Which overlooks the sty, and made a long
Harangue (all words) to the assembled Swine,
Of delicacy, mercy, judgment, law,
Morals, and precedents, and purity,
Adultery, destitution, and divorce,
Piety, faith, and state necessity,
And how I loved the Queen! - and then I wept
With the pathos of my own eloquence,
And every tear turned to a mill-stone, which
Brained many a gaping Pig, and there was made
A slough of blood and brains upon the place,
Greased with the pounded bacon; round and round
The millstones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,
And hurling sucking Pigs into the air,
I wonder that gray wizards
Like you should be so beardless in their schemes; It had been but a point of policy
To keep Iona and the Swine apart.
Divide and rule! but ye have made a junction
Between two parties who will govern you,
But for my art. - Behold this Bag! it is
The poison Bag of that Green Spider huge,
On which our spies skulked in ovation through
The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with
A bane so much the deadlier fills it now
As calumny is worse than death; for here
- The Gadfly's venom, fifty times distilled,
Is mingled with the vomit of the Leech,
In due proportion, and black ratsbane, which
That very Rat, who, like the Pontic tyrant,
Nurtures himself on poison, dare not touch.
All is sealed up with the broad seal of Fraud,
Who is the Devil's Lord High Chancellor,
And over it the Primate of all Hell
Murmured this pious baptism: - "Be thou called
The Green Bag; and this power and grace be
That thy contents, on whomsoever poured,
Turn innocence to guilt, and gentlest looks
To savage, foul, and fierce deformity ;
Let all baptized by thy infernal dew
Be called adulterer, drunkard, liar, wretch!
No name left out which orthodoxy loves,
Court Journal or legitimate Review!
Be they called tyrant, beast, fool, glutton, lover
Of other wives and husbands than their own
The heaviest sin on this side of the Alps!
Wither they to a ghastly caricature
Of what was human! let not man or beast
Behold their face with unaverted eyes,
Or hear their names with ears that tingle not
With blood of indignation, rage, and shame!"
This is a perilous liquor, good my Lords.
[SWELLFOOT approaches to touch the Green Bag. Beware! for God's sake, beware! - if you should break
The seal, and touch the fatal liquor
Give it to me. I have been used to handle
All sorts of poisons. His dread Majesty
Only desires to see the color of it.
Now, with a little common sense, my Lords,
Only undoing all that has been done,
(Yet so as it may seem we but confirm it)
Our victory is assured. We must entice
Her Majesty from the sty, and make the Pigs
Believe that the contents of the Green Bag
Are the true test of guilt or innocence;
And that, if she be guilty, 'twill transform her
To manifest deformity like guilt;
If innocent, she will become transfigured
Into an angel, such as they say she is ;
And they will see her flying through the air,
So bright that she will dim the noonday sun,
Showering down blessings in the shape of com-
fits.
This, trust a priest, is just the sort of thing
Swine will believe. I'll wager you will see them
Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties,
With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail
Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps
Of one another's ears between their teeth,
To catch the coming hail of comfits in.
You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab,
Make them a solemn speech to this effect.
I go to put in readiness the feast
Kept to the honor of our goddess Famine,
Where, for more glory, let the ceremony
Take place of the uglification of the Queen.
I, as the keeper of your sacred conscience,
Humbly remind your Majesty that the care
Of your high office, as Man-milliner
To red Bellona, should not be deferred.
All part, in happier plight to meet again.
SCENE I.- The Public Sty. The Boars in full Assembly.
GRANT me your patience, Gentlemen and Boars,
Ye, by whose patience under public burdens
The glorious constitution of these sties
Subsists, and shall subsist. The Lean-Pig rates
Grow with the growing populace of Swine;
The taxes, that true source of Piggishness,
(How can I find a more appropriate term
To include religion, morals, peace and plenty,
And all that fit Boeotia as a nation
To teach the other nations how to live?)
Increase with Piggishness itself; and still
Does the revenue, that great spring of all
The patronage, and pensions, and by-payments,
Which free-born Pigs regard with jealous eyes,
Diminish, till at length, by glorious steps,
All the land's produce will be merged in taxes,
And the revenue will amount to
The failure of a foreign market for
Sausages, bristles, and blood-puddings,
And such home manufactures, is but partial;
And, that the population of the Pigs,
Instead of hog-wash, has been fed on straw
And water, is a fact which is
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