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And then imagine me taking your part,
And in your pow'r so silencing your son.
After this cold consid'rance, sentence me;.
And, as you are a King, speak in your state,
What I have done that misbecame my place,
My person, or my Liege's sovereignty.

P. HEN. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well: Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:

And I do wish your honours may increase,

Till you do live to see a son of mine

Offend you, and obey you, as I did :

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So shall I live to speak my father's words:
Happy am I, that have a man so bold
That dares do justice on my proper son;
And no less happy, having such a son,
That would deliver up his greatness so
Into the hand of justice."-You committed me;
For which I do commit into your hand

'Th' unstain'd sword that you have us'd to bear ;
With this remembrance, that you use the same
With a like bold, just, and impartial spirit,
As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand,
You shall be as a father to my youth:

My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;
And I will stoop and humble my intents
To your well practis'd wise directions.

And, Princes all, believe me, I beseech you;
My father is gone wild into his grave;
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectations of the world;
To, frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
Rotten opinions, which hath writ me down
After my seeming. Though my tide of blood
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now;
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high court of Parliament:
And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go

In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;
That war or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us,

In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
Our coronation done, we will accite
(As I before remember'd) all our state,
And (Heav'n consigning to my good intents)
No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,
Heav'n shorten Harry's happy life one day.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHAPTER XII.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND BISHOP OF ELY.

CANT. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urg'd, Which, in the eleventh year o' th' last king's reign, Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,

But that the scrambling and unquiet time

Did push it out of farther question.

ELY. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
CAN. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession :
For all the temporal lands which men devout,
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus:
As much as would maintain to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights, .
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And to relief of lazars and weak age
Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
A hundred alms houses right well supply'd;
And to the coffers of the king, beside,

A thousand pounds by th' year.
ELY This would drink deep.

Thus runs the bill.

CANT. 'Twould drink the cup and all.
ELY. But what prevention?

CANT. The king is full of grace and fair regard.

ELY. And a true lover of the holy church.
CANT. The courses of his youth promis'd it not;
The breath no sooner left his father's body,

But that his wildness, mortify'd in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration, like an angel, came,

And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,

'T' envelope and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady current, scouring faults:
Nor ever hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

ELY. We're blessed in the change.

CANT. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish,
You would desire the king were made a prelate...
Hear him debate of common wealth affairs,
You'd say it had been all in all his study.
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music.
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter. When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still;

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences:
So that the art, and practice part of life,
Must be the mistress to this theoric.

Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain;

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;

His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;

And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

From open haunts, and popularity.

ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,. Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:

And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

CANT. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd;
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHAPTER XIII.

HAMLET AND HORATIO,

HOR. HAIL to your lordship!

HAM.

I am glad to see you well.

Horatio!or I do forget myself.

Hok.

The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:

And what makes you from Wittenberg, Horatio?

HOR. A truant disposition, good, my lord.
HAM. I would nor hear your enemy say so!

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant:
But what is your affair in Elsineur?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HOR My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
HAM. I pr'ythee do not mock me, fellow-student

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

HOR. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.

HAM. Thrift, thrift, Horatio; the funeral bak'd meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage-tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heav'n,

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!

My father Methinks I see my father.
Oh where, my lord?

HoR.

HAM. In my mind's eye, Horatio.

HOR. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.

HAM. He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

HOR. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAM. Saw! who?

HOR. My lord, the king your father.
HAM. The king, my father!

HOR.

Season your admiration but a while,

With an attentive ear; till I deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

HAM. For Heaven's love, let me hear.

HOR. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd: a figure like your father,
Armi'd at all points exactly, cap à pè,

Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them; thrice he walk'd
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon's length, whilst they (distill'd
Almost to jelly with th' effect of fear)

Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,

And I with them the third night kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father:

These hands are not more like.

HAM. But where was this?

HOR. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd. HAM. Did you not speak to it ♪

HOR. My lord, I did;

But answer made it none.

Yet once methought

It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak,

But even then the morning cock crew loud;
And at the sound it shrank.in haste away,

And vanish'd from our sight.

HAM. 'Tis very strange!

HOR. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.

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