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 t'aclose the heav'ns; and bows you
To morning's holy office. Gates of monarchs
Are arch'd so high, ihar giants may jet through,
And keep their impious turbaps 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 tayle. 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

a

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 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 know 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
I'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,
Dust courtesy at the censure.-Oh, boys, this story
The world night read in me: my body's mark'd
With Ror swords; and ny report was once
First with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me;
And when a soldier was the iheme, my naine
Was not far off: then was I as a tree,
Whose boughs d' bend with fruit. But, in one night,
A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my untilow bangings, pay, my leaves ;
And left me bare to weather.

Guid. Uncertain faicur!

Bel, My fault being 'othing, as I have told you oft, But that two villains (whose false vatns prevail'd Before my perfect honour) swore so. Cyndeine I was confed'rait wiih the Romans; so Follow'd my banishment; and, these twenty years,

a

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.er:d 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 o'th' 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.

SAAKSPEARB. BOOK VII.

DESCRIPTIVE PIECES.

CHAPTER I.

SENSIBILITY.

Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thíu 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 ther, and this is thy“ divinity which stirs within me:" not, that in some sad and sickening monents, 'niy soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction'--mere pomp of words!--but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself--all comes from thee, great, great Sensoriun of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our head but falls upon the ground, in the renintest desert of thy creation. Touched. with thee, Eugenius draws my curtain when I languish; hears

my tale of symptoms, and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou givest a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses i he bleakest mountains. He finds the lacerated lamb of a:other's flock. This moment I beheld him leaning with his heart against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon it-Oh! had I come one menient sooner!coit bleeds to death-his gentle 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 hapny 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 thru 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 goldess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature hersult shall change no tint of words can spot thy sciowy mantle, or chynric power turn thy sceptre into iron with they 10 smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier Mian his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven? grant me but health, thua great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair god less as my companion, and shower down thy mitres, if it seenis good unto thy divine Providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close to my.table, and leaning nry head upon my hanıl, I hegan to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave

scope to my inagination. I was going to begin with the millions of

my

fellowcreatures 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 bis 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 Jooking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish : in thirty