XXII.-Antony's Oration over Cæsar's Body. FRIENDS, Romans, Countrymen! Lend me your ears. I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. He was my friend, faithful and just to me: And Brutus is an honourable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept! Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; Which he did thrice refuse: Was this ambition? And sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke ; You all did love him once; not without cause; Have stood against the world! Now lies he there, O Masters! If I were dispos'd to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar; Let but the commons hear this testament, If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through- E'en at the base of Pompey's statue, (Which all the while ran blood) great Cæsar fell. Good friends! Sweet friends! Let me not stir you up To any sudden flood of mutiny! They that have done this deed are honourable! What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it! They are wise and honourable, And will, no doubt, with reason answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts! I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, That love my friend-and that they know full well, I tell you that which you yourselves do know Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me. But, were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue XXIII.-Falstaff's Soliloquy on Honour. OWE heaven a death! "Tis not due yet; and I would be loth to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matterhonour pricks me on. But how, if honour pricks me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set to a leg? No; or an arm? No; or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that word honour? Air; a trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it. Honour is a mere 'scutcheon-and so ends my catechism. XXIV.-Part of Richard IIP's Soliloquy, the night preceding the Battle of Bosworth. 'Tis now the dead of night, and half the world Is with a lonely solemn darkness hung; Yet I (so coy a dame is sleep to me) With all the weary courtship of My care-tir'd thoughts, can't win her to my bed, Though e'en the stars do wink, as 'twere, with overwatching. And the ripe harvest of the new-mown hay Gives it a sweet and wholesome odour. How awful is this gloom! And hark! from camp to camp That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch! Steed threatens steed in high and boasting neighings, Piercing the night's dull ear. Hark! From the tents, The armorers, accomplishing the knights, With clink of hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation: while some, With patience sit, and inly ruminate The morning's danger. By yon Heaven, my stern And once more try to sleep her into morning. XXV.-The World compared to a Stage. And all the men and women, merely players. Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining School-boy; with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping, like a snail, Unwillingly to school. And then the Lover; Sighing like furnace; with a woful ballad And then the Justice; Made to his Mistress' eyebrow. Then a Soldier; With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; CONCISE PASSAGES, EXEMPLIFYING CERTAIN PARTICULARS, ON THE PROPER EXPRES SION OF WHICH, THE MODULATION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE, IN READING AND SPEAKING, PRINCIPALLY DEPEND. 1.-Examples of ANTITHESIS; or the Opposition of Words or Sentences. 1. THE manner of speaking is as important as the matter.— Chesterfield. 2. Cowards die many times; the valiant never taste of death but once.-Shakespeare. 3. Temperance, by fortifying the mind and body, leads to happiness; intemperance, by enervating the mind and body, ends generally in misery.-Art of Thinking 4. Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious; but an ill one more contemptible. Vice is infamous, though in a prince; and virtue honourable, though in a peasant.-Spectator. 5. Almost every object that attracts our notice, has its bright and its dark side. He who habituates himself to look at the displeasing side, will sour his disposition, and consesequently, impair his happiness; while he who constantly beholds it on the bright side, insensibly meliorates his temper, and, in consequence of it, improves his own happiness, and the happiness of all around him.-World. 6. A wise man endeavours to shine in himself; a fool to outshine others. The former is humbled by the sense of his own infirmities; the latter is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observes in others. The wise man considers what he wants; and the fool what he abounds in. The wise man is happy when he gains his own approbation; and the fool, when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him.-Spectator. 7. When opportunities of exercise are wanting, temperance may in a great measure supply its place. If exercise throws off all superfluities, temperance prevents them; if exercise clears the vessels, temperance neither satiates nor overstrains them;-if exercise raises proper ferments in the humours, and promotes the circulation of the blood, temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigour; if exercise dissipates a growing distemper, temperance starves it.-Spectator. 8. I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy. On the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of |