eir discharge, and begone.--

_Derby_. I'll look upon the countess' mind
Anon.

_Derby_. The countess' mind, my liege?

_Edward_. I mean, the emperor:--Leave me alone.

_Audley_. What's in his mind?

_Derby_. Let's leave him to his humour.

[_Exeunt_ DERBY and AUDLEY

_Edward_. Thus from the heart's abundance speaks the tongue
Countess for emperor: And indeed, why not?
She is as _imperator_ over me;
And I to her
Am as a kneeling vassal, that observes
The pleasure or displeasure of her eye.

In this little scene there is perhaps on the whole more general likeness
to Shakespeare's earliest manner than we can trace in any other passage
of the play. But how much of Shakespeare's earliest manner may be
accounted the special and exclusive property of Shakespeare?

After this dismissal of the two nobles, the pimping poeticule, Villon
manque or (whom shall we call him?) reussi, reappears with a message to
Caesar (as the King is pleased to style himself) from "the more than
Cleopatra's match" (as he designates the Countess), to intimate that "ere
night she will resolve his majesty." Hereupon an unseasonable "drum
within" provokes Edward to the following remonstrance:

What drum is this, that thunders forth this march,
To start the tender Cupid in my bosom?
Poor sheepskin, how it brawls with him that beateth it!
Go, break the thundering parchment bottom out,
And I will teach it to conduct sweet lines

("That's bad; _conduct sweet lines_ is bad.")

Unto the bosom of a heavenly nymph:
For I will use it as my writing paper;
And so reduce him, from a scolding drum,
To be the herald, and dear counsel-bearer,
Betwixt a goddess and a mighty king.
Go, bid the drummer learn to touch the lute,
Or hang him in the braces of his drum;
For now we think it an uncivil thing
To trouble heaven with such harsh resounds.
Away! [_Exit_ Lodowick.
The quarrel that I have requires no arms
But these of mine; and these shall meet my foe
In a deep march of penetrable groans;
My eyes shall be my arrows; and my sighs
Shall serve me as the vantage of the wind
To whirl away my sweet'st {261} artillery:
Ah, but, alas, she wins the sun of me,
For that is she herself; and thence it comes
That poets term the wanton warrior blind;
But love hath eyes as judgment to his steps,
Till too muc