Gril. O, ’tis like them;
’Tis like their mongrel souls:  flesh them with fortune,
And they will worry royalty to death;
But if some crabbed virtue turn and pinch them,
Mark me, they’ll run, and yelp, and clap their tails,
Like curs, betwixt their legs, and howl for mercy.

Pol. But Malicorn, sagacious on the point,
Cried,—­Call the sheriffs, and bid them arm their bands;
Add yet to this, to raise you above hope,
The Guise, my master, will be here to-day.—­
For on bare guess of what has been revealed,
He winged a messenger to give him notice;
Yet, spite of all this factor of the fiends
Could urge, they slunk their heads, like hinds in storms. 
But see, they come.

  Enter Sheriffs, with the Populace.

Gril. Away, I’ll have amongst them;
Fly to the king, warn him of Guise’s coming,
That he may strait despatch his strict commands
To stop him. [Exit POLIN.

1 Sher. Nay, this is colonel Grillon, The blunderbuss o’the court; away, away, He carries ammunition in his face.

Gril. Hark you, my friends, if you are not in haste, Because you are the pillars of the city, I would inform you of a general ruin.

2 Sher. Ruin to the city! marry, heaven forbid!

Gril. Amen, I say; for, look you, I’m your friend. 
’Tis blown about, you’ve plotted on the king,
To seize him, if not kill him; for, who knows,
When once your conscience yields, how far ’twill stretch;
Next, quite to dash your firmest hopes in pieces,
The duke of Guise is dead.

1 Sher. Dead, colonel!

2 Sher. Undone, undone!

Gril. The world cannot redeem you;
For what, sirs, if the king, provoked at last,
Should join the Spaniard, and should fire your city;
Paris, your head,—­but a most venomous one,—­
Which must be blooded?

1 Sher. Blooded, colonel!

Gril. Ay, blooded, thou most infamous magistrate,
Or you will blood the king, and burn the Louvre;
But ere that be, fall million miscreant souls,
Such earth-born minds as yours; for, mark me, slaves,
Did you not, ages past, consign your lives,
Liberties, fortunes, to Imperial hands,
Made them the guardians of your sickly years? 
And now you’re grown up to a booby’s greatness,
What, would you wrest the sceptre from his hand? 
Now, by the majesty of kings I swear,
You shall as soon be saved for packing juries.

1 Sher. Why, sir, mayn’t citizens be saved?

Gril. Yes, sir, From drowning, to be hanged, burnt, broke o’the wheel.

1 Sher. Colonel, you speak us plain.

Gril. A plague confound you,
Why should I not? what is there in such rascals,
Should make me hide my thought, or hold my tongue? 
Now, in the devil’s name, what make you here,
Daubing the inside of the court, like snails,
Sliming our walls, and pricking out your horns? 
To hear, I warrant, what the king’s a doing,
And what the cabinet-council; then to the city,
To spread your monstrous lies, and sow sedition? 
Wild fire choke you!