Enter Protaldie, with soldiers.
Brun. Your favor and his merit I may say
Have made him such, but I am jelous how
Your subjects will receive it.
Thier. How my subjects?
What doe you make of me? Oh heaven! My subjects!
How base should I esteem the name of Prince
If that poor dust were any thing before
The whirle-wind of my absolute command?
Let 'em be happy and rest so contented:
They pay the tribute of their hearts & knees,
To such a Prince that not alone has power,
To keep his own but to increase it; That
Although he hath a body may add to
The fam'd night labor of strong Hercules:
Yet is the master of a continence
That so can temper it, that I forbear
Their daughters, and their wives, whose hands though strong,
As yet have never drawn by unjust mean
Their proper wealth into my treasury,
But I grow glorious, and let them beware
That in their least repining at my pleasures,
They change not a mild Prince, (for if provok'd
I dare and will be so) into a Tyrant.
Brun. You see there's hope that we shall rule again,
And your fal'n fortunes rise.
Bawd. I hope your Highness
Is pleas'd that I should still hold my place with you;
For I have been so long us'd to provide you
Fresh bits of flesh since mine grew stale, that surely
If cashir'd now, I shall prove a bad Cator
In the Fish-market of cold chastity.
Lecure. For me I am your own, nor since I first
Knew what it was to serve you, have remembred
I had a soul, but such [a] one whose essence
Depended wholy on your Highness pleasure,
And therefore Madam—
Brun. Rest assur'd you are
Such instruments we must not lose.
Lecure. Bawd. Our service.
Thier. You have view'd them then, what's your opinion of them?
In this dull time of peace, we have prepar'd 'em
Apt for the war. Ha?
Prota. Sir, they have limbs
That promise strength sufficient, and rich armors
The Soldiers best lov'd wealth: More, it appears
They have been drill'd, nay very pretily drill'd:
For many of them can discharge their muskets
Without the danger of throwing off their heads,
Or being offensive to the standers by,
By sweating too much backwards; Nay I find
They know the right, and left hand file, and may
With some impulsion no doubt be brought
To pass the A, B, C, of war, and come
Unto the Horn-book.