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There take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny, 'tis the King's. My robe,
And my integrity to Heav'n, are all

I dare now call my own.

O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I serv'd my King, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
CROM. Good Sir, have patience.

WOL. So I have. Farewell

The hopes of court! My hopes in Heaven do dwell.

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SHAKSPEARE.

LEAR.

BLOW winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,

Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world:
Crack Nature's mould, all germius spill at once
That make ungrateful man!

Rumble thy belly full, spit fire, spout rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdoms, cali'd you children;
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure.-Here I stand your brave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man;
But yet I call you servile ministers,

That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high engender'd battles, 'gainst a head,
So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul.
Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipp'd of justice! Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjure, and thou simular of virtue,
That art incestuous! caitiff, shake to pieces
That, under cover of convivial seeming,

Has practis'd on man's life.-Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and ask
Those dreadful summoners grace!
More sinn'd against, than sinning.

-I am a man,

SHAKSPEARE.

CHAPTER XXII.

MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

Th' handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument 1 was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses,
Or else worth all the rest-I see thee still;
And on the blade o' th' dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.-There's no such thing.—
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er one half the world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings: and wither'd Murder,
(Alarm'd by his centinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch,) thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, tow'rds his design
Moves like a ghost.-Thou sound and firin-set earth.
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

The very stones prate of my where-about;
And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it.—While I threat, he lives→
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan! for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MACDUFF, MALCOLM, AND ROSSE.

MACD.

SEE who comes here!

MAL. My countryman; but yet I know him not. MACD. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither. MAL. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove The means that makes us strangers!

ROSSE.

MACD.

Sir, Amen.

Stands Scotland where it did?

ROSSE. Alas, poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot

Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd for whom: and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps;

Dying or e'er they sicken.

MACD. Oh, relation

Too nice, and yet too true!

MAL. What's the newest grief?

ROSSE. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker: Each minute teems a new one.

MACD. How does my wife?

ROSSE, Why, well.

MACD. And all my

ROSSE. Well too.

children?

MACD. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?

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ROSSE. No; they were at peace when I did leave 'em. MACD. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes it? ROSSE. When I came hither to transport the tidings, Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour

Of many worthy fellows that were out,
Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot.
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, and make women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.

MAL. Be't their comfort

We're coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men';
An older, and a better soldier, none
That Christendom gives out.

ROSSE. Would I could answer

This comfort with the like; but I have words
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not catch them.
MACD. What concern they?

The gen❜ral cause? or is it a free grief,
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind that's honest,

But in it shares some wo; though the main part

Pertains to you alone.

MACD. If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

ROSSE. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound,

That ever yet they heard.

MACD. Hum! I guess at it.

Rosse. Your castle is surpris'd, your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd! to relate the manner,

Were on the quarry of these murder'd deer

To add the death of you.

MAL. Merciful Heav'n!

What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows,
Give sorrow words! the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
MACD. My children too?.

ROSSE. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.

MACD. And I must be from thence! my wife kill'd too?

ROSSE.

MAL.

I've said.

Be comforted.

Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

MACD. He has no children.-All my pretty ones!
Did you say all? what, all? ob, hell-kite! all?
MAL. Endure it like a man.

MACD. I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man.

I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.

Did Heav'n look on

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls. Heav'n rest them now!
MAL Be this the whet-stone of your sword, let grief
Convert to wrath; blunt not the heart, enrage it!

MACD. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle Heav'n! Cut short all intermission: front to front,

Bring thou this fichd of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him, if he 'scape,
Then Heav'n forgive him too!

MAL. This tune goes manly.

Come, go we to the King, our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave.

Macbeth

Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above

Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; The night is long that never finds the day.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANTONY'S SOLILOQUY OVER CÆSAR'S BODY.

O PARDON me, thou bleeding piece of earth!
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

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