Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head :
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

QUEEN MAB.1

O THEN, I see Queen Mab hath been with you!
She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman;
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm,
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub-
Time out of mind the fairies' coach makers-
And in this state she gallops, night by night,
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
On courtiers' knees, that dream on courtesies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:3
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a1 lies asleep;
Then dreams he of another benefice.

(1) "Romeo and Juliet," Act i., scene 4.

(2) Drawn with, &c.-Drawn by a team of little atoms.
(3) Suit-a solicitation for some place or office at court.
(4) As 'a-as he.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,1
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes ;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks 2 in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.

THE quality of mercy is not strained!
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest ;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit1 the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthronéd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,5
Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

ONE FRIEND UPBRAIDING ANOTHER.7

INJURIOUS Hermia, most ungrateful maid!

Have you conspired, have you with these contrived

(1) Spanish blades-The Toledo blades were once very famous for their temper. (2) Elf-locks-locks of hair entangled and clotted ("baked") by wicked elves or fairies. Such was the superstition.

(3) "Merchant of Venice," Act iv., scene 1.

(4) Wherein doth sit-which inspire.

(5) Jew-this is addressed to Shylock, the Jew.

(6) We do pray, &c.-i. e. in the Lord's Prayer; "Forgive us our trespasses," &c. (7) "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act. iii., scene 2.

To bait me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us-oh! and is all forgot?

All school-day's friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our neelds1 created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion;
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and winds,2
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem :
So with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
And will
you rend our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.

MUSIC.3

Lorenzo and Jessica speak.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music,
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica; look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;

(1) Neelds-needles.

(2) Winds-breath.

(3) "Merchant of Venice," Act v., scene 1.

(4) Sleeps There is an exquisite propriety and beauty in the metaphorical use of the word "sleeps" in this passage.

(5) Patines-from the Latin patina, a plate or dish—a bright round object.

(6) There's not, &c.-This and the two following lines refer to the fanciful notion of the music of the spheres.

(7) Still quiring-continually singing as in a choir.

But whilst this muddy vesture1 of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.-
Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn:
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

Jes. I'm never merry when I hear sweet music.
Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive;3
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud-
Which is the hot condition of their blood-

If they perchance but hear a trumpet sound,
Or air of music touch their ears,

any

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand;
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.

IMAGINATION.4

LOVERS and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,

(1) This muddy vesture, &c.—In allusion to the Platonic doctrine that the body is the earthly prison of the soul.

(2) Come, ho, &c.—This is addressed to some musicians.

(3) Attentive-i.e. to the music, entirely absorbed by its influence.

(6) Are of imagination, &c.-Are altogether made up, or filled with imagination. This sense appears to be justified by another passage in which Shakspere writes "Love is a spirit all compact of fire."

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

MILTON.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-John Milton-emphatically the Sublime Poet-was born in Bread Street, London, on the 9th of December, 1608. He was early distinguished for his love of learning, so that in the beginning of his sixteenth year he left St. Paul's School, where his education had been carried on several years, and entered Christ's College, Cambridge. On leaving college, he returned to his father's house, at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, and here for five years he pursued a course of unremitting study, which comprehended, it is said, all the Greek and Roman classics. Here too he wrote "Comus," "Lycidas," L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso." In the year 1638, he visited the continent, and was introduced at Paris to the famous Hugo Grotius, at that time ambassador from Christina, Queen of Sweden, to the French court; at Naples to Manso, Marquis of Villa, the friend and patron of Tasso; and at Florence, to the renowned Galileo, "a prisoner to the Inquisition," to use Milton's own words, "for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." On his return to England, after an absence of fifteen months, he settled in London, and devoted himself to the instruction of youth. He soon, however, became involved in the political agitation of the times, and was ultimately appointed Latin Secretary to the Council of State, which office he held for several years. It was during this period that he entirely lost his sight. On the restoration of Charles II., in 1660, he was included in the act of indemnity, and devoted the retirement now afforded him to composing-it cannot be called writing, since it was all dictated by the blind bard-the noblest epic poem of that or any other age-the "Paradise Lost," which was published in 1667, when he was in his sixtieth year. He died with great

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