CHAPTER XV.,

BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, AND ARVIRAGUS.

BEL. A GOODLY day! not to keep house, with such
Whose roof's as low as ours :''see! boys, this gate
Instructs you how ťarlore the heav'ns; and bows you
To morning's holy office. Gates of monarchs
Are arch'd so high, that giants may jet through,
And keep their impious turbans on, without
Good-morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair Heav'n!
We house i' th’ rock, yet use thee not so hardly
As prouder livers do.

GUID. Hail, Heav'n!
Ary, Hail, Heav'n!

Bel. Now for our mountain sport, up to yond' hill,
Your legs are young. I'll tread these flats. Consider,
When

you, above, perceive me like a crow,
That it is place which lessens and sets off:
And you may then revolve what tales I told you,
Of courts, of princes; of the tricks in war;
That service is not service, so being done,
But being so allow'd. To apprehend thus,
Draws us a profit from all things we see;
And often to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold,
Than is the full-wing'd tagle. Oh, this life
Is nobler, than attending for a check;
Richer, than doing nothing for a bauble;
Prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk.
Such gain the cap of him that makes them fine,
Yet keeps his book uneross'd :- no life to ours.
Guin: Out of your proof your speak; we, poor, un-

fledg’d,
Have never wing'd from view o'th' nest ; nor know
What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known; well corresponding

With
your

stiff age: but unto us, it is
A cell of ign'rance; travelling a-bed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.

Arv. What should we speak of
When we are old as you? When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December? how,
In this var pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
We're beastly; subtle as the fox,. fur prey;
Like warlike as the wolf, for what we eat:
Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
We make a choir, as doth the prison'd bird,
And sing our bondage freely.

BEL. How you speak!
Did you but kriow the city's usuries,
And felt them knowingly; the art o'th' court,
As hard to leave, as keep; whose top to climb,
Is certain falling; or so slipp’ry, that
The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o'th' war,
A pain that only seems to seek out danger
P'th' name of fame and honour; which dies i' th' search,
And hath as oft a sland'rous epitaph,
As record of fair act; nay, many times,
Doth ill deserve, by doing well: what's worse,
Must courtesy at the censure.-Oh, boys, this story
The world night read in me: my body's mark'd
With Roman swords; and my report was once
First with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me;
And when a soldier was the iheme, niy naine
Was not far off: then was I as a tree,
Whose boughs dui bend with fruit. But, in one night,
A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, way, my leaves ;
And left me bare to weather.

Guid. Uncertain fa eur!

Bel, My fault being sothing, as I have told you oft, But that two villains (whose false vatns prevail'd Before my perfect honour) swore t: Cyn:Deiine I was confed'rait with the Romans: so Follow'd my banishment; and, ihese twenty years,

This rock and these demesnes have been my world;
Where I hare liv’d at honest freedom; paid
More pious debts 10 Heaven, than in all
The fore-end of my lime. — But, up to the mountains!
This is not hunter's language; he that strikes
The ven’son first, shall be the lord oth' feast;
To him the other two shall minister,
And we will fear no poison, which attends
In place of greater state.
I'll meet you in the valleys.

SAAKSPEARE.

1

DOOK VII.

DESCRIPTIVE PIECES.

CHAPTER I.

SENSIBILITY.

Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thu chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw, and it is thou who liftest him up to Heaven. Eternal Fountain of our feelings! It is kere I trace thee, and this is thy “divinity which stirs within me:" not, that in some sad and sickening monients, 'niy soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction'

'--mere pomp of words !--but that I frel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myselfall comes from thee, great, great Sensoriuin of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our bead but falls upon the ground, in the renintest desert of thy creation. "Touched. with thee, Eugenius draw's my curtain when I fanguish; hears my tale of symptoms, and blanies the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou givest a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses she bleak. est mountains.- lle finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock. This moment I beheld him leaning with his hear against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon it-Oh! hart I come one menent sooner!-t bleeds to death-his genile heart bleeds with it.

L

Peace to thee, generous swain! I see thou walkest off with anguish-hut thy joys shall balance it; for happy is thiy cottage, and happy is the sharer of it, and happy are the lambs which sport about you.

STERNE.

CHAPTER II.

LIBERTY AND SLAVERY.

DISGUISE thyself as thou wilt, still, SLAVERY! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, LIBERTY! tlırice sweet and gracious go:ldess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change-no tint of words can spot thy słowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into ironwith thee 10 smile upon him as he eats bis crust, the swain is happier Mian his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracimus Heaven? grant me but health, thua great Bestoiver of it, and give me hit this fair goduless as my companion; and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine Providence, upon those heads which are aching for thein.

Pursuing thiese ideas, I sat down close to my table, and leaning niy head upon my hanıl, I began to figure to myseif the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave til scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow- . (reatures born 10 no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I coukl not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of sad

groups in it did but distract ine

I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty