Free from the lot to be his own accuser; Ever in quiet, endless joy enjoying; No strife nor no sedition in his powers; No motion in his will against his reason; No thought 'gainst thought; nor (as 'twere in the confines = = 1. From the Arabic word hamulât something carried. 2. Non firmness and hence weakness of will. 3. So Ophelia speaks of Hamlet as Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh. 4. Of being. 5. Commotion. 6. This word seems to mean fond of getting one's own way. Some connect it with woe, and make it woeward. Others make it awayward, and compare it with froward = fromward, and toward. 7. In the old sense of free from care. This word has put in three appearances in our language: 1st, through the Norman-French, as sure; 2nd, direct from the Latin securus, as secure; and 3rd, direct from an older Latin form, sine curâ (without care), as sinecure (a noun). 8. Their of the best things. 9. That is, the one foul crime infects all the other and sound parts of the mind. 10. Destroys the freedom and contentment of our whole life. = Ex. 10. Select from the three previous passages, all the words, phrases, and idioms, which are not modern. Ex. 11. Prepare the following poem from SHIRLEY: Early or late 11 They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath The garlands wither on your brow: See where the victor-victim bleeds: To the cold tomb; Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.12 1. Leveller-from Latin libra, a balance; diminutive libella,-by the change of the labial b into the aspirated labial v. 2. The weight of sense carried by this Latin word substantial, only introduced into the language in the sixteenth century, is one proof of the greatness of the rôle played by the Latin element in our language. 3. The emphasis is on no, and a pause ought to be made after it. A mechanical method of scanning is not to be strictly adhered to in English; and this line might, in keeping with the sense, be scanned thus: There is nó ármour | against | —fáte | Four accents: and the unaccented syllable before fate is to be supplied by the pause necessary to express the full sense. 4. Ice-icy. The simplest way of the language of forming adjectives from nouns, is by the addition of y. This y is a paring down from the old English ig, which the Germans still retain. 5. The trochee here has a fine effect. 6. Not derived from tomb-er, but connected with it. 7. Another form of reap is reave; and the adjective ripe comes from it. 8. There seems to be confusion here; and the metaphor is wrongly mixed up with the literal expressions. 9. The their is emphatic, and has also the verse-accent upon it, and is even their. 10. They tame only each other-but not Death. 11. Sooner or later in time. 12. Perhaps the rhyme was suggested to Shirley by the song in Cymbeline: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Ex. 12. Scan the first verse of SHIRLEY'S poem. 1. CHAPTER VIII. SHAKSPEARE, 1564-1616. ILLIAM SHAKSPEARE was born at Stratford-onAvon, on St. George's day, the 23rd of April, and was baptized three days after. His father, John Shakspeare, was a wool-dealer and glover; and he rose to the office of high bailiff, or mayor, of the town. He had married, in 1557, Mary Arden, a county heiress, of an old knightly family. William Shakspeare was the third of seven children. Neither his father nor mother could write-an accomplishment somewhat rare in the sixteenth century; but their son was probably sent to the grammar school of the place, and received there the small amount of Latin which was so useful to him in his later life. He is said, after leaving school, to have been a schoolmaster in the country; he is said also to have spent some time in a lawyer's office; and he is also believed to have been a printer. In 1582, at the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a small yeoman. She was nearly eight years older than her husband, and several of Shakspeare's plays contain allusions to the undesirableness of inequality of age in marriage. They had three children: Susanna, born in 1583; and in 1585, the twins Judith and Hamnet. In 1586 he left his native town, and went alone to London. 2. He seems to have immediately received employment in the GLOBE THEATRE, at Blackfriars. Two of the best actors of the Globe were Warwickshire men: Richard Burbage, the greatest tragic actor of the day, and Thomas Greene, himself a native of Stratford. Soon after joining the company, he was employed in a twofold 1 There is very good evidence for this in an allusion in a pamphlet by Nash, a contemporary of Shakspeare's. I capacity- -as actor and as arranger of plays for the stage. In this latter function he made alterations and additions, always larger and larger, to the plays he had to edit; and he thus gradually learned to feel his power, and gained courage to produce his own conceptions. He was connected with the theatre for about five-and-twenty years. He belonged only to the second class as an actor; and two of the characters played by him were the Ghost in Hamlet, and the faithful servant Adam in As you like it. He gradually prospered, chiefly as an adapter and writer of plays, till he rose to be part proprietor both of the Globe and the Blackfriars theatre. In 1597, at the early age of thirty-three, he was able to purchase New Place, in Stratford, and to rebuild the house. In 1603 his name stands second in the patent or licence granted to Blackfriars by King James. As he prospered, he invested his money in lands and houses in his native town, which he visited every year. About the year 1612, at the age of forty-eight, he left London, and retired to New Place, the house he had built for himself some years before. It was the best house in the town. His old father and mother, who were not now in such good circumstances, spent the last years of their life with him, and died under his roof. In 1607 his daughter Susanna married Dr. Hale; and in the year after Shakspeare had a little grand-daughter. His only son, Hamnet, had died in 1596, at the early age of twelve. In 1616, his second daughter, Judith, married Thomas Quiney. Two months after, Shakspeare fell ill, and died on his birthday, the 23rd of April, 1616. He was buried in the parish church of Stratford. He seems to have had a good reputation among his friends and neighbours for honesty, kindness, and considerateness; and the epithet, "gentle Shakspeare," adheres closest to his name. His life had almost no events; it seems only to have been that of an ordinary prosperous Englishman. He was about the middle height, with a high, broad, and noble forehead, bright eyes, and open, kindly, handsome face; and of a very pleasant and attractive manner. 3. He has written thirty-seven plays, and a number of sonnets and other poems. The plays are usually divided into three classes: (a) tragedies, (b) comedies, and (c) historical plays. The greatest of his tragedies are Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet. |