Pier. Nay, now you've found
The way to melt and cast me as you will.
I'll fetch this friend, and give him to your mercy:
Nay, he shall die, if you will take him from me;
For your repose, I'll quit my heart's jewel;
But would not have him torn away by villains
And spiteful villany.
Spin. No; may you both
For ever live, and fill the world with fame!
Pier. Now you are too kind. Whence rose all this discord?
Oh, what a dangerous precipice have we 'scaped!
How near a fall was all we had long been building!
What an eternal blot had stained our glories,
If one, the bravest and the best of men,
Had fallen a sacrifice to rash suspicion!
Butchered by those whose cause he came to cherish!
Oh, could you know him all as I have known him,
How good he is, how just, how true, how brave,
You would not leave this place till you had seen him,
Humbled yourselves before him, kissed his feet,
And gained remission for the worst of follies.
Come but to-morrow, all your doubts shall end;
And to your loves me better recommend,
That I've preserved your fame, and saved my friend. [Exeunt.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] The character of Antonio is a satire upon Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper (b. 1621), one of the greatest Liberal statesmen of his time, but unscrupulous, machiavellic, and shifty. Mulgrave (Essay on Satire) calls him our little Machiavel; for his was the "fiery soul which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay" (Dryden's Absalom). He was first a Royalist, then a Parliamentarian, later contributed to the Restoration; after this a Tory, and finally a Whig. He was a member of the "Cabal" administration, and was created by Charles II. first Baron Ashley, and then Earl of Shaftesbury. He was Lord Chancellor in 1672, and to him we owe the Habeas Corpus Act; he also contributed materially to make our judges independent of the Crown. He persecuted the Catholics under pretext of the Popish Plot; promoted the Exclusion Bill against the Duke of York, afterwards James II., as a Catholic; and advocated Monmouth's (son of Charles II. by Lucy Walters) claim to legitimacy. In 1681 he was impeached and sent to the Tower on a charge of high treason, but acquitted. He was, however, forced to retire to Holland, where he died in 1683.
[69] This was precisely the age of Lord Shaftesbury. He died in the following year.
[70] Judgest.
[71] i.e. Cuckold.
[72] This scene, particularly the charge of Renault, is closely imitated from Saint-Réal.