NOBILITY OF CONSCIENCE. WHAT stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just; K. HENRY VI., PART II., A. 3, s. 2. NOBILITY OF REVENGE. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with : HAMLET, A. 4, s. 5. NOBILITY OF THE DYING STATESMAN. ALL good people, And, if I have a conscience, let it sink me, Be what they will, I heartily forgive them: men; For then my guiltless blood must cry against them. For further life in this world I ne'er hope, Nor will I sue, although the king have mercies More than I dare make faults. You few that lov'd me, And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham, Go with me, like good angels, to my end; name. Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you, There cannot be those numberless offences envy Shall make my grave.-Commend me to his grace; And, if he speak of Buckingham, pray, tell him, You met him half in heaven: my vows and prayers Yet are the king's; and, till my soul forsake me, Shall cry for blessings on him: May he live T When I came hither, I was lord high constable, And duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun: Yet I am richer than my base accusers, That never knew what truth meant: I now seal it; And with that blood will make them one day groan for't. My noble father, Henry of Buckingham, Who first rais'd head against usurping Richard, Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying me A little happier than my wretched father: A most unnatural and faithless service! Heaven has an end in all: Yet, you that hear me, And give your hearts to, when they once perceive But where they mean to sink ye. people, All good Pray for me! I must now forsake ye; the last hour Of my long weary life is come upon me. And when you would say something that is sad, Speak how I fell.-I have done; and God forgive me! K. HENRY VIII., A. 2, s. 1. NOBILITY OF THE MATRON. VOLUMNIA. I pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a more comfortable sort: If my son were my husband, I should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour, than in the embracements of his bed, where he would show most love. When yet he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way; when, for a day of king's entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding; I, considering how honour would become such a person; that it was no better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if renown made it not stir,-was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, -I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child, than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man. VIRGILIA. But had he died in the business, madam? how then? VOL. Then his good report should have been my son; I therein would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely:-Had I a dozen sons,-each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my good Marcius,—I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country, than one voluptuously surfeit out of action. CORIOLANUS, A. 1, s. 2. NOBILITY OF THE HORSE. I WILL not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. He's of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness, while his rider mounts him: he is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts. It is a most absolute and excellent horse. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on and for the world (familiar to us, and : |