Page:Works of Sir John Suckling.djvu/227

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Nassurat. Of all ways of destroying mankind, the judges

have the easiest: they sleep and do it.

Pellegrin. To my thinking now, this is but a solemner

kind of puppet-play. How the devil came we to be

actors in't?

So, it begins.

1st Judge. The Prince's counsel, are they ready?

Lawyer. Here.

Judge. Begin then.

Lawyer. My lords, that this so great and strange

Samorat. Most reverend judges,

To save th' expense of breath and time, and dull

Formalities of law, I here pronounce myself

Guilty. [A curtain drawn: Prince, Philatel, with others, appear above Prince. Again he has prevented me!

Samorat. So guilty, that no other can pretend

A share.

This noble youth, a stranger to everything

But gallantry, ignorant in our laws and customs,

Has made perchance in strange severity

A forfeit of himself; but, should you take it,

The gods, when he is gone, will sure revenge it.

If from the stalk you pull this bud of virtue,

Before't has spread and shown itself abroad,

You do an injury to all mankind;

And public mischief cannot be private justice.

This man's as much above a common man,

As man's above a beast: and, if the law

Destroys not man for killing of a beast,

It should not here for killing of a man.

O, what mistake 'twould be!

For here you sit to weed the cankers out,

That would do hurt i' th' state, to punish vice;

And under that you'd root out virtue too.

Orsabrin. If I do blush, 'tis not (most gracious judges)

For anything which I have done; 'tis for that

This much-mistaken youth hath here deliver'd.

'Tis true (and I confess) I ever had

A little stock of honour, which I still preserv'd: