COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

_Leontius_.-------- That power that kindly spreads
The clouds, a signal of impending showers,
To warn the wandering linnet to the shade,
Beheld without concern expiring Greece,
And not one prodigy foretold our fate.

_Demetrius_. A thousand horrid prodigies foretold it:
A feeble government, eluded laws,
A factious populace, luxurious nobles,
And all the maladies of sinking states.
When public villany, too strong for justice,
Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin,
Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders,
Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard?
IRENE, _Act I_.


The close observers of vegetable nature have remarked, that when a new
graft is taken from an aged tree, it possesses indeed in exterior form
the appearance of a youthful shoot, but has in fact attained to the
same state of maturity, or even decay, which has been reached by the
parent stem. Hence, it is said, arises the general decline and death