PUFF.
Oh! very valiant knights: one is the governor of the fort, the other the master of the horse. And now, I think, you shall hear some better language: I was obliged to be plain and intelligible in the first scene, because there was so much matter of fact in it; but now, i’faith, you have trope, figure, and metaphor, as plenty as noun-substantives. Enter EARL OF LEICESTER, GOVERNOR, MASTER OF THE HORSE, KNIGHTS, &c.
EARL OF LEICESTER.
How’s this, my friends! is’t thus your new-fledged zeal,
And plumed valour moulds in roosted sloth?
Why dimly glimmers that heroic flame,
Whose reddening blaze, by patriot spirit fed,
Should be the beacon of a kindling realm?
Can the quick current of a patriot heart
Thus stagnate in a cold and weedy converse,
Or freeze in tideless inactivity?
No! rather let the fountain of your valour
Spring through each stream of enterprise,
Each petty channel of conducive daring,
Till the full torrent of your foaming wrath
O’erwhelm the flats of sunk hostility!
PUFF.
There it is—followed up! Sir Walt.
No more!—the freshening breath of thy rebuke
Hath fill’d the swelling canvas of our souls!
And thus, though fate should cut the cable of
[All take hands.]
Our topmost hopes, in friendship’s closing line
We’ll grapple with despair, and if we fall,
We’ll fall in glory’s wake!
EARL OF LEICESTER.
There spoke old England’s genius!
Then, are we all resolved?
ALL.
We are—all resolved.
EARL OF LEICESTER.
To conquer—or be free?
ALL.
To conquer, or be free.
EARL OF LEICESTER.
All?
ALL.
All.