Well-I am now the sport of circumstance,
Driven from my anchorage;—yet deem not thou
That I my soul surrender to the past

In chains and bondage;—that it is not so,
Bear witness for me long and busy days,
Which jostling and importunate affairs
So push and elbow, they but seldom leave
Shy midnight uninvaded. No, Van Ryk;
At eve returning wearied to my tent,
If sometimes I may seem to stray in thought,
Seeking what is not there, the mood is brief,
The operative function within call,
Nor know I that for any little hour
The weal of Flanders (if I may presume
To hook it on my hours) is yielded up
To idle thought or vacant retrospect.
But now this body, exigent of rest,
Will needs put in a claim.

And then to bed.

Van Ryk.

One round we'll take,

My lord, you must be tired.

I am too bold to trouble you so late

With my unprofitable talk.

Artevelde.

Your talk is always welcome.

Not so;

There within

You'll find a wardrobe, with some varlets' cloaks
For use at need; take one about yourself,
And meet me with another at the gate.

[Exit VAN RYK.

A serviceable, faithful, thoughtful friend,
Is old Van Ryk,—a man of humble heart,
And yet with faculties and gifts of sense
Which place him justly on no lowly level—
Why should I say a lowlier than my own,
Or otherwise than as an equal use him?
That with familiarity respect

Doth slacken, is a word of common use.
I never found it so.

ACT II.

SCENE 1.-The interior of the State Pavilion.-ARTEVELDE seated at the head of his Council, with Attendants. The French Herald and SIR FLEUREANT OF HEURLÉE. ARTEVELDE rises to receive the Herald and reseats himself.

Artevelde. France, I perceive, Sir Herald, owns at length

The laws of polity and civil use,

A recognition which I hardly hoped;

For when the messenger that late I sent
In amity, with friendly missives charged,

Was sent to prison, I deem'd some barbarous tribe,
That knew no usages of Christian lands,

Had dispossess'd you and usurp'd the realm.

Sir Fleureant. My lord, you have your messenger again.

Artevelde. Ay, sir, but not through courtesy I think, Nor yet through love.

[To the Herald.

Sir, you have leave to speak.

Herald. My lord, I humbly thank you. I entreat That in my speech should aught offend your ears, You from the utterer will remove the fault.

My office I obey and not my will,

Nor is a word that I'm to speak my own.

Artevelde. Sir, nothing you can say shall be so gross, Offensive, or unmannerly conceived,

As that it shall not credibly appear

To come from them that sent you; speak, then, freely. Herald. Philip of Artevelde, sole son of Jacques,

Maltster and brewer in the town of Ghent,

The realm of France this unto thee delivers :

That forasmuch as thou, a liegeman born

To the Earl of Flanders, hast rebell'd against him,
And with thy manifold treasons and contempts
Of duty and allegiance, hast drawn in
By twenties and by forties his good towns
To rise in fury and forget themselves,-
Thus saith the puissant and mighty lord,

The Earl's affectionate kinsman, Charles of France:
Thou from before this town of Oudenarde
With all thy host shalt vanish like a mist;
Thou shalt surrender to their rightful lord

The towns of Ghent, and Ypres, Cassel, Bruges,
Of Thorout, Rousselart, Damme, Sluys, and Bergues,
Of Harlebeque, Poperinguen, Dendermonde,
Alost and Grammont; and with them all towns
Of lesser name, all castles and strong houses,
Shalt thou deliver up before the Feast
Of Corpus Christi coming, which undone,
He the said puissant king, Sir Charles of France,
With all attendance of his chivalry,

Will raise his banner and his kingdom's force,
And scattering that vile people which thou lead'st
Will hang thee on a tree and nail thy head
Over the gates of Ghent, the mother of ill
That spawn'd thee;-and for these and sundry more
Just reasons and sufficient, thou art warn'd

To make thy peace betimes, and so God keep thee! Artevelde. Sir Herald, thou hast well discharged thyself

Of an ill function. Take these links of gold,

And with the company of words I give thee
Back to the braggart king from whom thou cam'st.
First, of my father :-had he lived to know
His glories, deeds, and dignities postponed
To names of barons, earls, and counts (that here
Are to men's ears importunately common
As chimes to dwellers in the market-place),
He with a silent and a bitter mirth
Had listen'd to the boast may he his son

Pardon for in comparison setting forth
With his the name of this disconsolate Earl.
How stand they in the title-deeds of fame?
What hold and heritage in distant times
Doth each enjoy-what posthumous possession?
The dusty chronicler with painful search,
Long fingering forgotten scrolls, indites

That Louis Mâle was sometime Earl of Flanders,
That Louis Mâle his sometime earldom lost,
Through wrongs by him committed, that he lived
An outcast long in dole not undeserved,
And died dependent: there the history ends,
And who of them that hear it wastes a thought
On the unfriended fate of Louis Mâle ?
But turn the page and look we for the tale
Of Artevelde's renown. What man was this?
He humbly born, he highly gifted rose,
By steps of various enterprise, by skill,
By native vigour, to wide sway, and took
What his vain rival having could not keep.
His glory shall not cease, though cloth of gold
Wrap him no more, for not of golden cloth,
Nor fur, nor minever, his greatness came,
Whose fortunes were inborn: strip me the two,
This were the humblest, that the noblest, beggar
That ever braved a storm!

Sir Fleureant.
My lord, your pardon;
Nothing was utter'd in disparagement
Of your famed father, though a longer life
And better would he assuredly have lived,
Had it seem'd good to him to follow forth
His former craft, nor turn aside to brew
These frothy insurrections.

Artevelde.

Sir, your back
Shows me no tabard nor a sign beside
Denoting what your office is that asks

A hearing in this presence; nor know I yet
By what so friendly fortune I am graced

With your good company and gentle speech.
But we are here no niggards of respect
To merit's unauthenticated forms,
And therefore do I answer you, and thus:
You speak of insurrections: bear in mind
Against what rule my father and myself
Have been insurgent: whom did we supplant ?-
There was a time, so ancient records tell,
There were communities, scarce known by name
In these degenerate days, but once far-famed,
Where liberty and justice, hand in hand,
Order'd the common weal; where great men grew
Up to their natural eminence, and none
Saving the wise, just, eloquent, were great;
Where power was of God's gift, to whom he gave
Supremacy of merit, the sole means

And broad highway to power, that ever then
Was meritoriously administer'd,

Whilst all its instruments from first to last,
The tools of state for service high or low,
Were chosen for their aptness to those ends
Which virtue meditates. To shake the ground
Deep-founded whereupon this structure stood,
Was verily a crime; a treason it was
Conspiracies to hatch against this state
And its free innocence. But now, I ask,
Where is there on God's earth that polity
Which it is not, by consequence converse,
A treason against nature to uphold?

Whom may we now call free? whom great? whom wise?

Whom innocent?-the free are only they

Whom power makes free to execute all ills

Their hearts imagine; they alone are great

Whose passions nurse them from their cradles up
In luxury and lewdness,-whom to see
Is to despise, whose aspects put to scorn
Their station's eminence; the wise, they only