       It does not, I must own, quite play the game.

  CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]

       And this day wins for Ulm a dingy fame,
       Which centuries shall not bleach from her name!

    [The procession of Austrians continues till the scene is hidden
    by haze.]

  LONDON.  SPRING GARDENS

    [Before LORD MALMESBURY’S house, on a Sunday morning in the
    same autumn.  Idlers pause and gather in the background.

    PITT enters, and meets LORD MULGRAVE.]

  MULGRAVE

  Good day, Pitt.  Ay, these leaves that skim the ground
  With withered voices, hint that sunshine-time
  Is well-nigh past.—And so the game’s begun
  Between him and the Austro-Russian force,
  As second movement in the faceabout
  From Boulogne shore, with which he has hocussed us?—
  What has been heard on’t?  Have they clashed as yet?

  PITT

  The Emperor Francis, partly at my instance,
  Has thrown the chief command on General Mack,
  A man most capable and far of sight.
  He centres by the Danube-bank at Ulm,
  A town well-walled, and firm for leaning on
  To intercept the French in their advance
  From the Black Forest toward the Russian troops
  Approaching from the east.  If Bonaparte
  Sustain his marches at the break-neck speed
  That all report, they must have met ere now.
  —There is a rumour... quite impossible!...

  MULGRAVE

  You still have faith in Mack as strategist?
  There have been doubts of his far-sightedness.

  PITT [hastily]

  I know, I know.—I am calling here at Malmesbury’s
  At somewhat an unceremonious time
  To ask his help to translate this Dutch print
  The post has brought.  Malmesbury is great at Dutch,
  Learning it long at Leyden, years ago.

    [He draws a newspaper from his pocket, unfolds it, and glances
    it down.]

  There’s news here unintelligible to me
  Upon the very matter!  You’ll come in?

    [They call at LORD MAMESBURY’S.  He meets them in the hall, and
    welcomes them with an apprehensive look of foreknowledge.]

  PITT

  Pardon this early call.  The packet’s in,
  And wings me this unreadable Dutch paper,
  So, as the offices are closed to-day,
  I have brought it round to you.

  [Handling the paper.]

            What does it say?
  For God’s sake, read it out.  You know the tongue.

  MALMESBURY [with hesitation]

  I have glanced it through already—more than once—
  A copy having reached me, too, by now...
  We are in the presence of a great disaster!
  See here.  It says that Mack, enjailed in Ulm
  By Bonaparte—from four side shutting round—
  Capitulated, and with all his force
  Laid down his arms before his conqueror!

    [PITT’s face changes.  A silence.]

  MULGRAVE

  Outrageous!  Ignominy unparalleled!

  PITT

  By God, my lord, these statement must be false!
  These foreign prints are trustless as Cheap Jack
  Dumfounding yokels at a country fair.
  I heed no word of it.—Impossible.
  What!  Eighty thousand Austrians, nigh in touch
  With Russia’s levies that Kutúzof leads,
  To lay down arms before the war’s begun?
  ’Tis too much!

  MALMESBURY

            But I fear it is too true!
  Note the assevered source of the report—
  One beyond thought of minters of mock tales.
  The writer adds that military wits
  Cry that the little Corporal now makes war
  In a new way, using his soldiers’ legs
  And not their arms, to bring him victory.
  Ha-ha!  The quip must sting the Corporal’s foes.

  PITT [after a pause]

  O vacillating Prussia!  Had she moved,
  Had she but planted one foot firmly down,
  All this had been averted.—I must go.
  ’Tis sure, ’tis sure, I labour but in vain!

    [MALMESBURY accompanies him to the door, and PITT walks away
    disquietedly towards Whitehall, the other two regarding him
    as he goes.]

  MULGRAVE

  Too swiftly he declines to feebleness,
  And these things well might shake a stouter frame!

  MALMESBURY

  Of late the burden of all Europe’s cares,
  Of hiring and maintaining half her troops,
  His single pair of shoulders has upborne,
  Thanks to the obstinacy of the King.—
  His thin, strained face, his ready irritation,
  Are ominous signs.  He may not be for long.

  MULGRAVE

  He alters fast, indeed,—as do events.

  MALMESBURY

  His labour’s lost; and all our money gone!
  It looks as if this doughty coalition
  On which we have lavished so much pay and pains
  Would end in wreck.

  MULGRAVE

            All is not over yet;
  The gathering Russian forces are unbroke.

  MALMESBURY

  Well; we shall see.  Should Boney vanquish these,
  And silence all resistance on that side,
  His move will then be backward to Boulogne,
  And so upon us.

  MULGRAVE

       Nelson to our defence!

  MALMESBURY

  Ay; where is Nelson?  Faith, by this time
  He may be sodden; churned in Biscay swirls;
  Or blown to polar bears by boreal gales;
  Or sleeping amorously in some calm cave
  On the Canaries’ or Atlantis’ shore
  Upon the bosom of his Dido dear,
  For all that we know!  Never a sound of him
  Since passing Portland one September day—
  To make for Cadiz; so ’twas then believed.

  MULGRAVE

  He’s staunch.  He’s watching, or I am much deceived.

    [MULGRAVE departs.  MALMESBURY goes within.  The scene shuts.]