Isolani. Poh! We are all his subjects.

Questenberg. Yet with a difference, General! The one fill
With profitable industry the purse,
The others are well skilled to empty it. 65
The sword has made the Emperor poor; the plough
Must reinvigorate his resources.

Isolani. Sure!
Times are not yet so bad. Methinks I see [Examining with his eye the dress and ornaments of Questenberg.
Good store of gold that still remains uncoined.

Questenberg. Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to hide 70
Some little from the fingers of the Croats.

Illo. There! The Stawata and the Martinitz,
On whom the Emperor heaps his gifts and graces,
To the heart-burning of all good Bohemians—
Those minions of court favour, those court harpies, 75
Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens
Driven from their house and home—who reap no harvests
[[606]] Save in the general calamity—
Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock
The desolation of their country—these, [80]
Let these, and such as these, support the war,
The fatal war, which they alone enkindled!

Butler. And those state-parasites, who have their feet
So constantly beneath the Emperor's table,
Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they [85]
Snap at it with dog's hunger—they, forsooth,
Would pare the soldier's bread, and cross his reckoning!

Isolani. My life long will it anger me to think,
How when I went to court seven years ago,
To see about new horses for our regiment, 90
How from one antechamber to another
They dragged me on, and left me by the hour
To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering
Feast-fattened slaves, as if I had come thither
A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favour [95]
That fall beneath their tables. And, at last,
Whom should they send me but a Capuchin!
Straight I began to muster up my sins
For absolution—but no such luck for me!
This was the man, this Capuchin, with whom [100]
I was to treat concerning the army horses:
And I was forced at last to quit the field,
The business unaccomplished. Afterwards
The Duke procured me in three days, what I
Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna. 105

Questenberg. Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their way to us:
Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.

Illo. War is a violent trade; one cannot always
Finish one's work by soft means; every trifle
Must not be blackened into sacrilege. 110
If we should wait till you, in solemn council,
With due deliberation had selected
The smallest out of four-and-twenty evils,
I'faith, we should wait long.—
'Dash! and through with it!'—That's the better watch-word. 115
Then after come what may come. 'Tis man's nature
[[607]] To make the best of a bad thing once past.
A bitter and perplexed 'what shall I do?'
Is worse to man than worst necessity.

Questenberg. Ay, doubtless, it is true: the Duke does spare us [120]
The troublesome task of choosing.