Is it possible? Still, after all thou know'st,
Canst thou believe still in his innocence?
MAX. (with enthusiasm).

Thy judgment may mistake; my heart can not.
[Moderates his voice and manner.
These reasons might expound thy spirit or mine;
But they expound not Friedland-I have faith:
For as he knits his fortunes to the stars,
Even so doth he resemble them in secret,
Wonderful, still inexplicable courses!

Trust me, they do him wrong. All will be solved.
These smokes at once will kindle into flame-
The edges of this black and stormy cloud
Will brighten suddenly, and we shall view
The Unapproachable glide out in splendour.
I will await it.

OCTAVIO.

The old negociator.

OCTAVIO (eagerly).

And you have him?

CORNET.

In the Bohemian Forest Captain Mohrbrand
Found and secured him yester morning early:
He was proceeding then to Regensburg,
And on him were dispatches for the Swede.

And the dispatches-

OCTAVIO.

CORNET.

The Lieutenant-general Sent them that instant to Vienna, and The prisoner with them.

He was sorely frighten'd, When it was told him he must to Vienna. But the Count Altringer bade him take heart, Would be but make a full and free confession.

OCTAVIO.

Is Altringer then with your Lord? I heard That he lay sick at Linz.

CORNET.

These three days past He's with my master, the Lieutenant-general, At FrauemLurg. Already have they sixty Small companies together, chosen men; Respectfully they greet you with assurances, That they are only waiting your commands.

OCTAVIO.

In a few days may great events take place. And when must you return?

Remain till evening.

CORNET.

I wait your orders.

OCTAVIO.

[CORNET signifies his assent and obeisance, and is going.

No one saw you-ha?

CORNET.

No living creature. Through the cloister wicket The Capuchins, as usual, let me in.

OCTAVIO.

Go, rest your limbs, and keep yourself conceal'd.

I hold it probable, that yet ere evening

I shall dispatch you. The development
Of this affair approaches: ere the day,
That even now is dawning in the heaven,

OCTAVIO (alarmed).

What-

MAX. (returning).

If thou hast believed that I shall act

A part in this thy play-

Thou hast miscalculated on me grievously.

My way must be straight on. True with the tongue,
False with the heart-I may not, cannot be :
Nor can I suffer that a man should trust me-
As his friend trust me-and then lull my conscience
With such low pleas as these:- I ask him not-
He did it all at his own hazard-and
My mouth has never lied to him.»>-No, no!
What a friend takes me for, that I must be.
-I'll to the Duke; ere yet this day is ended
Will I demand of him that he do save

Ilis good name from the world, and with one stride
Break through and rend this fine-spun web of yours.
He can, he will!-I still am his believer.
Yet I'll not pledge myself, but that those letters
May furnish you, perchance, with proofs against him.
How far may not this Tertsky have proceeded-
What may not he himself too have permitted
Himself to do, to snare the enemy,
The laws of war excusing? Nothing, save
His own mouth shall convict him-nothing less!
And face to face will I go question him.

Thou wilt?

OCTAVIO.

MAX.

I will, as sure as this heart beats.

OCTAVIO.

I have, indeed, miscalculated on thee.

I calculated on a prudent son,

Who would have blest the hand beneficent
That pluck'd him back from the abyss-and lo!
A fascinated being I discover,

Whom his two eyes befool, whom passion wilders,
Whom not the broadest light of noon can heal.
Go, question him!-Be mad enough, I pray thee.
The purpose of thy father, of thy Emperor,
Go, give it up free booty:-Force me, drive me
To an open breach before the time. And now,
Now that a miracle of heaven had guarded
My secret purpose even to this hour,
And laid to sleep Suspicion's piercing eyes,
Let me have lived to see that mine own son,

With frantic enterprise, annihilates My toilsome labours and state-policy.

MAX.

Ay-this state-policy? O how I curse it!
You will some time, with your state-policy,
Compel him to the measure: it may happen,
Because ye are determined that he is guilty,
Guilty ye'll make him. All retreat cut off,
You close up every outlet, hem him in
Narrower and narrower, till at length ye force him-
Yes, ye,-ye force him, in his desperation,
To set fire to his prison. Father! father!
That never can end well-it cannot-will not!
And let it be decided as it may,

I see with boding heart the near approach
Of an ill-starr'd, unblest catastrophe.
For this great Monarch-spirit, if he fall,
Will drag a world into the ruin with him.
And as a ship (that midway on the ocean
Takes fire) at once, and with a thunder-burst
Explodes, and with itself shoots out its crew
In smoke and ruin betwixt sea and heaven;
So will he, falling, draw down in his fall
All us, who're fix'd and mortised to his fortune.
Deem of it what thou wilt; but pardon me,
That I must bear me on in my own way.
All must remain pure betwixt him and me;
And, ere the day-light dawns, it must be known
Which I must lose-my father, or my friend.

