_Enter_ Vallentio _passing over the Stage, is met by a
Rabble of Citizens_.
_1 Cit_. Well, Colonel, have you delivered our Grievances to the Queen?
_Val_. Yes, I have.
_1 Cit_. Well, and what Success? shall we have a King?
_Val_. And why a King? why should you be thus earnest
for a King? what good will a King do you? he’s but a
single Man, cannot redeem the lost Victory, cannot raise
up your dead Members, no, nor levy new ones.
_1 Cit_. That’s all one, Colonel, we will have a King:
for look ye, Colonel, we have thought of a King, and
therefore we will have one. Hah, Neighbours! a substantial
Reason.
_All_. Ay, ay, a King, a King.
_Val_. I like your Resolution, but not your Reason; and
must have a better than that.
_1 Cit_. ‘Sha, Sir, we can give you many, though that’s
sufficient; as look you, Sir, ‘tis first a new thing to have
a King--a thing--a thing--we have not been acquainted
with in our Age: besides, we have lost the Victory, and
we are very angry with some body, and must vent it somewhere.
You know, Colonel, we have busy Heads, working
Brains, which must be executed; therefore, what say you,
are we to have leave to shut up Shop, and go to work with
long Staff and Bilbo, or are we to be very mutinous, and
do’t in spite of you?
_Val_. You shall not need; go, shut up your Shops, gather
your Fellow-mutineers together, and meet me at the Citadel;
but be sure you’re well arm’d, lest the Queen’s Guards
prevent you.
_1 Cit_. I warrant you for honest true Hearts enough
at any mischief, though not to go against the _Scythians_; for,
Colonel, we love Civil Wars, Colonel, Civil Wars.
_Val_. Make haste, and then I’ll shew you my Orders
for the King’s Deliverance.
_Cit_. Oh, incomparable Colonel! we will raise thy Statue
in Brass in the Market-place, and worship it when we have
done--but harkye, Colonel, are we to give no Quarter?
_Val_. None to those that oppose you.
_All_. No, no, none, none.
_Cit_. Oh, how this will please ye all, my Mates--
[_Citizens goes out.
Enter_ Pimante.
_Pim_. Oh, Colonel, the Princess, Colonel.
_Val_. Well, Sir.
_Pim_. She’s fled away, and none knows whither.
_Val_. I left her in her Tent just now.
_Pim_. Ay, ay, Colonel, that’s all one, she’s gone just as she
shou’d have been married too--there’s the Devil on’t! Oh,
the Days we shou’d have seen! the dancing, loving Days!
_Val_. Gone alone?
_Pim_. No, no, that dissembling thing _Semiris_ is with her;
she only left a Letter for the Queen, which she has sent
to the Prince of _Scythia_. Oh, adieu, adieu, to Love and Musick.
[_Goes out crying_.
_Val_. This is strange--if she be gone, ‘tis time the King
were free--I’ll haste to meet the Rabble, that it may not
look like an act of my own.
[_Exit_.