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The tempters found me a revengeful tool

For their revenge!

worm

Thou hadst trampled on the

It turned and stung thee!

I will not tell thee of the throes-the struggles-
The anguish the remorse: No-let it pass!
And let me come to such most poor atonement
Yet in my power. Pauline!-

[Approaching her with great emotion, and about

to take her hand.

Do not fear me.

Thou dost not know me, Madam: at the altar
My vengeance ceased-my guilty oath expired!
Henceforth, no image of some marble saint,
Niched in cathedral aisles, is hallowed more
From the rude hand of sacrilegious wrong.

I am thy husband-nay, thou need'st not shudder;-
Here, at thy feet, I lay a husband's rights.
A marriage thus unholy-unfulfilled-

A bond of fraud-is, by the laws of France,
Made void and null. To-night sleep-sleep in peace;
To-morrow, pure and virgin as this morn

I bore thee, bathed in blushes, from the shrine,
Thy father's arms shall thee take to thy home.
The law shall do thee justice, and restore
Thy right to bless another with thy love;
And when thou art happy, and hast half forgot
Him who so loved-so wronged thee, think at least
Heaven left some remnant of the angel still
In that poor peasant's nature!

OUR indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us,
There's a Divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

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RICHARD THE
THE SECOND
GREATNESS.

ON

KINGLY

SHAKESPEARE'S RICHARD II."

Aumerle. Where is the duke my father with his power?
No matter where. Of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings

How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives; some sleeping killed;
All murdered :—For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

pomp,

Keeps death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable,-and, humoured thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and-farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends-Subjected thus,

How can you say to me-I am a king?

SHYLOCK ON HIS

WRONGS.

SHAKESPEARE'S "MERCHANT OF VENICE."

(22)

SIGNIOR Antonio, many a time-and oft
In the Rialto-you have rated me
About my monies, and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat, dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help :
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say,
Shylock, we would have monies :" You say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: monies is your suit:
What should I say to you? Should I not say,
"Hath a dog money? is it possible

A cur can lend three thousand ducats?" or
Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,
With 'bated breath, and whispering humbleness,
Say this ;-

"Fair sir, you spat on me on Wednesday last
You spurned me such a day; another time
You called me dog; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much monies ?"

;

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Speech of Jaques in SHAKESPEARE'S "AS YOU LIKE IT.”

ALL the world 's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts beings seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:
Then, the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school: and then, the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow: Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth: and then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big, manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

HENRY

THE

TO HIS

ARMY

FIFTH
BEFORE HARFLEUR)

SHAKESPEARE'S "HENRY V."

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our 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 tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled 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 his full height !-On, on, you nobless English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you called 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 mettle 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,

Q

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