[During his exit the curtain drops.

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

Scene a Room fitted up for astrological labours, and provided with celestial Charts, with Globes, Telescopes, Quadrants, and other mathematical Instruments. Seven Colossal Figures, representing the Planets, each with a transparent Star of a different Colour on its Head, stand in a semi-circle in the Background, so that Mars and Saturn are nearest the Eye.-The Remainder of the Scene, and its Disposition, is given in the Fourth Scene of the Second Act. -There must be a Curtain over the Figures, which may be dropped, and conceal them on occasions. [In the Fifth Scene of this Act it must be dropped; but in the Seventh Scene, it must be again drawn up wholly or in part.]

WALLENSTEIN at a black Table, on which a Speculum Astrologicum is described with Chalk. SENI is taking Observations through a window.

WALLENSTEIN.

All well-and now let it be ended, Seni.-Come,
The dawn commences, and Mars rules the hour.
We must give o'er the operation. Come,
We know enough.

SENI.

Your Highness must permit me Just to contemplate Venus. She's now rising: Like as a sun, so shines she in the east. WALLENSTEIN.

She is at present in her perigee,

And shoots down now her strongest influences. [Contemplating the figure on the table.

Auspicious aspect! fateful in conjunction,
At length the mighty three corradiate;
And the two stars of blessing, Jupiter
And Venus, take between them the malignant
Slily-malicious Mars, and thus compel
Into my service that old mischief-founder:
For long he view'd me hostilely, and ever
With beam oblique, or perpendicular,
Now in the Quartile, now in the Secundan,
Shot his red lightnings at my stars, disturbing
Their blessed influences and sweet aspects.
Now they have conquer'd the old enemy,
And bring him in the heavens a prisoner to me.

SENI (who has come down from the window). And in a corner house, your Highness-think of that! That makes each influence of double strength.

WALLENSTEIN.

And sun and moon, too, in the Sextile aspect, The soft light with the vehement-so I love it. SOL is the heart, LUNA the head of heaven, Bold be the plan, fiery the execution.

SENI.

And both the mighty Lumina by no Maleficus affronted. Lo! Saturnus, Innocuous, powerless, in cadente Domo.

WALLENSTEIN.

The empire of Saturnus is gone by;
Lord of the secret birth of things is he;
Within the lap of earth, and in the depths
Of the imagination dominates;

And his are all things that eschew the light.
The time is o'er of brooding and contrivance,
For Jupiter, the lustrous, lordeth now,
And the dark work, complete of preparation,
He draws by force into the realm of light.
Now must we hasten on to action, ere
The scheme, and most auspicious positure

Parts o'er my head, and takes once more its flight;

For the heavens journey still, and sojourn not.

[There are knocks at the door. There's some one knocking there. See who it is. TERTSKY (from without).

Open, and let me in.

WALLENSTEIN.

Ay-t is Tertsky.

What is there of such urgence? We are busy.

TERTSKY (from without).

Lay all aside at present, I entreat you.

It suffers no delaying.

WALLENSTEIN.

Open, Seni!

[While SENI opens the door for Tertsky, WallenSTEIN
draws the curtain over the figures.
TERTSKY (enters).

Hast thou already heard it? He is taken.
Galas has given him up to the Emperor.

In the army Lies will not security. The my army Abandon me. Whatever they may know,

SCENE II.

WALLENSTEIN, COUNT TERTSKY.

WALLENSTEIN (to TERTSKY).

Who has been taken?-Who is given up?

TERTSKY.

The man who knows our secrets, who knows every

And substitute I caution for my fealty, They must be satisfied, at least appear so.

ILLO.

The army, Duke, is thine now-for this moment-
'Tis thine but think with terror on the slow,
The quiet power of time. From open violence

The attachment of thy soldiery secures thee

To-day-to-morrow; but grant'st thou them a respite,

A cursed, cursed accident! Yes, yes,
Sesina knows too much, and won't be silent.

TERTSKY.

He's a Bohemian fugitive and rebel,
His neck is forfeit. Can he save himself
At thy cost, think you he will scruple it?
And if they put him to the torture, will he,

Will he, that dastardling, have strength enough—~~
WALLENSTEIN (lost in thought).
Their confidence is lost-irreparably!
And I may act what way I will, I shall
Be and remain for ever in their thought
A traitor to my country. How sincerely
Soever I return back to my duty,
It will no longer help me--

And after weigh it.

ILLO.

First hear him only, [Exeunt TERTSKY and ILLO.

SCENEIV.

WALLENSTEIN (in soliloquy).
Is it possible?

Is't so I can no longer what I would?
No longer draw back at my liking? I
Must do the deed, because I thought of it,
And fed this heart here with a dream? Because
I did not scowl temptation from my presence,
Dallied with thoughts of possible fulfilment,
Commenced no movement, left all time uncertain,
And only kept the road, the access open?
By the great God of Heaven! It was not
My serious meaning, it was ne'er resolve.

I but amused myself with thinking of it.
The free-will tempted me, the power to do
Or not to do it.-Was it criminal

To make the fancy minister to hope,

To fill the air with pretty toys of air,

And clutch fantastic sceptres moving t'ward me!
Was not the will kept free? Beheld I not

The road of duty close beside me-but
One little step, and once more I was in it!
Where am I? Whither have I been transported?

No road, no track behind me, but a wall,
Impenetrable, insurmountable,

Rises obedient to the spells I mutter'd
And meant not-my own doings tower behind me.
[Pauses and remains in deep thought.

A punishable man I seem; the guilt,
Try what I will, I cannot roll off from me;
The equivocal demeanour of my life
Bears witness on my prosecutor's party.
And even my purest acts from purest motives
Suspicion poisons with malicious gloss.
Were I that thing for which I pass,
that traitor,
A goodly outside I had sure reserved,
Had drawn the coverings thick and double round me,
Been calm and chary of my utterance;

But being conscious of the innocence

Step tracing step, each step a politic progress;
And out of all they 'll fabricate a charge
So specious, that I must myself stand dumb.
I am caught in my own net, and only force,
Nought but a sudden rent can liberate me.

[Pauses again.
How else! since that the heart 's unbiass'd instinct
Impell'd me to the daring deed, which now
Necessity, self-preservation, orders.
Stern is the On-look of Necessity,

Not without shudder may a human hand
Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny.

My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom:
Once suffer'd to escape from its safe corner
Within the heart, its nursery and birth-place,
Sent forth into the Foreign, it belongs
For ever to those sly malicious powers
Whom never art of man conciliated.

[Paces in agitation through the chamber, then pauses,
and, after the pause,
breaks out again into
audible soliloquy.

What is thy enterprise? thy aim? thy object?
Hast honestly confess'd it to thyself!

Power seated on a quiet throne thou 'dst shake,
Power on an ancient consecrated throne,
Strong in possession, founded in old custom;
Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots
Fix'd to the people's pious nursery-faith.

This, this will be no strife of strength with strength.
That fear'd I not. I brave each combatant,
Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye,
Who, full himself of courage, kindles courage
In me too. 'T is a foe invisible.

The which I fear-a fearful enemy,
Which in the human heart opposes me,
By its coward fear alone made fearful to me.
Not that, which full of life, instinct with power,
Makes known its present being; that is not
The true, the perilously formidable.

O no! it is the common, the quite common,
The thing of an eternal yesterday,
What ever was, and evermore returns,
Sterling to-morrow, for to-day 't was sterling!
For of the wholly common is man made,
And custom is his nurse! Woe then to them,
Who lay irreverent hands upon his old
House furniture, the dear inheritance
From his forefathers! For time consecrates;
And what is grey with age becomes religion.
Be in possession, and thou hast the right,
And sacred will the many guard it for thee!
[To the PAGE, who here
The Swedish officer?-Well, let him enter.
[The PAGE exit, WALLENSTEIN fixes his
thought on the door.

Yet is it pure-as yet!--the crime has come
Not o'er this threshold yet-so slender is
The boundary that divideth life's two paths.

SCENE V.

WALLENSTEIN and WRANGEL.

eye

in

deep

Yes, he might say it safely.-General Wrangel,
[Taking his hand affectionately.
Come, fair and open.-Trust me, I was always
A Swede at heart. Ey! that did you experience
Both in Silesia and at Nuremburg;

I had you often in my power, and let you
Always slip out by some back-door or other.
"T is this for which the Court can ne'er forgive me,
Which drives me to this present step: and since
Our interests so run in one direction,
E'en let us have a thorough confidence
Each in the other.

WRANGEL. Confidence will come

Has each but only first security.

WALLENSTEIN.

WALLENSTEIN (after having fixed a searching look on him).

Your name is Wrangel?

WRANGEL.

I have here an office merely, no opinion.

WALLENSTEIN.

The Emperor hath urged me to the uttermost :

I can no longer honourably serve him.

For my security, in self-defence,

I take this hard step, which my conscience blames.