Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not distinctly. I did consent;
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs.

She swore in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pitiful; 'twas wond'rous pitiful;

She wish'd she had not heard it; yet she wish'd

[me,

That heaven had made her such a man. She thank'd
And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. On this hint I spake ;
She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft which I've us❜d.

IX.-Henry IV's Soliloquy on Sleep. SHAKESPEAre.
How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature's soft nurse! how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoaky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night flies to thy slumber.
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! Why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav'st a kingly couch,
A watchcase to a common larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the shipboy's eyes and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billiows by the tops,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamours in the slipp'ry shrouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes;
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea boy in an hour so rude,

And in the calmest and the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy, lowly clown!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a clown.

X.-Capt. Bobadil's Method of defeating an Army.
EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOur.

I WILL tell you, Sir, by the way of private and under seal, I am a gentleman; and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to his Majesty and the Lords, observe me, I would undertake, upon this poor head and live, for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of his subjects in general, but to save the one half, nay three fourths of his yearly charge in holding war, and against what enemy soever. And how would I do it, think you? Why thus, Sir.-I would se lect nineteen more to myself, throughout the land; gentlemen they should be; of good spirit, strong and able constitution. I would choose them by an instinct that I have. And I would teach these nineteen the special rules; as your Punto, your Reverso, your Stoccata, your Imbroccata, your Passada, your Montonto; till they could all play very near, or altogether, as well as myself. This done: say the enemy were forty thousand strong. twenty would come into the field, the tenth of March, or thereabouts, and we would challenge twenty of the enemy; they could not, in their honour, refuse us. Well-we would kill them; challenge twenty more-kill them; twenty more-kill them; twenty more-kill them too. And thus, would we kill every man, his ten a day-that's ten -score: Ten score-that's two hundred; two hundred a day-five days, a thousand: Forty thousand-forty times five-five times forty-two hundred days kill them all up by computation. And this I will venture my poor gentlemanlike carcase to perform (provided there be no treason practised upon us) by fair and discreet manhood; that is civilly-by the sword.

We

XI-Soliloquy of Hamlet's Uncle, on the Murder of his
Brother.-TRAGEDY OF HAMLET.

OH! my offence is rank; it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal, eldest curse upon it!

A brother's murder!-Pray I cannot,
Though inclination be as sharp as 'twill-
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin-
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood-
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offence?

And what's in prayer, but this twofold force?
To be forestalled ere we come to fall

Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up.
My fault is past. But Oh! What form of prayer
Can serve my turn?. Forgive me my fool murder,
That cannot be, since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder-
My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned, and retain th' offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice:
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the laws.
There is no shuffling
In its true nature, and
E'en to the teeth and
To give in evidence.
Try what repentance can.

But 'tis not so above.

there the action lies
we ourselves compell'd
forehead of our faults,
What then? What rests?
What can it not?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
Oh, wretched state! Oh, bosom black as death!
Oh, limed soul, that struggling to be free,

Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay !
Bow, stubborn knees and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft, as sinews of the new born babe!

All may be well.

XII.-Soliloquy of Hamlet on Death-IB.
To be or not to be

that is the question,

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune-
Or to take arms against a sea of trouble;
And, by opposing end them? To die-to sleep-

No more? And, by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
-'Tis a consummation

That flesh is heir to.

Devoutly to be wish'd.

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,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd 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,
(That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns) puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their current's turn away,
And lose the name of action.

XIII.-Falstaff's Encomium on Sack.-HENRY IV. A GOOD sherris sack hath a twofold operation in it It ascends me into the brain; dries me there, all the fool ish, dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, inventive; full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes; which delivered over to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. second property of your excellent sherris, is the warming of the blood; which, before, cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cow. ardice. But the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illuminateth the face; which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of

The

this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then, the vital commoners, and inland petty spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart; who great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage-and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it awork; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it, and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured husbanded and tilled, with drinking good, and a good store of fertile sherris. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them, should be-to for swear thin potations, and to adict themselves to sack.

XIV.-Prologue to the Tragedy of Cato.-POPE.
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold;
For this the tragic muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wondered how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory or the virgin's love:
In pitying love we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more gen'rous cause;
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws:
He bids your breast with ancient ardours rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes;
Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:
No common object to your sight displays,
But what, with pleasure, heaven itself surveys:
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state!
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed è