This virtue, and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle's ethics,
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd:
Talk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk:
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics, and the metaphysics,

Fall to them, as you find your stomach serves you:
No profit grows, where is no pleasure ta'en;—
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

12-i. 1.

I have been studying how I may compare
This prison, where I live, unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it ;-Yet I 'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul;
My soul, the father: and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little worlde;
In humours, like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented.

Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves,-
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,-
That many have, and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people,

Oddly enough, considering how many learned hands our great dramatist's works have passed through, 'ethics' has heretofore been printed checks; while the Athenian philosopher's treatise on Ethics, formerly spelt Ethicks, is evidently referred to. For this correction we are also indebted to the reviser of the edition of 1632.

• His own body.

And none contented: Sometimes am I king;
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again: and, by-and-by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing:-But, whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,

With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd
With being nothing.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

17-v. 5.

For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they jar
Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleaning them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound, that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: So sighs, and tears, and groans,
Shew minutes, times, and hours.

218.

Advice to a son going to travel.

17-v. 5.

Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy: rich, not gaudy:

For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-To thine ownself be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

36-i. 3.

9-v. 1.

I can no other answer make, but, thanks,
And thanks, and ever thanks: Often good turns
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay:

But, were my worthf, as is my conscience, firm,
You should find better dealing.

221.

Excuses to the distressed.

4-iii. 3.

What a wicked beast was I, to disfurnish myself against such a good time, when I might have shewn myself honourable! how unluckily it happened, that I should purchase the day before for a little part, and undo a great deal of honour. Commend me bountifully to his good lordship; and I hope, his honour will conceive the fairest of me, because I have no power to be kind: and tell him this from me, I count it one of my greatest afflictions, say, that I cannot pleasure such an honourable gentleman.

At this hour the house doth keep itself, There's none within.

27-iii. 2.

10-iv. 3.

I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new reap'd,
Shew'd like a stubble land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet boxg, which ever and anon

f Wealth.

A small box for musk or other perfumes.

He gave his nose, and took 't away again-
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff;-and still he smiled and talk'd;
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He call'd them-untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms
He question'd me:

I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay h,

Out of my griefi and my impatience,

Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what;

For he made me mad,

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman,

Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark!)

And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,

That villainous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tallk fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.

18-i. 3.

He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.

28-ii. 1.

225.

Fawner.

A sponge that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. 36-iv. 2.

h Parrot.

Pain.

k Brave.

226.

Trumpeter.

Thou trumpet,

Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe:
Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
Out-swell the colick of puff'd Aquilon:

Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood;
Thou blow'st for Hector.

26-iv. 5.

Captain! thou abominable cheater, art thou not ashamed to be called-captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain, you slave! for what?

19-ii. 4.

That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty!

34-ii. 2.

There be players, that I have seen play,-and heard others praise, and that highly,-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 36-iii. 2.

That villainous abominable misleader of youth, that old white-bearded Satan. 18-iii. 4.

What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?

37-iii. 2.