nd Hohenlinden.]

NAPOLEON

Anon to England!

CHORUS OF INTELLIGENCES [aerial music]

If Time's weird threads so weave!

[The scene as it lingers exhibits the gradual diminishing of
the troops along the roads through the undulating August
landscape, till each column is seen but as a train of dust;
and the disappearance of each marching mass over the eastern
horizon.]

ACT FOURTH

SCENE I

KING GEORGE'S WATERING-PLACE, SOUTH WESSEX

[A sunny day in autumn. A room in the red-brick royal residence
know as Gloucester Lodge.[8]

At a front triple-lighted window stands a telescope on a tripod.
Through the open middle sash is visible the crescent-curved
expanse of the Bay as a sheet of brilliant translucent green,
on which ride vessels of war at anchor. On the left hand white
cliffs stretch away till they terminate in St. Aldhelm's Head,
and form a background to the level water-line on that side. In
the centre are the open sea and blue sky. A near headland rises
on the right, surmounted by a battery, over which appears the
remoter bald grey brow of the Isle of Slingers.

In the foreground yellow sands spread smoothly, whereon there
are sundry temporary erections for athletic sports; and closer
at hand runs an esplanade on which a fashionable crowd is
promenading. Immediately outside the Lodge are companies of
soldiers, groups of officers, and sentries.

Within the room the KING and PITT are discovered. The KING'S
eyes show traces of recent inflammation, and the Minister has
a wasted look.]

KING

Yes, yes; I grasp your reasons, Mr. Pitt,
And grant you audience gladly. More than that,
Your visit to this shore is apt and timely,
And if it do but yield you needful rest
From fierce debate, and other strains of office
Which you and I in common have to bear,
'Twill be well earned. The bathing is unmatched
Elsewhere in Europe,--see its mark on me!--
The air like liquid life.--But of this matter:
What argue these late movements seen abroad?
What of the country now the session's past;
What of the country, eh? and of the war?

PITT

The thoughts I have laid before your Majesty
Would make for this, in sum:--
That Mr. Fox, Lord Grenville, and their friends,
Be straightway asked to join. With Melville gone,
With Sidmouth, and with Bucking