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Quince. Marry, our play is―The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

Bottom. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll:-Masters, spread yourselves.

[They stand in a line.] Quince. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. Bottom. Ready! Name what part I am for, and proceed. Quince. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. Bottom. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?

Quince. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love. Bottom. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it; if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest:-yet my chief humour is for a tyrant; I could play Ercles rarely; or a part to tear a cat in; to make all split. [Recites with a loud voice and bombastic manner]—

"The raging rocks,

With shivering shocks,
Shall break the locks,
Of prison-gates:
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar

The foolish fates."

This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.

Ercles' vein; a tyrant's vein, a lover is more condoling.
Quince. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender!

Flute. Here! Peter Quince.

Quince. You must take Thisby on you.

Flute. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

Quince. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

This is

Flute. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

Quince. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

Bottom. An' I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too. I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;-"Thisne, Thisne— Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady

dear!"

Quince. No, no; you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.

Bottom. Well, proceed.

Quince. Robin Starveling, the tailor!

Starveling. Here! Peter Quince.

Quince. Robert Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. -Tom Snout, the tinker.

Snout. Here! Peter Quince.

Quince. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father, and prologue; Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:—and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

Snug. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

Quince. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bottom. Let me play the lion too, I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, "let him roar again, let him roar again.”

Quince. An' you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek: and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us every mother's son.

Bottom. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you as 'twere any nightingale.

Quince. You can play no part but Pyramus: for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

Bottom. Well, I will undertake it.

Peter Quince

Quince. What say'st thou, bully Bottom?

Bottom. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

Starveling. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

Bottom. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue: and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords; and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more better assurance, tell them, that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.

Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion.
Starveling. I fear it, I promise you.

Bottom. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in, lord shield us! a lion among ladies is a most

dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion-living and we ought to look to it.

Snout. Therefore, another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

Bottom. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,-“Ladies, or fair ladies, I would wish you, or I would request you, or I would entreat you, not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are;" and there, indeed, let him name his name, and tell they plainly he is Snug the joiner.

Quince. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber: for you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight. Else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chinks of a wall.

Snug. You never can bring in a wall.-What say you, Bottom?

Bottom. Some man or other must present a wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some roughcast about him, to signify wall; or let him hold his finger thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.Shakespeare.

THE CHILDREN.

WHEN the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And the school for the day is dismissed,
And the little ones gather around me,
To bid me good-night and be kissed;
Oh, the little white arms that encircle
My neck in a tender embrace!
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
Shedding sunshine of love on my face!

And when they are gone I sit dreaming
Of my childhood too lovely to last;
Of love that my heart will remember,
When it wakes to the pulse of the past,

Ere the world and its wickedness made me
A partner of sorrow and sin,

When the glory of God was above me,
And the glory of gladness within.

Oh, my

heart grows weak as a woman's,
And the fountains of feeling will flow,
When I think of the paths, steep and stony,
Where the feet of the dear ones must go;
Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
Of the tempest of fate blowing wild;
Oh! there's nothing on earth half so holy,
As the innocent heart of a child!

They are idols of hearts and of households,
They are angels of God in disguise;
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
His glory still gleams in their eyes;
Oh! those truants from home and from heaven,
They have made me more manly and mild!
And I know how Jesus could liken

The Kingdom of God to a child.

Seek not a life for the dear ones,

All radiant as others have done,

But that life may have just enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun;

I would pray God to guard them from evil,
But my prayer would bound back to myself.
Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,

But a sinner must pray for himself.

The twig is so easily bended,

I have banished the rule and the rod;

I have taught them the goodness of knowledge, They have taught me the goodness of God;

My heart is a dungeon of darkness,

Where I shut them from breaking a rule;

My frown is sufficient correction;

My love is the law of the school.

I shall leave the old house in the autumn,
To traverse its threshold no more;
Ah! how I shall sigh for the dear ones,

That meet me each morn at the door!
I shall miss the "good-nights" and the kisses,
And the gush of their innocent glee,

The group on the green and the flowers
That are brought every morning to me.
I shall miss them at morn and at eve,

Their song in the school and the street:
I shall miss the low hum of their voices
And the tramp of their delicate feet.
When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And Death says, "The school is dismissed!"
May the little ones gather around me,
To bid me good-night and be kissed.

-Charles Dickens.

PUNISHMENT OF A SPY.

I SHALL never forget the delightful sensation with which I exchanged the dark, smoky, smothering atmosphere of the Highland hut, in which we had passed the night so uncomfortably, for the refreshing fragrance of the morning air; and the glorious beams of the rising sun, which, from a tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the left lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its easterly course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill with all its garland of woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay the bed of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of the morning breeze, each glittering in its course under the influence of the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks, waving with natural forests of birch and oak, formed the borders of this enchanting sheet of water; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity. Man alone seemed to be placed in a state of inferiority, in a scene where all the ordinary features of nature were raised and exalted.

It was under the burning influence of revenge that the wife of Macgregor commanded that the hostage exchanged for her husband's safety should be brought into her presence. I believe her sons had kept this unfortunate wretch out of her sight for fear of the consequences; but, if it was so, their humane precaution only postponed his fate. They dragged forward at her summons a wretch already half dead with terror, in whose agonized features I recognized, to my horror and astonishment, my old acquaintance Morris.

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