A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman, -
Framed in the prodigality of nature,

Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right loyal, —
The spacious world can not again afford.
And will she yet abase her eyes on me,

That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woeful bed? —

On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am misshapen thus ?
My dukedom to a beggarly den'ier,
I do mistake my person all this while.
Upon my life, she finds, although I can not,
Myself to be a marvelous proper man.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body.
Since I am crept in favor with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But, first, I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;
And then return lamenting to my love.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass!

SHAKSPEARE.

XXXI. FALCONBRIDGE TO KING JOHN.

ALL Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out
But Dover Castle; London hath received,
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone

To offer service to your enemy;

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.

But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act as you have been in thought!
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motions of a kingly eye.
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire:
Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror. So shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away, and glister like the god of war
When he intendeth to become the field!

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What! shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble there?
O, let it not be said! Forage, and run

To meet displeasure further from the doors!
And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.

IB.

XXXII. — HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them? To die,— to sleep, —
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, — 't is a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep:-
To sleep! perchance to dream;ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con'tu-mely
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death.
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns-
puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

-

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

IB.

267

XXXIII. — HAMLET'S ADDRESS TO THE PLAYERS.

SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod pray you, avoid it,

-

Be not too tame, neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O! there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly,not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

XXXIV. -SOLILOQUY OF MACBETH.

If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, -
We'd jump the life to come. But, in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice

IB.

CATO OVER THE DEAD BODY OF HIS SON.

Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

269

IB.

XXXV.-CATO OVER THE DEAD BODY OF HIS SON.

The opening line of the following should be uttered with emotion, and with eyes and hands elevated. At the second line the speaker may take a step forward, as if to meet the body. He is to imagine friends around him, and, in places, to address them. The beautiful climax, beginning "The mistress of the world," &c, should be spoken with animation; the voice rising at each successive step of the climax. In the sixth line from the end of the extract, at the words "brave youth," the speaker may point to where the dead body is supposed to lie.

THANKS to the Gods! my boy has done his duty.
Welcome, my son! here lay him down, my friends,
Full in my sight; that I may view at leisure
The bloody corse, and count those glorious wounds.

How beautiful is Death when earned by Virtue!
Who would not be that youth! what pity is it
That we can die but once to serve our country!

Why sits this sadness on your brows, my friends?
I should have blushed if Cato's house had stood
Secure and flourished in a civil war.

Portius, behold thy brother, and remember
Thy life is not thy own, when Rome demands it.
Alas, my friends!

Why mourn you thus? Let not a private loss
Afflict your hearts. T is Rome requires our tears.
The mistress of the world, the seat of empire,

The nurse of heroes, the delight of gods,
That humbled the proud tyrants of the earth,
And set the nations free, - Rome is no more!
O, liberty! O, virtue! O, my country!
Whate'er the Roman virtue has subdued,

The sun's whole course, the day and year, are Cæsar's ! For him the self-devoted Decii died,

The Fabii fell, and the great Scipios conquered :
Even Pompey fought for Cæsar. O, my friends!
How is the toil of fate, the work of ages,
The Roman empire fallen! O, cursed ambition!
Fallen into Cæsar's hands! our great forefathers
Had left him naught to conquer but his country.
Lose not a thought on me, -I'm out of danger:
Heaven will not leave me in the victor's hand.
Cæsar shall never say,
I conquered Cato!"
-But, O! my friends, your safety fills my heart
With anxious thoughts: a thousand secret terrors
Rise in my soul: how shall I save my friends?
'Tis now, O Cæsar, I begin to fear thee!
Farewell, my friends! If there be any of you
Who dare not trust the victor's clemency,
Know, there are ships prepared by my command
(Their sails already opening to the winds)
That shall convey you to the wished for port.

Is there aught else, my friends, I can do for you?,
The conqueror draws near. Once more, farewell!
If e'er we meet hereafter, we shall meet

In happier climes, and on a safer shore,
Where Cæsar never shall approach us more.
There the brave youth, with love of virtue fired,
Who greatly in his country's cause expired,
Shall know he conquered. The firm patriot there,
Who made the welfare of mankind his care,
Though still by Faction, Vice, and Fortune crost,
Shall find the
labor
generous
was not lost.

ADDISON.

XXXVI. — SOLILOQUY OF VAN ARTEVELDE.

SAY that I fall not in this enterprise, -
Still must my life be full of hazardous turns,
And they that house with me must ever live
In imminent peril of some evil fate.

*Tho h in this word is now sounded by the best speakers.