!

noble truth and sentiment was expressed by the for. mer in a natural manner, in word and phrase simple, perspicuous, and incapable of improvement. What then remained for latter writers, but affectation, witticism, and conceit ?

CHAP. VIII.

WHAT a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God!

it to au wCIT as

du were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor mens' gottages princes' palaces. He is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching.

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.

The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporeal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies.

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

Love all, trust a few ;

Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy

Rather

Rather in power, than in use: keep thy friend Under thine own life's key: be check'd tor silence, But never tax'd for speech.

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself.
Yea, all which inherit it, shall dissolve;
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind! we are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.,

Our indiscretion sometimes serves as well, When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach

us,

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to *heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The form of things unknown, the poet's pen,
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing,
A local habitation and a name.

Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd, But to fine issues: nor nature ever lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence,

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked (tho' lock'd up in steel) Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. VOL. 1.

D 3

CHAP.

CHAP. IX.

OH, world, thy slippery turns! friends now fast

sworn,

Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,
Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
Are still together; who twine (as 'twere) in love
Inseparable; shall within this hour,

On a dissention of a doit, break out
To bitterest enmity. So fellest foes,

Whose passions and whose plots have broken their sleep,

To take the one the other, by some chance,
Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends,
And interjoin their issues.

So it falls out

That what we have we prize not to the worth,
While we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost,
Why then we rate the value; then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whilst it was ours.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to be more strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come, when it will come,

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
For our bad neighbours make us early stirrers;
Which is both healthful, and good husbandry.
Besides, they are our outward consciences,
And preaches to us all; admonishing,
That we should dress us fairly, for our end,

O momen

O momentary grace of mortal men,

Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hope in th' air of men's fair looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,

Ready with every nod to tumble down,
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

Who shall go about

To cozen fortune and to be honourable
Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.

O that estates, degrees, and offices,

Were not derived corruptly, that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
How many then should cover that stand bare !
How many be commanded, that command!

Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast!

Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
Oh, no! the apprehension of the good,
Gives but a greater feeling to the worse;
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore,

'Tis slander,

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay the secrets of the grave,
This viperous slander enters.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.

To

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty space from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. The way to dusky death. Out, out brief candle ! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more! It is a tale Told by an ideot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.