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Bow stubborn knees-and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft, as sinews of the new born babe !
All may be well.

XII-Soliloquy of Hamlet on Death.---IB.

To be or not to be-that is the question ;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune→→
Or to take arins against a sea of trouble;
And, by opposing end them? To die-to sleep-
No more? And, by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to-Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die-to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come
When we have, shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life;

For, who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressors' wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despis'd love---the law's delay
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes---
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life
But that the dread of something after death,
(That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns) puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action.

XIII.-Falstaff's Encomium on Sack.-HENRY IV.

[graphic]

:

A GOOD sherris sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there, all the foolish, dull and crudy vapors which environ it makes it apprehensive, quick, inventive; full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes; which delivered over to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris, is the warming of the blood; which, before, cold and set

tled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice. But the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illuminateth the face; which, as a beacon' gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then, the vital commoners, and inland petty spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart; who great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage and this valor comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it awork; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it, and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded and tilled, with drinking good, and good store of fertile sherris. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them, should be-to forswear thin potations, and to addict themselves to sack.

XIV.-Prologue to the Tragedy of Cato.-POPE.

TO wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold;
For this the tragic muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory or the virgin's love :
In pitying love we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more gen'rous cause;
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws :
He bids your breast with ancient ardors rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes;
Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what, with pleasure, heaven itself surveys:
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state!
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?

i

Who sees him act, but envies every deed?

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
E'en when proud Cesar, 'midst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,

Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state;
As her dead father's rev'rend image pass'd,
The pomp was darken'd and the day o'ercast,
The triumph ceas'd-tears gush'd from ev'ry eye
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by;
Her last good man, dejected Rome ador'd,
And honor'd Cesar's less than Cato's sword.
Britons attend. Be worth like this approv'd ;
And show you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu’d.
Our scene precariously subsists too long

On French translation and Italian song.

Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage.
Such plays alone should please a British ear,
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear.

XV.- Cato's Soliloquy on the Immortality of the Soul.

TRAGEDY OF CATO.

IT must be so-Plato thou reasonest well!
Else, Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or, Whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
"Tis the divinity that stirs within us :

"Tis heaven itself that points out an Hereafter,
And intimates Eternity to man.

Eternity-thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,
(And that there is, all nature cries aloud

Through all her works) he must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in must be happy.

But when? Or where? This world was made for Cesar.

I'm weary of conjectures

-this must end them.
[Laying his hand on his sword.

Thus I am doubly arm'd. My death and life,
My bane and antidote are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.

The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years:
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth;
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

XVII-Speech of Henry V, to his Soldiers at the Siege of Harfleur.-SHAKESPEARE'S HENRY V.

ONCE more unto this breach, dear friends once more,

Or close the wall up with the English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tyger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard favor'd rage :
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect:
Let it pry o'er the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
And fearlessly as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To its full height. Now on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fetch'd from fathers of war proof;
Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonor not your mother; now attest

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war. And you good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The metal of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge,
Cry, God for Harry, England and St. George!

XVIII-Speech of Henry V, before the battle of Agin court, on the Earl of Westmoreland's wishing for more men from England.—IB.

WHAT'S he that wishes more men from England!
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin ;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and, if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honor.
No, no, my Lord; wish not a man from England.
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, throughout my host,
That he who hath no stomach to this fight,

May straight depart; his passport shall be made ;
And crowns, for convoy, put into his purse.
We would not die in such a man's company.
This day is called the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tiptoe, when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and sees old age,
- Will yearly, on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say, To-morrow is St. Crispian ;

Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars.
But men forget, yet shall not all forget,

But they'll remember, with advantages,

What feats they did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Glo'ster,
Be in their flowing cups, freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son:
And Crispian's day shall ne'er go by,
From this time to the ending of the world,
But we and it shall be remembered;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother be he e'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England, now abed,

Shall think themselves accus'd they were not here
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks
That fought with us upon St. Crispian's day.

XIX.-Soliloquy of Dick the Apprentice.

FARCE, THE APPRENTICE. THUS far we run before the wind. An apothecary!-Make an apothecary of me!What, cramp my genius over a pestle and mortar; or mew me up in

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