SCENE 2: 
A CHAMBER IN WHITEHALL. 
ENTER THE KING, QUEEN, LAUD, LORD STRAFTORD,
LORD COTTINGTON, AND OTHER LORDS; ARCHY;
ALSO ST. JOHN, WITH SOME GENTLEMEN OF THE INNS OF COURT.

KING: 
Thanks, gentlemen.  I heartily accept
This token of your service:  your gay masque
Was performed gallantly.  And it shows well
When subjects twine such flowers of [observance?]
With the sharp thorns that deck the English crown. 5
A gentle heart enjoys what it confers,
Even as it suffers that which it inflicts,
Though Justice guides the stroke. 
Accept my hearty thanks.

NOTE: 
3-9 And...thanks 1870; omitted 1824.

QUEEN: 
And gentlemen,
Call your poor Queen your debtor.  Your quaint pageant 10
Rose on me like the figures of past years,
Treading their still path back to infancy,
More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer
The quiet cradle.  I could have almost wept
To think I was in Paris, where these shows 15
Are well devised—­such as I was ere yet
My young heart shared a portion of the burthen,
The careful weight, of this great monarchy. 
There, gentlemen, between the sovereign’s pleasure
And that which it regards, no clamour lifts 20
Its proud interposition. 
In Paris ribald censurers dare not move
Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;
And HIS smile
Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do 25
If ...  Take my heart’s thanks:  add them, gentlemen,
To those good words which, were he King of France,
My royal lord would turn to golden deeds.

ST. JOHN: 
Madam, the love of Englishmen can make
The lightest favour of their lawful king 30
Outweigh a despot’s.—­We humbly take our leaves,
Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.

[EXEUNT ST. JOHN AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE INNS OF COURT.]

KING: 
My Lord Archbishop,
Mark you what spirit sits in St. John’s eyes? 
Methinks it is too saucy for this presence. 35

ARCHY:  Yes, pray your Grace look:  for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time.  Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects.  One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations:  and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer’s brain, and takes the bandage from the other’s eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex’s there. 48