“At the assay kitle him, that Lends may se
     Anon Fat or lene whether that he be.”
                                   Boke of St Alban’s.

The allusion in the text is to the cruel punishment of high treason
by quartering.

42.  “And so thou shalt for me,” said James, when he came to the
   passage; “thou art a biting knave, but a witty one.”

* * * * *

ALBION AND ALBANIUS: 

AN

OPERA

Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos.
VIRG.

ALBION AND ALBANIUS.

This opera, like the play which precedes it, had an avowed political object.  It was intended to celebrate the victory of the crown over its opponents, or, as our author would have expressed it, of loyalty over sedition and insurrection.  The events, which followed the Restoration, are rapidly, but obviously and distinctly, traced down to the death of Charles, and the quiet accession of his brother, who, after all the storms which had threatened to blast his prospects, found himself enabled to mount the throne, with ease sufficient to encourage him to the measures which precipitated him from that elevation.  The leading incidents of the busy and intriguing reign of Charles II. are successively introduced in the following order.  The city of London is discovered occupied by the republicans and fanatics, depicted under the allegorical personages Democracy and Zeal.  General Monk, as Archon, charms the factions to sleep, and the Restoration is emblematized by the arrival of Charles, and the Duke of York, under the names of Albion and Albanius.  The second act opens with a council of the fiends, where the popish plot is hatched, and Democracy and Zeal are dismissed, to propagate it upon earth, with Oates, the famous witness, in their train.  The next entry presents Augusta, or London, stung by a snake, to intimate the revival of the popular faction in the metropolis.  Democracy and Zeal, under the disguise of Patriotism and Religion, insinuate themselves into the confidence of the city, and are supposed to foment the parliamentary opposition, which, ending on the bill of exclusion, rendered it necessary, that the Duke of York should leave the kingdom.  We have then, in allegorical representation, the internal feuds of the parties, which, from different causes, opposed the crown.  The adherents of Monmouth, and the favourers of republican tenets, are represented as disputing with each other, until the latter, by the flight of Shaftesbury, obtains a final ascendancy.  In the mean while, Charles, or Albion, has recourse to the advice of Proteus; under which emblem an evil minded whig might suppose Halifax, and the party of Trimmers, to be represented; actuated by whose versatile, and time-serving politics, Charles gave way to each wave, but remained buoyant amid the tempest.  The Rye-house plot is then presented in allegory,—­an