Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms,
Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle, muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statue,-1
Which all the while ran blood,-great Cæsar fell.
Oh what a fall was there, my countrymen !
Then I, and you, and all of us, fell down ;
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Oh, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity :: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what, weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture: wounded?-look you here !
Here is himself—marred, as you see, by traitors !-

Good friends! sweet friends! let me not stir you up
To such a 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 loves my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him:
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on.
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, 4
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

Julius Cæsar, Act iii., Sc. 2.

BOLINGBROKE'S ENTRY INTO LONDON.'

Enter YORK? and his DUCHESS. Duch. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off, Of our two cousins 3 coming into London. York. Where did I leave ?

Duch. At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude, misgoverned hands, from windows' tops, Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.

York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring 4 rider seemed to know, With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course. While all tongues cried-God save thee, Bolingbroke ! You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage ; 6 and that all the walls, With painted imagery, had said at once, Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Boling broke! Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck, Bespake them thus,- I thank you, countrymen: And thus still doing, thus he passed along.

Duch. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?

York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men After a well-graced actor leaves the stage Are idly bent on him that enters next,

i Bolingbroke. Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, and cousin of Richard II., whom he deposed and succeeded as Henry IV. Called Bolingbroke from a small town of that name in Lincolnshire, where he was born.

2 York. Edmund Langley, duke of York, the fourth son of Edward III., and uncle of Bolingbroke.

3 Our two Cousins, Richard II. and Bolingbroke. 4 Aspiring, ambitious.

5 Casements, a window, or part of a window, that opens on hinges.

Thinking his prattle to be tedious :
Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on Richard ; no man cried, God save him;
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home :
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head ;
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,-
His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience,-
That had not God, for some strong purpose, steeled
The hearts of men, they must perforce? have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.
But Heaven hath a hand in these events;
To whose high will be bound our calm contents.
To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
Whose state and honour I for aye3 allow.

King Richard II., Act v., Sc. 2.

JOHN MILTON.

(1608-1674.) BORN in Bread Street, London. Educated at St. Paul's School, and Christ's College, Cambridge. Travelled through France and Italy, meeting on his tour some of the most distinguished men of the Continent. Visited Galileo when in the prison of the Inquisition. In 1649 was appointed Latin or Foreign Secretary to the Council of the Commonwealth. The Restoration drove Milton into retirement and obscurity. Died November 8th, 1674, and was buried beside his father's dust in St. Giles's, Cripplegate. Milton's chief poetical works are, Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; Ode on the Nativity (written when the poet was only twenty-one years of age); L'Allegro; Il Penseroso; Comus; Lycidas; Samson Agonistes, etc. His principal prose works are, Areopagitica; The Tenure of Kings; Eikonoklastes, etc.

ADDRESS TO LIGHT.
Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven, first-born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal4 beam,
May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright essence increate : 2
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal3 stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell ? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool,4 though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while, in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness" borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of chaos 7 and eternal night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare : thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp : but thou
Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks 10 beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two, equalled with me in fate

So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris,' and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias, 3 and Phineus, prophets old :
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers, as the wakeful bird 5
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal7 note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine ;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Fresented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate :' there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

JAMES THOMSON.

(1700-1748.) BORN at Ednam (Roxburghshire), and educated at the Jedburgh Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh. Studied for the church, but left Scotland in early life for London, to try his fortune as a literary man. Ultimately met with considerable success, and settled at Richmond (Surrey), where he died in 1748. Thomson's principal works are The Seasons, and The Castle of Indolence.

i Thamyris, an old bard or poet mentioned by Homer.
2 Mæonides, Homer, who is said to have been blind.
3 Tiresias, a Theban soothsayer.

4 Phineus, in mythology a king, who, for his cruelty, was struck blind by the gods. 5 Wakeful bird, the nightingale.

6. Darkling, being in the dark. 1 Nocturnal, nightly.
8 Expunged and rased, blotted out, and uprooted.
9 Irradiate, brighten.